Deadline for all Content Call to be considered for print is Sunday, 8th of June 2025 unless otherwise stated.
Please reach out to the respective section emails or leave a comment below to claim a prompt. The prompts are simply guidelines, if you have other ideas that relate to the theme, you can of course still reach out and pitch your articles!
Visual Arts - visual.arts@palatinate.org.uk
This print edition is themed around ‘memories’. Whether you're coming to the end of your first year or your last year at Durham, we're looking for a piece exploring memories, endings, and change in art.
Please email us at visual.arts@palatinate.org.uk to pitch your idea, or claim one of the following prompts:
1. Visit the Baltic Gallery in Newcastle (for free) to see the exhibition 'Remember, Somewhere' by Laura and Rachel Lancaster - the Lancaster sisters' work depicts moments like memories... for a post-exams outing, review this brilliant exhibition.
2. Visit the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle (also free) to review Nerys Johnson's exhibition, 'Disability and Practice'. Celebrating the work of a local artist, the exhibition explores Johnson's experience with arthritis and the impact this had on her works. Explore Johnson's vibrant florals, and the changes her work underwent as a result of disability.
3. Explore the idea of personal memory in Lubaina Himid's work - Himid is a British painter who has dedicated her thirty-year-long career to uncovering marginalised and silenced histories, figures, and cultural moments.
4. Blue Plaques - consider these infamous plaques as objects of memory: handmade in Cornwall by ceramicists Frank and Sue Ashworth, these plaques are crafted to last as long as any building.
Creative Writing - creative.writing@palatinate.org.uk
Hello writers!
The theme of this print is ‘memory’, inspired by the nostalgia of the end of this academic year, and for some, the end of university. We have two perspectives you could consider writing about for this print:
1) Write about your memories of Durham and how you see yourself looking back on Durham when you leave. You may think of the objects that will remind you of your time here, or the friends, nights out and classes that you're sad to leave. We'd love for the scene of Durham to be really vivid, honest and immersive, though the things you write about don't necessarily need to be true to your life.
2) Write about memories in general, the process they arise through, and their significance to your life. You could write about the unreliability of memory, the feeling of nostalgia, or the memories you're yet to make. We'd love to see some unusual and creative perspectives on what 'memory' can mean.
We accept short stories, creative essays and poems, but please keep your word count to a maximum of 800! You do not need to contact us to claim a prompt and you do not need to write from a prompt if neither take your fancy, simply submit your completed piece to our email.
Have fun writing!!
Features - features@palatinate.org.uk
Hiya Contributors! Hope you’ve all come back ready and raring to go for another series of Features prompts after the exam period. As always, remember that we love to read your article pitches and will try to work these in whenever we can! Please do send anything through that you think fits with our section; we’d love to read it and give feedback!
Indigo’s next edition will focus on ‘Memories’ as its overarching theme. We have chosen to interpret this in terms of reflection, the significance of memories and what you’ve learned as you’ve gone through this year – or even your time at University. For many, this might be your first foray into a big world, in more ways than one – be you a fresher or a finalist. We’re very interested in how you think about this, so here’s some prompts to get you started!
Do you have a Durham memory that still sticks? For you: is it the architecture? The strange rituals and formal dinners? Your matriculation (or
even graduation)? Or is it something more lively: nights out on sticky dance-
floors? A college bar crawl? Or even taking your parents to graduation? We’re
interested in seeing how memory lines up with sense of belonging to an institution, and how longstanding tradition operates in the 21st Century.
[TAKEN] As we get older, our memories inevitably shift; we look at things through rose-tinted glasses. For you, what details from Durham do you think will remain for
posterity? What makes you nostalgic about this cathedral city of ours? We’re
especially interested in reflections that explore the power of rose-tinted
glasses and the evolution of memory.
[TAKEN] What’s your literary canon when thinking about the past? Do you think that it’s shaped your outlook on nostalgia and the theme of memory? Feel free to
explore this through your favourite books, films or any other media that
cracked open this theme for you? Some ideas for media you could think
about, maybe (but we’d love to see your take on something of :
Nostalgia for a ‘better age’ in literature (think Evelyn Waugh’s writing,
for example?)
Films and books with fragmented narratives (think 500 Days of
Summer?)
Fiction featuring testimony and bias; memory as corruptible (12 Angry
Men, Rashômon)
Fiction featuring control through the power of memory (think Blade
Runner and the writing of Phillip K. Dick)
Hopefully this has given you some ideas to work with! Remember this isn’t exhaustive, so feel free to write something from your own viewpoint. You don’t necessarily have to use these prompts, so feel free to send us a pitch. Pieces can be as long or short as you want, but we’d recommend a range of 400-800 words. Please include a title and email it to features@palatinate.org.uk in good time before the deadline!
Film & TV - film@palatinate.org.uk
Hello wonderful film fans and Indigo writers! For this edition, we’re exploring the theme of memories. Film is expert at invoking memory, and this edition we would like to explore how film and TV can make us feel about memories! As always, comment to claim any of our content calls and feel free to email us film@palatinate.org.uk with any amazing ideas you may have.
Childhood classics: Pieces of art that we saw in childhood often resonate with us long into adulthood. In this piece, explore the role that film and TV has within shaping the childhood experience, are there any film-related memories that still resonate with you now as you grow older? We can learn values, life lessons from films - and these memories stick with us. With our childhood classics are quickly being made into live-action films (e.g. the new ‘Lilo and Stitch’) - do you think this taints the memory, or reinvents a classic for a new audience?
[TAKEN] Manipulating memory: Some filmmakers love bending reality to create a good watch - causing an immersive, confusing yet captivating viewing. In this piece, explore how memory can be utilised to create a good film. Think ‘Inception’ or ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind’.
Collective memory: Memory, and how it is retained, collected and presented through art can have a profound impact for a culture’s preservation or resistance. For this piece, pick a piece of Film and TV that has been instrumental within keeping a culture, social movement, protest or identity alive. Explore how art and film can be a mechanism for preserving identity in a repressive world.
As always, happy writing!
Books - books@palatinate.org.uk
Our last print of the year is themed ‘memories’, as a reflection of the year and approaching end of uni for some!
We’d love for people to submit their ideas, or take one of the suggestions below. Please send any pieces to books@palatinate.org.uk by 6th June. 700-800 words!
[TAKEN] Books you’ve carried with you throughout university, and those which you’ll carry with you into adulthood.
Books that reflect entering a new period of life, those such as Dolly Alderton’s ‘Everything I Know About Love’ and Elena Ferrante’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’, how do these reflect your own memories of uni life?
The campus novel: how does your favourite campus novel encompass memory and nostalgia as key tropes? How might this reflect your own experience?
Books love, Emily and Gwen
Image Credit: Arnold William Brunner via History Picture Archive
Hello, please may I take Feature 3?
Hi! could I do a piece on memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day for the books section?