Submit
We love your submissions!
This page is for general content submissions. Looking for something else? General Contact / Feedback Form or "Dear Darling" Advice Form or Anonymous Submission Form
You can submit:
- News stories: Breaking news, investigative pieces, community events, & interviews and features of people/projects. Cite sources.
- People's Blotter: Reports of abuse by the state(police, ICE, etc.) or other institutional powers. Include a written report and any photo/video.
- Creative works: Poetry, essays & creative writing, comics, and reviews.
- Free resources: Free events, giveaways, foraging and gardens, or even your old furniture or CDs!
- Report-backs from an action or event(notice the anonymous submission option)
- Events: Let us know what's going on & contribute to our calendar!
- Jailbreak: Have you been incarcerated or know someone who is? Contact us to feature your story here.
- Dear Darling: Got a conundrum? Ask our conflict and chaos expert Darling Tonia for advice.
Submission Guidelines
In many ways the guidelines are broad! We will outright refuse the promotion of bigotry (any form of racism or white supremacy, homophobia/transphobia, sexism, classism, etc.) plain hatred, or libel and obvious inaccuracies.
The following are guidelines derived from our values:
- Refrain from jargon, or define/explain it; make sure your submission is using language accessible to a broad audience.
- Length:
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- News stories and reporting: 750-1200 words
- Features or investigative reporting: <1500 words
- Opinion and/or analysis pieces: <1200
- Creative writing: <1200 words
- Poetry: <24 lines
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- Context:
- Location: If possible, writing should be relevant to (or better yet, located in) the Willamette Valley and surrounding PNW.
- Time: Writing should be contemporary, and if not, historical pieces should ground themselves in modern relevance.
- ***Priority for publishing will go to submissions with local and timely themes.
- On artificial intelligence: We are strongly against the use of AI in Dissonant Times, and reserve the right to refuse to publish any writing or art submissions our editors suspect to be produced by AI programs.
- Let us know if there are specific things you do or don’t want feedback on before publishing. Our practice is to take all submissions to a collective editing session, and to return pieces with edit suggestions to the authors before publishing, so let us know ahead of time if you aren't open to edits.
- Advice for any contributor:
- Have someone read your piece and give feedback prior to submission.
- Read it aloud yourself!
- Have someone read your piece and give feedback prior to submission.
Note: Please expect to correspond with the editing team in the days following the submission deadline if your submission is selected for publication but requires edits. After receiving feedback, please resubmit final drafts by no later than the last Thursday of the month, as our issues are released on the last Sunday of every month.
eg. If the July issue comes out on Sunday, July 27th and we asked for edits following the submission deadline, please have your final draft into us by Thursday, July 24th.
Submission FAQ
No-No’s
- Political endorsements or advertisements for politicians
- Bigotry of any kind
- Sweeping generalizations or baseless claims
Advertising
- We're open to advertising from local businesses and nonprofits. For advertising submissions, email the editorial team directly: editor@dissonanttimes.org
Formatting
- Fonts and font sizes will be adjusted to fit our style guide
- If there are specific spacing or font aesthetic choices made for an intended impact of the submission, please indicate that to us via email: editor@dissonanttimes.org
What if I want or need edits on my submission?
- You will receive editing suggestions typically within 4 days after the submission deadline
- We ask that you review the suggested edits, make changes, and resubmit your piece to us no later than the last Thursday of the month
- eg. If our July issue comes out on Sunday, July 27th, please have your final draft into us by Thursday, July 24th
- Because of our culture of participatory journalism, we really want to work with you on publishing your piece! Let us know how we can make the process more easeful for our contributors despite our small team. We welcome your feedback and hope you welcome ours 🙂
Fact Checking
SOURCES
- Name human sources (first & last name) and provide context for their credibility and relevance for the submission.
- If a source requests anonymity, please still provide their name to the editorial staff and explain in the article why the source must be kept anonymous.
CITATIONS
- Please cite from credible sources, such as peer-reviewed research, accredited news outlets, etc.
- If the source material is lengthy (e.g. a government or NGO report), please provide a page number where the information is listed to save the editing staff a lil time!
- We prefer and encourage including external links to sources to back up any claims made in the submission.
- Please include these as embedded hyperlinks in the document you submit to us
- Please also provide some key words or phrase next to links at the bottom of the document
- Ex: “Protest shuts down I-5 South” https://eugeneweekly.com/2024/04/15/protest-shuts-down-i-5-south/