PAPER CHAINED IS ALWAYS OPEN FOR CONTRIBUTIONS.

Our next issue, Issue 18, will be released in June 2025. 

 

WHO CAN CONTRIBUTE?

We welcome contributions from prisoners, ex-prisoners and family members of prisoners. Writings by people supportive of prison reform will also be considered. Please indicate which category you fall into when submitting to us. You can find our contact details here.

 

WHAT CAN BE SUBMITTED?

Contributions can be writings in any style, including but not limited to poetry, short stories and personal narratives. Writing should be limited to 1,500 words. We also welcome artwork such as drawings.

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HOW DO YOU GET A COPY OF PAPER CHAINED?

People currently in prison in Australia or New Zealand are welcome to have the journal posted to them for free. Simply provide us with names and ID numbers, a postal address, and the person's earliest possible release date.

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Those outside prison may access the journal for free from our homepage.

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As many prisons will not allow bound publications to be posted in, we deliberately print Paper Chained in loose-leaf format. Accordingly, if you download and print the journal yourself, the quality will be the same as the versions we post to prisons. If you have the means to do so, we encourage people to print and distribute Paper Chained themselves.

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TERMS OF PUBLICATION.

Handwritten contributions will be typed unless the author requests to have a scan of the original text presented in the journal. We reserve the right to otherwise edit contributions for reasons such as grammar, length, clarity and to remove stigmatising language. Please advise us if you are not open to your contribution being edited in any way. Please advise us if you would like submitted art returned to you. Contributors can choose to have art and writing published anonymously or with a pseudonym.

 

Submitted articles on the criminal justice system which include details such as laws, procedures or statistics will be subjected to fact-checking and editorial oversight.

Copyright for art and writing is retained by the contributor. Contributors are free to have any of their work that is published in Paper Chained republished elsewhere at a later date. However, please advise Paper Chained if submitted contributions have previously been published elsewhere.

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Please be aware that due to limited printing space and other logistical concerns, contributions received may not necessarily appear in the next issue of Paper Chained, and may be held on file for subsequent issues.

 

We will not publish any contributions that contain racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, xenophobia, ableism, evangelism or other forms of oppressive language, or any material that encourages violence or violates the privacy of others.