Timeline for our 2017 edition
- Deadline for submissions: last day in July
- Deadline for edits: last day in August
- Deadline for formatting: last day in September. Then eproofs will be posted to website.
- Deadline for orders: October’s meeting—October 15th. All orders must be paid by then.
- Delivery at our November meeting, Nov 19th, or make alternative arrangements.
If you’ve entered or will enter a Writers’ Mill contest between last August and this July, you already have a piece of writing ready for submission to the journal. If you’ve not, please consider this your chance and inspiration to WRITE. Don’t forget, we love to include pictures as well so start looking through your phone/camera/computer (same submission instructions – let us know the name of the image and artist, and which section you hope to find it in. Createspace recommends 300DPI for images, but it’s not something we’ve worried about in the past).
Topics (based on contests) for our 2017 edition
- Inspired by…
- Memories of Minnie, Roseanne and others
- Two chairs on a beach
- Swans
- A piece of art
- People and places
- The last time I saw…
- Unspoken Bonds
- Wonder
- Point of view
- Times and Seasons
- Just for Kids
- Kid-friendly animal stories, poems and essays (but note, Fred and Joe stories have already been published in Zeus and Bo and Fred and Joe and Co)
- Other kid-friendly pieces (but note, Carl and June stories may be published separately)
Submission Guidelines
- These are guidelines. We will try to produce a balanced journal, representing the writers of as many members as possible. Limits are guidelines, not hard and fast rules.
- Guidlines for written entries (currently no limits on art):
- No more than 10 entries per person
- No more than (approximately) 20 pages per person (it was pointed out that my old computer was the only one producing 1,000 words per page)
- No more than (approximately) 10,000 words per person
- Entries should be sent to journal2017 at portlandwritersmill dot org. Each entry MUST INCLUDE
- Author or artist name
- Entry title
- Preferred section for your entry
- All documents MUST BE READABLE in Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, NOT .pdf for example)
- Editors will perform simple copy-editing for format and style. Our aim is to produce a journal of the highest possible quality, in a timely manner, including entries from as many members as possible. Editors reserve the right to
- reject entries if we have too many
- beg for more entries if we have too few, and
- reject entries that would require too much work on their part.
Please consider whether you would be willing to volunteer as an editor. Thank you.
Let’s make this journal another book to be proud of!
I thought we would discuss the limits at our next meeting, not simply have them spelled out for us here. The limits are much more stringent than last year’s: We can’t submit many works if they are limited to 10 pages total per person. And the total allowed is much smaller as well. Does every art/photo submission count as a page? Please clarify. Can we discuss possible changes at this Sunday’s meeting? Thanks.
Good point. Thank you. Art is not included in the submission limits. We usually end up begging for extra artwork. I’ve updated the post to clarify.
Thanks, Sheila, but did you read my point about the page limit? If one had only poems to submit, that might be reasonable, but if one is chiefly a story writer, well… for instance, I couldn’t have all my favorite winning entries in the journal even if I didn’t have any poems at all.
I’ll try to ensure there is some time for discussion on Sunday. Meanwhile, the 10-page limit represents an estimate of around 1,000 words per page, which is fairly average in Word. Last year’s limits were very relaxed; the year before’s much more stringent; we’ll hope to find a consistent balance eventually. Meanwhile let’s see what people say on Sunday. And thank you for raising these questions.
You will need to be selective about what you send in– and maybe send the others out to other publications.