We welcome pitches and submissions, and pay for all original articles. Please write to editor[at]chinabooksreview.com with:

  • Your brief bio (if a new contributor) and links to similar work by you.
  • What you want to write, and the work(s) you want to cover (including if you need a copy).
  • Paragraph pitch (ideally with a structure outline, see below).

Below are the sections we currently accept contributions for. Please click the links to the category pages and familiarize yourself with our style before pitching.

Reviews — Argument-driven reviews of recent (<1yr) single works (1600-2000 words), or longer review-essays that engage with multiple works (3200-4000 words). We like our reviewers to synthesize what’s in a book (or film, TV show, album, game, performance, exhibit), picking out the best details and quotes, but also to springboard off it and say something of their own about the topic. That is, don’t just write a book report: draw out an original argument from the work that tells us something new about China or the Sinophone world.

Essays — Lively essays (either 1600-2000 words or 3200-4000 words) that engage with broader ideas and trends relating to China or the Sinophone world. We prefer a focus on society and culture, but also run general essays on politics, economics and history. Your essay doesn’t need to focus on a particular book or work, but should engage with existing literature — that is, tell us what’s already been written on this topic, as well as making an original argument based on your experience and perspective. Reported dispatches are welcome.

Profiles — Literary profiles (3200-4000 words) of prominent Chinese or sinophone authors (or film-makers or other artists), written up as a narrative that engages deeply with their work and life. Ideally, there would be recent work by the subject to peg it on, but we also accept general profiles that overview their oeuvre. The profile should focus on a specific angle so as to make a particular point about their work as a whole. Think of it as a “review profile” that takes in multiple works (which you should read) and discusses their biography too. We expect you to interview the profilee and at least one other person about them.

Excerpts — If you are an author or publisher, feel free to propose a stand-alone passage for excerpt (1600-4000 words) from your upcoming or recently published (<1yr) book, that tells an engaging story or reveals something new about China or the Sinophone world. Please send the full digital copy of the book as well as flagging excerpt potential, and indicate if other excerpts have appeared, or will be appearing, elsewhere.

Further information on our style, standards, rates and AI policy is in our contributor guidelines — please read them if you are hoping to produce work for the magazine.

When pitching, consider how your idea is specific and original. What question will you answer? Why should the general reader care about it? What does it say more broadly about China or the Sinophone world? Will it surprise us, or tell us something we already know? We don’t need topical news pegs, we’re a general-interest magazine, but it should feel new/informative.

In your pitch, if you have already read the work under review, please include:

  • A short summary of the main argument/story/theme that the book is about, and what you’re going to say in response (i.e. your thesis). This can be very short, even one sentence in the style of our subtitles, to really clarify the key thing you want to say.
  • A simple outline of how you will structure the piece to make that point. Generally 2-3 sections for 1600+ words (eg hook; book; point), 5 sections for 3200+ words (eg hook; book; context; other book(s); point). This can just be a few lines or bullet points.

Or begin with a more general pitch if you haven’t yet read it, then follow up with the above after you have. But tell us what you want to say, not just “I want to review this.”

Principal works under review should have come out in the last year. Additional works that are paired or mentioned need not be recent, and you can draw on the deep archive. Our definition of “China” (中华) is broad, including Hong Kong, Taiwan and the diaspora. We accept pitches for reviews of untranslated Chinese-language works, or works in other languages about China and the Sinophone world, but prefer if there is an English-language version available.

We read all pitches and endeavor to reply in a timely fashion, but we get a lot of mail. If you have not heard back from us after ten days, please accept our apologies for not replying and assume that we are not accepting the idea.

Please disclose if you used AI or translation services in your pitch. Pitches written entirely by LLMs, as flagged by Pangram, will be ignored. See our contributor guidelines for further information, including our policy on conflicts of interest and kill fees.

If you are an author, publisher, illustrator or reader, please see how to contact us instead. ∎