Writing the City: Request for Proposals

The Columbia Journalism School and Places Journal invite proposals for a major work of urban journalism.

Description: The Columbia Journalism School and Places Journal invite proposals for a major work of longform public scholarship exploring urban life and urban systems in our era of climate crisis and contested politics.

The article will be published by Places, the journal of public scholarship and public interest journalism on the built environment, as part of our continuing collaboration with the Columbia Journalism School, Writing the City. This opportunity is open to all alumni/ae of the school’s Master of Arts programs.

The first article in the series, “Shade,” by Sam Bloch (MA, 2017), was published in 2019. The second, “The City’s Beach, Run by the People,” by Cheree Franco (MA, 2009), was published in 2023.

Details: The fee for the article will be $6,000. The deadline for proposals is 6 pm Eastern Standard Time, January 31, 2024. The winning proposal will be selected by a jury of Columbia Journalism School professors and Places editors, and the author will be notified no later than March 15, 2024. The writer for this latest round of Writing of City should expect to participate in a detailed developmental edit and to publish within two years of being selected.

Guidelines: We seek concise proposals that establish a strong, timely narrative and compelling point of view, and indicate familiarity with the varieties of longform public scholarship published by Places; we strongly advise reading the previous articles in the series. Your proposal should describe a preliminary reporting plan, including your main subjects and sources, and articulate a cogent rationale for reporting this story, in this city, now. The proposal itself will serve as a writing sample, although we encourage inclusion of additional clips.

Please submit proposals to [email protected]. Include “Writing the City” in the subject line.

Columbia Journalism School: https://journalism.columbia.edu/

Places Journal: https://placesjournal.org/

Writing the City: https://placesjournal.org/series/writing-the-city/

“The City’s Beach, Run by the People”: https://placesjournal.org/article/lincoln-beach-new-orleans-black-and-indigenous-space/

“Shade”: https://placesjournal.org/article/shade-an-urban-design-mandate/