Write for Us

Contributing

Want to write for Nursing Clio? We’re eager to include new voices and welcome essays of 500–1,500 words on a wide range of topics. Pitch us by filling out the Pitch Nursing Clio form. Please note that we discourage pre-written essay submissions.

What constitutes a good pitch? We follow the AHA’s suggestions:

A pitch quickly and concisely establishes the nature of your essay, its relevance to NC readership, your own point of view, and the sources you will use. A pitch also demonstrates your writing style.

Pitches contain several key elements:

• The essay’s topic, the problem or conflict you’re trying to resolve, or the question that drove you to write about this subject. Good blog writing doesn’t just “cover a topic,” it tells a story: give us a taste of the story you want to tell.
• The reason why this story is worth publishing now. Does it connect to current events? Do you have a new angle on a familiar topic? Can you bring a personal perspective to an academic subject?
• Why Nursing Clio? We cover a wide range of topics, but the histories of medicine and gender are at the heart of our mission. How will your post fit into the big picture of Nursing Clio’s publishing? Why should our readers hear your story?

There are a variety of interesting pieces on the site, but if you think you might be interested in contributing and want to get a sense of our style and tone, we suggest you review our Style Guide and check out these examples:

Topical Essays

• Ayah Nuriddin, “The Black Politics of Eugenics,” June 1, 2017.
• Claire Sewell, “Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on The Golden Girls,” December 4, 2018.
• T.J. Tallie, “Asymptomatic Lethality: Cooper, COVID-19, and the Potential for Black Death,” June 8, 2020.
• Lance C. Turner, “Lizards and the Idea of Mexico,” April 12, 2018.

Personal Essays

• Lara Freidenfelds, “I May Not Heal, But I Will Live Better Thanks to Occupational Therapy,” June 8, 2017.
• Guest, “On Infanticide and Reluctant Maternity: Between Personal Testimony and Historical Sensitivity,” August 28, 2018.
• Molly Ladd-Taylor, “Dr. Fauci and My Mom,” April 14, 2020.
• Cassia Roth, “Burying the Dead, and Then Digging Them Up,” August 20, 2020.

Reviews and Interviews

• Laura Ansley, “On the Craft of Editing, Our Teachers, and Leaving Academia,” May 1, 2019.
• Jessica J. Hauger, “Colonial Politics are Reproductive Politics: A Review of Brianna Theobald’s Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century,” November 26, 2019.
• Evan P. Sullivan, “Civil War Disability in the Light and Dark: An Interview with Sarah Handley-Cousins,” August 6, 2019.
• Sarah Swedburg, “The Complicated World of Female Loyalism: A Review of Kacy Dowd Tillman’s Stripped and Script: Loyalist Women Writers of the American Revolution,” January 8, 2020.

Undergraduate Essays

• Dominique Cooper, “Tracing the Red in ‘Redbone’: Colorism and Misogyny in Black History,” September 23, 2020.
• Olivia Howard, “The Freshman Fifteen: A Stigmatized Phenomenon,” January 18, 2018.

About Nursing Clio

We’re an open access, collaborative blog project that ties historical scholarship to current political, social, and cultural issues related to gender and medicine. Bodies, sexuality, health care, medical technology, and reproductive rights play central roles in both political debate and popular culture. Our tagline – “The Personal is Historical” – emphasizes the fact that these issues don’t develop spontaneously; they represent ongoing dialogues that reach far back into the past.

Nursing Clio provides a platform for historians, students, health care workers, community activists, and the public at large to analyze, discuss, and debate these kinds of connections between the present and the past. We do publish long-form, scholarly pieces, but we also want to focus on shorter, historically-informed responses to the world around us — current events, music, film, television, sports, and anything else that intersects with gender and medicine. We want, ultimately, to create a balance between fun conversations, political debate, and serious scholarship.

We are an all-volunteer group, from our editorial team to our contributors. To learn more about Nursing Clio, see our about page or meet the NC team.