• We prioritise submissions from people who were formerly incarcerated, people with friends or family in prison, and people who have otherwise interacted with the criminal legal system. We are particularly interested in publishing your personal stories and experiences, your creative writing and art, and your advice to people doing it tough. 

• We encourage journalists and talented writers to pitch to us. We want to publish hard-hitting investigations about prisons, law reform, the justice system and more. We want to report news that is relevant to incarcerated people and stories you think they might want to read. We want creative non-fiction stories about people’s entanglements with the system. 

• We also accept submissions from individuals and organisations with vital information that would be useful to people inside, such as content about staying physically and mentally healthy, legal topics, reintegration services and opportunities, and education. 

• You can read about all the sections in our paper here. Ultimately, we are guided by what readers inside want to learn, and we are open to your suggestions.

• We have a strong preference for original content, so if your piece has already been published elsewhere, we’re unlikely to use it.

• We receive a lot more submissions than we can publish, so we screen for quality and relevance. For this reason, we strongly encourage you to send us a pitch rather than a completed submission. 

• Unless it is a letter or a personal experience, we don’t publish opinion pieces. We’re happy for you to include experts’ opinions as long as they’re properly identified. 

• We don’t publish pieces that have been written by ChatGPT or other AI. We understand that you might use AI tools like Grammarly to help with the story, and that’s okay – we just ask that you disclose all use of AI to the editor when work is submitted. If published, we may include an editorial note to flag that AI has been used.

• Corrections departments in each state and territory are given one week to review the paper prior to publication. They screen for anything that, in their view, is inflammatory, may jeopardise the safety and security of the prison, or identifies individuals without consent. 

• Therefore, we cannot usually include any full names, identification numbers, addresses etc. We need to ensure to the best of our ability that all pieces of nonfiction are accurate, and that nothing we publish attempts to misinform or mislead readers. 

• We don't silence anyone's voices or stories, and so far we haven’t received any requests from Corrections to change anything substantial. We encourage diverse and thought-provoking contributions.

• The average level of literacy in the prison population is around Year 9. Therefore, it is important to be clear and concise with language. 

• We don’t publish overly academic articles, and we encourage using active, rather than passive, writing. Use short paragraphs and subheadings, and no jargon please!

• You can see our detailed style guide here. 

• We’re currently in the process of creating accessible content for people with low levels of literacy. If this is something you are interested in, please reach out to us!

• For letters, we publish anything from 200 to 600 words. Poems can be shorter, but they don’t have to be.
• For longer form pieces, like experiences, news and investigations, and information articles, between 500-800 words is good, but they can be shorter.
• If you’re interested in publishing a longer or multi-part story, let us know.

• We think you deserve to be paid fairly for your work, and we believe in full transparency. Although we are a small not-for-profit, it is a priority for us to pay for contributions. 

• For individual freelance contributors, we will usually pay $0.70c per word, up to $400 per story. This will be based on the number of words we commission for the story. 

• We may pay more if the story requires original research or reporting, and we may have alternative arrangements for our regular contributors.

• We won’t pay organisations for their articles, and at this stage we’re unable to pay writers inside prison for their work directly, though we are working on ways to compensate them.

• Once you’ve written the piece, we will work with you to edit it slightly, fix for grammar, spelling and punctuation, and make it simpler and easier to read, if necessary.

• This could include shortening it, moving sections around and cutting sections out. 

• Please try to be open to this process – it’s not a personal criticism of your writing, but a journey we go on together to make it the best possible piece for our audience.  

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The piece will then be published in About Time, both in prisons and online. Feel free to share it widely with your friends and family.

• As discussed earlier, you can see our detailed style guide here.
• Our Content Policy is available here.

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If you’re looking for inspiration, you can find all of our stories on our website. You could also check out the UK’s prison newspaper, Inside Time, as well as The Prison Journalism Project and The Marshall Project in the US.