FEATURED PUBLICATION: Wend Magazine

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Unfortunately this site no longer exists.]

HAVE A TALE TO INSPIRE AN URBAN-MINDED ADVENTURER? HERE’S THE PLACE TO SELL IT…
By Roberta Beach Jacobson in Karpathos, Greece

Wend magazine wants first-person stories about adventure travel in the Pacific Northwest — and they define the area broadly: Northern California, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. That’s a lot of territory to cover.

Readers of this quarterly print magazine are young, urban, and active.

To feed their interests, Wend covers outdoor adventure pursuits, which includes climbing, cycling, surfing, and kayaking. The editors will also consider stories of environmental interest.

A run-of-the-mill destination piece won’t cut it at this publication. No, you’ve got to think outside the box. The current issue, for example, has a piece on running, leaping, and climbing through a city. They term this coverage “urban-minded adventure.”

Wend is looking for freelancers for the following departments:

*** Exit — Outdoor-related news on adventure lifestyle or design (approximately 500 words).
*** Current — Features new trends in outdoor sports or fringe sports gaining a following (1000-2000 words).
*** Road Trip — Accounts of life-changing, meditative, and humorous road trips. The attitude is: “getting there is half the fun,” so these stories include coverage of the journey as well as the exploration upon arrival (2500 words).
*** Wanderlust — Feature-length accounts of mind-boggling journeys, histories, etc., written as a first-person narrative. Nothing boring (2500+ words).

To get started, send a one-page query with a proposal for your story. You’ll need to estimate the word count and also identify which department you wish to write for.

The editor also asks that you include a resume or summary of your experience along with an explanation of why you think you’re the person to write the story you propose.

If you’re not already published, that’s not a deal-killer. In that case, the editor suggests you write something that reflects your style and take a clip from that to submit with your query.

You can get an overview of the publication from the website, which also has an informal blog. However, you can’t access most of the adventure articles on-line, so you’ll need to subscribe or request a sample issue to see those.

Request writers guidelines from Ian Marshall, editor at: edit@wendmagazine.com.  He is also the person to whom you should send your queries.

Photos are important for this magazine, so to increase your chances of getting published, have photos available.  Occasionally Wend can supply photos, but for the most part, no photos, no deal. Mr. Marshall only provides photo guidelines when your article idea has been accepted.

Payment for your article is based on word count. Wend pays 20 cents a word — plus a small bonus for photos. And payment is issued 30 days after publication.

This rate reflects submissions that require a normal amount of editing. If your story requires a lot of work, they’ll pay less. They edit tightly!

[Editor’s Note: Learn more about opportunities to profit from your travels (and even from your own home) in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.]