Read our Newsletters

Our monthly Eat, Drink, and Do Good newsletter featuring original thought pieces from emerging writers. Past issues have covered everything from gift economies and food apartheid to healthcare discrimination and ableism. Our goal is for these articles to offer critical analyses that engage common social justice topics on a deeper level.

Our quarterly Under the Magnifying Glass newsletter is a brand new series that examines topics from our past Understanding... series through the lens of current events and popular culture. Our goal is to break down theoretical ideas into more digestible concepts, examples, and actions that show up in people's lives everyday. 

December 2021

What is the throughline between Squid Game, The Activist, and #FreeBritney?

How capitalism offers us an illusion of choice that ultimately benefits the wealthy.

Our newsletters go out to ~9,000 subscribers each month and we are always looking to hear your ideas! Pitch us your analyses on social justice topics where you have a new, nuanced, or critical perspective to share. We’re especially excited for pitches that offer a personal lens to the issue and deliver a set of action steps for our audience. The clearer and more detailed your idea, the better! Please review the below for detailed pitch guidelines.

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Topics/concepts we would like to see pitches for:

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• Transformative justice

  • We’re specifically interested in exploring transformative justice as a framework across all different aspects of society, from personal relationships, to work, school, etc. For example, what can / does transformative justice look like when it comes to parenting or media narratives?? In particular, what conditions created the systems of harm and oppression that transformative justice tackles, and what are the everyday steps or practices can we take to work towards transformative justice?

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• Nonprofit industrial complex

  • Nonprofits are  propped up by a complex system of public and private entities such as the government, businesses, and investors, all of whom play crucial roles in deciding the direction and outcome of nonprofits. We’re interested in hearing about your experiences as a part of the nonprofit industrial complex, including learnings and actionable steps we can take to dismantle and disaggregate these systems of power. We are also interested in exploring why this system is so broken beyond the clear power imbalances. For example, why do non-grant-making and non-operating foundations exist? What are alternative models we could build together?

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• Power / Decentralization of power

  • There are many forms of power and complex systems that dictate who ultimately holds power. What are ways power manifests in situations that may be surprising to people or aren't often discussed? What are ways to take power away from traditional systems or forces? What are examples of participatory decision making models being successfully utilized in the world? How can we work towards redistributing power models instead of just decrying power hoarding?

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• Other topics with a social justice lens

  • We are also always open to analysis of other topics through a social justice theme or discussion of systems of oppression. (Our two upcoming pieces from our ‘Understanding’... series are on socialism and gentrification, so those are two good topics to start with!) Check out our library for additional topics covered in the series including cultural appropriation, anti-intellectualism, respectability politics, etc. See more examples of past newsletters here which span from culinary school debt and equitable events moderation to ableism in the workplace and language justice in healthcare. 

Types of pieces we are not looking for:

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• Summary of a topic or idea that includes no original analysis (e.g., marginalized individuals face racism and discrimination in the workplace). EDDG is focused on analyzing topics from an original, critical lens angle and we want to ensure all pieces have this component.

• Topics unrelated to social justice / systems of oppression / positive social change (e.g., how to manifest your dreams in the new year).

• Self-help / how-to articles and guides. While we absolutely want recommendations and thoughts on how to tackle a problem within each piece, our work focuses on change through a systems-based lens. We are not looking to solely provide our readers a list of recommendations on how they, individually, should solve a specific issue within their home or workplace.

• Self-advertisements. We want to amplify your knowledge and learned experience in a topic of your choice, but we do not want pitches with a call-to-action that redirect to your work and organization for the purposes of marketing.

What an ideal pitch looks like:

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• We want to hear your stance on a specific topic and would like to see your pitch reflect your point of view and focus. Our pieces tend to follow a narrative arc and it would be great to see your idea in the following format:

1. Specific social issue being addressed (e.g., we live in a capitalistic world that overly emphasizes consumerism in gifting)

2. Personal relationship to this issue (e.g., this prioritization of gifts has influenced my own behavior in XYZ way)

3. An idea for a different way to approach / understand / challenge this issue (e.g., looking towards Indigenous gift economies as a way to reframe our concept of gifting)

4. How I want to implement this in my life going forward / ways everyone else can also support this change

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• The above example is from this piece, and more examples are available here. We are not looking for any specific writing or journalism credentials, but always appreciate any writing samples you can provide.

Where to send your pitch:

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• Following the above structure, please send your pitch and any samples or links to your work to hello@studioatao.org and emily@studioatao.org. 

Payment:

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Final pieces range from 800-1,000 words and we pay $100 a piece. We also pay an additional $50 for writers to develop some additional audio and video collateral based on their piece, for promotional purposes.