Pitches are open for our ‘architecture of food’ issue

Pitch us (in collaboration w/ chlorophyll magazine) by Feb 10, 2026

It’s hard to believe, but the next issue of Feminist Food Journal will be our tenth edition. To mark the occasion, we’re publishing a special collaborative issue with our friends at chlorophyll, a literary magazine edited by Apoorva Sripathi and Anne Wallentine. chlorophyll is home to abundant and startling work, having published issues on sugar and spice and the powers and pitfalls of language in the last year, and we couldn’t be more excited to join forces.

We’re now accepting submissions for our collaborative issue around the theme of ‘the architecture of food’.

It’s not our usual one-word title, and it won’t be quite the same as our usual issues: published works will be shorter than usual FFJ style, and we’re even more eager than usual to solicit fiction, poetry, and visual essays. (Please send us pitches for non-fiction/narrative/reported essays; fiction and poetry should be sent as finished pieces.)

What hasn’t changed is that we’re eager to receive a wide range of interpretations of the topic. How does food relate to the material and invisible ways that the world is built? What nutrition, excess, power, wealth, class, and culture does this architecture contain?

From the hierarchical or democratic structures of a menu, meal, or food system, to how the architecture of a restaurant accommodates the navigation of multiple roles, classes, and worlds, and how recipes and cookbooks can help construct cuisines and cultures (or vice versa), there’s a lot to dig into.

To get your pitch-brain turning, here are just a few potential topics:

• The specific architecture/construction of a dish, a pantry, a grocery store, or farmer’s market; the interplay between food and architecture and how it influences our experiences of consumption.

• How prized utensils and dishes can shape a meal and our ways of eating.

• The changing or experimental architecture of food production and distribution, vertical farming, urban gardening, CSAs, food delivery and apps.

• How a meal is meant to be served within a culture or zeitgeist; the liberty of the lack of structured courses.

• What eating or [breast]feeding in public looks like: in parks, at bus stops, or on public transport. Is the city an architecturally inclusive space to accommodate eaters? What is the impact of the tech architecture of food delivery on public eating?

• The format, meanings, and impact of menus, recipes, cookbooks, and nutritional guides; the failures or possibilities of AI recipes.

• Colonial legacies of the architecture of food: which structures are valorized, seen as ‘proper’ or ’appropriate’, and the impacts of class, wealth, and influence.

• The architecture of a restaurant itself and how it’s built to accommodate diners and staff — especially from the perspective of service or sensory experience.

These are examples, but we welcome any ideas they spark for you about balance and excess, towering culinary structures and foods that fall flat.

The details

For this issue, we will pay $50 USD for poetry and $75 USD for prose.

Fiction: Short stories at a maximum of 1750 words.

Poetry: Maximum 3 poems per submission.

Nonfiction: Between 750 and 1750 words.

As mentioned above, for nonfiction/essays, please send us a short pitch and bio in the body of your email. For poems and short stories, please send the full piece as a Word document attachment using a legible font, size 12 with 1.5 spacing. List the word count and title at the top of the first page. Please provide only one submission per genre.

Please address your pitches to BOTH pitch@feministfoodjournal.com and chlorophyll.zine@gmail.com, and make sure the subject line specifies that the email is a pitch for the ‘architecture of food’ issue.

Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but please let us know as soon as your work has been accepted elsewhere. All work must be previously unpublished either in print or online.

Deadline: Midnight (wherever you are) on Tuesday, February 10.