We are currently looking for one type of story: inspiring essays from real moms like you.
MotherlyStories are first person essays: 700-900 word stories, reflecting on the insights and issues you’ve experienced in motherhood—and the wisdom you’ve gained along the way. They address a specific pain point of mom life that you have been through or are going through right now, like why co-sleeping works for your family or how you survived life in the NICU or words of encouragement to other mamas on their most frazzled days. They help women realize they’re not alone, and they never judge. They inspire other mamas with stories of meaning, hope and a realization that, “you’ve got this.”
MotherlyStories appear on our site, our social media channels, or could even be turned into a video.
We can't wait to hear from you!
Over the past couple of months, we've received a larger number of submissions than normal so we're working our way through them to ensure we have time to review each piece. You'll be notified either way once an editor gets to your submission. Please allow four to six weeks to hear back on a submission.
By submitting your article, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to these terms and conditions.
What is The Motherly Collective? The Motherly Collective showcases the stories, experiences and advice from brands, writers and experts who want to share their story with our community.
We believe that there is no single story of motherhood, and that every mother’s journey is unique. By amplifying each mother’s experience and offering expert-driven content, we can support, inform and inspire each other on this incredible journey. Motherly currently engages 30M+ mothers monthly across our website, social, email, and podcast audiences.
What you can expect as a Collective contributor:
- Story with your byline published on Motherly
- An author page, which will include a photo of you or your brand logo and a 2-3 sentence bio with social handles and links to your website (see an example here).
- Up to 3 inbound links to your website and the ability to mention your brand or business in the body copy of your story
Interested? Here's what to expect: At this time, we are only considering written stories and cannot accept stories based on a short pitch. The typical word count is 600-900 words and our editors will expertly edit your content and provide feedback (if required). We will send you the published URL with a tracking link when the story is published for you to share with your networks.
We attempt to respond to every submission within two to four weeks, though response times may vary because of the high volume of submissions. If your submission is accepted, we aim to publish your story within one month, but this too may vary.
Examples of Motherly Collective posts:
- First day of school drop off: 6 things you can do to ease their jitters
- Your parenting style can reduce your child’s risk of substance abuse
- Why saying 'Just breastfeed' is harmful to mothers
- I did IVF and launched a business at the same time. Here’s what I learned about being a working mom
- Here's what many people don't know about being a boy mom
- How to perform a self breast exam and what to look out for
Motherly Collective submission suggestions:
While we read each and every submission that we receive, we are unfortunately unable to provide specific feedback for why a piece may be declined due to the quantity of submissions. To ensure your article has the best chance of being selected, please review these tips on what we’re looking for in a Motherly Collective submission.
It’s our aim to publish a wide range of voices and stories informed by individual experiences of motherhood. Stories centered on factors such as race, gender, sexuality, age, socio-economic status and disability status are welcome. We especially encourage Black and Indigenous people and other people of color to submit their stories, as well as those who identify as members of LGBTQ communities.
The best way to get a sense for the type of stories we accept is by viewing previously published Motherly Collective articles.
Here’s what else to know when submitting to the Motherly Collective:
- We’re constantly seeking true stories around all aspects of motherhood, ranging from conception to college. We welcome submissions that are centered around alternative paths to motherhood, such as step-parenting, adoption, struggles with previous loss, as well as stories that identify universal themes from an individual perspective.
- Keep in mind that if your story is a personal essay, birth story or story of pregnancy loss, we’re looking for broad themes that a wider audience can relate to.
- We’re always looking for fresh, unique takes on popular pregnancy and parenting topics or stories that answer a question or fill a need for readers, but we’re unlikely to accept submissions that greatly overlap with existing content in our archive.
- If you have an opinion piece you’d like to write that highlights the need your company or brand fills (examples here and here), feel free to share, but we’re less likely to accept brand or company origin stories.
- At this time, we’re only accepting fully drafted stories—we’re no longer accepting stories based on a pitch or short description.
- In general, we’re looking for stories centered on what’s happening in the world now, which means we’re no longer accepting pandemic-parenting related stories.
- We will not accept any stories that are primarily written by AI/ChatGPT. You may use AI tools to help edit your human-written piece, but please don’t use AI to write your submission. (We can tell!)
- We are unlikely to accept submissions that have been previously published on another website other than a personal blog or Medium.
- If your submission is timely, please note that in your headline.
- If your submission is directed to a specific Motherly team member, please note that in the headline.