Writers' Gudelines

Wisconsin People & Ideas covers all aspects of Wisconsin thought and culture. It is published quarterly (December, April, July, October) by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, an independent, nonprofit membership organization founded in 1870 to gather, share, and act upon knowledge in the sciences and humanities for the benefit of the people of Wisconsin.

We publish articles in all areas of the sciences, arts, and humanities in Wisconsin, as well as fiction and poetry. Material should be geared toward an intelligent, but not necessarily academic audience. We do not publish footnotes in articles; please incorporate footnotes into the body of your article. Length of articles can vary tremendously. Please consult with the editor before submitting a piece. Time of publication is at the discretion of the editor, based on such factors as space and content balance. Published contributors will receive two complimentary copies of the issue in which the work appears. Additional copies may be purchased for $3 each.

Please send all submissions in electronic format. All paper manuscript submissions, or electronic submissions on CD, will be recycled, not returned. Do not send originals. For consideration, submissions must conform to the following criteria:

1. Double-spaced, 12-point font in RTF or Microsoft Word format submitted via e-mail as an attachment only-not in the body of an email-or on CD. Only poetry submissions will be accepted in print format.
2. Include author name, title of article or submission, and contact information including address, email, and telephone number.
3. Include a brief, 3- to 4-sentence author bio describing yourself and your accomplishments.
4. Attributions for all quoted material or page numbers in the body of the manuscript with a complete "works cited" page at the end. If your material is quoted from a review or advance copy of a book, please note this on your works cited page.
5. If possible, include all referenced material; i.e. digital images, transcripts, URLs of material quoted from the Internet, etc. The more information on your sources that you provide to us, the more likely it is that your article will be error free.
6. All image submissions must include citation and/or caption.

Contributors are expected to provide good contacts for artwork to accompany the article and, in some cases, help provide accompanying images. If permission to reproduce illustrations is required, the editor should be notified as soon as possible. In addition to nonfiction, we publish original poetry and short stories by Wisconsin authors. Fiction should be no longer than 5,000 words, and poems should be relatively short (no more than one page each). Please submit several poems at once if possible as we generally publish at least two works by the same poet.

Direct submissions, queries, and all other materials to:

Jason A. Smith, Editor
Wisconsin People & Ideas
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
1922 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53726
Phone: 608.263.1692 ext. 21
E-mail: jsmith@wisconsinacademy.org