NONFICTION | HUMOR | PRACTICAL LISTS | INTELLECTUAL INTERESTS
May ’23 Updated Guidelines: Submit Your List Articles to Us
Smart Lists live right here
We’re on holiday until November 1st! We’ll be adding writers after that date. Thank you. Please check back in late October 2023. We need a break ❤
In For a Penny Wants Intelligent Writing, not AI. Annotated, intelligent, creative nonfiction lists!
Here are the guidelines.
First, FOLLOW the pub. Very important! You’ll read other fun listicles and be part of the community here.
Length? Nothing over seven minutes, please. We’re not looking for a long essay with a list at the bottom. Nor are we looking for steam-of-conscious writing.
To join and write listicles, email [email protected]
If we don’t add you within ten days, we probably decided to close submissions
We enjoy hundreds of writers here! Some aren’t quite there with format and ideas, or are not paying members of Medium.
This place is only for listicles, and remember: article + list = listicle
Your listicle must be intelligent. No side hustle and how-I-made-1K in one week. Here are some suggestions! Do remember, what makes these fun to read is how you present your lists. Annotate! That means, please comment, make asides, explain. Write your personality into your list. Here are a few suggestions for what to write about.
- Six film stars who would be fun at a party
- Twelve books you should read if you’re into sci fi
- Ten movies in the action genre you won’t want to miss
- The twelve most dangerous cities (in the USA, lol)
- Ten foods you should eat for optimal health
- Twenty foods you consider yukky, and if you know, you know
- How to avoid infuriating your colleagues in the office environment
- Six ways to drive your boss crazy in passive-aggressive ways
- Five health conditions that you never want to get
- Nine insects that will creep me out and make me scream like a rabbit
- Six trains you must photograph if you want to get an engineer all excited
- Fifteen cartoon characters that go down in history (Perlmutter! there ya go)
- Twenty writers on this site who I love reading
- Ten of Amy Sea’s essays every person should read closely as they have boob shots
- Three of Simon Dillon’s books you must read and purchase on Amazon, click this link! (btw, I just bought a collection)
You get the idea. Have some fun.
The more cerebral you get, fine. Or be funny. The idea is to annotate your listicle. Make it uniquely your own. We want sparkly, reader-oriented work. If you’re dry and academic (yawn), we will probably pass.
Important — we want to note that we are not interested in AI-generated stories, or even AI-imbedded paragraphs. Thanks, but not interested. No poems either. The best essays and stories for us will include your personality, anecdotes, personal information, and story elements that are uniquely human and personal to your life.
Politics? ONLY if your list is actually funny. No generalizations about cultures, please. Our aim isn’t to offend.
Self-help? It better be stunning and fresh. Otherwise, we don’t want those essays about being ‘enough’ and all that.
Religion? Probably not. Maybe.
Anger? Rants? Probably not.
No challenges from other publications, please. Submit those back to them.
Editing will be light. Make sure you format your piece in an attractive way that uses bullet points or numbers. Have fun with it!
