Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Submission Guidelines - First Draft

Hey Readers!
We have our first draft of our submission guidelines! We're pretty happy with them, but we know they could probably use a once-over from our readers. We are completely open to suggestions, so please, read through them and let us know what you think! You can either comment on this blog post, or email us at starvingpen@gmail.com.
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Submission Guideless - All Pieces
  1. Must be 18 years or older, in order for Starving Pen Magazine to publish your work(s).
  2. In your email submission to us, please send us two copies: a PDF format and Microsoft Word document of your work(s). 
  3. All pieces should be edited to the best of your ability. Starving Pen Magazine has a zero tolerance plagiarism policy. If you are found to have plagiarized, you will no longer be allowed to submit work, and we will not protect you from legal consequences in any way. Seriously. Don’t be a jerk. Write your own stuff, or don’t write at all.

Submission Guidelines - Fiction & Creative Nonfiction
  1. All stories must be submitted in Times New Roman, size 12 font, single spaced.
  2. While there is no minimum length requirement, Starving Pen Magazine has a twenty (20) page maximum per submission. There is a five submission limit per issue (aka five submissions per month). 
  3. Each submission must have a complete story from beginning to end. 
  4. Edit. Edit. Edit.  Our staff will do, at best, light editing of your work (obvious spelling and grammar mistakes). Your submitted work should be edited and polished to the best of your ability. If we find that your piece needs drastic edits, our staff reserves the right to request further editing before publication.
  5. Rarely, Starving Pen Magazine may contact authors to ask their permission to edit their piece and place the edits online as an example for other members. This is completely voluntary and the author will not be penalized if they decline.
  6. When Submitting your work, please label in this order:
  • Title
  • Author’s Name
  • Author’s Pen Name (if applicable)
  • Fiction or Creative Nonfiction

Submission Guidelines - Poetry
  1. Starving Pen Magazine holds a ten (10) poem maximum per edition (aka ten poems per month).
  2. All poems must be written of reasonable font type and size.
  3. Because of the various forms of poetry, our staff will do NO edits on submitted poems. Please be sure to edit your work to the best of your ability before submitting.
  4. Starving Pen Magazine will only accept written forms of poetry, no videos will be accepted.
  5. When submitting your work, please label in this order
  • Title
  • Author’s Name
  • Author’s Pen Name (if applicable)
  • Type of poem (optional)


Submission Guidelines - Serial Works
  1. Starving Pen Magazine defines Serial Works as multiple submissions from members that follow the same characters - such as submitting multiple chapters of a novel. They are essentially multiple short stories. Serial Works follow the same submission guidelines as the Fiction and Creative Nonfiction submissions, except for the following.
  2. If you submit a work as a Serial Story you are expected to submit a continuation of the piece, at least once every three months. If you plan on writing a serial story, you must be willing to commit to a minimum of five submissions. You will be assured a slot, as long as you follow this guideline.
  3. If an author who has contributed a Serial decides to “scrap” the piece, or leave it unfinished, Starving Pen Magazine reserves the right to contact the author to discuss the possibility of transferring the story to a Creative Commons licensing (aka allow others to continue the story).

Submission Guidelines - Collaborative Pieces
  1. If two or more authors decide to work on a collaborative piece, they must email the Starving Pen staff before submission so guidelines may be established. Collaborative pieces will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
  2. When submitting a collaborative piece, each author will be given credit for the entire  piece, even if one author discontinues writing and the other(s) finish the piece.

2 comments:

  1. I'm looking for some clarification, and figured I'd ask here so that others can see the answers as well, should they also be curious.

    Are these the official submission guidelines, then? Also, does labeling refer to within the submitted document, or as part of the submission email?

    ReplyDelete
  2. We've gotten some pretty positive feedback on these submissions, so we're probably sticking with them. If there ARE any changes, they'll be coming soon, and they will be extremely minor.

    You can do the labeling either way - within the document, or within your email to us. As long as it's somewhere we can easily see without having to search through the docuement for it.

    Thanks for your questions! Let us know if you think of any others. Our goal is to make the submission/publication process as easy for writers as possible. Thanks again!

    --Courtney, Starving Pen Co-Founder

    ReplyDelete