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Submission Guidelines

KneeDeep Times editors welcome story, film, photo and art submissions on a wide variety of climate resilience topics. Editors are actively working to expand the magazine’s freelance and editorial pool to better reflect California’s diversity.

We sometimes seek time-sensitive pitches on specific topics. Please scroll to bottom to view active pitch requests.

KneeDeep pays up to $1/word for most stories. Preferred lengths are 500 or 1000 words.

We prefer solution-driven stories about the greater San Francisco Bay Area. But we welcome stories about California, the West Coast, or even elsewhere in the country as long as you can add information about what it has to do with our region (example two part story: New Jersey Shells Out for Retreat + Coast Leaders Talk Graceful Withdrawal).

KneeDeep also pays for professional photography, art, and film.

Feel free to contact us, either to introduce yourself and the types of stories you like to cover, or with pitches. Contact the editor Ariel Rubissow Okamoto.

Citizen Stories & Snaps

KneeDeep welcomes citizen stories and personal reflections on climate adaptation and resilience on the California Climate Quilt. Our editors are also available to help you shape and share your story this way. While we do not pay for quilt squares, we hope to organize some occasional prizes for best images and stories soon!

Picture of the Month

The editors chose a Picture of the Month and feature it at the bottom of the home page.  All submissions must be of high resolution and in a horizontal format, and include an interesting caption, either telling the story of what we are seeing in the picture or of what the photographer felt and was trying to capture in the image. We pay up to $100 per picture of the month.

Republication Guidelines

KneeDeep welcomes republication of its stories. See our guidelines here.

Calls for Pitches
Radical Rethink
Tired of hearing the same refrain: Too expensive; politically impossible; economically infeasible; there are more urgent concerns now (jobs, rent, health, etc.)
If we set aside all the usual excuses for tackling climate change head on, what could we imagine in terms of how we produce energy, food, and waste, and how and where we might live and work?
  • What is your “if only” idea?
  • What would be the wish list for a truly just transition?
  • What decision or policy by big or local government could make the difference?
  • What technological fixes are possible, needed, or being ignored?
  • Where are there pilots of innovative thinking now that could be scaled?
  • In the Bay Area, where are the opportunities for rezoning or rebuilding outside the box?
For an ongoing new series on radical rethinking we’re seeking a mix of opinion pieces, news stories, and features about anything or anywhere, but must have a touchtone/relevance for California. Innovative ideas from the Bay Area even better! Very short stories (400-500 words) welcome.
Pitches due February 1, 2023
Call for Sketches & Collages

Climate Castles?

As climate change throws more extreme events at us, two things are happening. Cities are not being redesigned to be more efficient and flexible fast enough. More and more people are migrating or being displaced – either from the wildland interface near forest fire zones, from smokey valleys, from crumbling costs or swelling floodplains.

What would a small satellite mini-city look like without cars? Could it include elements of a refugee camp or border facility to accompany temporary residents, but be supported by permanent residents and work opportunities in greenhouses or aquaculture ponds? KneeDeep wants to see your vision of the future – sketches, photos, collages.

Guidelines Here

Jobs with KneeDeep

We are not currently hiring. To stay on top of future opportunities, please check back on this page or subscribe to receive KneeDeep monthly.

Other Recent Posts

Citizen Methane

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, leaks from abandoned wells across the country. Curtis Shuck has been finding them by hand, well by well. But finding the leaks is where satellites and citizens come in.

Future-Proof Homes?

Oona Khan dreams about her home of the future, after losing her Malibu retreat to fire. Caught in a quagmire of legal battles with Southern California Edison, and surging construction costs, Khan is still waiting to start construction.

Extremes-in-3D

In Part 1 FIRE, KneeDeep explores where to expect debris flows from burn scars, how one neighborhood became fire wise, and what schools are doing to become safe havens.