How to Write for New Worker

New Worker is the official publication of the Communist Workers’ Platform USA. Our content is sourced from not only the CWP membership but also the broader New Worker readership. You don’t need to be a professional writer, artist, or anything to publish your work with us. So long as you’re not openly bourgeois or reactionary, anyone can submit their writing to us (though we reserve the right to criticize that work).

That said, if you’ve never written anything for a publication before, you may be uncertain of how to proceed. Worry not! Below, I provide a step-by-step guide on how to write and get your work published in New Worker. Though it is by no means comprehensive, it will surely—hopefully—help the novices among you get the creative juices flowing, so that you can contribute your own efforts and ideas to the task of building a communist newspaper.

1. Pick a subject to write on

If you already have a subject, you can skip this step.

Picking a subject is easier said than done, unfortunately, for there are countless many things going on in the world at any given moment, and choosing just one topic to write on may feel overwhelming. To narrow things down, start by considering situations and events going on in your own life. Is your workplace trying to organize a union? Have the police been cracking down on the homeless population in your area? Are the prices of basic necessities going up? Any situations or events that can be traced as a consequence of the capitalist system is fair game. Talk to your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers if you have to, ask them if anything’s been going on that they’re concerned about.

In the unlikely event that you can’t find anything, though, then just start casting your net wider. Scan news headlines and social media online, find out what’s going on in your state, or your country, or internationally, and see what catches your attention. There’s a decent chance that, whatever you stumble upon, it hasn’t been discussed yet from a Marxist viewpoint.

If you need more help narrowing down a topic, then consider the following (incomplete) list of the kinds of writings that New Worker will accept:

• •News. Write about an event that’s being reported on in the bourgeois media, from a proletarian perspective.

• •Local News. Write about an event going on in your local area, especially if it’s impacting workers.

• •Proletarian News. Write about an event relevant to labor organizing and the international communist movement.

• •Social Issues. Write about an event impacting groups that face increased exploitation or oppression as a consequence of the capitalist system.

• •Culture and Media. Write about a book, movie, album, game, TV/web series, or any other artwork or media, whether popular or obscure, from a Marxist perspective.

• •Science and Technology. Write about a scientific concept, or any recent development in science and technology, Marxistly.

• •History. Write about an event, period, person, or movement relevant to the history of class struggle (which is all history).

• •Theory. Write about Marxist-Leninist theory. Be prepared for a response if we decide you’re promoting opportunism.

• •Polemics. Write a critique of an idea, person, or organization hostile to working-class interests. Channel the spirit of Lenin.

• •Creative Writing. Write a brief piece of proletarian literature, perhaps a poem or a short story, or even a longer story if it can be serialized.

• •Experimental. If you have an idea for a writing piece that isn’t covered by anything listed here, go for it! The worst thing we can do is reject it and call you a revisionist.

2. Research your chosen subject

Unless you’re writing fiction, you’re going to need to research the topic you’re writing on, to ensure that the information and ideas you convey are accurate and grounded in reality. Don’t just write based on what’s in your head, find articles related to your subject, find out if your thoughts and theories are supported by evidence. Take notes, save links, and write down references. Even if you’re writing fiction, you ought to consider doing some research, if your story is even somewhat realistic. Remember, we’re not a vibes-based publication, we are scientific socialists!

I can’t really say I’m an expert on researching, though. However, I can at least point you to some helpful resources:

• •Wikipedia. As if anyone doesn’t know about Wikipedia, but I might as well mention it. Whenever something happens anywhere, you can be reasonably confident that a Wikipedia page will pop up discussing it shortly afterward. Just remember that Wikipedia itself should never be used as a source, since essentially anyone can edit each page. Rather, make use of the references and links listed at the bottom of each page. And don’t limit yourself just to Wikipedia, there are many other useful resources available within the broader Wikimedia umbrella. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a more proletarian online knowledge base, consider giving ProleWiki a look.

• •DeepL Translator. Or any machine translation service, really, though DeepL seems to be the best one available right now that isn’t owned by Google or Microsoft. Not every text has a translation readily available in your language, not even if that language is English. Machine translation isn’t perfect, but it can at least help you get the information you need.

• •Internet Archive. A huge number of digitally scanned texts can be found here, and most can be downloaded, though some can only be borrowed. Additionally, it also hosts the Wayback Machine, which can be used to save and access webpages that may no longer be available on the original site.

• •Marxists Internet Archive. Similar to Internet Archive, but specifically for Marxist texts. Very useful for researching Marxist theory and the history of the communist movement. Be warned, though: the owners are Trotskysists, and Trotskyists love HTML (it’s their favorite thing, after splitting).

• •Your local library. To the chronically online, this may sound like a meme, but public libraries really are still useful for conducting research, especially if you’re looking for texts that aren’t available anywhere online. Many community projects and activities also tend to use libraries as meeting places, if you’re looking into local stories to report on.

3. Write a draft

Now that you’ve researched your chosen topic, it’s time to start writing. Though the process itself will vary depending on the kind of work you’re writing, there are a few steps which are basically universally applicable.

First, make an outline. Rather than jumping right into writing, you should first plan out what you’re trying to write. Write out all of your ideas as a simple bulleted or numbered list, don’t even bother with complete sentences. Read through the list, edit and rearrange it until each point logically flows from or builds on a previous point. If you need a more detailed guide, I might recommend this one.

Second, write a first draft. Using your outline for reference, start turning your list items into sentences and paragraphs. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar at this stage, just focus on writing out the basic ideas you’re trying to convey. If you’re having trouble finding the words, try to imagine yourself having a conversation where you’re explaining your ideas to another person. Even if it’s awkward, just write it down, you can fix it later. Try not to stop writing until you’ve finished.

Third, revise your draft. Now that your creation is fully-formed, you have to go back and clean it up. I don’t just mean spelling and grammar, you have to find and cut out anything that doesn’t work, add new phrases and ideas that you hadn't considered before, make sure everything is interesting and makes sense. Once you’ve done that, go away for a while, then come back and revise your work again, now with fresher eyes. Repeat that until you have a draft you feel comfortable showing to random strangers.

4. Submit your final draft for editing and publication

Congratulations! You now have a final draft worthy of New Worker. The last step, and the easiest, is to submit your work to us for review. At this time, the only way to do that is to email us your work. Our current address is NewWorkerUS@proton.me. In your email, please use “New Worker Article Submission” as the subject, and be sure to include the following:

• •The title of your work.

• •The name you wish to publish the work under.

• •Your work, preferably attached as a [.docx] or [.odt] file.

• •Any images you wish to feature, preferably included within the attached document file.

• •Indicate whether your work is intended for publication online, in print, or both, and also whether it is time sensitive (i.e. if it needs to be published on or by a certain date).

Once we have received your submission, we will review it and respond to you within three days, either accepting it, rejecting it, or sending it back with suggested edits for you to approve or refuse. If we accept your work, and unless you indicated otherwise, expect to see it published online within a day.

5. Profit

Well, not really. We would like to pay you, but right now we can’t even afford to pay ourselves. New Worker is very much still in the early stages of its development, and we are still a long way off from financial viability.

In any case, we are communists. While money is still important for survival under capitalism, it’s not the point. The point is the project of building the revolutionary working-class movement, of rebuilding the Communist Party in the United States—the only force capable of smashing the capitalist-imperialist system and establishing socialism-communism. Whatever else happens, comrades, know that your work, however small it may seem, meaningfully contributes to that project.

Working writers of the world, unite!