Dear Vanderbilt, 

Happy Welcome Week! I’m thrilled to be serving as The Hustler’s Editor-in-Chief again this year — you can read more about my plans for this year and vision for The Hustler here. As we start the year, I wanted to outline a few changes coming to The Hustler’s guest submission process. 

The Hustler accepts submissions for two types of guest articles: guest editorials and letters to the editor. In the past, The Hustler’s use of guest editorials and letters to the editor were somewhat synonymous. This year, Editorial Director Aaditi Lele, a junior, has revamped our submission and writing process to distinguish these two types of articles and to streamline the system. The Hustler does not accept advertisements of any kind. To publish any other type of article besides guest editorials and letters to the editor in The Hustler, an individual must be a member of The Hustler. 

Guest editorials and letters to the editor now differ in a few key ways. Guest editorials are your responses to a situation affecting Vanderbilt in some way, while letters to the editor are your responses to an article recently published in The Hustler. Letters to the editor should be around 250 words and must be submitted within a week of the article to which you are reacting. Guest editorials are longer, up to around 1,000 words. 

To submit either a guest editorial or a letter to the editor, you must complete this form; submissions will no longer be accepted via email or other forms of communication. Both guest editorials and letters to the editors will be edited by at least two members of The Hustler’s editorial team, like every article published on The Hustler. Authors must be related to Vanderbilt in some way, as does the topic of guest editorials and letters to the editor. Anonymity for guest editorials and letters to the editor is approved on a case-by-case basis in accordance with our anonymity policy. 

Notably, the submission of a guest editorial or a letter to the editor does not guarantee publication; the decision to publish and timeline of publishing is solely The Hustler’s discretion. Typically, pieces that end up being published are those that align with The Hustler’s style and those that have broad-reaching themes/thread lines. You can read other editorials published in The Hustler here to better understand the type of content we publish. 

If you have specific questions about the submission and publication processes or about a particular article you are hoping to publish in The Hustler, please review these baseline submission guidelines or contact Aaditi Lele or me at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively. 

Thank you for sharing your stories with us. I look forward to reading your work!

Anchor down, 

Rachael