The Brief — Print Edition

The Brief is a print newsletter that treats art and arts writing as collective sites of political struggle and imagination.

Each issue contains essays, reviews, illustrations, position pieces, and announcements and calls, that bring aesthetic and political analyses into close conversation.

The Brief centers artists, critics, arts workers, and cultural commentators as workers and political thinkers whose practices generate knowledge and social change alike.

We are formally and intellectually inspired by queer and feminist publishing traditions, newspapers emerging from New Left social movements, labor-organizing pamphlets and bulletins, and experimental art periodicals.

Our low-cost issues are sent through the mail for wide circulation and shared readership: The Brief is meant to be passed hand-to-hand, read collectively, and used to spark dialogue about art, politics, and the (art) worlds we are trying to build.

Get The Brief — low-cost ways to get your hands on the newsletter

Write For The Brief— Pitch your ideas and submit listings to our Public Square

Write to the Brief — We got a PO Box because we love snail mail and hearing from you

Get The Brief

We publish 3 issues a year—the first issue comes out in November. One donation gets you all 3!

It costs us about $5 to produce each issue, covering design, writers fees, printing, and mailing. We have based our suggested donation levels based on this number.

Donate $5 for all 3 issues

We want you to be able to read the paper even if you're low on funds. This tier is made possible by people who are able to donate more per issue.

Donate $20 for all 3 issues (about $7/issue)

This covers the actual costs of all three issues—paying our designer and writers, and printing and mailing each issue—and nets us a couple extra dollars.

Donate $30 for all 3 issues (about $10/issue)

We net a few extra dollars per issue, which we put toward commissioning more writers and covering any surprise costs.

Donate $40 for all 3 issues (about $13/issue)

We net several more dollars per issue, which goes toward writers' fees and surprise costs — and lets us keep the paper low-cost for readers who need it that way.

Donate $60+ and be a deep supporter of the printed word!!!

You're allowing us to maximize our efforts, and we're so grateful for you.

Miss the cut-off to get all three issues? Stay tuned to BES for information on how to get individual copies of issues #2 and #3.

I want The Brief!

Write for The Brief

We invite writers to pitch local, national, and international coverage of the visual and performing arts. (We have limited capacity for literature, film, and music coverage.) All writing receives $1/word unless otherwise noted.

We have also developed pitch and style guidelines for you! Read our guidelines for writing for BES.

    • Open Call. Timely considerations of art, ranging from strict formalist analyses to explorations of the histories, cultures, politics, and contexts the work extends and reflects.

    • Worker’s Corner. Writing from people who work in or around government buildings, reflecting on the aesthetics and functions of public art in these spaces; the intersections of art, architecture, politics, and social life; and more.

    • Artists on Artists. Artists looking carefully at and thinking critically about another artist's practice.

    • Beyond the Discipline. An invitation to break out of familiar language and ideas, writing about artists, regions, forms, genres, keywords, concepts, and mediums outside the writer's typical purview.

    • The Local Report. Roving portraits of hyper-local art scenes that ask questions about the relationships between aesthetic and civic life.

    • Reviews - 250 words. Sharply written reviews of exhibitions held to exactly 250 words—a constraint that doubles as a creative challenge, a prompt for rethinking the forms and genres of arts critical thinking.

    ~700-800 words

  • Practical, concrete guides that reflect the range of skills artists, writers, and arts and culture workers possess—and that help readers activate new ideas and practices in their own lives and communities.

    Guides can be as general or niche as you’d like but should reveal how the aesthetic and the political can be entwined:

    • how to organize a sign-making workshop before a protest

    • how to mix oil paint and think critically about the history of color

    • how to navigate a tricky dynamic as an arts administrator

    • how to open a low-budget DIY film festival in your local public library

    • how to have fun at an exhibition opening

    • how to run a reading group in a community center with no budget

    • how to decide whether to pursue gallery representation

    • how to distribute a zine throughout a neighborhood

    • Etc.

    The guides should be genuinely usable, written for someone who wants to actually do the thing: show us, step-by-step, how to do it.

    Format is flexible and can include bullet points, numbered steps, and lists as well as prose and illustrations.

    Max 500 words at $1/word. Guides that mix text and illustration (such as graphs, charts, and diagrams) will receive a flat fee of $500.

  • Response to a story or trend in the art world, with has the somewhat tongue-in-cheek goal of putting an end to prevailing discourse by (re)situating it in historical, aesthetic, and/or political context: to ask where the conversation came from, what it's actually about, and what would have to be true for us to think about it differently. We are looking for writers who can move between the granular and the structural, and who are not afraid to take a clear but generative and generous position. While the piece may not be the last word ever, it strives to be definitive.

    ~600 words

  • The Brief reserves space in each issue for announcements, listings, and calls from people across the country. The “Public Square” section of the newsletter is modeled on the classified ad, the want ad, and the community bulletin. These are formats designed for direct communication between people who share a world—even if they are on opposite sides of it—and need to know about each other, if not find one another.

    Listings might announce an upcoming event, a teach-in, a study group, a resource swap, or a call to support a person or cause. You can also simply notify readers that your organization or project exists. We hope the Public Square functions not only as information but as imagination: a way of showing readers the range of collective activity underway, and sparking local versions of what they find there.

    Text Listings

    For a $5 donation, we'll run a ~30-word text listing. Include the text in the “Your Message” field in the donation process.

    Example formats include:

    The Black Embodiments Studio is an arts organization, public programming initiative, and publishing platform based in Seattle but alive worldwide. Follow us on IG. We’re having a public conversation @ Henry art Gallery 4/16 6-730pm

    Jane Doe is seeking letterpress support in Newburgh. Email jane@janesemail.com

    Want to see the Jane Doe art show but don’t have anyone to go with? GROUP HANG! Meet in lobby of Jane’s Gallery at 1 PM PST. Text 555-0100 if you get lost.

    Join a temporary group chat for people who want to gab about the Whitney Biennial. We’ll be on Telegram from June 1 to July 15. Join us at 555-0100.

    Want to know more about black conceptual artists? Virtual talk by Jane Doe, hosted by Best Art Gallery Ever on June 8 at 8 pm EST. bit.ly/supersmart for details.

    Graphic Listings

    For a $20 donation to BES, we'll run a graphic announcement of your listing (for example, an organization’s logo with one-sentence mission statement below it).

    Email your donation receipt and 800x800 px at 300dpi file to editor [at] blackembodiments [dot] org.

Write to The Brief

We welcome letters to the editor and responses to specific pieces! Address postcards and letters to:

The Black Embodiments Studio

PO Box 14034

Seattle, WA 98114

Please note we may might edit your writing and include it in future issues. Let us know if you do not want your thoughts to be included in future iterations of The Brief.