You write it
Anything from four hundred words to twelve hundred. Shorter pieces run inside; a longer one can lead. Plain text in an email is perfect — no formatting to worry about, and no template to fill in.
For contributors
Send us a piece.
Every issue is written by people who sat down during the week and wrote something worth handing to a stranger. There is no editorial board and no house style to imitate — write it in your own voice and we will set it in ours.
It reaches us by Tuesday
The issue is set on Wednesday and goes to press Thursday night so it is in the shuls before Shabbos. Anything that lands after Tuesday goes into the following week rather than being rushed.
We set it, whole
Your piece is typeset into the booklet with its own rank, headline, byline and photograph. Nothing is cut to make the page fit — when the copy is long, the design gives way, not the writing.
It prints, and it stays
You see a proof before it goes to press. Then it prints, it goes out free, and it keeps its own place in the archive on this site — headline, byline and all — for as long as the archive exists.
What a piece needs
The same furniture every printed article carries
A headline and a byline
A title of your own choosing and the name you want printed under it — "Rabbi Avrohom Jacks", "Reb Yacov Aboudi", however you would want to be introduced.
A section
On the parsha, mussar, avodah, reflection, or parsha insight. If you are not sure which, leave it and we will place it where it sits best in that week's issue.
Hebrew, written out
Type the Hebrew as Hebrew, pointed if it should be pointed. It gets set right to left inside a page that reads left to right, and we check every posuk before it prints.
Subheads, if it is long
Two or three short headings break up a long piece and give the reader somewhere to rest. Mark them however you like — a line on its own is enough for us to find them.
One line worth pulling out
Most pieces have a sentence that carries the whole thing. Tell us which one and it gets set as the pull quote, in italic between two hairlines.
A photograph of you
A clear headshot, once. It sits in a gold ring beside your headline and is reused every week after that, so you only ever have to send it one time.
Send it
Nothing is stored by this page
One more thing
We don't trim.
It is the oldest rule here and it has never been broken: when six pieces arrive for four pages, the type size gives way, the cover picture gives way, the sponsor band gives way. Your words do not. Write the piece you meant to write.