Submit a Guest Post or Roundtable Proposal

Thank you for your interest in writing for Black Perspectives, the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). We are always looking for new essays on various aspects of global Black intellectual history, op-eds on current events, and creative pieces (note: we do not accept unsolicited book reviews or author interviews).

For Individual Blog Posts: We welcome essays from professional and freelance writers. Please send the first completed draft of your essay to editors@aaihs.org and be sure to include “Blog Post Submission” in your title. Please do not send us any email attachments (we will not open them); you must include your piece in the body of the email. We will do our best to review and respond to your piece within 2-3 weeks of submission. All guest pieces go through a peer-review process and authors should expect to revise before publication. We reserve the right to reject submissions that do not meet our expectations. If you have no desire to revise your submissions, please do not submit to this blog.

This is no drama space–if you are rude to any member of our team, your piece will not be published. We reserve the right to remove your piece from the publishing queue at anytime. 

For Submissions of Roundtables/Forums: We welcome proposals that feature multiple authors exploring a specific theme or event that relates to Black intellectual history. For all proposed roundtables or forums, the organizer(s) are expected to send the initial invitations and confirm all participants’ interest before contacting Black Perspectives. Forums run for a maximum of five days (starting on Monday and concluding on Friday), and should include no more than ten pieces within the entire series. Ideally, they include one introductory piece that runs on Monday and a conclusive essay that runs on Friday. The Black Perspectives editorial team can provide more information on this process after the proposed roundtable or forum is approved. Because of the high volume of pieces we receive on a daily basis, we ask organizers to submit their proposals at least 6 months before they hope to publish the forum.

Writers should carefully review other articles on the site to familiarize themselves with content and style. Because of the high volume of pieces we receive, we cannot guarantee a quick response or immediately confirm a publication date.

Please carefully review the guidelines below before writing your post or proposing your roundtable:

• All pieces must be exclusive to us. We will not consider reprints or pieces that are under review elsewhere. As a condition of publication, the author hereby grants and assigns to Black Perspectives any and all rights covered by the Copyright Law of the United States and those of all foreign countries in and to the work, including subsidiary rights and rights in any medium now known or hereafter discovered.
• Please note that we do not provide financial compensation to authors.
• All posts should be approximately 1000-1500 words long. Shorter pieces are fine. Pieces that exceed 1500 words will either rejected or sent back to the author until they meet the word count (This includes individual pieces within a roundtable or forum).
• Please remember that you’re writing for a general audience. Use clear and compelling prose. And please avoid jargon. If you must use it, please define it for the reader.
• Avoid the lengthy footnotes. You can and should feel free to use footnotes but we ask that pieces contain no more than five footnotes. We prefer that you make good use of hyperlinks. Rather than including multiple footnotes to several books, consider including fewer footnotes and a few hyperlinks directly to the books or articles you are citing. Please use brackets to indicate the inclusion of footnotes and hyperlinks i.e. [See www.aaihs.org] OR [See The Charleston Syllabus by Chad Williams, Kidada Williams and Keisha N. Blain (University of Georgia Press, 2016)]
• Keep the title short. Avoid the historian’s trend of including a very long quote in titles. And avoid using terms that readers will not understand (again, stay away from the jargon). Please note that your titles are suggestions only–the blog editors will make the final decision about all titles–NOT authors.
• Images. The editorial team will make the final decisions regarding any images attached to the post–NOT authors.
• Please proofread your posts. It goes without saying that we want to feature posts that reflect the high quality of the blog. When you are ready, please send us your post by clicking the “submit” button below. **Guest posters are strongly encouraged to join AAIHS if they are not already members. Joining AAIHS allows guest posters to create a profile on the site.