Contribute

Red and Black Notes has absolutely no budget, and is in no position to pay writers. If for some reason you still want to pitch an article to us, read on.

Red and Black Notes is an anarchist-communist publication. We argue for anarchist-communist politics, and attempt to offer an anarchist-communist perspective on current issues and events.

We welcome unsolicited pitches within the scope of the politics and purpose of this publication.

Before writing anything for Red and Black Notes

Please discuss your idea with us first (@redblacknotes on Twitter). This helps avoid disappointment.

We generally will not re-publish something you have already published elsewhere. Where we republish content from elsewhere it is for a specific political purpose, not because the author has asked us to.

We prefer contributions in the range of 800 to 2000 words.

We like to receive submissions with:

as little formatting as possible (no images, indents, double spacing, etc)
single spacing after full stops
percent, one, two; not %, 1, 2
minimal use of footnotes where necessary, no Harvard.

Use clear, simple, and direct writing with a minimum of jargon.

Read George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language.

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

What to write

The kinds of things we are interested in publishing include:

Explainers on anarchist politics
“Why anarchists argue X…”.
Analysis on current events and issues
“Why is X happening, what does Y mean”
Reflections on organising
“What we tried, what worked, what didn’t, and what there is to learn”.
Reports from industry
“What is happening in X industry, why, and what needs to be done”.
Debates within anarchism and the left
“These people argue X, those people argue Y, this is why I think Z”
Reviews and summaries
“These are the major ideas in these books, their strengths and weaknesses, and what we can learn from them”.
Any form of serious engagement with working class strategy, tactics and issues.

We generally will not publish:

Fiction, poetry, personal narrative, or alike (there are better publications for these)
Email interviews (these are universally awful to read, do an interview then write an article)
Unedited university essays (anything you write for an academic context will likely need to be re-written)
Insurrectionary babble (you know who you are)

Irrespective of what we have written above, the editors reserve the right to publish or not-publish any content we see fit.