What do your hands do all day?
Answer it. That is the whole submission.
Leave your answerWhat this is
Opndohr publishes one question at a time, answered by people who don’t write.
Studs Terkel spent the early seventies carrying a tape recorder around Chicago asking people what they did for a living. Working came out a book of people talking, not a book of writers. A quarter century later Juergen Teller photographed every model who turned up at his door over a year, in the doorway, as they arrived, no casting. Whoever showed up got photographed.
This is those two things, in text. No portfolio, no workshop, no MFA, no piece already sitting in a drafts folder. Ten minutes and an answer.
If you have never sent anything anywhere, you are the person the door is open for.
Before you start
- Three sentences or two pages
- No minimum, and no length that disqualifies you. Stop when you are done.
- Read by one person
- Every answer, all the way through, whether it runs or not.
- It stays yours
- Opndohr publishes it first and keeps it up. Republish it anywhere you like after that.
What happens after you send it
- A reply within two weeks, from a person, whether it runs or not.
- If it runs, you get the edited version back. Usually cuts, rarely additions.
- Nothing goes up that you haven’t read and approved. If you don’t like the edit, we run yours or we don’t run it.
Where you leave it
What do your hands do all day?
Write it the way you’d say it. Spelling gets fixed on this end.
It’s in.
You’ll hear back within two weeks either way, from a person, at the address you gave. Check whichever folder your mail app hides things in.
Thank you for the ten minutes.