On International Women's Day, we'd like to encourage more women to pitch writing ideas to UKClimbing.com and UKHillwalking.com. Our Women's Day call-out last year proved popular and resulted in a variety of commissions across both websites.

In recent years, we have increased our in-house coverage of women's climbing and women in the outdoors, alongside more female-specific gear and training editorial, but we'd still love to feature more freelance commissions written by women.

We are especially interested in showcasing more work from people in communities underrepresented in outdoor media. Of course, we will always be open to ideas for content from everyone, but we'd like to take this opportunity to give women and marginalised gender identities a nudge to consider writing for us.

More women are climbing, walking and getting outdoors than ever before and the media landscape is slowly becoming more representative, but - despite a fair number of female editors in outdoor media - contributing writers in the field are still disproportionately male.

Perhaps you can help us shift towards a more equal balance? If you've got an idea - no matter how big or small - get in touch!

What we're looking for:

We are very much open to ideas - don't get hung up on specifics, just drop us a line and we can talk it over! But here are some to start you off:

• Our monthly Crag Notes series is ongoing, in which writers share a nature-rich snapshot of a favourite crag or local haunt
• So is Desert Island Peaks on UKHillwalking. Get involved!
• Destination Guides (worldwide) and ticklists (listicles of top-10 climbs, walks etc.. 
• Route Cards on UKH
• The usual broad-ranging UKC and UKH content: historical, social and cultural feature articles, interviews, essays, first-person pieces, opinion pieces, environmental stories, skills articles, creative pieces, poetry, humour pieces, longform 'In Focus' stories, journalistic explorations, science and tech stories.
• We're pretty flexible (just send that pitch!)

What we're not looking for:

• We tend to like pieces with some depth. Blog-style pieces with no focus or story are unlikely to be accepted.
• Solely pieces about being a female climber or walker, or issues relating to women (these are important and we have examples on the site, but we'd ideally like more women to be writing about non-female-specific topics and issues). If you have an idea for a women-specific piece, please pitch, but don't feel confined to this area.
• Gear reviews. We have a team of dedicated reviewers and are not currently accepting submissions for gear reviews
• Topics we've covered before, or which have been covered elsewhere especially recently. New angles might be of interest, though.
• PR fluff/advertorial

How to pitch:

Send an email to natalie @ ukclimbing.com or dan @ ukhillwalking.com. We're not fussed about perfectly preened pitches; if your idea is strong/relevant and you briefly explain who you are and how you'll go about it, your idea will be considered. Writing experience is a bonus but not essential. Likewise with spelling and grammar! We have people for that.

Payment: We aim to pay fairly and promptly upon invoicing after publication. Rates start from £150 for short pieces (Crag Notes) and increase depending on word count/research/time involved.

Some previous examples of commissions from women:

For more information on what we're looking for, please read our article submission guidelines or feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.