Letters to the Editor

NACLA welcomes letters to the editor regarding material published in NACLA Report on the Americas and responses regarding material published on this website, www.nacla.org, in the past six months. Please keep letters brief (250 words or less) and to the point. NACLA reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity of style.

Letters can be emailed to editor@nacla.org. Please include a phone number and email address where you can be reached.

Submission Guidelines

NACLA Report on the Americas covers Latin America and the Caribbean from a progressive perspective. We are particularly interested in investigative articles on Latin American political and economic developments, as well as on U.S. policy toward the region. Our audience, while not made up of specialists, is politically sophisticated, demanding and well-versed in regional affairs.

Normally, each issue of the magazine consists of at least two sections: (1) a thematic "Report," comprised of three to five long articles (3,500 to 4,000 words each) and a number of sidebars, and (2) an Update section of two or three shorter pieces (2,000 to 2,500 words each), which are usually updates or analyses of regional events.

Most of the Report articles we publish are commissioned, although on occasion we consider proposals from freelancers for long, in-depth pieces, if they fall within the scope of an upcoming Report. We expect Report articles to be well researched and accompanied by appropriate references. Footnotes not only document sources—something very important in an oppositional magazine—but serve as a guide to further research for many of our readers, especially students. That said, we stress that NACLA Report is not an academic journal, but a political magazine trying to reach out to as broad an audience as possible. One dimension of this outreach is our attempt to provide our readers with lively and engaging political-economic journalism. The use of vivid anecdotes and brief profiles of relevant actors along with a number of illustrative examples and quotes from participants and observers all help to liven up an article. A list of planned Report topics along with assignment dates and draft deadlines is available from the editors.

Shorter "update" or "analysis" pieces are also frequently assigned, but just as often result from unsolicited queries. These feature articles should combine solid reportage, rigorous thinking, and lively writing. Feature pieces are not normally accompanied by footnotes, but the editors would appreciate knowing the author's sources, especially for claims and statements that might be considered controversial.

The editors prefer to receive queries rather than finished manuscripts. (Manuscripts will not be returned.) Queries should outline the writer's approach to a specific, narrowly defined topic and should demonstrate the style and approach you will take in the piece. Attach (brief) samples of your previously published writing, or links to online sources of these articles. (If you have not been published, your query letter will serve as a writing sample.) We suggest you review previous issues of the NACLA Report—available online here—to see if we have already published an article on a topic or angle before you query us. With only rare exceptions, we do NOT publish

• "Op-ed" type pieces on general aspects of U.S. policy that are thoroughly covered in our main Report articles (examples: The U.S. role in Colombia, the U.S. embargo against Cuba).
• Articles that were originally written as academic assignments or for publication in academic journals.
• Reports on conferences, meetings and the like.

Queries should be submitted via e-mail to the editor at editor@nacla.org. Again, queries are preferred to manuscripts (and we will respond to queries more quickly) and manuscripts will not be returned. Only exclusive submissions, please.

NACLA pays 12 cents per published word for all articles plus 10 percent. We use freelance photography, and pay $50/published photo. Photographers should submit a list of countries/themes/dates of their photographic work, and we will call when we have particular photo needs.