For Contributors

How To Publish With The Marginalia Review of Books

Marginalia‘s mission is to use the two great knowledge technologies of the modern world, the internet and the research university, to solve the crisis they have created: the fragmentation of rigorous knowledge from human meaning.

Marginalia combines the virtues of the university and the internet to create new forms of critical knowledge that intersect journalism, scholarship, and public discourse, providing a new digital commons for conversation about the most important subjects, from science and history to art and religion.

MRB commissions contributions but the editors are equally interested in hearing from you about those pieces that demand to be written. The editors welcome proposals for book reviews, essays, interviews, and op-eds.

Please see below for detailed guidelines.

Forums: Our forums are used in classrooms across the world and have been solicited for publication. For the complete forum guidelines, click here.

Reviews: We seek reviews that are accessible, intelligent, in-depth, and keep the larger context in view. For the complete review guidelines, click here. 

Essays: We seek essays that situate a thesis in a larger intellectual and cultural context. Essays are not narrowly focused academic articles.  For the complete essay guidelines, click here

Marginal Notes: Marginal Notes are shorter and occasional pieces published on timely topics. If you are interested in submitting a note, please submit a pitch or draft of  750-1500 words to themarginaliarob@themarginaliareview.com with Marginal Note as the subject line.

________________________

What to Expect after You Submit

All contributors should expect to enter the editorial process with the editorial team, which usually includes multiple rounds of edits. In general, we rarely reject pieces that have made it through our revisions. However, the decision to publish rests exclusively with the senior editorial team, and pieces may be rejected at any point in the editorial process. Additionally, all publication decisions about layout (especially images) and titling rest with the senior editors. All pieces are assigned an editor for the duration of the acceptance process. Once accepted for publication, the senior team reserves the right to make any additional, final edits to web-galleys for review and publication.

*We typical respond to pitches within 1-3 months of submission.
*Please expect a 8-12 month release date from the time a draft of your review or essay is accepted.
*You may query the  publication status of any accepted draft after 6 months.

Archiving and Syndication

MRB supports the rights to one’s own work and encourages contributors to post their reviews on personal and institutional websites. Please include a link to MRB with a mention of the publication details clearly on the page. MRB publishes all works under a Creative Commons license that freely allows the sharing and distribution of all material links. This does not allow any website or blog to republish or reproduce the work as their own or to share the work without a link and redirect to MRB. The license prohibits modification and use for commercial purposes and requires crediting MRB. Our material may also be syndicated by third-party publications, which serves to extend MRB’s reach.