Information and guidelines for contributors to WinCity Voices

We think we have a great group of writ­ers and artists and are always look­ing to add fresh new voic­es. While we wel­come writ­ers and artists from all walks of life, at this time we are par­tic­u­lar­ly look­ing to add more diver­si­ty to our line­up, so mem­bers of under-rep­re­sent­ed groups will be giv­en spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion. We are also inter­est­ed in adding folks asso­ci­at­ed with com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions that host major events in the community.

Below are a few guide­lines for work­ing with us. Please read the list care­ful­ly before decid­ing if we are a good fit for each oth­er. If you wish to pur­sue a work­ing rela­tion­ship with us, feel free to go ahead and sub­mit an item for con­sid­er­a­tion. We look for­ward to hear­ing from you!

To get a feel for who we are, please read our mis­sion, vision, and core val­ues state­ments.

• We’re all about pro­mot­ing arts, local hap­pen­ings, peo­ple and places in our com­mu­ni­ty, advo­cat­ing for change, and social jus­tice. We accept main­ly works of opinion/commentary, infor­ma­tion about upcom­ing major com­mu­ni­ty events, inter­views, fea­tures, fic­tion, poet­ry, pho­tog­ra­phy, and art­work. Think in terms of what you would expect to see in a month­ly, local­ly-focused mag­a­zine with broad appeal. If you haven’t already done so, we sug­gest you peruse our site to get an idea of what kinds of pieces we publish.
• We are unabashed­ly pro­gres­sive in our pol­i­tics, but we will hap­pi­ly accept thought­ful, well-rea­soned, and respect­ful com­men­tary rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ing polit­i­cal views. Our pri­ma­ry objec­tive is to give voice to those who are not being heard.
• As an all-vol­un­teer, not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, we can­not afford to pay for any material.
• We are an elec­tron­ic pub­li­ca­tion with no defined sched­ule; we are free to pub­lish your pieces as often or sel­dom as suits you. Some of our con­trib­u­tors file a new piece once a week like clock­work; oth­ers send us some­thing when­ev­er the muse strikes, or when there is some­thing time­ly to write about. We’re fine with what­ev­er works for you.
• Generally speak­ing, we like to sched­ule con­tent one to two weeks in advance. Therefore, please don’t expect your piece to appear right away. If your piece is time-sen­si­tive, please let us know when you sub­mit it and we’ll try to accom­mo­date you. If you don’t spec­i­fy a date for pub­li­ca­tion, we’ll select a date. We try to sched­ule our con­tent so at least one or two new pieces drop every weekday.
• We pre­fer sub­mis­sions to be sent via email to our edi­tor (peteky1961@gmail.com) as sep­a­rate files. Microsoft Word doc­u­ments work great for us if you have that. If you use anoth­er word proces­sor, please save your doc­u­ments as gener­ic rich text for­mat (such as .rtf or .odt) or as plain text (.txt). If you can’t do that, let us know what for­mat you pro­pose to use, and we’ll try to work with you on that.
• We have a pol­i­cy of includ­ing at least one image (pho­to or art­work) with every piece we pub­lish; we can run mul­ti­ple images as well. If you do not sub­mit an image with your piece, we will select one from a stock pho­to data­base or select one from our own library. The best images are land­scape (wide) ori­ent­ed and at least 1,200 pix­els wide — but the big­ger, the bet­ter. We can always scale down, but scal­ing up is prob­lem­at­ic. If you are not the author of the image, please let us know who to cred­it if possible.
• Please send any images as sep­a­rate files. If you want your image(s) to appear at spe­cif­ic places with­in the text, indi­cate so by insert­ing a cut­line (cap­tion) or the file name at the appro­pri­ate place. If you don’t sug­gest a cut­line for the image, we may write one.
• Please sug­gest a head­line for your piece. We reserve the right to change it at our discretion. 
• Since we have all the space in the world, we don’t have word lim­its. The best prac­tice for most types of writ­ing is to tar­get a word count in the range of 600 to 800 words for best read­abil­i­ty, but we will accept any length.
• If you sub­mit orig­i­nal pho­tog­ra­phy or art­work as a “stand-alone” piece (as opposed to an illus­tra­tion to go along with a longer writ­ten piece), we ask that you include some infor­ma­tion about the image. For instance, what is the media (for art­work), the loca­tion, and time of day (for pho­tog­ra­phy). What inspired the work? Include infor­ma­tion about the sub­ject. Anything that might be of inter­est to our read­ers. We gen­er­al­ly don’t pub­lish images with­out any accom­pa­ny­ing text for context.
• We reserve the right to make light edits to all sub­mis­sions and to apply for­mat­ting that fits the over­all design of our site; we will not send you an advance copy unless you request it.
• You retain own­er­ship of the mate­r­i­al you sub­mit to us and may repub­lish in any oth­er media, elec­tron­ic or print.
• We strong­ly encour­age our con­trib­u­tors to pro­mote their work once pub­lished by shar­ing on social media, via email to friends, and so forth. We will also share most pub­lished work on our own social media channels.
• With your first sub­mis­sion, please include a brief biog­ra­phy of your­self (two or three sen­tences), your email address, your web­site or pre­ferred social media site (option­al — if you would like a link includ­ed with your byline), and a pho­to of your­self. Unless you tell us oth­er­wise, we will include your email link with all of your contributions.

Still have ques­tions? Drop us a line at info@wincityvoices.org.