We're excited to announce the focus topics that Friends Journal plans to cover over the next eighteen months. They are meant as a guide in seeking and selecting contributions. We expect two or three of each month’s feature articles to address that month’s theme; the remaining features will cover the diversity of interests in our mandate of "Quaker Thought and Life Today."
Although we seek balance, we do not necessarily intend for our Focus Topic issues to serve as a comprehensive overview of a particular issue. We seek articles that are rooted in the author's experience and that speak to their understanding of the spiritual roots of their concern or viewpoint. The queries with each topic are some of the questions we've seen bubbling up around them.
We will be continuing our biannual Special Issues, which will feature expanded coverage and receive wider publicity and distribution.
Prospective contributors (authors, photographers, and artists) may contact our editor Martin Kelley at martink@friendsjournal.org to inquire about submitting an article. Our submissions guidelines are available online.
Subscribe to Friends Journal today to be sure you’ll get to explore these exciting issues with us. For promotional opportunities, contact our advertising manager, Brianna Taylor, at briannat@friendsjournal.org.
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Jan 2012 |
Friends and the Emerging Church. How do Friends relate to the larger movement? What’s happening with Convergent Friends? What different expressions of Friends worship are emerging? Submissions due: 9/1/2011.
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Feb 2012 |
Open (no topic) |
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Mar 2012 |
Crime and punishment. Some possible article themes include prison ministry, sex offenders, torture and state-sponsored punishment, and criminalization issues like drugs and immigration. Submissions due: 11/21/2011
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Apr 2012 |
Membership and the generation gap. What does it mean to become a Friend? What is expected of members, and what should they expect? What about isolated Friends and Quakers without a meeting? Have membership practices affected generational shifts among Friends? Submissions due: 12/1/2011. |
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May 2012 |
Food. Coverage might include the ethics and politics of food but food can and should be fun, too—we welcome stories of food in Quaker community, the role of food in outreach, and favorite potluck recipes. Submissions due: 1/1/2012.
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Jun/Jul 2012 |
SPECIAL ISSUE: Faith, Practice or Community: What Makes Us Friends? We'll look at relations among Friends and cross-branch dialogue. What unites us? What divisions are still important? Why do we share the "Friends" name? What worship style, creeds, and testimonies do we embrace? Submissions due: 2/10/2012.
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Aug 2012 |
Sustainable Travel. We travel for fun, for ministry, for family, and for Quaker gatherings. How does travel broaden us? What are the environmental consequences? What changes have you made in your travel lifestyle? Submissions due: 4/1/2012.
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Sep 2012 |
Open (no topic) |
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Oct 2012 |
SPECIAL ISSUE: Wall Street, Main Street, and Meetinghouse Road. Coverage will include a look at Friends in business, entrepreneurship, and historical and modern ethical issues surrounding money. Are there continuing shifts in patterns of Quaker employment? What is the state of philanthropy among Friends and the support of Friends institutions? Submissions due: 6/1/2012.
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Nov 2012 |
Books. This is our annual focus on Quaker books and writing. |
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Dec 2012 |
Hospitality. How do we welcome the stranger into our community? How do we do outreach and care, inside our meetings and in our towns and countries? Submissions due: 8/1/2012. |
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Jan 2013 |
Privileges. Privileges like class, race, gender, and family status may be possible themes. We seek coverage that transcends a one-dimensional tallying of slights and looks at the complexities of identities and shares strategies for breaking down barriers and becoming allies. Submissions due: 9/1/2012.
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Feb 2013 |
Open (no topic) |
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Mar 2013 |
Sexuality. Is there a Quaker sexual ethics? How do issues of sexuality and gender intertwine with Quaker politics, culture, and theology? Submissions due: 11/1/2012. |
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Apr 2013 |
Conflict and Eldering. How do we constructively engage with one another? How do we keep differences from becoming politicized? What conflict resolution tools do we have (e.g., gospel order, alternatives to violence, threshing sessions). How do we deal with bullies? What roles do elders play in our communities? Who can be an elder? Submissions due: 12/1/2012.
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May 2013 |
The Arts. We'll include samples of work by Quaker artists. What is the role of art in our spiritual lives? What lay behind Friends historical anti-art testimonies? What new forms like remix culture are informing Friends approach to art? Who are new Quaker artists to watch? Submissions due: 1/1/2013. |
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Jun/Jul 2013 |
SPECIAL ISSUE: Testimonies. Revisiting the testimonies: what and why are they? Possible themes include being anti-war today, plainness then and now, and simplicity in a modern culture. Submissions due: 2/1/2013. |
the Friends Journal staff
Isolated Friends
What a great list of topics for the coming year. I look forward to each issue but particularly to the April issue about membership and isolated Friends. While I am not an "official" Friend I am definitely on in heart. I am not isolated by geography but instead by handicap. I look forward to what you report on this topic.
Great. One suggestion.
I'm looking forward to these. One suggestion: we're going to be bombarded with politics next year. I'd love to see some discussion of how we should deal with that.
peace
@Bill: thanks, good
@Bill: thanks, good suggestion. Because the magazine lead time is so long we won't be able to do anything even remotely topical in the print magazine but we will be on the lookout for pieces that look at the larger philosophical issues of Friends and politics--the hows of discernment, the balance between civility and passion (can we assume the U.S. election will be rancorous?). We'll be leaning on our website for more topical pieces and personal reflections from Friends. We've even talked about possibly doing a post a day in the month run-up to the election; it would be an ambitious schedule and we haven't committed to it, but it's ones of the things we're looking at. Thanks again, and please keep the suggestions coming!
Friends Journal Editorial: http://www.friendsjournal.org/submissions
topic
Why not have an issue devoted to the topic of disabilities and Quakers? Many Meeting Houses are inaccessible.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks for the suggestion. We will be running an article on accessibly in the January issue--not physically accessibility, exactly, but an appeal for Friends to recognize how even unseen physical issues that can affect people's participation in worship. There's always space for good articles on any topic. Next year we're running an issue on "hospitality" and I think a lot of these topics have to do with that subject in one way or another--how can we help ensure that anyone led to the Quaker path can participate in the larger fellowship?
Martin Kelley, FJ editor
topics
How about a topic on the peace testimony, peace education, how are we working with peacemaking and peacekeeping in our families, meetings, neighborhoods, schools, organizations?
How about a regular column?
Maybe we could see something like "Attending To The Manner Of Friends" from an attender's perspective. I believe there's material already available for that feature.
Dispatches from the
Dispatches from the blogosphere
Do you think FJ readers might occasionally like samples of writing from the Quaker blogosphere? At least in my Meeting there are e-reading people and paper-reading people and when the info streams intertwine new and different conversations happen.
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