We want Kook to be a lot more than a vanity project, so we need young writers, bloggers and artists to contribute. If you’re interested, here’s a bit more info to get you started.

For Writers

There are two types of content on Kook –  Reviews, which can be as philosophical, satirical, sarcastic, esoteric or as traditional as desired, as long as they relate to an actual item being reviewed. Reviews will fall into either the Culture or Music sections, and so can relate to any film, TV show, song, album, youtube video, macchiato or virtually anything else you wish to review. The other type can loosely be described as opinion pieces, which fit into the Opinion & Stories section. We don’t want to just have political articles but rather any kind of story, musing or observation about life, love or lactose-intolerance that doesn’t fit the definition of ‘review.’ This includes non-fiction articles with an argument or tale, or creative writing.

Of course, there is a certain style we’re going for. Luckily, that style is still very much being defined as we go, so you can have a hand in shaping it. Contributions will need to be well-written and interesting. We can’t guarantee that we’ll publish your work, but we will respond to every request and offer help/advice. You can send us your article, or even better, send us a summary of what you’d like to write about beforehand (particularly for reviews, so we can plan what we’re reviewing) and we’ll go from there. All articles on the site need to be approved by all three editors. We have a loose recommendation of 500-800 words for reviews and opinion pieces, though there are plenty of articles and stories that will need to be longer. If you’d like a regular column with us, that can certainly be arranged, but we’d need to know you’re committed and have some samples of your writing.

What we really want are feature articles that are diverse, funny, compelling or offer a new perspective from teenagers and twenty-somethings across Australia. Creative stories, opinion articles or expository pieces on contemporary, wired life that we can pair with illustration. So if you’re a budding writer and have something you want to get out there, email us at contact@kookmag.com

For Bloggers

But say you are a young writing who already has a blog. Well, if you have a regularly published written blog that you want to introduce to a wider audience, we’re interested in you too. We want as many young people as possible to start reading and loving Australian blogs and to connect the community together as much as we can. If our editors think your writing may be interesting/appropriate for Kook, you have a two options. We can ‘feature’ (ie. repost) on Kook an edited version or complete version of an existing and particularly interesting blog post from your site. Or you can write a new entry for your blog that can be posted simultaneously on Kook and your site. Either way the post will be introduced as coming from your blog and we will link back to blog at the end – hopefully providing a little bit of traffic for you, and some interesting content for Kook. Importantly, any blog posts need to be understandable and compelling as stand-alone articles, so they can be read without any background.

If you think you may be interested, or just want us to be aware of your blog, email us: contact@kookmag.com

For Artists

Finally, for all those artists out there, we definitely want you too. In fact we want art, graphics, photography and illustration to be central to the look and feel of Kook, and to compliment and enhance the writing. Perhaps you have an amazing photo-essay, some interesting illustrations, patterns or graphic designs, perhaps you’re a writer who illustrates your own work or a political cartoonist. If you think you have absolutely anything that might suit Kook, then don’t hesitate to let us know, and we’ll see if we can use it. Even if you have a flickr, blog or whatever that showcases your work, then let us know it exists and we’ll keep coming back to trawl it for things we can use!

So, rule of threes, artists contact us: contact@kookmag.com

Bam!