Updated November 28, 2023

Fanfare Submission Guidelines

Who we are, what we publish, and how to apply

A better class of publication. Credit: Warner Bros.

Fanfare is a brand synonymous with entertaining and well-written articles on your favorite films, television shows, books, music, and games. Pop culture is the lens through which we see the world. Writing about our favorite films or shows is a form of cultural criticism. Done well, these articles have the power to change minds and move hearts.

Fanfare is a celebration of all things pop culture. Celebration doesn’t mean empty, effusive praise. Love is gentle, love is kind, but sometimes love is explaining why The Rise of Skywalker is a terrible movie. Complaining just to complain is not The Way. Like in most things, tone is everything. The reader should come away feeling entertained and informed. Nobody likes a downer.

Who we are

Editor-in-chief: Eric Pierce Film Editor: Simon Dillon TV Editor: Sarah Paris Book & Music Editor: Paul Combs

What we’re looking for

Strong writing with a clear voice and unique point of view. Our purview is pretty large: films, TV shows, books, and games of all kinds.

What we’re not looking for

This is not necessarily a complete list, but it represents the most common reasons stories are rejected.

Stories that don’t comply with our guidelines: Running a publication is a lot of work. Your part of the contract is knowing the guidelines (listed in a separate section below) and adhering to them.
AI content: We only accept human-written stories. More information.
Hateful content: It shouldn’t need to be said, but you’d be surprised.
Satire: Fanfare isn’t a buttoned-up publication. We have fun here. But satire published alongside more serious pieces muddies our identity.
Politics: Given the close ties between pop culture and the culture at large (pop culture IS the culture), some pieces may tiptoe into politics. We reserve the right to publish something that may be slightly politicized. But in general — just no.
Personal essays: Some of the best stories are very personal in nature, but they should be told through the lens of pop culture in some way. We’ll pass on a story about how you re-entered the dating game, but might publish one about How Stella Got Her Groove Back inspired you to travel to Jamaica and date a hunky 20-something.
Stories about writing: Nothing wrong with these, just not a good fit.

Write for us

Every month we announce new writing prompts via our newsletter. These are the best way for new writers to apply.

Where to send submissions

Questions about the publication and business opportunities should be directed to the editor-in-chief: [email protected]

Submission guidelines

These guidelines are a living document, so please review them prior to submitting. The editors will work with you to address minor issues, but numerous problems will result in a rejection referring you back to the guidelines.

3 Strikes Policy

So as not to waste anyone’s time, we’ve instituted a 3 strikes policy to ensure a certain level of quality to submissions. Writers who pick-up 3 strikes will be removed from Fanfare.

I hate to be a hard ass about this, but we get too many submissions to spend time shepherding along people who honestly aren’t giving their best effort.

Strikes are “earned” as follows:

Submitting low quality work. Thin, weak writing. Meandering paragraphs. Plot summaries with no personality or humanity. Anything that hints at being the output of AI.
Flagrant guidelines violations. I’m not talking about honest mistakes, but perpetual indifference to the guidelines.

Stories rejected because they aren’t a good fit are exempt from this policy.

Newsletter Prompts

We periodically send out prompts via our monthly newsletter. If you request a given topic, please actually submit a story. We’ve had quite a few people claim topics and then totally ghost us. Not cool.

To that end, we’re starting to take names. If you routinely request a topic but don’t send us anything, we will no longer allow you to participate in the prompts.

Obviously, life happens. If you can’t do a prompt you requested, give us a heads-up. Otherwise, you’ll end up on the naughty list.

Content

We only accept drafts previously unpublished on Medium.
You must include one of the following tags: Books, Film, Gaming, Music, Television. These align with our navigation menu, and ensure readers can find your stories.
We enjoy well-chosen swear words but profanity for its own sake is unwelcome. Aim for PG-13, which allows for one f bomb per article.
Only submit final drafts. Sloppy submissions will result in your removal from Fanfare.
We don’t allow AI-generated images.
You may use 1–2 GIFs at most. GIFs should be attributed like any other image. (More on image attribution below.)
CTA: You may use a brief (1–3 sentence) call to action at the end of your article. We do not accept embeds of any kind in this section. That includes Medium list or story embeds. You can still use hypertext links.
CTA Content: Your call to action can link to your personal profile or website, newsletter, social media accounts, and books. You may not link to another publication within your call to action, or ask for claps or tips.

Sourcing

Please use primary sources. If you have a question about the source you are using, reach out to your editor.

For entertainment, use reputable outlets like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Empire magazine, and so forth.
If the subject matter involves people outside the entertainment industry (e.g. politicians, the military, etc.), use a reputable mainstream news source. For example: The Guardian, BBC, CNN, New York Times, and so forth.
Do not use Screen Rant, Comic Book Resources, We Got This Covered, and their ilk.

Formatting

Kickers are reserved for official Fanfare series.
You should not use any quotes in the article’s title unless it would improve reading comprehension. Good example: ‘In Utero’ Revisited: 30 Years of Nirvana’s Raw Revolution. In this case, the quotes ensure the title is read correctly, otherwise someone might think the piece is about an album called In Utero Revisited. In such cases, use single quotes.
Subtitles are required.
Header images should not be the full width of the page.
Use a header image immediately after your title and subtitle.
No custom fonts.
Names of films, TV shows, etc. should be in italics in the body of the article. You don’t need to italicize brand or franchise names. Example sentence: The Rise of Skywalker is the worst Star Wars movie. Here we use italics on the title of the film, but leave Star Wars as plain text.
Posts should be visually pleasing. Leverage white space.
We are pro-Oxford comma and will definitely add a comma if you are not.
We do not allow video embeds. Use a hyperlink instead, like this.

Image Attribution (Summary)

All images must be credited to the IP owner. This is a Big Deal, and continues to be a source of confusion, so it gets its own section immediately following this one.
Captions should include image attribution and may include a short bit of text.
Again, no AI-generated images.

Image Attribution (The Longer Version)

Basically, nobody is trying to get sued here. Help me, help you. But also, help me.

The great thing about writing about movies or video games is something called Fair Use. Under such protections, we are allowed to use stills taken from Jaws or Justified and use those images in our stories, so long as the article is about Jaws or Justified, or whatever. Many submissions include such images but then attribute the ownership to Google or YouTube or whatever random website the writer copied them from. This is wrong and also illegal. It could result in litigation against both the writer and Fanfare.

Again: Listing the web site where you found the image is not acceptable.

This isn’t that hard. Images should be attributed as follows:

Film: distributor
TV shows: original network
Books: publisher
Games: publisher
Music: label

Determining the correct entity is the responsibility of the writer. Wikipedia is your best friend in this case. You’ll find the entries I listed above on Wikipedia, in the right window pane.

You may continue to use images from the public domain and companies like Unsplash, but the onus remains on the writer to properly attribute any images prior to submission.

Edits and ownership

We claim no ownership of your work. You are free to do with it what you will outside of Medium.

Since we vet our writers up-front, we do a very minimal edit on submissions:

We will adjust obvious typos and may tighten-up the copy by removing superfluous words. In general, we prefer leaving a note for the writer to let them adjust.
We may also tweak your tags to align with the guidelines noted above, swap out the header image if the provided one is of poor quality, or make suggestions to strengthen the title.