UPDATED: February 18, 2024

Write with Us

Do you write lively, human-centered articles that give readers a deeper understanding of the human experience? If so, come write with us.

Our Mission

Our Human Family and OHF Weekly) are the newsletters of Our Human Family, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation with the vision to foster conversations about racial equity, allyship, inclusion, and equality. Our goal is to unite the world by dispelling the lie of race and the practice of racism and replacing them with the truth of love and racial equity.

Our Message

Articles published in OHF Weekly fall under this vision of racial equity, with well-written, fresh, lively, and human-centered creative nonfiction stories that give our readers a deeper understanding of the myriad manifestations of the human spirit.

To submit a draft to us for possible publication, follow these instructions:

• If this is your first submission, send us a submission packet.
• If you’ve written for us before, you know what to do.
• Write smart, engaging personal narratives.
• Submit new work — previously unpublished elsewhere.
• Follow our guidelines for style and submission.

Our Writers

Our Human Family writers are intentional in their message, careful in their craft, and have a public record of support for racial equity. We strongly encourage writers to have an active Mastodon account, as we use Mastodon as our primary channel of social media engagement.

Our writers share their first-hand experiences and musings as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), members of the LGBTQ community, People with Disabilities, or their allies, and include all who recognize and uplift the inherent humanity and equality of all human beings regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religious affiliation or lack thereof.

Submissions should have a point of view that supports marginalized people or that explores your personal journey out of a dominant-culture-biased worldview and offers insight to others who want to do the same.

Because of our non-profit status, we do not publish works that support or oppose a political campaign or candidate.

The Submission Process

First, Your Submission Packet

First-time writers must submit a submission packet before sending us a draft. Each item requested for your submission packet helps us better understand you and determine if your story is a good fit for Our Human Family.

1. Tell us your first and last name.
2. Bio. Tell us about you. Who are the people and what are events that shaped you into the person you are today? What is it about your point of view that makes you credible on the subject of racial equity?
3. Pitch. Send us a fifty- to one-hundred-word summary of your proposed article in narrative or outline form.
4. Samples. Links to three writing examples that showcase why you would be an integral addition to our writing team. If you do not have live links, include a PDF of your work.
5. Social Link. Link to your primary social media account. If you are active on Facebook or Instagram, include those links as well.

We’ll use the email address you send us your submission packet from as your contact email.

First-time writers, send your submission packet to submissions@ourhumanfamily.org with Submissions in the subject line.

We’ll review your submission packet and get back to you within three business days. If we accept your submission packet, we’ll notify you and add you as a writer to our publication.

Congrats! You’re ready to move on to the next step: writing and submitting your draft.

Your Draft

After we have approved your pitch, you’re ready to write your draft. Remember that we publish only original works — if your piece appeared elsewhere, or is substantially the same as a previously written piece, we need to know.

We value the well-written article. We look not only to the passion but also to the craft. Here’s what we are looking for in the structure of your draft:

Style and Format Follow The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) as a guide.

• Title case for the title of your article and any in-article headings.
• Bold and italic used sparingly. Do not use bold and italic together on the same word or phrase.
• Do not italicize long passages.
• Use pull quotes for short quotes pulled from within the article.
• Use block quotes for long quotes (more than ten words) from another source and include the link to the original source, and include the name of the person and the title of the work. We always check.
• Avoid writing paragraphs longer than 125 words as long paragraphs are difficult to read on mobile devices.
• Certain word forms are important to get right. We capitalize “Black,” “Brown,” and “Indigenous” when referring to people. When we use an identity term we attach it to a person, such as “Black lawyer” or “gay politician,” and never “the whites” or “the gays” and so on, so as not to objectify people. We use “enslavement” and “enslaved people” and not “slavery” and “slaves.” We do not want “trauma porn,” so we do not use words and images that trigger traumatic or painful emotions. We do not use derogatory terms for anyone.

Word Count

Articles should contain from 1,000–1,600 words. If your submission is longer than 1,600 words, we might ask you to cut sections. However, we have published longer pieces and will continue to do so if the work merits it.

Images

Submit a relevant main image with your article. While we might replace your image with our own, by including a main image you help us understand important themes in your article.

Use either use public domain images or mages from sites that allow free use, including Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash.com, Pexels.com, and Pixabay.com.

Main images should be bright and colorful. Landscape/horizontal orientation (as opposed to portrait/vertical orientation) is preferred. The center of an image should contain the most important element. And we shy away from images heavy on type.

Attribution

Always include the name of the photographer, where you found it, and link to the source. We always check to confirm the rights.

Tags

Choose three tags to help categorize your submission. Please leave two slots for our editors to use.

In-story links

Link to data, quoted articles, or supplemental information as necessary, but use as few links as possible, and link as few of the words in a phrase as possible.

Submitting Your Draft

Do not send us unsolicited submissions if you have not been accepted by us as a writer. First send us a submission packet. (See above for details.)

Before you send us your submission, take a step back, breathe, and then double-check it for clarity and accuracy. Run spell check on it. Run it through a grammar-checking program such as Grammarly or Hemingway.

Send your email to submissions@ourhumanfamily.org with Submissions in the subject line. Include the story as a Word.doc attachment.

We’ll review your draft and get back to you within THREE business days. Our response will include the next steps on how to work with us during the editing process.

Our Editing Process

Our Human Family publishes articles that are engaging, well-written, lively, and personal. This doesn’t happen by chance, and it takes the combined efforts of writers and editors.

Our editors will work with you to make your submission shine. The goal is to have the best possible writing on our site, so we will work with you to revise your writing as needed to bring it out to its most lively and freshest existence. You will always be given a chance to review our edits (unless you grant us permission to edit without confirmation).

We’ll explain the editing process to you in your confirmation email. We look forward to receiving your submission packet.

Love one another.

— The Our Human Family Editors

Clay Rivers
Editor-in-Chief

Sherry Kappel
Managing Editor