Thank you for your interest in writing for Boston Review! We welcome submissions of essays and book reviews through this form. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

Boston Review is a general interest magazine of ideas, politics, and culture. We primarily publish long-form argumentative essays; substantial and ambitious review essays; political, social, and cultural analysis; and occasional reporting and commentary on current affairs. Most essays we publish are between 2,500 and 4,000 words.

We welcome submissions of complete drafts as well as of pitches, subject to these limitations:

• We do not consider unsolicited memoirs or personal essays.
• We do not consider op-eds or pieces written in an op-ed style.
• We do not consider previously published work, including work that already appears online on blogs or platforms like Substack.
• We do not consider proposals for work shorter than 2,000 words.
• We only consider submissions from people, not from AIs. Submit your own work, not the work of another person or of an AI.

1. We consider drafts between 2,000 and 6,000 words. If you submit a complete draft, please include a shorter summary or description of the piece in your cover letter.

2. If you are submitting a pitch instead of a draft, please describe your vision for the essay or review on the order of one whole single-spaced page, providing a mini-prospectus or précis of your thinking. Pitches should give enough substance to demonstrate your vision for the essay in significant and non-trivial detail—enough to illustrate the richness and originality of what you have to say, rather than simply assert that you have something to say. For example, please do not list questions or topics you want to explore; we want to know how you intend to answer or develop them. Pitches should also showcase your ability to write in an engaging and accessible style for a broad readership.

3. Our review essays mostly cover nonfiction (see our archive of nonfiction review essays here), though we also welcome submissions on literature, film, art, and culture. We seek review essays that go beyond simple summary or flat evaluation to make a compelling and original argument comparable to a feature essay. The nonfiction review essays we seek think with a book or books under review; they do not simply aim to summarize or draw attention to a new release. That means a review essay should have a clearly identifiable thesis of its own, and one of general interest.

Regarding reviews of literary works, we do not consider narrowly conceived reviews of a single novel, poetry collection, or film. However, newly published or released literary work can serve as a good occasion for a feature piece of literary or cultural criticism, a wide-ranging profile of a writer’s life and work, an assessment of a cultural or artistic trend, or an intervention in a broader literary, intellectual, or political debate that transcends narrow assessment or evaluation of a single work.

4. Regarding timing, we usually publish review essays only within six months of the publication or release date of the work under review. It is best to submit reviews as close as possible to the release date of the work under review, ideally in advance. By timing reviews in this way, we hope they have a chance to influence the terms of public debate and reach a very broad audience. But we make exceptions to this rule depending on the strength of a review or review proposal and the amount and quality of coverage a work has already gotten in other venues.

5. If you have published work elsewhere, please include links to examples of your other writing.

6. Submissions perform much better when they demonstrate familiarity with other work Boston Review has published.

Application deadline: November 1

Boston Review’s internship program offers immersive training in the fundamentals of editing and producing longform, ideas-driven magazine writing for a general audience.

Interns are paid $20 per hour and work part-time (20 hours a week), with required in-person work at our offices in Cambridge, MA. The spring internship runs from January through May, with some flexibility around exact start and end dates. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, especially those not well-represented in journalism and the publishing industry.

Details

Interns work closely with Boston Review’s small team to gain hands-on experience with the nuts and bolts of editorial work. 

Most time during the internship is spent fact checking and proofreading articles for print and web publication, reading and evaluating submissions, contributing to editorial meetings, and assisting with newsletter production and other editorial tasks. Other tasks may involve web production, art or essay research, website and archive maintenance, and other administrative, marketing, or publicity duties.

Eligibility

A bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant experience is required; the program is especially well-suited for graduate students. (Currently enrolled undergraduates should not apply.) Regrettably, we are not able to sponsor visas for applicants from outside the United States.

Prior editorial experience is less important than a strong interest in an editorial career and a commitment to learning the craft of making a good magazine. We seek interns with a demonstrated interest in current political and intellectual debates and exceptional attention to detail and facility with written language. Interns should be eager to learn and open to feedback, willing to engage with alternative views, and comfortable discussing complex—often very controversial—issues in a fast-paced, detail-oriented workplace.

Perhaps most important, applicants should read widely and be familiar with magazine writing of the sort that Boston Review publishes: primarily ideas-driven feature essays, longform nonfiction book reviews, and ambitious literary and cultural criticism (as opposed to op-eds, personal essays, and reportage). Please note that the program does not provide training or mentorship in interns’ own writing projects.

About Us 

Founded in 1975, Boston Review is a web and print magazine of ideas, politics, and culture. Independent and nonprofit, animated by hope and committed to equality, we believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world.

We are a small team with a big impact, reaching millions of readers each year. We take a special interest in matters of injustice, from war, human rights, and mass incarceration to poverty, inequality, and threats to democracy. We also take pride in introducing new voices to the public sphere and maintaining the tradition of rigorous editing long associated with the world of little magazines.

Interns are extremely valued members of the Boston Review team. Many have gone on to important positions in the publishing world, including at the New York Times, the New Yorker, New York magazine, n+1, Jacobin, The Drift, and Boston Review itself.

How to Apply

Please submit the following materials in a single PDF file:

1. A cover letter of no more than one single-spaced page. This is by far the most important element of your application. Please give us some sense of the ideas and issues that are most important to you and your academic or research background.
2. A résumé or curriculum vitae detailing your educational and professional background, no more than two pages.
3. The names, phone numbers, and email addresses of two references. Please specify their relationships to you. We prefer that at least one reference be a past or current employer.
4. Responses to the following two prompts:

• Select a magazine essay that was published within the last five years, and in no more than 300 words, explain what you found notable or compelling about it.
• In no more than 300 words, describe what you take to be the best possible objection to a view you hold, and defend your view by responding to the objection.