Submission Guidelines

Rapt publishes all kinds of work — interviews, original essays, book excerpts, classics, profiles, reviews, syndicated pieces and best-of lists. For outside writers, two doors stand open: original essays and book excerpts.

What we look for

Writing that is skillfully crafted, well-supported and built on story. Start where our readers live. They come to us carrying the world — the headlines, the layoffs, the diagnoses, the roar of the culture, the 3 a.m. questions that don’t keep business hours. Don’t write past all that. Name it. We’ve learned that our readers trust writers who lead with vulnerability, who say the fearful thing plainly and tell a true story about it. Hope has to earn its hearing, and it earns it by acknowledging what hurts. Then turn. To the encouragement. To the interior work and the God who meets us in it. To the external practices that get us into his presence. Our register is optimistic and earnest, never cynical. We don’t publish hot takes. We don’t engage in culture warfare. We name what’s dark, and then we look for the light that’s already breaking in.

Write the truest story that you know, even when you’re still in the middle of it — especially then. You don’t need to give us a beginning, middle and end. You don’t need to arrive healed and finished, everything tied with a bow. Some of the most powerful essays leave the reader in the middle, with the writer, still listening for God. That takes courage. We prize it. And bring us the particulars: who God is for you and how you’ve encountered him — in the garden and the wilderness, at the stove and on the trail, in beauty and in grief, in the ordinary days where he likes to hide. We love an unexplored angle, something practical and a story well-told, anything that helps a reader take a new step. Bring heft. Don’t lose the beauty. We’re after encounters. The kind we need as much as our readers do.

Original Essays

  • Length. Two sizes: short articles (1,000–2,000 words) and long-form essays (2,000–3,000, longer when warranted).

  • Our collections. Most essays find a home in one of three: Looking for Clarity (“Big minds, struggling with big ideas.”), Burning for More (“Hearts aflame, describing the indescribable.”) and Standing for Hope (“Healing souls, showing us the way forward.”)

  • Your work, your hand. Every essay must be your own, written by you, not by AI.

Book Excerpts

Rapt runs exclusive excerpts from the best new books in Christian publishing, timed to launch when we can. If you have a book that helps readers encounter God, we’d love a look.

  • Length. Excerpts run 800–1,600 words. We’re glad to shape a passage with you.

  • Exclusivity. Our excerpts are exclusive to Rapt.

  • What to send. The galley or any passages you’d suggest and the publication date. Every excerpt runs with an author bio, a book cover image and a link to purchase.

Email justin@raptinterviews.com for consideration.