Launched in 2024, inquisitive is a quarterly intellectual magazine published by Heterodox Academy. As we prepare for the September 2026 publication of issue #8, we invite you to send us a pitch for an article, particularly if you are interested in HxA’s mission of building cultures of open inquiry across higher education. While we are open to proposals from anyone, we especially encourage HxA members to reach out with their article ideas.

We seek pitches for articles that will be roughly 750-2000 words in length. Each piece should be written for an educated, but non-expert audience. In other words, we are looking for articles for a more general audience that would not be out of place in The Chronicle of Higher Education or even The Atlantic or Harpers. Also note that inquisitive employs a rigorous editorial process to ensure that each piece we publish is compelling, accurate, and well-written.

We are open to a wide range of topics, as long as they are in some way connected to higher education and concern ideas we are interested in, including academic freedom, viewpoint diversity, institutional neutrality, conformity and self-censorship, open inquiry, epistemic humility, pluralism and constructive disagreement. Pitches can include proposals for feature essays, book reviews, personal essays, and journalistic or reported pieces on trends in higher education.  

At the same time, roughly half of the articles in each issue are tied to a theme. For issue # 8, the theme is “trust.” If you’re interested in writing a theme essay, your pitch should explain how what you want to address is connected to the theme.

Examples of how you might engage with “trust” include:

• The lack of trust that many everyday people now have in core institutions, including colleges and universities.  
• How and why higher education lost so many people’s trust — specifically, the role that the lack of viewpoint diversity on many campuses may have played in eroding public trust.  
• The role that trustees play in higher education and how they can be better stewards of the institutions they serve.
• The trust and credibility crisis that has engulfed much academic research.
• The lack of trust some young adults and their families have in colleges and universities, that if they attend they may not receive a good education that prepares them for their lives after graduation.

If you want to submit an idea for a theme-related feature or an essay on some other topic, please write to us at editor@heterodoxacademy.org. Pitches for issue #8 are due May 12, 2026.

Thank you in advance for your interest in contributing to inquisitive. We look forward to receiving and reviewing your pitch.