ABOUT

When people die we can still clearly picture the way they did things. We don’t remember our departed in a vacuum, but in motion, in particular. We can still see and sense “how they did it” years after the doer’s deaths. 

This is a heartfelt look at loss through the lens of the home. 

DO YOU HAVE A STORY FOR US?

We accept essays of 250 words or less, each focused on one task or series of related tasks as executed by people we’ve lost to death but still clearly see living. Each of these micro-essays can be thought of as an entry into a book on living well, or efficiently, or at the very least with particular methods.

With your submission, please include your bio and an image of the subject, if you have one. We love images of the people in action, doing the task, and process photos, too. If you don't have an image we can take care of it.

THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE SENDING

1. Does your story include a home tip? We focus on giving a home tip that someone could really try. How would this essay make someone's home better, or cause someone to reflect on the nature of home?

2. Is it written for the reader to read, or still feels like it is written for the writer to write? This is one reason we feel that conveying a home tip is important. It puts you, the writer, in the reader's shoes.

3. Does it let the dead speak? We welcome your presence and perspective in the essay. But the most important person here is the one you lost, and we'd like to meet that person through their voice and presence, how they peeled eggs or folded clothes or played records. Show us what they did, and how they did it. 

(We have been known to publish essays that break all the rules but are amazing anyway. We're rule breakers, ourselves.)

For more about our editorial process, check out our December 2015 interview with Jim Harrington at his blog for writers, "Six Questions For..."

Submit to deadhousekeeping@gmail.com

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