please study carefully before submitting an article

for an overview of what geographical areas are crying out to be covered in hidden europe in 2009, please look at this pdf file.

We are not just another travel magazine. Rarely do we cover famous destinations, and the glitz and the gloss of posh hotels and the finest restaurants we leave to others. We write about everyday Europe with passion, care and conviction, and we hope that our guest contributors will bring that same positive sense of enquiry to the people and places about which they write. Only very rarely do we accept travelogues, and we have never published a simple account of a writer’s holiday, no matter how exotic the destination. We are looking for something more: a wide and balanced understanding of how a place and its people function, backed up by reasoned views, careful explanation and perceptive insights. These are not the sort of properties easily born of just a brief engagement with a destination. We like what we publish to reveal the authority that the author brings to the topic. Where we contract external authors, we really are looking for something that is evocative, impeccably researched and well crafted. Our external authors have often lived and worked in the areas about which they write.

We specialise in Europe’s unsung spots, or in lesser known aspects of familiar territory. Where we take in a well known destination, you can be assured we will take a quirky or unusual perspective on it. And we try to be genuinely Europe-wide in our coverage, with prose that evokes a spirit of landscape and a vivid sense of place. At best, articles in hidden europe probe the rich diversity of the peoples and cultures that contribute to modern Europe. The emphasis is absolutely not on tourist ‘sights’ – we are, rather, concerned to promote sympathetic enquiry into the people and places that make our continent so endlessly interesting. That requires an intellectual openness on behalf of our authors, coupled with a sensitivity for language and heaps of cultural competence.

We certainly do not expect that those who write for us are already established writers. Of course we warmly welcome submissions from those with a long list of published credits to their name, but we know all too well there are many people who have travelled enormously, really have a feel for some aspect of European culture or society, and who would love to see one or two of their pieces in print.

So... how to get started? Well the absolute first step is to familiarise yourself with hidden europe. If you don’t know our magazine well, it is unlikely that you will hit the target. Make sure you know the magazine well, and only then make your pitch.

Once you are ready to submit, we would ideally like the following from you:

• Two or three pieces you have already written, just that we can get an idea of your style (or the range of styles which you use). It matters not one iota to us whether these examples are published or unpublished, but if they have already appeared in print, we would be interested in knowing where and when.
• The article you would like to submit for hidden europe. If you feel unable to send in a full text, send the first five hundred words with a summary of what's to follow. That summary should indicate the scale and scope of the piece, and its anticipated final length. 1500 words is a good target. Material submitted for publication must be original and unpublished. Please confirm that in your submission.
• Optionally, you may also want to include two or three summaries of other possible articles for hidden europe. These optional summaries need not be long: three or four sentences will suffice. It is always helpful to us to know the range of an author’s interests.
• Although our emphasis is on ‘good writing’, we are alert to the importance of illustrations, so always attach details of photographs, illustrations and maps that might be available, taking care to clarify whether copyright clearances might be an issue. Photos must be available at high resolution (tif format or first generation jpgs), but at this stage do not send those. A selection of low resolution images will suffice.
• You will have noticed that hidden europe has regular sections, not all of which feature in every issue. It helps to know where you think your piece will fit in. It might be a regular feature, or you envisage it appearing in hidden histories, books, consuming matters, capital moments, routes, people, off limits or in another of our columns. If you have a placing in mind, it is good to say.

Sometimes you may have that finished piece in your desk drawer that you are just itching to send off to a publisher. Include it by all means, in addition to the items specified above, but just remember that an article written with another magazine in mind may not be what is needed for hidden europe.

As already noted, all material submitted be original and unpublished. We judge something to have already been published even if it has appeared only in a webzine. hidden europe requires original material. Naturally, some of our authors are authorities in their field – authors of guidebooks or other material on their favoured region. So at times articles submitted will of course resemble, draw on or enlarge upon similar material already published elsewhere by the same author. That is only natural, but we do still expect a submission to hidden europe to include substantially new ideas and text.

Essays for consideration must be written in good literary English and aimed at an intelligent and well read readership. Stick to the syntax and spelling conventions that you might find in magazines published in Great Britain. We do not generally consider texts for translation into English.

We have no specific submission deadlines. Just contact us when you are ready.

You very considerably up the chances of an article being accepted if it addresses a country or region that has not featured regularly in hidden europe. At the moment (viz March 2009) we are not looking for texts on anywhere in Britain, Germany, Poland, the Svalbard archipelago, the Czech Republic or Spain. By contrast, we are just now very actively looking for good material on inland Bulgaria, Romania (esp. the Danube delta), rural Russia, Kosovo, Iceland, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg and Portugal. An article that targets somewhere on our wishlist has a much greater chance of acceptance. For more on our current needs, see the pdf file at the top of this page. These priorities may change, so please check back.

Material should be sent to us by e-mail. Mail your submission to submissions [at] hiddeneurope [dot] co [dot] uk. If you are an especially cautious soul, you can use snail-mail, of course, in which case write to:

Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner
hidden europe magazine
Geraer Strasse 14–c
D – 12209 BERLIN / Lichterfelde
Germany

Remember that, even in the case of snail-mail submissions, we still need details of the photos that might accompany your text.

We reply to all submissions, but please be patient if it takes a while for us to get back to you. Often more than one person will read your material, and that can take time, usually about four weeks. But if you have not heard from us within a month of submitting material, it does no harm to chase us up with a quick e-mail.

We really welcome well-formulated proposals, but do bear in mind that the competition is fierce. We receive a very large number of approaches from would-be contributors, and we endeavour to respond in full to each and every enquiry. The fifteen authors who have actually had their work published in hidden europe over the last two years are drawn from the more than three hundred budding authors who have submitted detailed proposals. We have purposefully adopted a hand-on approach to our editorial commitments – often taking time to read our way into a topic so as to engage fully with an author's text to bring it to publication. We take a lot of time and trouble over this. Indeed, we have often met our authors face-to-face.

Where we find an idea appealing, we will liaise with the author over the details of their submission and agree terms. Fees are modest (for we are a niche magazine that takes almost no advertising). You might expect a fee of about 200 EUR for a first feature length piece. Payment is made by electronic transfer in euros or pounds sterling, or by a sterling denominated cheque.

Nicky Gardner & Susanne Kries

updated March 2009