I'm now offering "Guided Mentorships" for young writers!

I have received emails from parents asking if I do any writing workshops during the school year. Thanks to the Internet, I am now offering "Guided Mentorships" for young writers across the country!

If you would like to sign up for a Guided Mentorship with me, you will receive:

•  a creative writing exercise/prompt emailed to you once a week
• a market to submit your writing to once a month
• a 20-minute individual phone call or Skype session with me every month for you to discuss your writing and get personal feedback on your work

You can sign up on a month-by-month basis (for example, while some of my mentees want to sign up for every month, others prefer to sign up for every other month or perhaps do two months, skip one, and come back again -- which is perfectly all right!) ... I typically charge $30 per month, but I'm currently doing a back-to-school discount for new mentees to receive a $20-per-month rate.

If you're interested in signing up for a Guided Mentorship with me, send me an email at dallaswoodburn@gmail.com. I'd love to work with you!

With a few young writer friends at this year's Summer Writing Camp

Markets for Young Writers

Poetic Monthly Magazine

Accepts submissions by writers of all ages. In the October issue, PM featured a 10-year-old writer/ illustrator. PM features the top 25 poems of the month's submissions, plus articles about writing, one-page short stories and visual arts. All content in the magazine is family-friendly.
http://www.poetstage.com/poeticmonthly.htm


Go!

An online magazine for teens and young adults ages 14–20. The magazine covers transportation from all angles, from the infrastructure to the vehicles to the people behind the wheel—whether that “wheel” is on a car, truck, train, plane, or ship. They encourage people ages 14 to 20 to submit personal essays or opinion pieces for the Teen POV column. Possible topics might be graduated drivers licenses, using a cell phone while driving, or anything else that affects young people and is related to transportation. Teen POV columns are accepted at any time. Length should be about 500 words. Submit your piece as a Word attachment to editor@go-explore-trans.com. They'll pay $50 for each piece we publish and will also give you a Go! t-shirt.
http://www.go-explore-trans.org/about.cfm#guidelines

Markets for Young Writers

* Wet Ink Magazine

Open and happy to accept all genres of literature, visual art and multimedia from youth aged 13 to 19 residing in Canada. At present, they only accept submissions electronically; they do not want to take responsibility for your original artwork. Please send reproductions only; if your work is three dimensional, a good photograph will be fine.

Please include with your submission a cover letter with your name, age, city or town of residence and e-mail address so that editors can contact you. Please also include any information they might find interesting, such as, for example, lists of publications or exhibits or biographical material.

Wet Ink does not ask for first North American publishing rights to your work; whatever you send them can be submitted again to another publication. If you do send a piece that has already been published or exhibited elsewhere, please include the name of the venue and the date of your publication/exhibit so that they can post the appropriate credits. However, they do ask that you not send any simultaneous submissions.

http://www.wetinkmagazine.com/submit.htm

* Frodo's Notebook

Editors actively seek five types of submissions from teens. Send your very best work, and read the guidelines thoroughly and completely before sending anything:

1. Poetry. They definitely prefer poems of under 36 lines, but they will always consider excellent exceptions. Address to poetry editor Julia Shields and send in the body of an email to poetry@frodosnotebook.com.

2. Creative/Personal Essays. Creative nonfiction, preferably narrative-driving and reflective; not journalism or opinion. Address to editor in chief Daniel Klotz and send as a .doc (Word), .rtf, or .txt attachment to essays@frodosnotebook.com.

3. Fiction. Almost exclusively short-short stories of under 1200 words, though they will "gladly look at longer pieces that promise to blow us away." Editors mostly want "literary" fiction, but send your fantasy or sci-fi if it's "really good and not fan fic." Address to fiction editor Timothy Rezendes and send to fiction@frodosnotebook.com.

4. Articles. Reviews of current books, movies, and art, as well as cultural critique, op-ed, and original journalistic reportage, as long as it has a literary/artistic subject or slant. Usually under 1200 words. If you're interested in writing this kind of prose for them, send a writing sample or two to editor at large Ben Carr at articles@frodosnotebook.com.

5. Visual art. Not yet accepting submissions of visual art.

See site for full guidelines: http://frodosnotebook.com/submit.html

Markets for Young Writers

* Sweet Designs Magazine is an online magazine with articles and features for teen girls, including fashion, beauty, advice, real life, health, teen issues, entertainment, DIY, crafts, polls, humor, contests, and other fun stuff. Learn more and submit your work at http://www.sweetdesignsmagazine.com/

* PLAYS: The Drama Magazine for Young People publishes approximately 75 wholesome, one-act plays each year (in seven issues, October through May, with a combined issue for January/February). Editors are looking for good scripts to be performed by young people in junior and senior high, middle grades, and lower grades. Of particular interest are comedies, farces, dramas, mysteries, and melodramas for year-round use, as well as plays for such holidays and special occasions as Halloween, Book Week, Black History Month, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Washington's Birthday, etc. They use only secular plays for Christmas and other religious holidays, and publish no plays on religious themes. Find full writers guidelines at http://www.playsmagazine.com/AboutUs.asp#Downloadable%20Manuscript%20Submissions

* A+ Research and Writing: stuck on a homework assignment? This website gives tips on writing essays and papers, with step-by-step writing and research info. http://www.ipl.org/div/aplus/

Magazines Looking for Kid & Teen Writers!

KidSpirit Magazine is a unique, unaffiliated spiritual magazine written by and for 11-to-15-year-olds. Their goal is to foster dialogue and understanding among kids of diverse backgrounds and traditions about values, spirituality and life's big questions. Free of advertising, KidSpirit empowers today's youth to explore deep issues and mankind's search for meaning in a spirit of openness. Upcoming themes include "The Body in Balance" and "Find Your Spirit in Art."

Guidelines are available for submitting online and by snail-mail: http://kidspiritmagazine.com/submit.html

* * *

Polyphony H.S. is a student-run national literary magazine for high-school writers. The title is a combination of the Greek term meaning many voices, and the abbreviation for High School.

Polyphony H.S. was co-founded by Paige Holtzman (Latin School of Chicago ’06) and Billy Lombardo in August 2004. At that time, there was no other magazine like it in the country; that is, a professional quality, national literary magazine for high school writers, edited by high school students from public, private, and parochial schools; and there is still nothing like it in the world. Not only do the editors invite high school writers to submit their work for professional publication, but they also give editorial feedback to every author who submits a manuscript. This extends to continuing a dialogue with accepted authors in an effort to strengthen each piece.

When the first edition was published in the spring of 2005, they had received 156 submissions from 361 schools across the country and 23 published pieces. Submissions have grown steadily. In 2009 they received nearly a thousand submissions and published just 51 pieces. Submissions come from nearly all fifty states and and ten foreign countries, including Canada, the Czech Republic, England, Kenya, Pakistan, Russia, and South Korea.

Find submission guidelines (and extensive, helpful advice!) at http://www.polyphonyhs.com/guidelines

Markets for Young Writers

Thanks to Writer's Gazette for calling my attention to these markets for young writers! (Note: I am not endorsing these publications in any way. But they are opportunities to check out if you are interested!)

* Benchmark Group
We want talented young writers who speak clearly to their generation. Following the guidelines doesn't necessarily mean that you will have a publishable manuscript that will be accepted. Some things can be taught about writing, but we believe that there is a definite gift that all good writers have. We are looking for the best young writers we can find. Our editors will have final say about whose work we publish. (If it comes to our attention that one of our authors or a potential author is involved in any immoral or illegal situation that is of their own choosing, we have the right to pull their published book(s) and/or to not publish what is being considered.)

http://www.benchmarkgrouppublishers.com/Writers_Guidelines.html

* Young Christian Writers
PAY: $10 - $20
We are interested in short stories, articles, poetry, and book reviews written by Christian students (ages 12-18). To be considered as a book reviewer, please send us a sample of a book review that you have already written. Then if we are interested in your work, we will contact you with the title of a book that we would like you to read and review for our magazine. Also, see our Book Reviews page for important tips. Your work should be guided by Christian themes such as: truth, honesty, humility, love, kindness, faithfulness, purity, courage, service, obedience, honoring parents, Creation, sanctity of human life, and the sovereignty of God.

http://www.youngchristianwriters.com/guidelines.htm

Markets for Young Writers

* Stone Soup
Is made up of stories, poems, book reviews, and art by young people through age 13. Although all the writing we publish is in English, we accept work from all over the world. To get an idea of the kind of writing and art we like, please look through our writing and art sections. Send us stories and poems about the things you feel most strongly about! Whether your work is about imaginary situations or real ones, use your own experiences and observations to give your work depth and a sense of reality. Pay $40.

* Girl's Life
Each issue of GL is packed with the stuff girls crave—real information and advice—from academic success to peer pressure to time-management and stress-relieving tips; from growing up to boosting self-esteem. Plus, GL profiles real girls facing real challenges that have amazed and inspired readers for almost 15 years.

* Speak Up
Speak Up Press publishes the literary journal, Speak Up, featuring the original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, photography, and artwork of teens (13-19 years old). Speak Up accepts submissions from teen writers and artists around the world.

* Teen Ink
A national teen magazine, book series, and website devoted entirely to teenage writing, art, photos and forums. Students must be age 13-19 to participate, register and/or submit work. Distributed through classrooms by English teachers, Creative Writing teachers, Journalism teachers and art teachers around the country, Teen Ink magazine offers some of the most thoughtful and creative work generated by teens and has the largest distribution of any publication of its kind. We have no staff writers or artists; we depend completely on submissions from teenagers nationwide for our content. We offer teenagers the opportunity to publish their creative work and opinions on the issues that affect their lives - everything from love and family to teen smoking and community service. Hundreds of thousands of students have submitted their work to us and we have published more than 45,000 teens since 1989.

* The Claremont Review
The editors of The Claremont Review are looking to publish first class poetry, short stories and short plays by young adult writers (aged 13-19) anywhere in the English speaking world. What are we looking for? We publish anything from traditional to post modern, but with a preference for works that reveal something of the human condition. We strongly urge contributors to read back issues of The Claremont Review. That is the best way for you to learn what we are looking for.

* Young Writer magazine
We would love to see YOUR writing and we might even publish it in Young Writer magazine or here on the website. It can be anything that you want to say, prose or poetry, fiction or non-fiction. Just make sure it is your own unaided work, write it as well as you can and send it to us. Let us have your name, your age and your address. We do not pass these on to anyone else. You can send it to us by email or post. Remember, whenever you send your writing off to any publisher, make sure you keep a copy for yourself in case it gets lost in transit. Email word documents (under 600 words in length, please!) to youngwriter@writersnews.co.uk

Two Great Resources for Writers

I came across Shannon Buck's blog, How to Live the Freelance Life, mentioned in the recent Writer Gazette newsletter. Shannon is chronicling her first year carving out a career as a freelance writer. Her site is a wonderful resource for writers of all ages and experience levels! You will find a treasure trove of inspiration and information on the writing life.

http://howtolivethefreelancelife.com/

I also highly recommend Krista Barrett's free weekly e-newsletter, Writer Gazette, which you can sign up for at her website. It is chock-full of writing tips, call for submissions, paying markets, contests, and more! A fantastic resource -- no wonder it's been voted the Best Site in Writer's Digest magazine seven of the past eight years!

http://www.writergazette.com/