Contributor’s Guidelines

Strung Dispatch is the new medium through which we continue our rich heritage of hunting and angling storytelling.  Building on five years of our print publication, we will continue to publish the type of stories and images that stir the outdoor soul, only through a digital platform. 

2025 Submission Guidelines

Strung welcomes stories, art, and photography from everyday adventurers and established professionals. We accept only digital submissions, both editorial and photography, and will only consider completed pieces. We do not give assignments. Please do not send hard copies of your manuscript or photos through regular mail.  Submissions should be sent to Sammy Chang (sammy@strungmag.com).

Strung publishes exceptionally well-written pieces. Quality is paramount. Don’t be prose-proud. Good writers don’t embellish their stories, they carve away at them. The shavings left on the floor are as important as the sculpted piece. We don’t want to read a sloppy first draft. We want your best effort.

Please consult previous issues to familiarize yourself with the type of stories Strung publishes. You will find a mixture of content. Generally, we do not publish “how-to” stories although we will make exceptions in outstanding circumstances.

Word Counts: Strung is concerned with telling good stories. That being said, Strung Dispatch in general will run shorter form editorial.  Pieces from 500-900 words are optimal, but if a compelling story takes less or more, we will consider it.  Choose your words with care.

We read every submission and do our best to respond promptly, but if you haven’t heard back within a month please feel free to touch base. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.  We do not respond to every submission.

Editorial Needs and Departments

-Fly Fishing-

All things fly fishing. Saltwater, freshwater, the well-known and the exotic—trout, bass, tarpon, sailfish, and carp—if you can catch it with a fly rod, we want to hear about it. We also want to know about people, places, and the culture of fly fishing. Fly fishing can get weird. Tell us about it.

-Big and Small Game-

Hunting is, at its core, a food acquiring activity, but as most hunters know it’s also about the adventures hunting takes you on and the people you meet along the way. We want to read about these adventures and relationships. We also want to read about squirrel hunting the back 40, turkey hunting with your daughter, and the meals that remind you of those hunts.

-Waterfowl-

We cover migrations from end to end. Waterfowl hunting is more varied and nuanced than most know. We want to expose our readers to everything the waterfowl world has to offer. Whether it’s jump shooting wood ducks from a canoe or flagging geese into a wheat field, tell us how waterfowl hunting speaks to you.

-Upland-

Dogs, shotguns, and wild birds. It’s a combination fit to stir the soul. From Northwoods grouse to quail in the southwest to Alaskan ptarmigan we focus on the birds that fill our dreams and the dogs that make them come true.

-Conservation-

“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” Thoreau’s dictum is as true now as when he penned it in 1851. Conservation and public land access are at the forefront of our concerns at Strung. Conserving the wild creatures and wild places we love is an essential part of being a modern outdoorsman. Yet, far too often conservation is reduced to doom and gloom. We want to highlight pressing issues alongside success stories to show what’s possible when hunters and anglers speak with a unified voice. We won’t back down from the biggest conservation issues of the day.

-Wild Food-

In the words of American poet and novelist Jim Harrison, “what you choose to eat directly reflects the quality of your days.” Whether at home, on the water, or in the field, food should elevate our experiences, not deter from them. We highlight recipes, interviews, cocktails, wine pairings, and essays from the best minds in the culinary world, with contributions from professional chefs, master foragers, hunters, anglers, and backcountry cooks. Wild food makes for wild people.

Format

Please format all submissions as follows:

• 12-point font
• Times New Roman, Garamond, or similar font
• Single space after periods
• Include Author Name and title
• One submission per document
• Submit as .docx file or similar (submissions must be compatible with Microsoft Word). Include Author Name and Title in document name

Please send submissions one at a time. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will go unread.

Please see the “Note on Photography” below before submitting feature stories.

Photography

Strung is known for its stunning photography and prides itself on the artistic quality of photographs. We are always searching for images that speak to the rich culture and heritage of the outdoors. This includes both new and novel perspectives as well as timeless images that define outdoor culture. We are just as likely to select creative shots other publications won’t run as we are photos that follow the traditional standards of “good” photography.  We do not run “grip-in-grin” or trophy shots unless on the rare occasion they benefit the story they accompany.  

Before submitting images please review a previous issue of Strung to familiarize yourself with the style of images we run. These can be found in our digital back issues (Spring 2021 is included for free when you sign up for our free newsletter), and scattered throughout our website. Please be selective with your submissions—we have limited space and time and cannot look at thousands of images from a single photographer. We publish only previously unpublished photographs. That includes magazines, newspapers, books, digital publications, and commercial use. Simply put, if the images have appeared anywhere else (personal social media and professional websites aside), please do not send them to us.

Strung Dispatch has a few specific photo needs each issue, including a cover issue (paid and negotiable), as well as a “First Shot” image.  “First Shot” is selected from reader submissions, and open to everyone, however it is a section to encourage aspiring photographers to submit and be published, and is not a paid photograph.  Selections will be featured in the newsletter and on social media posts.  When submitting photos, indicate if they are for First Shot or not. We will occasionally run photo essays, with rates to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

Photography Requirements

• Submissions should be sent via Google Drive, WeTransfer, or Dropbox to sammy@strungmag.com.
• We strongly prefer photos taken with a mirrorless or dSLR camera. We will occasionally make exceptions for exceptional cell phone images.
• We accept photos in either JPG or TIFF format in high resolution.
• Submissions lacking the required information will not be accepted.

A Note on Photography

We are more likely to select stories accompanied by high quality photos than a manuscript without photos where we must source photos elsewhere. This is especially true in the case of features. That being said, if the writing is outstanding, we will find photos or artwork to accompany your words.

If you are going on an adventure and want to write about it for Strung, bringing a camera could give your submission the edge it needs to be published. Don’t be dismayed by not having the latest and greatest camera or by photography jargon. We have found photography is more about putting yourself in the right place at the right time than knowing what buttons to push.  That being said, we strongly prefer images captured on dedicated cameras – not phones.

Rights

We buy modified North American serial rights and will not accept writing or photography that has been published elsewhere.

Specific Rights:

• The right to publish your article or photo in one issue of Strung Dispatch.
• The right to publish your article, if chosen, on our website.
• The right to use brief quotes and/or images in promotional programs and on social media.
• We do not consider exact reproduction as secondary usage.

Deadlines

Most content is selected many months in advance of publishing. We often make editorial decisions at least three months prior to a given issue’s publication date; more often, pieces chosen for a given issue are selected 6-12 months in advance. Please keep this in mind when considering the seasonality of your submission.

Payment

Strung Dispatch pays based on word count, quality, completeness of a submission, as well as writer experience.  Rates start at $100.00 for pieces 500-900 words in length, $125 for written pieces 901-1500 words in length, and will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis for pieces longer than 1500 words.

We will run stand alone photos as cover images, closing images, and occasionally sprinkled throughout the newsletter.  Payment for photography is to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.  

A feature that includes a selection of high-quality photos is worth much more than a manuscript that requires us to source photos or artwork. Payment should be agreed upon by both parties prior to publication and please keep in mind that we are a small independent publisher. Payments are mailed within 90 days after publication.

Strung Dispatch

Thank you for considering Strung Dispatch as an outlet for your creative efforts. Outside of our readership, our contributors are the lifeblood of Strung. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us at sammy@strungmag.com