Write for us
Every two months, we open submissions on a new online theme by sharing a letter, which writers can sign up to receive straight to their inbox by signing up to our mailing list.
We also host an open submissions period for every book we publish. These are paid publication opportunities, open to all women regardless of previous writing experience. The submissions process for our books operates separately to our online themes, details of which you will be able to find on our homepage.
When a writer submits to us, they always receive a response back. We offer in-depth feedback on a submission exclusively to the members of our Patreon.
How to submit
We accept all forms of writing: fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as everything in between. You can submit for our most recent theme through our online submission form.
Submission guidelines
- Please state the monthly theme in the title of your submission, along with the title and your author name.
- The format of your piece must be a Word document (.doc, .docx, etc).
All pieces must adhere to the following:
- Your submission must be of your own work.
- We do not accept simultaneous submissions.
- The title of the submitted piece must not be the same as the theme name.
- Please use UK spelling throughout and format your piece using single quotation marks for speech.
- We cannot accept any piece of writing that exceeds 2,000 words
- Your submission must not have been published on any other writing platform, aside from personal blogs and websites. If your submission has been previously published on your personal blog, please provide us with a link to the post.
- There’s no limit on how many times you can submit to DD, however, we cannot accept more than one piece per writer per month. The exception to this rule is a collection of poems, which we may be able to combine into one post.
What’s most important to us is the chance to read your work, so if you’re unsure if it’s right for DD, please do send it in – we’d love to hear from you.
Other platforms
DD was created as an inclusive and welcoming space. As a platform set up to champion the writing of others, we believe in the power of words – not only for their capacity to share stories, but also in the way that they empower the person who writes them.
We accept writing from all self-identifying women, transgender, nonbinary and marginalised people who identify with the experience of gender inequality.
We always want to publish diversely, and we’re especially keen to hear from women of colour and marginalised writers.
We hope that you feel comfortable sharing your experience and voice with us. If you don’t feel we are the right platform for you, here are a few of our favourite platforms amplifying marginalised voices:
ReWrite
Black Girls Write Too
clavmag
Burnt Roti
Black Ballad
gal-dem
Able Zine
Payment for writers
As DD continues to grow and expand, we are working tirelessly to get to a position where we can pay our writers.
All writers who are accepted for publication in our print collections receive payment. Though we do not have the funds to pay the writers we publish online as it stands, we believe that the space we provide for women to share their words is a valuable one.
Terms of Service for Dear Damsels
Unless stated, www.deardamsels.com (in this terms of service referred to as Dear Damsels) and/or its licensors and contributors own the intellectual property rights for content published on this website and materials used on Dear Damsels. All these intellectual property rights are reserved.
You must not use Dear Damsels in any way that causes, or may cause damage to the website or its contributors and readers, or in any way which is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful, or in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful purpose or activity.
In these terms of service, ‘your content’ means material that you submit to this website.
You grant Dear Damsels a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty free license to use, reproduce, publish and distribute your content in any existing or future media. Dear Damsels reserves the right to edit or remove any material submitted to this website, or stored on its servers, hosted and published on this website.
The writer retains full copyright of their work.
Your content must not be illegal or unlawful, must not infringe any third party’s legal right and must not be capable of giving rise to legal action.
