We can’t wait to see your creative writing!  We ask that the material be rated suitable for all ages, be original and publishable, with some literary merit. Send us only your very best and be sure to include a link to your website or blog. You never know who may read your piece. Maybe a roving editor or agent will want to get in touch with you. Make it easy for them to do so.

Important Note #1:

If you happen to get a rejection from us, do not despair!  Plenty of great writers (including the editors of this very magazine, and, you know, J.K. Rowling and John Steinbeck) were rejected loads of times before they got published.  You’re in good company.  Don’t take rejections personally, and keep writing!  And maybe make a dart board out of the rejections; it’ll make you feel better.

Important Note #2:

Just about all of our rejections will be a form letter.  Please don’t hold this against us.  There is simply not enough time for us to respond personally to all of you.  Rest assured that your piece was read, carefully.  And keep writing!

To make sure we can read your work as thoroughly as possible, instead of getting bogged down in a lot of confusing paperwork, we do have a few guidelines for your submissions:

Submit online to the email address appropriate to your genre:

• poetry[at]scribechat.com
• fiction[at]scribechat.com
• essays[at]scribechat.com
• illustrations[at]scribechat.com

All other inquires can be sent to editors[at]scribechat.com.  Please also:

• Write the TITLE of your submission in the subject bar.
• In the body of the email, please write your name, phone number, snail mail address, and email address.  Please also provide a short biography of yourself and your writing history; also, please let us know where you found out about SCRIBECHAT.  If you are a teenager, please note this in your bio, as we have a special place for teen writers in SCRIBECHAT.
• Below the biographical info, PASTE your submission into the body of the email.  DO NOT send the submission as an attachment; attachments will be discarded.
• Only submit one piece at a time, and wait to hear back from us before you submit again.
• Note that all accepted writers under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian sign a form giving his/her permission for the piece to be published
• If you are accepted, we ask that you provide a digital photo.
• Observe the specific guidelines for each genre, below.

Poetry

Please submit no more than 5 poems, totalling no more than 8 double-spaced pages.

Fiction

6000 word limit.  Please do not submit excerpts from longer works, like novels.  The story should stand alone.  Please double space your submission.

Essays

3000 word limit. As with fiction, please do not submit excerpts from longer works.  In this category, we welcome autobiographical essays, or reflective essays about events, people, or places.  We do not welcome essays like those you might find on a college application, or those you might submit in a history or English class.  Unless, of course, you want to write a parody of those forms.  Again, double-space.

Interviews

At this time, only our editors conduct interviews with authors.  But we’d love your input.  If you have ideas for authors you’d like to see interviewed, by all means send us your ideas, and explain why you’d like to see the interview.

A few business notes:

• We cannot accept responsibility for lost or damaged submissions.  If you haven’t heard from us after 3 months, you may inquire about the status of your submission.
• We encourage simultaneous submissions.
• We acquire exclusive first-time Internet rights for all works we publish. Works are also archived online. All other rights, including the right to publish in print form, revert to contributors.
• Much as we wish we could pay our writers, it’s just not in the budget (if it makes you feel any better, none of the editors get paid, either).
• We do not publish works that have been published anywhere else, except a high school literary magazine that is not nationally distributed.