Please check our submission guidelines page to find out whether or not we are currently accepting submissions. As of August 27th, 2022, we are no longer accepting submissions. You can check our submissions’ page periodically or subscribe to our email list to be notified as soon as we re-open submissions.
At Yopp, we seek to help any group of people whose lives suffer from social, financial, & legal factors outside their own control and to educate others on how they can be part of that effort. We seek to reveal the hidden stories of the marginalized people to those who’ve been protected from oppression, and to validate the experiences of other marginalized people living those stories.
No single person can express the experience of every form of marginalization, which is why we rely on guest writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives to ensure that we represent as many perspectives as possible.
Above all, at Yopp, we seek to teach, to validate, to empower, and to expand the awareness of our audience.
If you are a writer that shares our values and you’re familiar with the kind of work we publish, read on to find out how you can submit your writing to be published on Yopp.
Guidelines on Writing for Yopp
Before you decide what you want to submit to Yopp, please, read the full submission guidelines. I can usually tell within the first few minutes of reviewing a submission whether someone read the guidelines or not, and if I can tell that you haven’t, there’s a good chance I won’t finish reading your submission.
Familiarize yourself with the style and content that’s typical for this blog and what topics have already been covered. You can get a quick overview of the content that is representative of this blog on “The Basics of Yopp” and you can view our history of published guest posts here.
Articles on Yopp are engaging, informative, thoughtful, and in-depth. The voice of Yopp almost always involves taking educational resources and information and infusing it with a personal narrative: From friendly to somber to sarcastic, every article is here to teach you something, and that teacher is a real human being.
Types of Content I’m Seeking
- Opinion pieces
- creative non-fiction and personal narratives
- content or resource recommendations
- opportunities to help others and specific calls to action
I do not want: Poetry, fiction, feminism 101, news reports, or listacles (unless you really have something unique and informative to say), a story that offers no takeaway or educational value for the audience.
Please ensure your article will fit into one of the following categories:
- Voices: A collection of personal stories and anecdotes showing the ways oppression affects us on a day-to-day basis, and connecting that to larger issues.
- What Can I Do?: Specific suggestions for behaviors and thought patterns you can change or actions you can take to help support marginalized groups.
- Media with Impact: Recommendations for articles, videos, books, comics, or other media that dramatically influenced my activism and awareness of the issues other people face.
- Bad Arguments: Critiques of common arguments used to excuse oppression and/or opinion pieces on how to expand past the dominating narratives in our society.
(I am not accepting submissions for Yopp Academy at this time.)
Specific Topics I’m Seeking
Yopp covers an extremely wide range of subject matter. Here is a list of perspectives and subjects that I would love to see covered on Yopp in the future:
Issues related to:
- The LGBTQIA+ communities
- Autism, ADHD, or cognitive-based disabilities
- Native and Indigenous communities
- Body positivity movement/fatphobia
- The unhoused communities
- Anti-semitism
- Police brutality and first-hand experiences of BLM or other protests
- Sex work and the people who do it
- Discrimination against non-christian religious groups
- Sexual assault against groups other than and in addition to cis women (ie: cis men, trans people, disabled people, inmates etc.)
Note: I will always prefer first-person perspectives in place of reporting on a community you are not a member of. Pieces that use this kind of outsider reporting will not be automatically rejected but will need to demonstrate a much higher level of skill, knowledge, and nuance to be published.
Parents of Disabled Children
Although one of the specialties of this blog is disability, I make a point to limit the number of stories from parents of disabled children that I publish.
The narratives around disability are currently oversaturated with the perspective of able-bodied parents who– while loving– can contribute to the societal view that disabled people are resource-draining, disempowered, and not capable of telling their own stories. For more information about the issues behind writing about your disabled children, please check out this article by disability activist Carly Findlay and this piece by disabled mom of a disabled kid, Meriah Nichols.
In the event that I choose to publish a special piece about the parent of a disabled child, please avoid any specific identifying information (ie: real name, height, weight, specific city they live in) and please get explicit permission from your children to share their stories. If you’re uncomfortable reading your article to your child, then I won’t publish it.
Ableist Language
Language is always evolving, especially within the context of social justice, but one front that mainstream activists have lagged behind on is eliminating ableist language. Phrases like, “It fell on deaf ears,” or “they turned a blind eye,” or “you can’t fix stupid” utilize diagnosable involuntary disabilities to express ignorance, neglect, and malice.
As a result, I don’t allow ableist language on my blog, except for educational purposes. Autistic Hoya has an excellent list of phrases to avoid and replace. If ableism accidentally slips through into your piece, upon acceptance, I will ask you to change it.
Submitting to Yopp!
I am currently accepting FULL SUBMISSIONS ONLY of new, unpublished material.
If you’re satisfied that your piece is a good fit, send your submission to “Yoppvoice@gmail.com” including the word “submission” in the subject line. Simultaneous submissions are fine, notify me if your piece is accepted elsewhere. I’m happy to publish previously unpublished writers or new writers and I put priority on pieces by folks from marginalized groups.
Your word count should be between 1,200-3,000 words and longer pieces are preferred. Please use US English spelling in full submissions.
Any attached documents should be in a shared google docs link or in a .doc or .pdf file. Be aware that all accepted submissions will be subject to editing before publication, but I am always willing to work with the writer to keep the spirit of the piece intact.
I aim to confirm receipt of all submissions within a week, and will usually respond with an answer 2-4 weeks after that.
What You Get in Return
Because the majority of my writers are going to be part of multiple marginalized groups and will often be sharing personal experiences of the way oppression has affected their lives, it’s important to me to pay for that work. Guest bloggers will be paid $150 for articles that are over 2,000 words and $125 for articles between 1,200 and 2,000 words. (Guest posts are paid for exclusively by external sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring a guest post, please contact me.)
You are welcome to include a bio with promotional links to your own content and social media in your published article, and all publications will be advertised to my followers on this blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
About the writer: Kella Hanna-Wayne is the creator, editor, and main writer for Yopp. She specializes in educational writing about civil rights, disability, chronic illness, abuse, and Dissociative Identity Disorder. Her work has been published in Ms. Magazine blog, The BeZine, and Splain You a Thing and in 2022, she released a self-published book of poetry, “Pet: the Journey from Abuse to Recovery“. You can find her @KellaHannaWayne on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Medium, and Twitter.Related Posts
At Yopp we're dedicated to providing educational material for social justice that emphasizes the individual experience of lived oppression and helps you understand the whole picture instead of memorizing do's & don'ts.
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