Submission Guidelines for FWT Magazine

Updated publishing process, January 2024 

We’re making a few changes to the publishing process for Food, Wine, and Travel Magazine, and we’re excited to share them with you. Our goals for the magazine include: 

• To provide readers with a regular source of high-quality stories about food, wine, and travel
• To create coordinated story packages based on IFWTWA media trips, in order to share what we’ve learned with readers and ensure our partners get value for their investment 
• To help members contribute to the magazine with the support of editors who can help make the stories stronger and more visible

Editor Amy Piper will manage the editorial process, and Senior Editor Craig Stoltz will provide editorial guidance. Associate Editor Debbra Brouillette will support publication. 

The magazine generally publishes two kinds of stories: individual articles and coordinated packages based on press trips. The process below describes how we’ll handle each one.

Story Assignments

For Individual Stories 

Submit the Pitch

Send your pitches to Amy Piper and Craig Stolz. Limit your pitches to three or four paragraphs. Please include:

• The topic, what you intend to write about it, and what you hope readers will learn
• Proposed length — generally from 1,000 to 1.500 words, with up to 2,500 for unusually inclusive or detailed stories
• What sort of images you have or can get 
• When you expect to turn it in

Before you pitch, please use the magazine’s search feature to see if we’ve recently done a similar story. If we have, please find a way to make your story different.

Acceptance 

• When we accept your story, Craig may have suggestions about general approaches, possible structures, and so on. We look forward to collaborating with you on this. 
• Amy may suggest SEO (search engine optimization) keywords to use for the story. See this page for more details about SEO. 

For IFWTWA Press Trip Packages

• Going forward, we’re coordinating publication of stories based on IFWTWA press trips.
  • This is intended to make sure we don’t have redundant (or conflicting) content, boost our visibility in Google searches, increase the amount of time users spend on our site, and improve our readers’ experiences.
  • It will also allow anyone who goes on the trip to contribute. 
• Amy will coordinate these packages, either before or after the trip takes place.
  • She’ll solicit volunteers for various pieces, establish deadlines, and provide general guidance.
  • Craig will provide any needed editorial guidance.  
• Note: If you’ve taken a press trip outside of IFWTWA, feel free to submit it as an individual story.  

Writing, Editing, and Publication 

The following applies to both kinds of stories.

Writing and Submitting Your Story

• When you’ve written your story, send it to both Amy and Craig.
  • Please submit it as a Google doc. Google docs makes it easy to collaborate, sharing notes and edits. Learn how to use Google docs here.
  • Be sure to set the permissions so anyone with the link has editor permissions. 

Editing  

• Craig may direct some revisions to be made in the Google doc, or may make edits for your approval or discussion.
  • We hope you find the collaboration valuable. Nearly every story can be made better with another set of eyes and a few supportive questions. 
  • Please don’t upload your story to WordPress until it’s been accepted and the final edits are done.

Final Acceptance, Uploading, and Publication  

• Once your story has been approved, you will upload the final version into WordPress. See details about that process here. 
• Amy or Debbra will check your story one final time in the system, hit publish, and send your story out to a grateful world. If necessary, they’ll tweak it for SEO. They’ll also check to be sure links are set to open in a new Tab, add links that can drive readers to related content on our site, and so on. 

Writing Tips

Craig’s been a travel editor for the Washington Post and a journalist for over 30 years. He’s picked up a few hard-won lessons along the way. A few tips:    

• Think about your story as an act of journalism – an article that uses facts and observations to tell a story – and not a blog entry, which is often more casual and opinionated. 
• Don’t simply recount your experiences chronologically, step-by-step. Think of this as an opportunity to convey the most significant, fascinating, memorable, or just plain cool parts of the experience.
  • It may be useful to think about how you’d present this to a friend. You probably wouldn’t tell them about what you did first, what you did next, and so on until you left. (Your friends may have used this approach and you probably found it boring.) 
  • You’d probably start with an anecdote or overall impression and then provide a few key incidents and facts that help readers understand your experience. You’d probably show them pictures. 
• If you’re not sure how to start your story, recount a brief incident that hooks us and characterizes the place or experience. There are other good ways to start a story, and feel free to try one. But an anecdote is always a good fallback. 
• Please do some basic internet research on your destination or topic.
  • This will help you create context to help readers understand and appreciate what you’re writing about, beyond what you happened to pick up during your trip or in press handouts.
  • When you write, please link to good sources you used, or that readers might want to follow for more information. Don’t use Wikipedia. 
• Follow the old English-teacher dictum: Show, don’t tell.
  • Don’t tell me it was beautiful, show me what you saw.
  • Don’t tell me it was a vibrant scene, show me what was going on.
  • Don’t tell me the chef is friendly, let me hear him talk or observe her with customers.    
• Let subheads and bullets be your friend.
  • Web readers are ruthless skimmers. 
  • Help them understand the main points and find what they’re really interested in without working too hard.
• Three things to avoid:
  • Avoid false praise.
    • Readers can smell this, and it erodes our credibility. 
    • Save superlatives for the few true standouts. 
  • Avoid the five deadly cliches of travel writing. These phrases are so overused they’ve lost their power. Find other ways to convey their underlying meaning.
    • Hidden gem
    • Unique 
    • Off-the-beaten-path
    • Must-do (or see)
    • Bucket list

Avoid exclamation points, except when used in dialogue.

Update Your Bio with Gravatar

Having a 50 word (max) bio and photo is mandatory – and it’s easy to set up using a Gravatar account.

Example: Look on the top right of the page to locate where you are signed in. You will see “Howdy, (your name).” Next, click on Edit Profile to make sure your bio appears. You can also add or update your Gravatar photo here. (See example below.)

Choosing and Preparing Images 

We’re after your best high-quality photos. Include up to 12 images that depict all areas covered in your story. Please give all photos a descriptive file name rather than a number, i.e., riding-camels-in-Jordan.jpg. See image specifications here.

Tip: If you don’t have enough high-quality photos, ask hosts, PR reps, CVBs, and other businesses (hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc.) you mention in your article for images we can publish without a fee. FWT Magazine does not accept Creative Commons photos, but you may use free resources such as Unsplash.com or Pexels.com.