Guidelines

It helps to understand the general characteristics of working-class writing

Working-Class Writing is grounded in lived experience showing characters as human persons in a lived space,
depicting our daily life including actual physical work and how it shapes our lives.
It is written by, not about working people.

Working-Class Writing creates space for people to speak and represent ourselves,
it includes speech idioms and dialects, curses and blessings.

Working-Class Writing is communal in nature. The individual "I" is speaking for the collective "We."

Readers can recognize themselves in the writing; it gives validation to their own stories and culture.

Working-Class Writing gives language to human suffering and grief.
Economics forces are recognized thus giving validation to deep feelings often ignored by mainstream art.

Working-Class Writing has agency in the world, it tells or teaches us something and is useful.

Working-Class Writing includes forces of social and political history and their impact on human relationship.

Working-Class Writing challenges dominant assumptions about aesthetics. It breaks rules
or conventions of form in favor of verity of experience.

Working-Class Writing builds a consciousness of shared class oppression, denial of rights,
the exploitative nature of capitalism, and cultivates an ethic of militant class solidarity.

Working-Class Writing takes sides -- "Which Side Are You On?" it asks and then declares.


Poetry Submissions
Send no more than 5 poems.
Your name and address should appear on every page. Cover letter is helpful though not required. Self-addressed, stamped, size 10 envelope is required for response.

Prose Submissions
Short stories, essays and reviews are welcome. Due to space limitations,they should be 1,000 words or less in length. Writing should reflect a progressive working class perspective. Name and address should appear on every page. SASE required for response.

Send to Blue Collar Review P.O. Box 11417 Norfolk, VA 23517

Though it is not required, it helps to see a sample issue in advance to get a better idea of what we are looking for. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

Work not meeting guidelines may be returned or discarded.