Thanks for your interest in writing for Left Turn. We are dedicated to presenting new voices, especially from historically silenced communities. We would like our magazine to be useful as a tool for communication for our movements. We want to be accessible to new writers, and to be seen a place where many voices are welcome.

At the same time, we only have so much space, and we can only publish a small portion of what is submitted to us. Below are some guidelines to help you to get your writing into the magazine.

These guidelines apply mainly for submissions to the magazine. Our website has a separate editorial board and submissions process, although in some cases, such as more timely pieces that would be better served by going out on the website rather than waiting for the next issue of the magazine, we may pass submissions along to the website's editorial collective.

SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES:

1) Please check out the magazine and look at what we publish. Our focus is on writing from people directly involved in social justice movements, aimed at an audience composed primarily of other movement folks. Therefore, we try and stay away from jargon-filled or overly academic pieces. Being a movement-building publication, we tend to shy away from pieces that solely attack other activists, organizers, or politics, but are drawn to critical, nuanced, and constructive analyses.

2) Please send us a one-to-three-paragraph summary of the article you would like to write. Please do not send us a full article. We are an all-volunteer collective, and we don't have the capacity to read every article that comes in. If you can also send us a brief bio of yourself, and/or links to a place online where we can find other articles you may have written, that would be helpful.

3) Here are the kinds of articles we usually feature:

Features: These are usually 1,000 to 3,000 word articles on a specific subject, such as "Economic Profiteering in Iraq," "Anti-Privatization Struggles in South Africa," or "Antiracist Organizing in the Global Justice Movement." These are the hardest pieces to get in to the magazine, simply because we receive so many submissions that fit into this category.

Reviews: These are usually 800-1,200-word reviews of a book, CD, film, art show, or other work. We try and focus on grassroots projects that may be interesting to our readers and may not be reviewed by other publications. Reviews do not necessarily have to be positive to be published.

4) We can't afford to pay authors (or ourselves) unfortunately. But we offer our lots of gratitude and free copies of the magazine.

5) We can't respond to every submission we receive. But we will try. If you don't hear back, or we are unable to publish your piece, please try again. We often receive submissions we're excited about, but we just don't have the room for it when we receive it.

6) Left Turn generally only prints original material. If your article has been printed in another publication, or on a website, then please let us know.