Howdy! I’m so glad you’re here! Rainbow Rodeo is a queer country zine by and for the queer community. It’s also a weekly newsletter.
Right now we’re looking for album reviews, news features, and/or interviews. Your album review will be published in the newsletter and zine.
Your interview, feature, or essay will be published in part in the free newsletter, in full for Patreon subscribers, and in the zine.
Right now we are accepting either 3 reviews a month or one interview/feature/essay. Signing this form indicates that you are willing to receive monthly e-mails with an invitation to pitch.
FAQ
1) OK…so, who are you?
I’m Rachel Cholst, a New York-based educator and music journalist! I’ve been writing for my site and podcast, Adobe & Teardrops, for the last 10 years. I have also written For No Depression, The Boot, Wide Open Country, The Nashville Scene, and Country Queer. (I no longer write for Country Queer, and neither does the founding staff for these reasons.)
There have been so many exciting changes within the country music world, and I think a print publication like Rainbow Rodeo has the potential to reach people who don’t get their country music news from the Internet. Rainbow Rodeo is, to my knowledge, the first print publication devoted to queer country music and I’m very proud of it!
2) How much will I get paid? And how?
Cover art — $250
Personal essays (2 accepted) — $100
Interview with an artist (1 accepted) — $100
Feature 500 – 1000 words (3 accepted) – $100
Album Review 300 – 500 words (3 – 5 accepted) $35
You will be paid by my directly upon publication. You will probably see me put out a fundraiser campaign 1 – 2x a year for the zine. That fundraiser is intended to pay me back for paying you upon submission.
If the fundraiser exceeds its goal by more than $200, that money will be split evenly among all contributors. Otherwise, it will be donated to the Rosetta Fund, which gives grants to early-career music journalists who are marginalized by the music industry.
3) So where’s the money coming from?
For the first issue of Rainbow Rodeo, we ran a Kickstarter campaign that doubled its initial goal, allowing writers to be paid at the rates listed above. The campaign was featured on Kickstarter’s homepage.
But fundraising campaigns take a lot of work! There is also a Patreon page and people who signed up to subscribe via Squarespace. All the rest will come from fundraising via Venmo and PayPal. Issue 2 was successfully funded without Kickstarter.
4) What else would I need to do?
- Promote the fundraiser on social media when possible
- Contribute something to the membership tiers (OPTIONAL — see form). Some examples include tarot readings, handwritten lyrics, art commissions, free merch. Compensation will be discussed!
5) What are the deadlines?
- Reviews are assigned 2 – 3 weeks before they’re due.
- Other submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and will be discussed.
(I am a very light-handed editor, so at most you will need to make some grammatical corrections.)
Thank you for your time and creativity!