Call for Pitches: Gossip

Earlier this fall, C Magazine, one of Canada's last remaining visual art magazines, had a notice out for a new ED/Publisher and another for pitches to an upcoming issue on gossip. The invitation to pitch expired on November 2, but I archived it because I thought I might have something to say about it in a post. Turns out I don't. At least nothing fresh. But if pressed, I would say that I have always been curious about the word's origin. Here's what Merriam-Webster says about gossip:

Old English sibb, meaning “relative” or “kinsman,” came from the adjective sibb,“related by blood” (the ancestor of modern English sibling). Old English godsibbwas a person spiritually related to another, specifically by being a sponsor at baptism. Today we call such a person a godparent. Over the centuries, godsibb changed both in form and in meaning. Middle English gossib came to be used for a close friend or crony as well as for a godparent. From there it was only a short step to the gossip of today, a person no longer necessarily friend, relative, or sponsor, but someone filled with irresistible tidbits of rumour.

The last time I contributed to C Magazine was at the urging of guest editor Merray Gerges, who asked me to write about some gossip I'd gathered, collated and shared in a post about a local art collector and his war with the director of the city's largest art gallery. The post had consequences, and I guess that's what Merray was interested in hearing about -- the consequences of my post and I how I felt about them. The article, entitled "Pastoral Fail: Reflections On an Art World Call-Out", can be read here.

Here is C Magazine's call for pitches:

Call for Pitches GOSSIP C154­—Spring 2023 Accepted until: November 2, 2022 What’s your gossip? As unofficial murmurings, gossip speaks to a misaligned oral tradition. Associated with matriarchal and feminist passing of information—think of auntie types gathering across different cultures—gossip is history, unarchived. What is deemed worth noting down and what is to remain as gossip? Through which processes of confirmation do certain belief systems (e.g. the stock market) become legitimized over others as rational, and who decides this? Does some knowledge remain more useful as gossip, sneaking past dominant structures? How does gossip help us protect each other? How does it protect our labour in the contemporary art world? This issue invites engagements with gossip through artistic practices and creative criticism. Gossip may encompass wishful future-making in the vein of speculative fiction. It may blur what is considered low or high art-making through the spaces that it can inhabit, such as internet/meme culture and mass media. There are the dark sides of gossip, too, and its nebulous anxieties, when it’s wielded to maintain dominance in gendered, racialized, and classed ways. Possible engagements with gossip can include: oral and counter-histories; superstition; secret languages as survival; how information is circulated; parody and humour; art practices focused on sound and listening; privacy, risk, and surveillance. What can gossip tell us about power, and can either exist without the other? Thematic feature, artist project, and column pitches accepted until November 2, 2022. We suggest pitching early to avoid disappointment. Review pitches, which are not required to be thematic, are accepted on a rolling basis. Send pitches to pitch@cmagazine.com, with a subject line that starts with the word PITCH and goes on to indicate the submission type (review, essay, interview, One Thing, for example).  Please include ~150 words about your subject and how you’ll approach it, including hyperlinks wherever relevant. An estimated word count is appreciated. If you have not written for us recently, include a link to your website—or a copy of your CV—and one or two writing samples (ideally ones written in a style similar to your pitched piece). Submitted work must be original; we do not publish reprints nor adaptations of any kind. Thank you for understanding that we are unable to reply to unsuccessful pitches. Please see our submission and writer’s guidelines for more information. Note: we do not accept pitches from platforms regarding their own programming.