The Virago Submission Guidelines

Share your story. Raise your voice. Write for us!

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. — Anne Lamott

Updated January 1, 2023, by Suzanna Quintana, editor-in-chief

We are accepting new writers!

*Please read through our formatting and submission guidelines if you would like to become a writer for The Virago.

The Virago is a publication by women, about women, and for women. We write about our personal experiences and pass on our wisdom for surviving and thriving in life.

We believe all women have a right to tell their stories, so our mission is to lift women’s voices through a diverse, inclusive, and intersectional lens.

We invite you to join us!

We are looking for interesting, expressive, and evocative articles that relate to women. But we want more than that. We look for articles that read well, adhere to our formatting guidelines, and are engaging for the reader.

We have very strict standards and will automatically reject articles that don’t meet those standards so please read through our entire guidelines.

Following Medium formatting guidelines, proper grammar, spelling, and good writing are a big deal to us. If you are a new writer, please make sure you understand Medium formatting and edit your article for errors before submitting.

First:

If you would like to be considered as a writer for The Virago, you must have a Medium membership. If you aren’t signed up for one, click HERE to join.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

We are interested in stories about women that relate to:

feminism, equality, relationships, dating, trauma, abuse of any form, addiction, grief, loss, mental health, family, motherhood, creativity, philosophy, mindfulness, spirituality, humor, parenting, self awareness, psychology, sexuality, LGBTQIA issues and community, society, culture’s impact on women, politics and law as it relates to women, art, creativity, inspiration, physical health, growth, empowerment, history as it relates to women

What we don’t publish:

poetry, open letters, rants, politics (unless they apply specifically to women), erotica, series articles…

To become a writer for The Virago, please follow these steps:

1. Read all the submission guidelines and decide if you believe you’d be a good fit for The Virago.
2. Submit a draft only (not a published article) by emailing the link for it to [email protected]
3. In your email, please put “Writer request” in the subject line.

If you do not submit a link to a draft with your request to write for The Virago, you will not be considered as a writer.

We cannot emphasize this enough: Your draft is the most important part of your request. It is your resume to show your writing, thus we will read it and decide if your draft is an article we’d like to publish in The Virago.

Before you submit your draft, please ensure that it is grammatically correct and without spelling errors, that it shows you’ve read our submission guidelines, and that you understand and abide by Medium’s formatting rules.

We have strict guidelines for submission and we are rigorous with accepting writers who fit with our publication. We don’t want to discourage you from submitting an application, but please make it your best work.

If you haven’t heard from us after a couple of weeks to let you know you’ve been added, then you may conclude your application was not accepted. You may always reapply, but we recommend you get a few more articles published and become more familiar with Medium’s formatting guidelines before resubmitting.

*Please don’t ask if we’ve reviewed your submission in the comment section of this article.

Our Submission Guidelines for new and established writers:

1. Your Medium account should have your name (real or nom de plume), a bio, and a picture of your choosing.
2. You must submit a draft only. We will not accept pre-published articles.
3. Read Medium Rules and Medium Curation Guidelines prior to your submission.
4. Format your article for Medium. This article by Casey Botticello is an excellent resource.
5. Have a clean title and subtitle to fit Medium’s formatting guidelines. All titles must be in “Title Format” and subtitles/subheadings in “Subtitle Format” without trailing punctuation. For help with titles, use https://capitalizemytitle.com
6. Send us your article free of major grammar and punctuation errors. We recommend editing your articles through a grammar program such as American Grammarly or Hemingway. If you’re a new writer, a premium version is the better option. We will send back articles that have not been edited for grammar and punctuation.
7. We don’t accept duplicate articles that have been published in the past, even if they are “slightly changed.” Do we need to emphasize this? YES. Because we’ve had this happen. Duplicate articles will get you kicked off Medium for good. Don’t do it.
8. No links to third-party or branding sites. This includes no images with branding or links to third-party sites. We will reject any submissions that appear as promotional articles.
9. We do not allow Drop Caps or Kickers.
10. No emojis or text emoticons in your article.
11. Credit your images. The Virago will return your story if you haven’t given your images the proper credits with a link. We recommend Unsplash or Pixabay. Do not use images that are proprietary or that you haven’t received permission to use. Do not use images that directly take the reader to a marketing website, or use an image that shows branding. If you want to use your own images, please credit them to “author’s image.”
12. You must tag your submission with at least one of these: #relationships, #mentalhealth, #self, #tellyourstory, #culture, #abuse, or #feminism. You have up to five tags for each of your articles, so make sure at least one of the above tags is included, otherwise your article will not show up in our feed.
13. The article must relate to women, either a personal story, a story about women, or any type of article women can benefit from.
14. We don’t support “Trigger Warnings” in articles. This may seem unusual for society’s current climate, but we do not believe a trigger warning at the beginning of an article is helpful and it takes away from the story. A title and subtitle are sufficient, as they define what is in the body of the article, and in itself should give a heads up to readers. If you submit an article with a trigger warning, it will be sent back to you.
15. We don’t allow rants, strictly political articles (unless it relates to women’s rights or gender equality), racist or hate articles. This includes gender-hate articles and specifically male-hate articles.
16. Do not submit articles that are strictly marketing, affiliate marketing, or Call To Action (CTA). These submissions will be rejected. We allow a short CTA that promotes the writer only, such as a newsletter or website link at the end of the article. Medium is very strict about this practice and has been known to delete writers who showcase articles that have affiliate marketing links.
17. WE DO NOT ACCEPT “Final Thoughts”, “Conclusion”, “Takeaway” OR ANYTHING SIMILAR AS ENDINGS TO ARTICLES. We want our writers to be more creative with their endings without summarizing what they have already written about. This isn’t a college paper you’re writing.
18. Your article should have a creative ending for the reader. Make your piece and conclusion intriguing, readable, and with a human connection. If you write about a problem in your article, give your ending a conclusion that is helpful for the reader. Know your reader and what they want from you.

The biggest mistakes we encounter with submissions are:

1. general formatting,
2. Title/Subtitle formatting, and
3. using pull/block quotes.

Read these three articles below before you submit your draft with your request to write for us. These three articles will help with your submissions and by following these guidelines, you will eliminate 99% of the reasons why your article will not be published:

• The Best Medium Article Formatting Guide by Casey Botticello
• Title and Subtitle Mistakes Most People Make on Medium by Massúod Hamat
• Medium Block Quotes and Medium Pull Quotes by Casey Botticello

Submitting your articles for editing and publication (once you have been accepted as a writer)

1. Go to “Edit” on any story you wish to submit, click “Add to Publication” and select “The Virago”
2. Be patient. All of our editors are volunteers and have daytime jobs. Give us at least 48–72 hours for us to start editing your submission.
3. We will either: 1) publish your article, 2) make some edits and leave a note on your draft for you to correct, 3) let you know your article needs some major work and release the article back to you with a request to resubmit after correcting, or 4) let you know if the article does not fit with our publication.
4. ***Do not remove or delete an editor’s private comments on your draft. The editors use their comments as references.
5. Our editors are highly skilled writers and editors. If you disagree with the editor, please be respectful and attempt to work cooperatively with them. They are there to help make your article of high quality and shine through the thicket of Medium. Adversarial communication will likely have you removed as a writer.
6. If you have been requested to edit your article, please complete this in a timely manner. Please complete your edits within 48 hours or your article will be taken off the draft list. Communicate with your editor once you’ve made edits so the editor can review and publish.
7. Your editor may also make some edits to the article as they see fit. Know that your article may be up for editing by your editor, and by submitting your article you are aware and agree to any minor edits that The Virago editor makes.

We look forward to your submissions!

For any questions regarding submissions, draft links, and/or to apply to be a writer, please email Suzanna Quintana, editor-in-chief, at [email protected]