Submissions
Join a community of curious secular minds.
OnlySky welcomes feature story pitches, podcast episode pitches, and columnist applications, all by and for the nonreligious. We publish written work and podcast episodes that:
- are meaningful to secular readers and listeners
- capture a secular point of view on any aspect of the human experience
- explore unexpected topics beyond the usual nonreligious fare
- includes some narrative storytelling elements
- reflect a ravenous curiosity about the world
- are well-written
- are engaging and captivating to an intelligent general audience
- increase or alter our understanding of the world
- help us understand why we think and behave as we do
- embrace humane values including diversity, equity, and justice
Our work goes well beyond the usual nonreligious topics to include the whole human experience from a secular perspective. Your worldview affects everything. How does history look different to a secular person, or relationships, or the human body, culture, emotions, childhood, parenting, music, justice, death, life? The secular doesn’t have to be on the surface. Just give us a taste of what it’s like to live your one and only life in this one and only world.
Erin Louis
Join the Team
We review pitches on a regular basis, but it may take up to 4-6 weeks to respond to a pitch that is accepted. A high volume of submissions and limited staff make it impossible to respond to all other submissions. If you do not hear a response within six weeks, please assume your submission was declined.
Feature stories
Our feature stories cover an enormous range of subjects and personal styles. If it fascinates and engages you, that’s what we want. Small personal stories are just as welcome as epic historical topics—in fact, even the latter should generally include an individual-human-level story element, especially in the opening paragraphs.
Stories centered on separating from religion are welcome—that’s a part of your life and perspective—but know that we get a lot of those. Your best chance of consideration is a topic entirely unrelated to that. The more unique, the better. Tell a story no one else is telling, and tell it in your own voice.
OnlySky pays $250 for an original feature article (1500+ words) or $100 for a short feature (700-1000 words) that has not been previously published.
For a good idea of what we’re looking for, read a feature, and another, and maybe another.
Columns
A column is a regular, ongoing commitment to produce compelling, well-crafted content in posts of 500-1000 words no less than once a week. New columnists are added continually based not only on quality but on whether the proposed column fills an unmet need. We already have religious criticism pretty well covered. But a secular view of technology? Language? Food, meditation, sex? Keep talking.
Columns are compensated by page views at rates detailed in the contributor’s agreement.
Browse our columnists and their work
Podcast episodes
The Human Story podcast features a different secular storyteller each week sharing a scripted story that explores some aspect of the human experience from a secular perspective.
Stories centered on separating from religion are welcome—that’s a part of your life and perspective—but know that we get a lot of those. Your best chance of consideration is a topic entirely unrelated to that. The more unique, the better. Tell a story no one else is telling, and tell it in your own voice. Aim for 20-25 min (about 2500 words).
OnlySky pays $250 for a podcast episode.
To understand what we are looking for, we suggest listening to episode 1, episode 2, and episode 3.
Invoices are paid once a piece has been finished and accepted, regardless of whether the article has already been published. We commit to paying in full and in a timely fashion.
Additional details are made available in the agreements for each content type.