Publications Looking For Creative Writing and Poetry
Magazines: It is always a good idea to learn about a magazines
editorial preferences and guidelines before you send your writing to them.
- Cricket and Spider Magazines. Poetry, fiction, essays. Cricket publishes
all ages, Spider, ages 10 and up. Mail entries to Cricket or Spider Magazine:
P.O. Box 300, Peru, IL, 61354.
- Creative Kids: The National Voice for Kids. For more info, call 800-998-2208
or e-mail: creative_kids@prufrock.com
- Merlyns Pen Magazine. Annual publication of teen writing: fiction,
essays, poetry. For guidelines, call 800-247-2027, e-mail: merlynspen@aol.com
website: http://www.merlynspen.com
- Potato Hill Poetry. Publishes bimonthly magazine for teachers and students
K-12. Poems, exercises, artwork, essays. For more info. call 888-5-POETRY
or e-mail: info@potatohill.com
- Stone Soup: The magazine by young writers and artists. Poetry, fiction,
essays, artwork. For more info call 800-447-4569. Website:
http://www.stonesoup.com
- Anthology of Poetry, Inc. 148 Sunset Ave. P.O. Box 698, Asheboro, NC 27204.
Publishes annual anthology of student poems grades 1-12.
- The Childrens Better Health Institute offers 4 magazines in which
to publish poetry arranged by age: Childrens Playmate (ages 6-8), Jack
And Jill (ages 7-10), Child Life (ages 9-11), and Childrens Digest (ages
10-12). For guidelines call 317-636-8881.
- Creative With Words Publications publishes two magazines for school-aged
children to publish poetry, prose and artwork: We Are Writers, Too!, and Folklore
Humor. For guidelines contact: Creative with Words, P.O. Box 223226, Carmel,
CA 93922. E-mail cwwpub@usa.net. Website:
http://members.tripod.com/CreativeWithWords.
- Highlights for Children magazine publishes poetry, prose and artwork by
children up to pre-teen. For submission information, call 717-253-1164 and
ask for the Highlights Company.
- The Apprentice Writer accepts prose, poetry, photos and artwork submitted
by high school students. For submission information contact: Gary Finck, Writers
Institute Director, Susquehanna University, Selingsgrove, PA 17870-1001.
- How On Earth is an online magazine that accepts submissions from youth.
For submission guidelines contact: How On Earth!, P.O. Box 1209, Blue Hill,
ME 04614. www.how-on-earth.org.
Other Publication Possibilities:
- Call your state's Department of Education to see if they publish a statewide
poetry journal or sponsor a statewide poetry/writing contest.
- Call your state's Council of English Teachers to see if they sponsor an
annual book of creative writing.
- Call local television stations and newspapers: many of them will publish
poems and also sponsor annual poetry contests.
- Market Guide for Young Writers: Fifth Edition: 1996. Over 150 opportunities
for writers ages 8-18. (This is an excellent resource.)
- Contact radio stations about hosting a live on-air poetry reading either
at school or their station.
- Contact local banks and other businesses in your community and ask them
to consider displaying student work on their walls. Just as artists use those
walls, so too, can poets.
- Have students put together individual chapbooks of their poems. They should
make the same decisions poets do regarding organization: chronologically,
thematically, short to long, humorous to serious, good to best, etc. They
might include artwork and an autobiographical sketch.
- Have students put together a classroom anthology of their best poems. Let
them make decisions just as editors would.
- Devote an entire hallway in your school (The Poetry Hall) to
poems. Put up student work throughout the year, perhaps a new class gets to
be published on the wall each month.
- Start each day with a poem read by a different student in your classroom
or before daily announcements for the entire school.
- Post a poem of the day written by students and others on the school bulletin
board for all to see.
- Set up a classwide or schoolwide poetry reading. Invite parents and the
community to hear students read their poems. You might add dancers and musicians
to this program.
- Set up a coffeehouse-style poetry reading in your classroom or home. Have
students sign up to read their work. Atmosphere is everything. Dont
forget the refreshments.
- Host a poetry slam at your school. There are so many ways to set this up.
The form is being reinvented all the time. Students can sign up to read their
own work, to read the poems of others, to make up poems on the spot when given
a subject. Sometimes the audience will vote on these performances. You might
be careful how you set this up. It neednt be competitive.