Untimely is an answer to the increasingly fast paced news cycle which results in the marginalization of disabled writers who often cannot contend with immediate responses to cultural events.
The online news cycle, specifically the entertainment and cultural critique sub section, is beholden to strict timelines. In order to publish a review of a new TV series, you must watch it, pitch it and write it up within 48 hours of its release. This speed is not conducive to the schedules of disabled writers and journalists who often operate on crip time (a concept arising from disabled experience that addresses the ways that disabled/chronically ill and neurodivergent people experience time (and space) differently than able-bodyminded folk).
As disabled writers ourselves, we have often been at the receiving end of story rejections that cite ‘this happened too long ago’ as the reason they won't commission our piece. In our crip selves, we may emerge with a vital, thoughtful story six weeks after a Netflix show has aired, and be rejected for its lack of being ‘timely’. As such, Untimely will forefront cultural critique of TV, film, books and other cultural events that will be produced to the schedule of its disabled writers.
Instead of asking writers to binge the newest Netflix series in 24 hours, or work overnight to produce a response to news or policy change, it will revel in the fact that valuable words take time, accounting for the fact that disabled writers often work in alternate ways, which is part of what makes their storytelling voices unique.
Similar to endeavours like Tortoise Media, we will relish in slow news, finding importance in slowing down primarily for the needs of our disabled body-minds. The publication will account for the weeks it may take for an idea to emerge, for the time it may take to write the article, and for the time it may take for edits to be made by our disabled team.
The current news cycle is exhausting for everyone involved: writers, editors, and readers themselves. We hope that this project will work towards restoring agency to readers, acknowledging their aptitude to understand a cultural response even if it comes more than two days after the story first broke. Untimely is a disabled, crip, sick publication taking up the space we’ve been told we were too late to enter.
It will prioritize disabled voices in submissions, using the widest definition of disability that includes all writers that self identity with the label. However, publication will be open to all who recognise the purpose of the publication and the inherent crip-ness of the space. Alongside Hannah and Catriona, two more editors, who are also disabled and who come from different social backgrounds, will be invited to join the team once further funding is secured.