Submission Guidelines

Emerging Civil War is open to submissions from our readership. Articles of varied length/styles and photo essays are welcome. Please be advised that we DO NOT pay for any article submissions. We DO NOT pay if your submission is published on the site. Emerging Civil War is 100% non-profit. We do offer to promote you and your work to the best of our ability, while offering an outlet to explore new ideas and improve as a writer/historian.

We are looking to establish long-term relationships with writers who conduct excellent research and provide a fresh look at an old subject. Any articles that the author submits should offer a new interpretation of or newly discovered information on significant events.

Word count should be in the 800-1500 range for consideration. Please submit guest posts as Word Document attachments by email to emergingcivilwar@gmail.com with “Guest Post Submission” in the subject line.

If you are unsure about whether your idea is a good fit for Emerging Civil War, you can instead submit an outline of a proposed article. A member of our editorial board will reach out to you about whether it would be a good fit for Emerging Civil War, and whether to draft a full article or not.

Please Note: Occasionally, we run special blog series. You are welcome to submit an article on the topic, but unsolicited guest articles for a series are not guaranteed to be reviewed or published during the series. This is due to the high volume of editing involved in a blog series. If the article is accepted, we will feature it at a later time.

To be considered for authorship, please keep in mind the following:

• Any and all topics on the broadly-defined Civil War era are welcome (battles, Reconstruction, memory, homefront etc…)
• If submitting a proposal, be specific about what your article will focus on. Include an outline of the story idea and a professional biography. If submitting a completed article, please ensure you follow the guidelines below.
• All work must be original by the submitting author.
• Articles should not be of a general nature but should be written to be enjoyed by a general audience.
• Articles should have strong leads. The first few paragraphs must capture readers, hold on to them, and then propel them into a story.
• Submissions are subject to modification and editorial board review, with the editors having final approval.
• Previously published work may be considered as long as the author owns the copyright. Previously published submissions must be identified as such at the time of submission.
• All of our articles include imagery. Please include at least one image for use in the article, whether taken by the author, within public domain, or from elsewhere with clear publication permission. Any photos or photo essays should set the scene, showing specific items of interest as they relate to your narrative. They must come with captions and photo credits.

When submitting your proposed article, please ensure the following submission guidelines are adhered to:

• Please submit all articles in a titled Word or Google Docs document (not PDF). Be sure to put the author’s name at the beginning of the piece and that a short 1-3 sentence professional bio is included at the end. These will be removed for the peer-review process but will be used if accepted for publication.
• All articles should be no more than 1,500 words (including notations or bibliography).
• Each submitted article requires a title at the beginning of the document.
• All works must contain footnotes or endnotes using the Chicago manual of style or a section citing works referenced. Please use the footnote/endnote function of your word processor in creating these.
• Please include your proposed imagery and confirm that images are either in the public domain or that you have express permission to use them in an article for ECW. In your article document, please include a caption and citation for each proposed image. You can insert images into the article document, but we will also need separate JPEG files as attachments as well.
• Please submit guest posts as Word Document attachments or Google Doc links (where the document is shared so that anyone can edit it) by email to emergingcivilwar@gmail.com with “Guest Post Submission” in the subject line. If you are a returning guest author, you may instead submit documents directly to the editorial board chair.

After a completed article is submitted, authors will receive an e-mail acknowledgment from our editorial board. Our editorial board team will then complete a double-blind peer review of your submission. This involves:

• The editorial board chair will complete an initial quick review of your submission to ensure it has met our submission requirements. If not, your document will be returned so it can be completed.
• Anything identifying you will be removed from your submission by the editorial board chair, so members of the editorial board never know who you are.
• The editorial board members will complete an evaluation of your work. You will never know who on our editorial board looks at your work. In general, about 4 ECW editors will review your writing.
• Editors will make small editorial changes to help your submission conform to our own in-house style guide to help prepare it for potential publication.
• Editors will also make anonymous comments in your submission document, either asking for clarifications, pointing out inconsistencies, or asking questions.
• The overall review process generally takes about two-four weeks, depending on the current backlog of submissions the board is reviewing. Once they have completed their review, each editorial board member will return a recommendation to the editorial board chair, which will make a final decision regarding publication.
• In general there are four results of this double-blind review: article acceptance, provisional acceptance with minor revisions/clarifications, asking that an article be revised and resubmitted for further review, or rejection. In keeping with our mission to provide a platform for emerging voices, our board sees its role as a developmental entity. The board’s general approach is to try and find a way their way to “yes.” This often involves several rounds of revisions based on feedback provided by the board. While there is no guarantee of publication, if an author is willing to put in the time and make a good-faith effort at incorporating feedback, the board is willing to continue helping authors develop pieces.
• If your writing is accepted for publication, you will be asked to sign a form stating that the article is your own work and allowing Emerging Civil War to retain first digital rights. Once that is submitted and all questions/issues areas addressed, your article will be finalized for publication.

ECW is always open to considering new members. Interested authors should submit work within the usual blind peer-reviewed guest post process. The Editorial Board will review posts and offer comments for improvement and revision. After several posts are accepted by the Editorial Board and published, authors can be considered for official membership within ECW. Various criteria are used to impartially discuss potential members, and the Editorial Board encourages authors to consider submitting posts of varying lengths, unique approaches, and possibly a diversity of topics, especially if they are not often covered on the blog. Authors should express their interest to the Editorial Board after submission of multiple articles and will be asked to provide a cover letter later in the process if under consideration. Please email emergingcivilwar@gmail.com with any questions about the benefits and responsibilities of membership.

We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts or proposals for books in the Emerging Civil War Series, ECW’s collaborative series with Savas Beatie, LLC.

To submit a proposal for Engaging the Civil War, ECW’s collaborative series with Southern Illinois University Press, follow SIUP’s submission guidelines. However, rather than submit the proposals to the press, submit them to us here at emergingcivilwar@gmail.com.

If you have a recent book or article you would like to have reviewed, please contact Book Review Editor Tim Talbott at trtalbott@aol.com (ECW does not guarantee a review of unsolicited books, but we are happy to hear from authors and publishers.)

Accepted or requested books will be assigned to authors with expertise in the titles subject area. Books are reviewed on a first come first serve basis. Normally the review process can take up to 90 days.

A link to the published review will be sent to the publisher or author once it posts, provided we have received an email address.

We do not accept self-published books or fiction books for review.