Guidelines for Contributors 

Where we are, and what we are

Although the Living Tradition started its life in Scotland - something which we're proud of - it later extended into England and Ireland, with an office in Donegal. Our aim was, and still is,  to support, promote and cherish the folk music traditions of these islands in totality. 

What we're about

Basically, we want to enthuse and inform people about folk and traditional music. Realistically though, now that the magazine is no longer being published, our viewpoint and focus is increasingly on the recent past, and our archives.

News items and Obituaries

We will continue to add important items of news to our site. Given our largely historic perspective, obituaries are increasingly important, both to inform our readers and to give appropriate respect to people who have contributed to folk traditions in recent years. 

Reviews - recordings

For various reasons, we feel that we can no longer effectively review new CDs. There might be exceptions!

Reviews - live events

Nowadays, there are potentially huge numbers of live events to review, including entire festivals. We simply can't cover many of them. Rather than run-of-the-mill events, however good, we'd prefer to hear about the unusual: the concert with an exotic mix of performers, the unexpected venue, the long-awaited Benefit Night and so on.  Again, there might be exceptions!

Features

A typical feature would be between 1500 and 3000 words, but for features which really can't be covered within this length, we have at times split articles into two or more parts or published longer features. It could be an interview with a performer (but preferably not in a question-and-answer format), an historical piece, an analysis of a player's style (favourite guitar tunings etc), an issue (lack of teaching of traditional music in schools etc) or whatever. Before starting on a feature, it's best to contact us to see if we're interested: it could be a great idea, except that something similar has been done lately. Or, it might be fine in principle but somehow just doesn't feel 'right' for us. We don't like turning people down, but we have to hold to our vision of what LT is about - and we hope that if anybody's knocked back, it won't stop them trying again! As for style, we want clear, accessible writing which is informative but not ponderous. For that reason, we don't want academic-style footnotes or references. 

Getting material to us

The easiest way to do this is to send a Word document by e-mail. 

Photos

Photographs are important. Photos should be credited to the photographer, but shouldn't be submitted without his/her consent. We always like accompanying photos (except for recordings reviews), in black and white or colour. They can be sent by post or by e-mail. We can work with colour prints and transparencies, and black-and-white. We don't return photos unless asked.

Payment

Sorry, there's zilch! We'd pay if we could, but until such time as the LT is turning over mega-bucks - and that may be, er, a while away - we simply can't!

Making contact with us

We strongly suggest contacting us before submitting something, because we hate to disappoint. Even when we accept work, we reserve the right to edit it for space reasons, or to improve it a bit. We'll always try to respect the work's integrity and the writer's clear intentions, though.

Contact details

Last but not least, please send your full contact details, (address, phone, email) when submitting anything, including details of anyone else connected with the piece (band, artist, photographer, etc), especially if it the first time you have contributed.