Commonweal welcomes original manuscripts dealing with topical issues of the day on public affairs, religion, literature, and the arts. Articles fall into three categories, and should be submitted for the category they match:

• Short Takes, running from 1,000 to 2,000 words, are brief and reportorial, giving facts, information, and some interpretation behind the headlines. When considering a topic, please keep in mind that our turnaround time for articles is 6-8 weeks.
• Features, running from 2,500 to 5,000 words, bring new information or a different point of view to a subject, raising questions, and/or proposing solutions to the dilemmas facing the world, nation, or Church.
• Last Word columns, running from 750 to 1,500 words, are more personal reflections on some aspect of the human condition: spiritual, individual, political, or social. We do not accept “Last Word” submissions exceeding 1,500 words.

Commonweal does not accept unsolicited book or film reviews.

Articles should be written for the educated general reader. While we welcome submissions about any aspect of the Catholic Church and its intellectual tradition, we are not a devotional magazine; nor is our primary focus the inner workings of Catholic institutions (including the Holy See). 

The best way to get a sense of what we’re looking for is to read what we've recently published. Commonweal articles tend to be argumentative but not vituperative. We look for submissions that advance the discussion of important issues rather than repackaging conventional wisdom or dressing intellectual fads up in Catholic jargon. 

Please submit your article as a Word document.

Poetry:

Commonweal is not currently considering new poetry submissions. We are still reviewing all the poems that have been already submitted; if you have not heard from our editors, your poem is still under consideration.

Artificial-intelligence policy:

Commonweal fosters rigorous and reflective discussions about faith, public affairs, and the arts, centered on a belief in the common good. For such discussions to exist at all, our readers must be able to trust that the articles they are reading, considering, and engaging with are written by humans. 

For this reason, Commonweal does not publish articles that were written with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) at any stage of the composition process. This means that:

• authors may not use AI to generate the text of an article or part of an article
• authors may not refine, rephrase, streamline, reorganize, or proofread their own writing using an AI tool that regenerates text
• authors may not use AI to outline, organize, or generate ideas or arguments
• authors may not use AI to translate articles written in another language into English 

Authors are permitted to use AI to:

• research the topic of their article, using tools such as Google Gemini and others, that provide clear links to their sources. Authors are responsible for clicking through to these sources and manually verifying the information they encounter.
• transcribe interviews or other audio 
• translate from other languages for research purposes only

Commonweal may use AI-detection software when evaluating submissions.

If a published article has been determined to violate our AI policy, Commonweal reserves the right to retract the article.

Please note:

• Please allow 8 to 10 weeks for a response to a manuscript, though occasionally response times may be longer, including over the Christmas/New Year holiday.
• Payment for articles is made on publication, and Commonweal customarily retains the copyright on all published articles.
• Due to the high volume of submissions, we will not be able to provide feedback on pieces we do not accept.
• Please only submit one article at a time.
• We accept simultaneous submissions. If your submission is excepted elsewhere, please withdraw it from consideration.
• If the article is time-sensitive, you can send a pitch to editors@commonwealmagazine.org. Please do not submit pitches to Submittable.