Submit a Manuscript

The National Women's Studies Association Journal is a peer-reviewed publication committed to providing a forum in which the research of feminist scholars, both established and new, results in critical dialogue. We strive to publish articles that further our mission of presenting interdisciplinary and multicultural feminist scholarship linking theory, activism, and education.  We invite submissions in all areas relating to Women’s Studies. Critical essays, reviews, archives, and reports that engage in a feminist perspective will also be considered. We seek submissions on topics such as:

Feminist pedagogy / Feminist theory and research methodologies, including global feminism / Gender, place, and culture / Women and science / Women and religion, including fundamentalism / Women, girls, and education / Ecology, ecofeminism, health and the environment / Feminist generations: the future of feminism, young feminists, children / Post-colonial studies /Women and the arts / Women writers: autobiographies and reflexive writings / Race, class, sexualities, and gender intersections / Women and the media /Women and disabilities / Women’s history / Immigration

For a sample article, please see Vivyan Adair's The Missing Story of Ourselves.

For any questions about the journal in general or about submitting, please feel free to contact the editor, Rebecca Ropers-Huilman.

Please be aware that we will not consider materials that are sent simultaneously to other journals for their publication consideration. If you feel that the NWSA Journal is the appropriate place for your manuscript, please refrain from submitting the article elsewhere until you have a response from us.

Submissions for regular issues should be prepared in the following manner:

NOTE: NWSAJ's guidelines have changed, as reflected below. In striving to be more earth-friendly, we no longer require hard copies of manuscripts.

  1. One electronic copy of your 20-30 page manuscript should be sent to Kathryn Enke at nwsaj@umn.edu.
  2. All identifying information should be removed, with the exception of the cover page, which should contain the author's institutional affiliation and contact information (including postal address, phone number, and e-mail address). Each cover page should contain the following acknowledgment: "This is a draft copy of a manuscript submitted to NWSA Journal. If it is accepted for publication, the copyright will be assigned to the publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press."
  3. Your copy should be submitted (to nwsaj@umn.edu) in three files as attachments: 1st file) Cover page; 2nd file) Abstract and keywords; and 3rd file) Complete manuscript. All files must be saved in Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf).
  4. All manuscripts must follow the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) author-date system with parenthetical citations and must be double-spaced. Please note: Do not use the endnote function in Word.
  5. A maximum of ten endnotes should be observed.

The editorial staff will read each manuscript to determine whether it should be sent out for review. Manuscripts that do not conform to CMS, or are submitted with identifying information or without abstracts, will not be sent out for review.

Submit a Book Review

Please note that we do not accept unsolicited book reviews or book review essays.

In writing a review for the NWSA Journal, please keep our guidelines in mind:

Please write in a language and style accessible to a diverse feminist readership, avoiding jargon, technical terms, and references that would be unfamiliar to those outside specific disciplines.

Reviews must be typed in Microsoft Word and doubled spaced with unjustified right margin. Please be sure to precede the review with double-spaced citation(s) in the following format:

Women's Work and Chicago Families by Patricia Zavella. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987, 191 pp., $24.95 hardcover, $8.95 paper.

Prices can be found by searching online for the list price at Amazon.com.

Please do not exceed your allotted word length (one book - up to 1,500 words; two books - up to 2,250 words, and 750 words for each successive book). Reviews that exceed the allotted length will, most likely, have to be shortened.

Along with your review, please submit a short autobiography. Include your position and institutional affiliation (if any), research interests and/or one or two key publications, and e-mail address. Unless you say otherwise, we will print your e-mail address at the end of your autobiography and invite readers to send correspondence to you.

Please e-mail your completed review as a Microsoft Word attachment to nwsaj@umn.edu.