streets.mn needs your voice to carry out our mission to expand the conversation on transportation and land use. If you’ve ever thought about what makes your street wonderful or challenging, considered how cities grow and change, or ridden a bus or a bike, you could write about it for streets.mn.
Posts range from personal essays to technical analyses and combinations of everything in between. streets.mn welcomes all perspectives, from experienced professionals sharing their research to high school students’ observations; we’re particularly interested in posts with viewpoints not already represented on the site.
Most posts are about 500 to 1000 words long, but great posts may be shorter or longer. Your own images or properly sourced pictures, charts, graphs, and other visual aids will help you make your point clearly and concisely. We welcome one-off posts as well as new regular writers willing to commit to a biweekly, monthly, or quarterly schedule.
streets.mn uses WordPress to publish posts and organize our site. All submitted posts are reviewed and copy-edited by the volunteer editorial group. The editors ensure posts meet our common-sense Editorial Policy intended to foster active, civil conversation about cities, streets, and places and the people in them. streets.mn editors can also offer guidance on using WordPress, reviewing drafts, or troubleshooting posts.
To set up a contributor account, get more information, or ask a question about writing for streets.mn, contact the streets.mn Editor in Chief at editor@streets.mn.
Ideas for writing:
The Sunday Summary is a quick look at all posts published during the week; it’s a good resource for knowing what’s been written recently; posts responding to, extending, or challenging what’s been published are welcome. streets.mn Forum is another place to look for ideas; topics both general and hyper-specific are discussed here. Expanding an idea or conversation on the forum into a post is one way, but writing a summary of the week’s discussions on the forum (like the Sunday Summary for the forum) could be a regular post, too. Here are some more ideas:
- Maps, charts, or infographics with a short blurb about the source or impact
- A photo-essay about your walk, bike ride, bus ride, or road trip
- Explain and/or critique a project or political issue
- Dream a little about a place
- Tell your bike ride (crash) story or how a party made your place better
- Simple interview summaries
- Cover what’s in the news with humor or other fun take on issues
2016 Writers’ Workshop (Photo: Bill Lindeke)