Substack

Publication

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Podcast

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Community

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Publication ✐ Podcast ✐ Community ✐

Writers for Democratic Action is thrilled to announce our Substack, created in partnership with the Youth Committee. Our new online publication is an opportunity to submit your writing on politics, society, and the world. We welcome and encourage diverse perspectives from across the US and abroad. No minimum publications or experience–we want powerful writing relevant to our time. 

Submit now at the bottom of this page.

How It Works

Submit your writing via our submission link at the bottom of this page or by clicking here. Writing submitted any other way, including by email or snail mail, won’t be considered. This opportunity is open to everyone. If you have a story, we want to hear it. 

Every few months, we’ll trade off editors and bring in guest editors wherever possible. You can find out who’s currently editing on our website and in our substack. We’ll try to respond as fast as we can, but it may take us a couple weeks to get back to you. You can follow up at substack.writersforda@gmail.com if it’s been more than a month. 

There’s no set publication schedule––if your work is accepted, we’ll work with you to schedule a publication date.

Current Curators

In order to best represent a diverse array of voices, WDA is rotating editors and bringing in guest curators every few months. Our current team is:

Rachel DeWoskin

Rachel DeWoskin is the award-winning author of five novels: Someday We Will Fly (Penguin), Banshee (Dottir), Blind (Penguin), Big Girl Small (FSG), Repeat After Me (Overlook); two collections of poetry: absolute animal (UChicago Press), and Two Menus (UChicago Press); as well as the memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing (WW Norton). She serves on the national steering committee of Writers for Democratic Action (WDA). Visit her at https://racheldewoskin.com/

Bella Rotker

Bella Rotker is a proud Venezuelan and 305 local. A five-time YoungArts winner and Best of The Net nominee, her work appears in Fifth Wheel Press, JAKE, Best American High School Writing (2022 & 2023), and others. When she's not writing or making shadow puppets, Bella’s thinking about cafecitos and bodies of water. Find her online at bit.ly/bellarotker

Interested in guest editing? We’d love to chat. Email us at substack.writersforda@gmail.com!

FAQ

  • You can publish under a pen name, but we ask that you submit under your real name so we know you’re a real person. We won’t share any information about you except what you tell us to.

  • Every few months, we’ll trade off editors and bring in guest editors wherever possible. You can find out who’s currently editing on our website and in our substack.

  • Any kind of writing––op-eds, opinion pieces, essays, articles, testimonials, etc––is more than welcome. You can write about any topic having to do with civics and democracy internally or abroad.

  • Yes, if you maintain the rights to your work. Please let us know when you submit if this is the case and provide a link to the original publication. Find more copyright information here: https://www.pw.org/content/copyright. 

  • Regrettably we are not accepting poetry submissions at this time. We see and appreciate the value of poems but due to the limitations of the Substack platform, we're not confident we'd be able to do your poems justice in terms of how they would look after publication.

    However, if you're looking for a place to send poetry, we recommend Chillsubs.com. They have a great browsing feature and you can find political publications that way. 

  • We tried to provide as comprehensive a guide as possible, but we know you may have other questions. Feel free to reach out to us at substack.writersforda@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!