Getting a Letter to the Editor Published - You Can Do It!

How, when, and why write to your local paper

By Alvina McHale

Writing letters about political policy or political candidates can be challenging but it doesn’t need to be. I don’t have a magic wand to turn any of us into professional writers but I do know what is required to get an LTE published: a compelling personal story, a couple of facts to back up your position or argument, and a concluding paragraph that involves a call to action on the part of the reader. 

The writer does need to know a particular paper’s rules for letters to the editor – deadlines for publishing letters, word limits, and how the letter should be shared with the publication. Ideally, one can begin a letter by mentioning support for or reservations about a particular letter or opinion piece that was recently published. It helps to be familiar with the kinds of letters a newspaper publishes. With a short-term online subscription one can see what a local newspaper considers interesting to its readers. Newspapers offer very good online deals at a ridiculously low cost.  

The grassroots coalition, Women for Harris-Walz (WFHW), is offering webinars every couple of weeks to discuss writing LTEs and to hear people’s letter ideas and success stories. Every week, WFHW publishes a national newsletter which features three or four published letters.  Even letters submitted but not published can be recognized. All letter writers receive a WFHW team button.

Registration is open now for the next WFHW webinar – Saturday, September 28^th, at 2 pm ET. Webinar facilitators will share successes to date in getting letters published, advice for choosing a personal topic to write about, and sample first drafts. We will devote most of the hour to answering participants’ questions and discussing letter-writing ideas. Register now to join us on Saturday, September 28th.

At our last webinar, we spoke about the critical importance of telling a personal story.

Top of the list issues to write about: health care, especially women’s reproductive health, gun violence protections, families’ economic challenges, and the scary prospects associated with hateful speech, conspiracy theories, and putting people’s lives in jeopardy. Reproductive freedom continues to be a critically important subject to write about. Visits and sightings of the “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus can provide a news peg for a letter. And as states head into early voting, LTEs should certainly give a plug to voting early.

I do hope you will take the challenge and put words on paper. Our little team is ready to help you cross the letter-writing finish line. Working together, we will not let America be dragged down by people who call themselves “Republicans” but act like a pathetic mob of hateful, vindictive people who threaten to tear the house down if they can’t have their way. We deserve better. Our children and grandchildren deserve better. 

Alvina’s work focus has always been politics and public service. She spent years on Capitol Hill and decades with U.S. Treasury Dept. Among her best memories are serving on DC boards of national health organizations and spoiling four grandchildren.

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