Submission Guidelines for Political Candidates

You are welcome to submit a written article about yourself and your candidacy if you are running for a seat in California or a federal seat. Sierra Thread accepts submissions from candidates of any or no party (Democrat, Republican, American Independence, etc.), as well as from nonpartisan candidates (e.g., school board candidates are nonpartisan).

Sierra Thread holds a strict word count maximum in order to be fair to all candidates. Also, you may only submit one article during the time of your candidacy (from when you announce through election day) about your candidacy. Additional articles are welcome as long as they do not mention your candidacy or your opponents.

Primary and General elections are considered separate election periods. After a Primary Election date has passed, you may submit another candidacy-related piece if your name will be on to the General Election ballot.

Writing

  • Preferred article length is between 750 and 1500 words. There is a strict maximum of 1500 words to be fair to all candidates.

  • Please provide sources for quotes and claims.

  • Plagiarism will not be accepted.

  • Your article may not be copyedited for clarity and grammar. Take responsibility to edit your work.

  • Please let us know the exact author name when you submit.

  • Submit one headshot as a square (1:1 ratio) and at least 500 pixels wide.

  • We encourage you to submit other images with your article, although it is not required. You must be the owner of the images. Images by others will not be used unless you can provide their written permission.

  • Please submit images as separate image files. You may embed images into your article file to show us where they might fall within the text, but you still must submit the images as separate files.

  • Do not use foul language.

Videos

  • The above points apply to videos. The word limit is the same; the number of words that you say in the video plus the words used to write any text that accompanies the video (apart from title and byline) count toward the word limit.