Paid Call for Submissions for Personal Essays by Humans About the Human Experience (No AI Writing Allowed)
Send us your essays sharing the story only you can tell (and why generative AI submissions will not be considered)
Updated January 21, 2026 - We are currently ONLY open to flash personal essay submissions of 500-999 words from Open Secrets subscribers for our Hobbies and Object-ives categories, which will be open indefinitely, until all our 2026 slots are full. We are closed to full-length submissions. We will issue a general call for submissions in early March 2026.
Important Essay Submission Information and Why We Don’t Accept Writing Created with Generative AI
We know our guidelines are long; they are detailed in order to save time for everyone. The short version is: BE HONEST. BE UNIQUE. BE YOURSELF. GO DEEP. We are very open to working with new and emerging writers from around the world.
With every submission call we’ve posted, we’ve received numerous submissions that don’t meet our guidelines in one or more ways. Submissions that don’t meet our guidelines will not be considered.
There are 5 important notes we’re including at the top before diving into the specifics of what we’re looking for.
1. We only accept submissions directly from Open Secrets subscribers (free or paid), except for the food insecurity call for submissions above. Your submission must be made from the email address you use to subscribe. Authors previously published at Open Secrets are welcome to submit but we prioritize publishing writers we haven’t worked with before.
2. Sheck this post before submitting as this call may close early if all our available slots become full or if we receive an influx of AI submissions (see note 5).
3. Due to time constraints, we don’t confirm receipt of submission and will only respond to submissions we are interested in publishing. If we are interested in your essay, you’ll hear from us within two months of submission (for instance, if you submit an essay on August 1, if you haven’t heard back by September 30, your essay was not accepted for publication). A writer may submit a maximum of 1 Hobbies essay and 1 Object-ives essay during this submission period ending November 30, 2025.
4. We don’t accept essays that have been published, in whole or in part, online or in print. This includes blogs, Substack posts, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, or anywhere else. If your essay has appeared elsewhere, we will not consider it. The essay must remain exclusive to Open Secrets prior to publication.
5. We do not accept submissions in which generative AI (artificial intelligence) has been used to write the essay. We publish personal essays by humans about the intricacies of human lives. During past open submission periods, we’ve received numerous clearly AI-written essays, which are notable for their lack of originality, awkward verbiage, and banal ideas and conclusions.
What they lack is exactly what we look for from personal essays: insights into what the author thought, felt, and experienced. We don’t want a perfectly polished, glossy magazine version of a human or an algorithm’s regurgitated take on the highs and lows of life; we want the raw, real, and gritty, the kind of essay that makes readers feel seen and understood, or opens their eyes to an aspect of humanity they’d never considered before.
This call for submissions will close early if we receive a large influx of generative AI-written submissions.
(Human Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of Open Secrets, here to interject with my very subjective experience with these AI submissions: Every time I’ve received an AI-written submission, I’ve felt sick to my stomach and wondered whether I should shut down Open Secrets, especially when they’ve been submitted for our Climate section. I run this project as a labor of love in which I’ve invested my time, money, and energy. I’m also a full-time mom, so time I spend on Open Secrets is time I could be spending with my child. I love editing and reading submissions where the author has clearly put thought into their work, but when I have to repeatedly consider whether a submission was generated by a soulless machine attempting to approximate what someone with a beating heart and churning mind and depth of character might have written, I start to lose hope for this project. I’m issuing this call to rekindle that hope.)
Flash Nonfiction Writing Guidelines for Open Secrets Flash Personal Essays About Your Hobbies or Possessions
We don’t consider pitches, only full essay drafts submitted according to our guidelines.
Hobbies is a new section running on Saturdays for flash nonfiction essays of 500-999 words about a hobby of yours, past or present. As with all our essays, it should have tell a full story with a dramatic arc and a clear beginning, middle, and end. We don’t just want to know that you took up woodworking or scrapbooking or any other hobby, but why. What did you learn about yourself? What has been the most challenging and easy parts? Has this hobby brought you closer with people in your life or introduced you to new people? How has it changed you?
Object-ives is a new section running on Fridays for flash nonfiction essays of 500-999 words about an object you own or have owned in the past that you can’t stop thinking about.
Suggestions for what we’d like to see: What personal possession would you save first in case of emergency? (After urgent items like paperwork or ID.) Why is this possession so special? How has it changed your life? Is this object something you share with others in your life or for your private use? Is there a possession you once owned and no longer do that you actively miss? What’s the most surprising item you own, and what does it mean to you? What possession do you proudly display in your home (or what possession do you keep hidden away)?
We’re only looking for essays about your own possessions, not anyone else’s (unless they were given to you by another person). Everything we’re looking for from our regular essays is also what we want from these shorter essays but these MUST include a photo of your possession.
For Hobbies and Object-ives:
You’re welcome to include quotes if they’re directly related to your personal experience, but sources must be cited, and links embedded within the text for all facts or for information from online sources. Here’s an example.
How to submit your flash personal essay:
Submissions must include all 3 required elements: Essay, bio, and horizontal photo or free Unsplash horizontal stock photo URL. Submit your Hobbies or Object-ives personal essay as a Word document attachment OR in the body of an email to opensecretsmag@gmail.com with “Hobbies Submission” or “Object-ives Submission” in the subject line. Include an original, unpublished 500-999-word essay with a proposed headline and subhed (1-line tagline) with a third-person, 100-word maximum bio at the end. Google Docs will not be considered.
If you’re using a pseudonym, let us know in your submission and provide a bio for the pseudonym. Use Times New Roman 12 point font, single spacing with one line between paragraphs. AND attach a horizontal photo of you doing your hobby or related to your hobby that you own the rights to the URL for a free horizontal Unsplash.com photo related to your hobby (for Hobbies) or of the object you’re writing about that you own the rights to (for Object-ives). For Object-ives, if you no longer have the item and don’t have a photo of it, an original illustration you create or a private photo of the item you have permission to use is acceptable. We will not be using stock photos for the Object-ives sections. Don’t include photos in your Word document. If this is a simultaneous submission, state that in your cover letter.
Embed links to sources for all facts cited within your essay.
Open Secrets may, with the author’s approval, suggest edits to your headline, subhed, and essay, all of which will be approved by the author before publication.
We pay $25 for Hobbies and Object-ives essays upon approval of the Substack draft via Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal.
Deadline: Rolling
Additional Details and Contact Information
Authors retain all rights to essays published at Open Secrets. We accept simultaneous submissions as long as you let us know in a cover letter and if your essay is accepted for publication, that it’s withdrawn from consideration elsewhere.
We welcome essay submissions from all Open Secrets subscribers, and are especially interested in hearing from the following: Substack authors whose newsletters align with their essay topic, BIPOC writers, disabled writers, LGBTQIA+ writers, writers based outside the United States. We aren’t currently accepting unsolicited book excerpts.
For questions not answered in these guidelines, leave them in a comment or email opensecretsmag@gmail.com with “Guidelines question” in the subject line and we will do our best to respond. We will update these guidelines as needed.
So excited to see this call in my inbox this morning! Quick question I didn't find an answer to in the email: Can we submit more than one piece? I was thinking mostly in terms of one for the Object-ives subsection and one for the general essays. Thank you!!
Bloody brilliant. And, honestly, not a shock. I’ve been banging on about this for months, predicting the anti‑AI backlash would hit like a ton of bricks. Editors everywhere are finally waking up, salivating for raw, messy human stories—ones with a dash of heart, a sprinkle of soul, and, yes, even the occasional typo to prove we’re not all bots cranking out drivel.
Look, I get it: AI can cough up something slick and error‑free in seconds. But where’s the pulse? As a writer who’s poured my guts into essays about China, identity, and all the queer chaos in between, I say bring on the humanity. The flaws are what make it sing.
And don’t hold it against me that I’m actually a cracking speller—years of deadline panic will do that. But if a rogue comma slips through? That’s just proof I’m human. LOL.
Writers, dust off those keyboards and submit. This—this—is our moment.