Submission Guidelines

In Plainspeak addresses nuanced issues of sexuality in a simple and accessible way. For us, simple does not mean simplistic, and nuance does not mean jargon or dense, academic writing.

In Plainspeak seeks to nurture a safe, inclusive, and positive space to generate awareness and conversation on difficult and sensitive issues around sexuality, and to promote Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), and wellbeing.

We mostly use Creative Commons images for our articles. If there is an image that has not been credited properly or if the image is not CC, please let us know, and we will either remove it or correct the credits based on what the owner of the image wishes. We want to thank all the artists/creative minds out there who share their content for free and make it accessible to a not-for-profit e-magazine like In Plainspeak. 

We request authors to follow the format specified below while sending in their submissions.

General Submission Guidelines

  • Only original and unpublished media will be accepted. In the event of your work being accepted for publication elsewhere, please inform us.
  • All the submitted articles are checked for plagiarism and will be rejected if found to be copied from other sources without due attribution.
    Plagiarism refers to intentional copying of others’ work without proper attribution or the copying of content without providing appropriate references.
  • Please address the mail subject as ‘Category, Issue – full name’, for example, ‘The ‘I’ Column, Power and Sexuality – (your full name)’ and email to – inplainspeak@tarshi.net. Along with your writing, please send us your bio in no more than 100 words.
  • Format: A Word document (doc or .docx) with English (UK) spellings. The font should be Times New Roman, 12 Point, and single-spaced. Word limit: 1000-1500 words
  • By sending us your articles to be published, you also give us permission to translate your work into Hindi, permission to use in print version or offline spaces. Please note that the Hindi translation of your writing may not be literal.
  • Please inform us if you would like us to update your bio.
  • We may share submissions on TARSHI’s social media platforms. Please let us know if you are comfortable with us doing so, and if so, share your social media handles for us to be able to tag you. 
  • Please send us your picture and any social media handles you’d like to share along with your article and bio.
  • As In Plainspeak is a not-for-profit magazine, we do not pay for submissions. We trust that this will be a useful platform to share your experiences and contribute your writing.
  • Deadlines: 15th of the previous month for the first issue and 5th of the same month, if submitting for the mid-month issue. Please look out for our Call for Submission posts on TARSHI’s social media for regular updates.

Any material that disrespects human dignity or offends people on the basis of caste, class, gender, race, religious affiliation, sexual and gender identities, or disabilities will be rejected. TARSHI also reserves the right to choose and accordingly edit any submission that does not meet its standards. We also reserve the right to add editor’s note to any post to contextualize it for our audience.

TARSHI has the following perspectives on:

a. Disability – “What can persons with disability do and not do? Can they have sex? Should they have sex? However well-intentioned they may be, these questions are themselves flawed because they are rooted in an assumption of lack (of ability, competence, appropriateness, and so on), of something missing, of something being ‘wrong’. Yes, something is definitely wrong, but it’s not within people with disability but rather with the way we perceive them and the ways in which we construct our world to exclude them.”

Read our Editorial around Disability and Sexuality.

Read TARSHI’s publication exclusively around Disability and Sexuality.

b. Sex Work – “Sex work needs to be seen not in binaries (good/bad, immoral/moral), but understood as a way of life that encompasses diverse elements of agency, autonomy, victimhood and violence. Until sex work is understood as a million shades of grey – and until people in sex work are seen as part of the workforce whose livelihood is dependent on providing sexual services, there is little hope of meaningfully addressing the issues raised by people in sex work”

Read more.

c. SISA: TARSHI is currently (2019 – 2025) also working towards creating Safe, Inclusive, Self-Affirming spaces in the context of gender and sexuality, or SISA spaces. A SISA space offers an environment that is non-judgmental, rights-based and sexuality-affirming, where people can feel safe and free from fear to talk about, learn about and/or experience their sexuality and sexual wellbeing. It is an ideal we wish to work towards, where sexuality is no longer surrounded by shame or taboo.

Keep yourself apprised with the dynamic world of sex and sexuality by following TARSHI’s Social Media.

  • Submissions in TARSHI’s e-magazine, In Plainspeak are copyright protected and owned by TARSHI, unless the author has explicitly requested to retain their rights. TARSHI may print the content to make available as handouts or digests of articles for students, NGOs, participants of trainings and other such audiences. TARSHI may also translate the published content into Hindi, and publish the content on social media including Facebook, Twitter, and similar online platforms. TARSHI may also share published articles with other publications from time to time for non-commercial use and reserves the right to allow title changes with our permission, and will inform authors where their articles are shared.
  • The author is however welcome to link to these articles in their personal blogs and websites, as long as TARSHI is credited. If the author would like to republish their work, please email for permission to inplainspeak@tarshi.net.
  • We are always looking to collaborate with other feminist, like-minded blogs/e-magazines who have a similar perspective as ours.

Following are the details of each category:

Reviews
This section has a review of a books, film, TV show, poetry event, art exhibition, app, or any other media/event connected to sexuality and rights. Reviews can cover recent as well as older books, movies, TV shows, including those that are considered to be classics in the field of sexuality.
Word Limit: 800 – 1200 words

Issue in Focus
A piece with a nuanced perspective on the selected theme of the month, analysing it in an in-depth manner.
Word limit: 1000-1500 words

The ‘I’ Column
This is a personal account of how individuals see the theme of the month affecting them and highlights the affirmation or violation of their sexual and/or reproductive rights, and wellbeing. 
Word Limit: 800 – 1200 words

Interview
This section features an interview of an expert working in the field of SRHR or other human rights-based work. 

Voices
This is a motley collection of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, music, viewpoints, and op-eds. It can also be an article highlighting a particular campaign/movement around the theme in the region including the history, the development of the movement, mobilisation, planning, results, etc. 
Word Limit: 1000 – 1500 words

All curated content – Corners, Brushstrokes, Blog rolls, and Videos  – is shared on our not-for-profit magazine to amplify content around sexuality and rights from fellow feminist portals. We do not claim any copyright to curated content and all rights for the same remain with the original sources. Corners and Videos are embedded links while Brushstrokes and Blogrolls are republished from open sources with a link back to the original source.

Visual Corner

  1. Visual Section
    This section has original as well as curated thematic videos and various forms of art. There are two sub-categories/pages in this section:
  • Video Page: This page is dedicated to a collection of videos such as short documentaries or short films related to the theme of the month curated from the internet.

The video is accompanied by a blurb of no more than 150 words.

  • Brushstrokes: This includes a display of original and curated/sourced visual artwork, photographs, illustrations, etc. based on the theme of the month. We accept original submissions of artwork and photography for this section, where a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 photographs is accepted, the minimum resolution being 1200 x 1800 pixels for each photo. The total size should not exceed 1 MB.
    Format: visual art in .jpeg, pdf, .png files.

A Brushstrokes is accompanied by a blurb of no more than 150 words. The blurb explains the connection of the visual content to In Plainspeak’s theme of the month.

For guest submissions/posts
We get a lot of submissions and might not be able to respond to your submissions right away. We will try to respond within a week, but sometimes we might take as long as two weeks. We reserve the right to decline submissions or to suggest changes before publishing them.

In Plainspeak publishes two issues fortnightly with a new theme each month. Submissions for any of our upcoming themes are also welcome.

The Blog Roll

This section has a selection of posts from other magazines and websites relevant to the issue of the month. It features infographics, personal opinions, articles, poems, and other resource links that have been previously published elsewhere on the web.

* Already published media will be considered for our The Blog Roll section.

Content Syndication Policy

All content on this e-magazine is copyrighted. Please write to us for permission if you wish to reproduce or republish any content. The entries are allowed to be syndicated provided that:

  • The content is not modified. This includes, but is not restricted to, the adding of links with or without JavaScript.
  • The content is properly attributed as per the following:
    • For original work: The republished article must carry the blurb: “This article [or review/post/video/interview] was originally published in the [month, date] edition of In Plainspeak, a digital magazine on sexuality in the Global South.” In addition, the author must be attributed along with their bio as published in In Plainspeak.
    • For content syndicated by TARSHI: The reposted article must carry the blurb: “Curated by TARSHI in [add month and year] in their e-magazine, In Plainspeak [with ‘In Plainspeak‘ hyperlinked to where the article was posted in this e-magazine].” In addition, the author must be attributed along with a link to the original source.
  • No commercial gain is made by content syndication, including the display of advertisements around the content. However, we have recently begun accepting donations to be able to cover the shortfall in running the e-magazine.
  • Once republished, a link to the article/post be emailed to us at inplainspeak@tarshi.net.

All syndicated content should abide by TARSHI’s submission policy. In cases that may require exceptions, please write to inplainspeak@tarshi.net. This policy is subject to change without any prior notice.

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