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Pitches for everyone!

Hello, Mary here!I hope you're all doing well and not drowning too much in school! Just want to give you all some positive vibes as we get even further into exams. You all have it in you to get through to the end of the month! As you all know, there was no Arts and Culture meeting yesterday, but we've still got a mix of old and new pitches coming through.Before we get into those, we've got one exciting announcement this week! On April 30, there will be a volunteer appreciation event combined with the Gateway's Annual General Meeting (AGM).The AGM is open to Gateway staff, as well as any volunteer who has written more than five published Gateway articles. We'd love to see you there if you can make it. It'll be a great way to celebrate all the hard work you've done as volunteers this year.The AGM is an opportunity give your input as a volunteer, discuss the future of the Gateway, and vote on some next steps for the magazine going forward. A time for the AGM hasn't been decided on yet, so keep an eye out for more details in the next little while. If you have any questions about this, feel free to reach out to me or Tom. Without further ado, here are the recurring columns:

• The Hobby Hole: Tell us about any unique hobbies you have or give a fresh take on an old favourite. It could be a passion project or an activity you do when you want to lay back, unplug your brain, and watch the hours fly by.

• Paddling up the Livestream: Wax lyrical about your favourite livestreams, put us onto some hidden-away gems, or give your hot-takes on livestream culture!

• The First Time: Try something totally new and write about your experience. It could be a cuisine you’ve heard great things about, an unfamiliar type of music, or an activity you've never tried before. Tell us about it all from the POV of a complete novice.

• Dream Team: Write about your ultimate dream collab! It might be a Stephen King children’s books series or a Billie Eilish x Tyler, the Creator supergroup. Tell us what makes your dream team such a gamechanger.

• Off-Campus Gems: Tell us about a local gem in and around the University area. It could be a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, your favourite bar, or even your go-to convenience store. Celebrate all things U of A and Old Strathcona!

• Gateway to Gastronomy: Know any fun and easy to follow recipes? Share it in this recurring segment.

• Exploring Edmonton: Do you know any cool places around Edmonton that people should visit? Write about them in this new series!

• Lunch Break: An Arts & Culture series where we share fun recipes with humorous commentary. It's wholesome and lowkey, so check it out and send an installment over!

• Brew Crew/Vino Bitches: A fun, short review of your favourite (or not-so-favourite) beers, wines, or other alcoholic beverages of choice.

• Noodle Nation: Who loves noodles? You (might) love noodles! Write a column on your favourite noodles or noodle haunts.

• Pot Thots: Write about your favourite strains, equipment, dispensaries, and more in our column on the world of legal weed.

• Eating Edmonton: Write about your favourite (or not-so-favourite) local haunts in this miscellaneous foodie column. A great way to spotlight local restaurants in a time when they really need it!

• DatApp: Have an app that’s been a gamechanger? Wax eloquently about it (or a few of your favourites) in this column.

• Top 5: Top 5 streaming shows, places to cry in public, work-from-home tips...you name it, you can write a Top 5 on it!

• Diss Track: Are there 3-4 songs that grind your gears in the worst way possible? Diss the crap out of them in this column.

• Doin’ You: Everyone has something they do exceptionally well. Wanna teach others your wizardry? Walk us step-by-step through the process of a master for this column.

• Playlists: Have killer musical taste? Share it on The Gateway with a curated playlist.

• Retro on Retro: Is some classic piece of media on your mind? Reflect on it with the distance of time in this column. Discuss the qualities, staying power, and impact of your favourite old movie, video game, album, book, play, or whatever else!

• Double Take: Love spitting fire-hot takes on pop culture? You and a friend (or foe) can team up to write opposing takes on some piece of art/entertainment/media.

• ...AND MORE! I'm always open to any pitches you might have for me!

The Edmonton Folk Festival announced on April 12 that Edmonton’s premier folk and alternative music festival will be cancelled for the second year in a row. The press release cited concerns about planning a live music festival during the pandemic, especially with uncertainty surrounding vaccination rates and new COVID-19 variants. This would be a great story to cover for the site since Folk Fest is usually one of the biggest events that we cover in Arts. Let us know if you’re interested in interviewing the festival organizers for the story.

Lisa Martin is an Edmonton-based writer, creative writing professor, and University of Alberta alumnus. Martin is soon to release a collection of poems in her book Typology on Friday April 16 (tomorrow!). Typology devotes a poem to each of the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types. You can read more about it here. Let us know if you’re interested in reading some of the poems to write a review, or interviewing Martin about her book!

Cadence Weapon (born Rollie Pemberton) is an Edmonton-born, Toronto-based rapper, producer, writer and poet, and a previous Polaris Music Prize nominee. On April 30 he will be releasing Parallel World, which is his first full-length project since 2018. The album blends UK Drill and Grime as it touches on topics like cultural memory, surveillance, inequality, the environment, and racism. It also features names like Jacques Greene and Backxwash. We’ve received early access to the album, so let us know if you are interested in writing a review and/or interviewing Pemberton ahead of the release. You can check out the single “SENNA” here.  

Billy-Ray Belcourt’s book, A History of My Brief Body was just shortlisted for the Jim Deva Prize under the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Belcourt’s book is a memoir about his childhood in Joussard, Alberta, and Driftpile First Nation, and expands to his reflections about colonial legacies and how to move forward. Let us know if you’re interested in interviewing Belcourt about his book and his recent nomination. You can read about the nomination here.