Merion West: Essays in Culture and Politics Gold Star Program Gold Star Free Tip Jar Option

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR NONFICTION IN MERION WEST

As a magazine that covers culture and politics, we welcome essays, book reviews, and op-eds that contribute to contemporary discourse in these areas. The following guidelines delineate some of our main preferences.

1) We welcome essays that contribute to an elevated discourse. Essays should be thoughtful, well-researched, not excessively polemical, and strive to make the timely timeless and the timeless timely.

2) As a magazine that does not pander to short attention spans, we welcome long-form essays if they are well-written, well-argued, and make a lively contribution to political and cultural discourse.

3) Per (2), we do not set a ceiling on length. The essay should be as long or short as it needs to be. We generally prefer that essays not exceed 4,000 words, but when the quality of the essay permits, we are happy to publish.

4) Book reviews should be on books published within the last three years.

5) Op-eds should generally not exceed 1,200 words, with some flexibility depending on the quality of the article, or in limited cases, the necessity of elaborating on a point relevant to the argument. Op-eds should address something topical and timely.

6) Students who seek to publish an article based on a school paper should revise and prepare the paper so that it has the form of an essay for public consumption. Essays that read like a paper written for an academic course, or otherwise suffer from a style of academic formalism, will not be accepted.

7) We try to preserve the original prose of the author as much as possible, so we do not try to over-edit. With that in mind, we prefer submissions that are not drafts but, rather, polished, finished pieces.

8) For a greater sense of the types of articles the magazine prefers to publish, please review some of the articles already published on the website.

9) Please provide a short bio.