Want to share your story?
As with singing, the more voices involved, the richer the result.
This was always meant to be a shared space. If you’d like to write a blog post to feature on our site, we’d love to hear from you.
Subject
Writing about Sacred Harp offers a wide range of subjects – musical, historical, personal experience, etc.
We welcome different voices and styles, so it doesn’t need to resemble what we’ve published already.
We want positive contributions, avoiding the contentious, offensive or deliberately unkind. That doesn’t mean you can’t express strong views, but ultimately the piece will reflect on our Sacred Harp community.
Word Count
As a rule, aim for somewhere between 500 – 1000 words. But don’t stress too much if it’s a bit under or over.
If it’s way over, do a quick read-through and ask yourself ‘is this bit essential?’
We may do some gentle editing to bring it down or improve clarity. But we will check you’re happy with any amendments that we propose.
Writing for the web
People read a web page differently from a book, so write for quick comprehension.
Keep language clear, concise and accessible.
Short sentences and short paragraphs mean plenty of white space, which improves legibility online.
Images, links and bullet points can also help to break up text.
Images
Images to illustrate the piece really make it. Especially anything that is really unique to you and the story you’re telling.
Tell us who to credit, and add a title/caption for the image if you want one including.
If you don’t have any original images, we’re open to ideas. Are there any (royalty free!) images from elsewhere that would work?
Submitting
Before you start writing, drop us a line to let us know what you’re planning and we’ll link you up with Blogmaster Harriet.
We can take text in a Word file or in the body of an email. Photos should be good definition, and sent as an attachment rather than embedded in the text.
We’ll proof-read, and get back to you to check anything that’s unclear and make sure any edits are acceptable.
Timing
We aim to publish around once a month, so we like having items in hand.
When publish your piece may depend on whether we’ve got something time-specific lined up for the next slot. That doesn’t mean yours is any less interesting – we’ll be really happy to have it ready to go later on!
So if your piece ties in with a particular date (anniversary, convention etc) do point that out, and give us a bit of warning so we can hit the target date.
Manchester Sacred Harp 