25 Publications that Pay for Writing About Religions & Spirituality

Here’s our latest research — a list of publications that accept submissions about religions and spirituality and that work with freelance writers.

We’ve researched payment rates, pitch guidelines, and more, to help you connect with the right editor.

If you want to browse even more opportunities, be sure to check out our database of over 1,500 publishers that pay writers. It’s easily searchable, and includes thousands of listings just like the ones below.

If you’re new to freelancing, I also very much encourage you to take our course on pitching. You can get the details here.

1. Kismet is a new literary magazine offering a fresh perspective on spirituality, religion, and mysticism for seekers and skeptics alike. Kismet isn’t tied to any particular tradition or spiritual outlook. Instead, the magazine aims to make space for diverging voices to pursue new ways of speaking to our longing for transcendence. They publish essays, fiction and poetry. According to their pitch guide, reviewers are paid $250 per review; other rates are not mentioned, but all contributors are paid. To learn more, refer to this page.

1. Musawah is a popular muslim feminist platform that has been examining Muslim family laws and practices that result in both official and informal discrimination against women in various Muslim-majority and minority countries. They are open to receiving pitches for submissions of personal narratives, essays, opinion pieces, artwork, interviews, and more. Submissions must be between 500–2000 words. They have previously indicated to pay an honorarium of USD 200 per article. To learn more, refer to their submission guidelines.

1. Religion Unplugged is a news organization that covers religion stories around the world. They publish at least one story each day on their website. According to their pitch guide, they pay $300 for news features (over 1,000 words), $100 for opinion and essays, $200 for film and TV reviews, $200 for art reviews, and $200 for book reviews. For more details, check out their submission guidelines.

1. Broadview is an independent Canadian magazine featuring coverage of spirituality, justice and ethical living. They are interested in stories about spirituality, ethical living, social justice and the United Church, and those can be investigative features, engaging profiles, first-person narratives, reported news stories, essays, photo essays, opinion pieces, blogs, interviews or reviews of books or films. For the print issues, fees are negotiated story by story. Digital stories usually run between 400 and 600 words, and according to their pitch guide, they pay $.40 a word for opinion pieces and $.65 a word for reported ones. To learn more, refer to their writers’ guidelines.

1. The Buddhist Review presents the Buddhist perspective of the West. They are the leading magazine of Buddhism in the West and they have good distribution. They are not affiliated with any particular sect or lineage of Buddhism. Articles between 500–2,000 words are preferred. Payment rates are not mentioned, but a payment report suggests they paid $0.75 per word. To learn more, refer to their submission guidelines.

1. Hinduism Today is an international quarterly magazine featuring articles concerning timely events, human interest stories, interviews, social issues, lifestyle pieces, cultural explorations, and more. Contributing writers don’t need to be Hindu but “should empathize with Hindu thought, practices, and culture”. Word length for short articles is 700 and 2,000 words and longer articles are 2,000 to 6,000 words. An accompanying photo is necessary to go with the story. Query first. According to their pitch guide, pay is $0.10 per word and $20-100 for each published photo. To learn more, refer to their submission guidelines.

1. Eureka Street is an online journal published by Australian Jesuits. They’re looking for articles that “provide humane, ethical analysis or commentary on politics, religion, popular culture or current events in Australia or the world.” They’re also open to short fiction and creative nonfiction up to 1200 words. They accept submissions up to 1000 words. According to their pitch guide, they pay $200 per article for freelancers writing non-paywalled pieces, paid for exclusive first publication rights. Payment for freelancers writing paywalled pieces is $400 per article. To learn more, refer to their submission guidelines.

1. Wellbeing is an Australian publication about holistic health, sustainability, and spirituality. They look for articles that are empowering, informative, and entertaining. They’ve previously indicated pay of AU$600 to AU$700 for feature articles typically 2,000 words long, AU$750 for travel articles, AU$1700 for special reports, and AU$150 for real life experience articles of 800-1000 words. To learn more, refer to their contributor guidelines.