Submissions and Competitions
Writers write...and they also try to get published and win contests! Where should you send your work? Take a look at the opportunities below!
The Apprentice Writer
The Apprentice Writer publishes poems, stories and personal essays by high school students from a twenty-state area. It has a circulation of 11,000 and is distributed each September. In its 31st year, it is edited and produced, in part, by Susquehanna University writing students.
The Blue Pencil Online
The Blue Pencil Online is edited and produced by the students in the Creative Writing Program at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, located in Natick, Massachusetts. The magazine seeks to publish the best literary work in English by young writers (aged 12–18) around the world.
Cicada
Cicada is a literary magazine for young people ages 14 and up. The Web features The Slam, an award-winning online forum for microfiction and poetry. Teens interested in seeing their work in print can check out the Call for Creative Endeavors and view other submissions needs for the magazine. To encourage creative expression, the editors offer online Writing Tips and Quotes and witty interviews with each issue’s Spot Artist Extraordinaire.
The Claremont Review
The Claremont Review is a magazine that showcases inspiring young adult writers, aged 13-19. They publish poetry, fiction, drama and art, twice a year, spring and fall. They also sponsor an annual writing contest.
Polyphony H.S.
Polyphony H.S. is an international student-run literary magazine for high-school writers, published annually in August. They offer three awards for excellence in writing through the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards, one each in poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction.
The Apprentice Writer
The Apprentice Writer publishes poems, stories and personal essays by high school students from a twenty-state area. It has a circulation of 11,000 and is distributed each September. In its 31st year, it is edited and produced, in part, by Susquehanna University writing students.
The Blue Pencil Online
The Blue Pencil Online is edited and produced by the students in the Creative Writing Program at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, located in Natick, Massachusetts. The magazine seeks to publish the best literary work in English by young writers (aged 12–18) around the world.
Cicada
Cicada is a literary magazine for young people ages 14 and up. The Web features The Slam, an award-winning online forum for microfiction and poetry. Teens interested in seeing their work in print can check out the Call for Creative Endeavors and view other submissions needs for the magazine. To encourage creative expression, the editors offer online Writing Tips and Quotes and witty interviews with each issue’s Spot Artist Extraordinaire.
The Claremont Review
The Claremont Review is a magazine that showcases inspiring young adult writers, aged 13-19. They publish poetry, fiction, drama and art, twice a year, spring and fall. They also sponsor an annual writing contest.
Polyphony H.S.
Polyphony H.S. is an international student-run literary magazine for high-school writers, published annually in August. They offer three awards for excellence in writing through the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards, one each in poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction.
The Creative Writing Club--retired at the end of the school year 2014, but let
Dr. Mandyck know if you want to revive it!
Statement of Purpose:
The Creative Writing Club is an organization founded within the Athens Academy Writing Center to bring together students with an interest in developing and reading creative work. This club’s main goals are to improve the creative skill and confidence of its members, cultivate ideas with discussion and critique, and above all to give writing-inclined students a regular, interested audience.
The Creative Writing Club is an organization founded within the Athens Academy Writing Center to bring together students with an interest in developing and reading creative work. This club’s main goals are to improve the creative skill and confidence of its members, cultivate ideas with discussion and critique, and above all to give writing-inclined students a regular, interested audience.
FAQs
When and where does the Creative Writing Club meet?
Writers are solitary folk... We will have no regular meetings, but will share our work and our responses by email and Google Doc. We will get together twice a semester to socialize (dates to be announced) and to discuss the writing life.
Who can be a member?
The Club is open to any Upper School* student who is interested in creative writing and who is willing to commit to: 1) reading and providing a thoughtful critical response to the work of other club members (at least three times each school year), 2) attending at least one of our two social events, and 3) responding promptly to emails or other communications from the club.
Who are the club's leaders?
Dr. Mandyck is the faculty sponsor, and Fleming Smith is the student leader.
What counts as "creative" writing?
Stories, poems, creative non-fiction essays, blogs, song lyrics, and novels. Class assignments, college essays, cover letters for employment applications, etc. do not meet our criteria as "creative" for the purpose of this club, but if you would like assistance with any of those kinds of writing, please contact our Peer Editors group or Dr. Mandyck.
How--and how often--will we share our work?
When you have something to submit, you should send it to Fleming Smith by email. She will distribute it to the group (anonymously, if you prefer) along with a Google Doc that will allow group members to respond to your work. We hope to have at least one submission per month for the group to be working on. Generally, the month's piece will go out to group members to read on a Friday. You will then have the weekend, a week, and another weekend to respond (please try to have the Google Doc filled out on the second Monday, in other words.
How should I respond to a piece I've read?
If you know who the author is, you can email him or her. Please also use the Google Doc that Fleming will send with the submission, so that we can have an online "discussion" with the group. The Google Doc will ask you for your Overall Impression, Things You Really Liked in the Story, Poem, etc., Things That Could Be Improved, and Anything Else You'd Like to Tell the Author.
You can also print off, mark up and return the piece to the author, if you like. Below are some hints for providing a useful critique of someone's creative work. (You don't have to do every one of these, but they are things to consider.)
Read the piece through once without providing any edits. Then read it again, looking for:
Strengths—mark what you find with a checkmark, a smiley face, “good” or whatever, but identify what works well already.
Sentences, scenes or passages that need to be revised or omitted—put brackets around these and note your suggestion in the margin.
Words that aren’t quite right—again, bracket or circle it, and if you can think of another, better word, note that.
Great details…or areas that need more detail or description.
Good dialogue…or bad.
Strong first and last lines…or weak ones.
Paragraph structure—too long or too short?
Title—a title can make or break a piece. Does this work have a good title?
Characters’ names—names matter.
Stuff to cut! Almost all writing can be made stronger by paring down.
If you can go over the piece multiple times, even better!
If you want to read and respond even more deeply, consider these ideas:
Comment on the strengths of the piece first, not just to be nice but to tell the author what he or she should try to do more of… Then consider:
Character development—are we getting to know these people? How? Could you, as the reader, tell the author what one of his characters is like as a person?
Conflict—every story, essay and even poem needs a conflict, some central tension that moves the work forward. Can you identify the conflict in the piece?
Theme—are any themes developed throughout? How are they revealed? Can you tell the author the themes that you see? (Loss of innocence, for example, or light vs. dark)
Structure—would you re-structure the work? Move the final scene to the top and flash back? Cut a scene that slows down the story? Break the piece into distinct sections for clarity? Give the author some “architectural” advice; is the piece built the way it should be?
Setting—what is the setting (place and time) of the piece? If you can’t say, the author needs to think more about when and where this story happens. Setting always matters.
Scene—successful stories of any kind are usually made up of scenes, like little stories within the larger story. Can you identify good scenes in this work?
*We hope to start a Creative Writing Club for Middle School students too! Please let Dr. Mandyck know if you are interested.
Writers are solitary folk... We will have no regular meetings, but will share our work and our responses by email and Google Doc. We will get together twice a semester to socialize (dates to be announced) and to discuss the writing life.
Who can be a member?
The Club is open to any Upper School* student who is interested in creative writing and who is willing to commit to: 1) reading and providing a thoughtful critical response to the work of other club members (at least three times each school year), 2) attending at least one of our two social events, and 3) responding promptly to emails or other communications from the club.
Who are the club's leaders?
Dr. Mandyck is the faculty sponsor, and Fleming Smith is the student leader.
What counts as "creative" writing?
Stories, poems, creative non-fiction essays, blogs, song lyrics, and novels. Class assignments, college essays, cover letters for employment applications, etc. do not meet our criteria as "creative" for the purpose of this club, but if you would like assistance with any of those kinds of writing, please contact our Peer Editors group or Dr. Mandyck.
How--and how often--will we share our work?
When you have something to submit, you should send it to Fleming Smith by email. She will distribute it to the group (anonymously, if you prefer) along with a Google Doc that will allow group members to respond to your work. We hope to have at least one submission per month for the group to be working on. Generally, the month's piece will go out to group members to read on a Friday. You will then have the weekend, a week, and another weekend to respond (please try to have the Google Doc filled out on the second Monday, in other words.
How should I respond to a piece I've read?
If you know who the author is, you can email him or her. Please also use the Google Doc that Fleming will send with the submission, so that we can have an online "discussion" with the group. The Google Doc will ask you for your Overall Impression, Things You Really Liked in the Story, Poem, etc., Things That Could Be Improved, and Anything Else You'd Like to Tell the Author.
You can also print off, mark up and return the piece to the author, if you like. Below are some hints for providing a useful critique of someone's creative work. (You don't have to do every one of these, but they are things to consider.)
Read the piece through once without providing any edits. Then read it again, looking for:
Strengths—mark what you find with a checkmark, a smiley face, “good” or whatever, but identify what works well already.
Sentences, scenes or passages that need to be revised or omitted—put brackets around these and note your suggestion in the margin.
Words that aren’t quite right—again, bracket or circle it, and if you can think of another, better word, note that.
Great details…or areas that need more detail or description.
Good dialogue…or bad.
Strong first and last lines…or weak ones.
Paragraph structure—too long or too short?
Title—a title can make or break a piece. Does this work have a good title?
Characters’ names—names matter.
Stuff to cut! Almost all writing can be made stronger by paring down.
If you can go over the piece multiple times, even better!
If you want to read and respond even more deeply, consider these ideas:
Comment on the strengths of the piece first, not just to be nice but to tell the author what he or she should try to do more of… Then consider:
Character development—are we getting to know these people? How? Could you, as the reader, tell the author what one of his characters is like as a person?
Conflict—every story, essay and even poem needs a conflict, some central tension that moves the work forward. Can you identify the conflict in the piece?
Theme—are any themes developed throughout? How are they revealed? Can you tell the author the themes that you see? (Loss of innocence, for example, or light vs. dark)
Structure—would you re-structure the work? Move the final scene to the top and flash back? Cut a scene that slows down the story? Break the piece into distinct sections for clarity? Give the author some “architectural” advice; is the piece built the way it should be?
Setting—what is the setting (place and time) of the piece? If you can’t say, the author needs to think more about when and where this story happens. Setting always matters.
Scene—successful stories of any kind are usually made up of scenes, like little stories within the larger story. Can you identify good scenes in this work?
*We hope to start a Creative Writing Club for Middle School students too! Please let Dr. Mandyck know if you are interested.
RESOURCES
ALL writing is creative writing, but here are resources specifically to help you write fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays.
Scribblitt--allows you to write, illustrate and publish your own stories.
Figment--an online community where you can share your writing, connect with other people who love to read, and discover new stories and authors.
ALL writing is creative writing, but here are resources specifically to help you write fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays.
Scribblitt--allows you to write, illustrate and publish your own stories.
Figment--an online community where you can share your writing, connect with other people who love to read, and discover new stories and authors.
Articles
Pixar's 22 Rules for Phenomenal Storytelling. From PBJPublishing.com
25 Ways To Improve Your Writing in 30 Minutes a Day. From Writer's Digest, Aug. 2011
7 Tools For Pacing A Novel & Keeping Your Story Moving At The Right Pace. From Writer's Digest, April 2012.
25 Ways To Improve Your Writing in 30 Minutes a Day. From Writer's Digest, Aug. 2011
7 Tools For Pacing A Novel & Keeping Your Story Moving At The Right Pace. From Writer's Digest, April 2012.