Share your story

Thank you for sharing your story with Space Invaders! We’re excited to hear your voice and help you get your message out to the sector. We’re all about amplifying the ideas and experiences of women, trans and non-binary people in the sector and tackling the issues that matter to us, so your involvement means a lot. Before you get started, here’s some tips to help you shape your ideas.

Topics we’re looking for

Our blog is a place for space invaders to read about arts and heritage projects or topics that support our three manifesto aims:

• Equal power
• Fair conditions
• Our stories told 

Maybe you curated an exhibition about gender diverse stories, or did some research on working conditions you’d like to talk about. Perhaps you saw an inspirational show you want to review, or there’s a campaign or issue we should know about. Or you have some tips to share about feminist leadership, governance or applying for jobs as a woman, trans or non-binary person. 

Length

Blogs should be in accessible English and between 300 and 600 words long. We can work on them with you and are always happy to hear your ideas. 

Here’s some notes and tips to help you get started. 

Planning your blog

Before you send us your blog or blog proposal, take some time to think about your readers. Space invaders are people who want to make change for women, trans and non-binary people in the sector. Ask yourself: 

• Why will your project or topic be interesting to them?
•  What will they most want to know about?
• What are the 4-5 main points you want to make in the blog?
•  Is there an onwards journey? What can your readers do next?

Writing your blog

Style

We follow Plain English guidelines, that means 

• Active language: avoid the passive tense or using nouns when a verb will do the same job. For example ‘we decided to’ instead of ‘a decision was made to’ 
• Using short words instead of long words, for example ‘try’ for ‘endeavour’ 
• Keeping average sentence length to 18 words (you can see this in the review tab under ‘word count’) 
• Using everyday language, for example ‘make sure’ instead of ‘ensure that’.
• You can also have fun coming up with a snappy title to catch readers’ attention!

Structure and thinking points

• Think about your opening sentence. What can you say that will grab your readers’ attention and get them interested straight away? This doesn’t mean you need to say something shocking, it could be something simple and honest. 
• Have you come on a journey? How were things for you at the start of your story, compared to how they are now? Do you feel you’ve changed at all? 
• What journey do you want to take your readers on? You don’t have a lot of words, so think about your beginning, middle and end, and keeping it concise.
• What is your core message and key points or threads? Try to keep them strong throughout the piece.
• Do you have any tips or advice you’d like to share? What would you say to someone who wants to do a similar project? 
• What pictures do you want to use to illustrate your blog? Bright, positive high resolution photographs can help bring your words to life. 

Editing 

Once you’ve finished, try to read through your blog as if you were one of your readers. Or better still, ask a friend to do it. Does it make sense to them? Things to check include: 

• Your title: Aim for between 8 to 12 words or less than 60 characters 
• Length: Aim for between 300 and 600 words long, if you think you need more just send what you have and we’ll chat it through 
• Spelling and grammar check (word processors are our friends) 
• Add subheadings to structure and break up your text. 

Send it to us! 

Submit your blogs or blog ideas to spaceinvaderscampaign@gmail.com. 

Don’t be nervous if you haven’t written a blog before! We’re excited to hear from any space invaders and are always happy to work through ideas with you and give support. Space Invaders exists to raise your voice in the sector. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t built up your experience, confidence or ideas yet, we’re not about competition or imposter syndrome, everyone has something of value in the conversation.

Send images as attached files, include descriptions or captions. And let us know any image copyright lines or credits we need to include. 

The small print

Copyright: Your blog post must not be under review or published with another blog or print publisher. If you already blog, you’re welcome to write something on a similar theme to a previous blog post, but your piece should be original.

Publishing: We’ll try to include your blog post but can’t guarantee to use everything we’re sent. We try to post with regularity, so may hold your piece for later publication.

Editing: We may make small edits to your writing to optimise it for digital publishing. We’ll send any major changes for your approval before we publish anything. We’ll always send you your blog to check before publishing.

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