Submission Guidelines: Write for Gals Got Game!
Apply as a writer and submit your stories to Gals Got Game, a Medium publication focused exclusively on women’s sports
Submission guidelines for GGG are updated as of November 2023.
How to apply as a writer
- Follow this publication.
- Comment on this post with your Medium handle. For example, “I’d love to write for Gals Got Game! My handle is @nicoladv.”
- In the same comment, tell us in 2–3 sentences about your favorite female athlete or women’s team and why you admire them!
We will respond and add you as a writer within 72 hours as long as you followed the instructions above.
How to submit a story to the publication
- On your story’s draft page, click the three dots on the upper right corner in between the “Publish” and notification buttons.
- Select “Add to publication.”
- Choose “Gals Got Game” then click “Select and continue.”
- Click the green “Submit” button — and that’s it!
Please submit only one (1) story per writer per day.
Once the story is submitted to Gals Got Game, we will review your submission and get back to you within 72 hours if your story is aligned with the overall mission of the Gals Got Game publication.
Expect to receive one of three potential responses:
- Outright acceptance — No edits needed. The story will be published on the Gals Got Game publication as soon as the editors are able to.
- Pending acceptance with private notes — This means the story aligns with the intent of Gals Got Game, but we request a few minor editorial changes to ensure we continue to publish high quality work. Please make the necessary edits within 48 hours; otherwise, the story will be rejected.
- Outright rejection — The story or piece is deemed not fit for the publication. Please feel free to send another story for consideration.
What we are looking for
We are looking for personal essays, op-eds, commentaries, and any other creative nonfiction work about women’s sports. We are also open to poetry and short fiction submissions, though we gravitate more toward nonfiction pieces.
As of November 2023, we accept both published and unpublished pieces, provided that the published story was posted directly on the author’s personal Medium page and not tied to any Medium publication.
What we publish:
- Professional female athletes and teams
- Women’s sports leagues and tournaments (e.g. National Women’s Soccer League, Women’s Super League, WNBA, WNCAA)
- Women’s sports media coverage
- Women’s sports investments
- Organizations promoting equity in sports and/or advancing women’s sports (e.g. Common Goal, Football for Her, Alex Morgan Foundation)
- Female and male allies that are big champions and advocates for women’s sports
- Personal stories involving women’s sports — as a fan, a viewer or attendee, a casual or amateur player, a coach, a stage parent cheering on your daughter during her volleyball match — you get the idea!
- Any other topic that ties back to women’s sports
What we do NOT publish:
- Professional male athletes and teams
- Men’s sports leagues and tournaments (e.g. NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS, Premier League)
- Women-centered topics unrelated to sports
- Any hateful, derogatory remarks, rants, tirades about women’s and men’s sports or any topic for that matter
- Plagiarized work
- Stories or articles generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Importance Note: We have zero tolerance for hateful content, plagiarism, and AI-generated work. Writers that violate these policies will be immediately removed as a writer from the publication.
Formatting, citation, and length guidelines
As a writer for Girls Got Game, you must adhere to the following guidelines to ensure that the publication continues to hold a high bar for quality sports writing.
- Make sure you have a catchy title, sub-title, and an accompanying image with proper source citation below the sub-title. Titles must use Title Case. Sub-titles must use Sentence case. You may refer to how this post is formatted as guidance.
- Always credit the image source, even if the image belongs to you.
- We also recommend adding alt text to images for an accessible reading experience for all Medium users.
- Please cite sources for quotes, statistics, and any references used, and add links to the original source/s. Submissions that make claims without citing or linking to sources will be returned to the writer for proper citation.
- Please submit stories with a reading time of 1–10 minutes. Stories exceeding 10 minutes in length will be rejected.
- Please reserve 1 out of the 5 available tags for either of these two topics: Sports or Culture. At this time, unfortunately, the Womens Sports tag only has 12 followers — but we hope that increases over time! Given this, we want to increase visibility for these stories by tagging them under topics like Sports and Culture that have a broader following. The remaining 4 topic tags are at your discretion, but please use all 5 to increase the chances of your story being seen by readers that are interested in the topics you’ve nominated.
Many thanks for your interest in Girls Got Game — please don’t forget to follow the pub! We look forward to reading your stories and creating a more equitable (sports) world with you. ⚡️
