The Published Parent/The Kerrie Show Summer Reading Lists 2020

I am a firm believer in the idea that you become a better writer through reading. When I'm deep into a great memoir, I might be doing dishes sometime and start thinking of great ways to write my own life in words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters.

Check out the summer reading list 2020 from my blog I started in 2008, The Kerrie Show. It's quite a hodge podge of genres and authors. Then look for fall and winter reading lists as well!

Let's be Goodreads friends!

5 Writing Opportunities for Teens

I am kind of partial to teenagers. I have three of my own right now (plus two tweens), as well as another one living with us during the coronavirus situation. I am also kind of partial to writing and always have been, ever since I was a kid. Journal entries turn into magazine articles, short stories, books, and more. 

I also teach Creative Writing to different grades at our local homeschool co-op and have for a few years now. You never know who might be the next Shirley Jackson! (Conversely, is anybody else having a little problem over-buying books during the COVID-19 situation since the libraries are closed?)

Below are 5 writing opportunities for teenagers, with hopefully another post to follow soon with 5 more as I track them down :-)

1. Matador Review
(high school and up)
An “alternative” magazine; purpose is to promote work that is thought-provoking, unconventional. They want the controversial, radical, unhinged, bizarre; they want the obsessive, compulsive, pervasive,  combative, and seductive. They believe that every work of quality art has a home where it belongs.

2. One Teen Story
(ages 13-19)
One Teen Story is looking for great short stories focused on teen protagonists and dealing with teen experience (issues of identity, friendship, family, coming-of-age, etc.).

3. Skipping Stones

(all ages)
A magazine that celebrates ecological and cultural diversity. Published 5 times a year, they accept essays, stories, letters to the editor, riddles and proverbs, and other creative writing up to 750 words or 30 lines for a poem.

4. Teen Ink
(grades 7-12)
This website, monthly newsprint magazine, and quarterly poetry magazine features personal essays, short stories, reviews (books, CDs, concerts, movies), and interviews from young authors.

5. Teen Voices
(females, ages 13-19)
Teen Voices, the global girls’ online news site of Women's eNews, is looking for girls who are interested in journalism and media to write for it site. All girls 13-19 years old are invited to join its writing staff. Teen Voices also publishes a series by and about girls with physical disabilities, called Girl Fuse. For more information about how to get paid to write, check out the submission guidelines.

UPDATES! Writing Market Additions/Updates to 7th Edition (ALWAYS CURRENT)

Updated as of April 15, 2020

Buy the book in print! Get published! Make money!

UPDATES:

About Families will print their final magazine in December, then the magazine will be retiring :-( (November 5, 2019)

Ann Arbor Family Press (March 2020) editor@annarborfamily.com (Adams Street Publishing). Also Findlay Area Family and Toledo Area Parent News

Arizona Parenting: 

From Kim Fischer: "I’d like to introduce you to Erin Acuna. Erin has been with us here at Arizona Parenting Magazine for 10 plus year and will be taking over the duties of editorial planning. I will be assisting her over the next few months during the transition but wanted to encourage you to email her directly moving forward. If you have a complete list of editorial pieces that you offer or seasonal lists, she would appreciate you sending them over to her, so that she can file them for potential use. I’ve enjoyed working with all of you and know that I am leaving you in capable hands." new email: erin@azparenting.com

Central Penn Parent: "My last day is Dec.6 as my parent company has decided to discontinue our print product. You should go ahead and remove us from your contact list. Thanks." Leslie Penkunas, Editor, Central Penn Parent

Charlotte Parent email mhuggins@charlotteparent.com (9/10/18)

Cincinnati Family, North Cincy Family, Northern Kentucky Family (Daycom Media) editor is Amanda Hayward (Sherry is gone), and her email is amandahayward@daycommedia.com (9/10/18)


City Parent Canada: as of September 19, 2019

"The last issue of City Parent will go to press next month. Your contributions have been most welcome and appreciated. You’ve provided great information for our readers. I am no longer in need of parenting content and regrettably request that you take City Parent off your mailing list. Thanks

JANE MULLER | Editor-in-Chief"

Creative Child: scott@creativechild.com (March 2020)

Curious Parents: 7/16/17 seems to no longer be publishing.

Dayton Parent: Nicole Sipe, Editor: nicolesipe@indyschild.com

Family Fun (Meredith) is no longer publishing :-( however...

Family Fun in Omaha is a market addition! familyfuninomaha@gmail.com

Family Times: kelli@familytimesmag.com

Family Times New York: rsullivan@familytimescny.com

Findlay Area Family (Adams Street Publishing): findlayfamilyeditor@adamsstreetpublishing.com (March 2020) Also Ann Arbor Family Press and Toledo Area Parent News

Frederick's Child acquired by Mid-Atlantic Media

Giggle is now renee@irvingpublications.com (4/18/19)

Jersey Shore Family is not accepting articles at this time ... updated February 2017

Kauai Family addition: editor@kauaifamilymagazine.com

Little Rock Family magazine update 2/19/19 new owner

Metro-Parent.com in Oregon is now PDX Parent: Julia.silverman@pdxparent.com

Minnesota Parent … editor@mnparent.com bounces back. Try info@mnparent.com

New Jersey Family try angel@njfamily.com (instead of editor@njfamily.com)

+New York Times Parenting Outlet (click here for information)

Omaha Family magazine has recently merged with Family Fun in Omaha. I will have Julie follow up should she have interest in running any of these  features. Please add Julie’s direct email to your list (familyfuninomaha@gmail.com) and remove mine. Thanks so much! Lauren Hathaway lauren@hathawaypublishing.net

Owensboro Parent only uses content from locals (Kentucky); email from editor 4/14/20

Palmetto Parent is now estevenson@indexx.com

Parent Express: delete ssherman@keenesentinel.com (March 2020)

Parenting OC is now jessica@parentingoc.com 8/7/18

ParentsCanada amyb@parentscanada.com bounced back. Try katie@parentscanada.com

Parents and Kids Mississippi: Our invoices are usually processed within 30 days after the month of publication. So for the month of May, please expect to be paid by the end of June.

PDX Parent: We do no use reprints because we try to make sure each story has a strong local angle. Also we keep our freelancers to parents in Portland Metro Area

Piedmont Parent editor email bounced back. Try the publisher at katie.reeves@morris.com (9/10/18)

Playground ... heather@playgroundmagazine.com.

*Red River Family publisher@redriverfamily.com (9/10/18) BOUNCED as of March 2020

Roanoke Valley Family: jackie@virginiafamily.com (previously josh@growingupinthevalley.com with Growing up in the Valley magazine) (March 2020)

Sacramento Parent: "I am sad to inform you that the publishers have decided to retire, July marks the last issue of Sacramento Parent.

Best, Shannon Smith, editor" 7/29/19

+SheKnows (click here for information)

Syracuse Parent editor Jennifer Wing jwing@eaglenewsonline.com

The Village Family Magazine is currently on hiatus and thus, will not be accepting reprint materials at this time

Toledo Area Parent News (Adams Street Publishing) (March 2020) toledoparenteditor@adamsstreetpublishing.com Also Findlay Area Family and Toledo Area Parent News

Upstate Parent: email has changed to chris@worthyplace.com or khassold@greenvillenews.com

Volusia/Flagler/St. John's can be found here now.

What's Up Family Canada: delete (emails have bounced back for a long time and I can't find them on Facebook or Google; the website I had is dead) (March 2020)

Wilmington Parent seasidemedia1@gmail.com

Wiregrass Parents is another publication affiliated with DeAnne Watson of Montgomery Parents (10/30/18)

Wisconsin Family email aschwabe@gannett.com (9/10/18)

Davler Media acquires Staten Island Parent so delete SI Parent email from your contacts since Davler will be taking over all of that and will handle your submissions :-)

NEW:

Growing Up Roseville (sister to Growing Up Chico) ... pays $35 reprints for each publication. Writers are reporting $35 per reprint per publication.

Self-Sufficient Kids pays $75 per article (1,250 words long) and their guidelines can be found here.

Sprinkles: miglesias@sprinklesmagazine.com

DELETED FROM BOOK FOR NONPAYMENT

Utah Family: They used my pieces without permission and then did not pay. I have heard from several writers about this as well. I’m not going to recommend a magazine that does business this way.

Valley Parent Oregon: They have used my pieces without permission and then did not pay.

Have files of article reprints that you own but have no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my thick 441-page print book of tips, tricks, and insider information, as well as 384 paying parenting and family markets! You can order "How to Get Published (and Paid!) Writing About Your Kids" on Amazon here.

The Pomodoro Technique: Focus for ADHD Writers

I'm reading The Art and Business of Writing by Chris Jones on my Kindle and it's full of helpful advice. I'll review it in a later post. For now, please take this gem I got in there (then, interestingly enough, I also found the same gem the next day in a speed-reading ebook I was proofreading on Fiverr, which tells me the Universe wants me to try it).

Basically in the mornings, I put my butt in my seat after getting my coffee and something to eat. Focusing after that is hard. I want to check email, Facebook, my ebook sales, Fiverr, blog stats, do some blog social media, and more. Back and forth and then I've wasted an hour! That is no way to make your dreams come true of moving to the country, traveling the world with your family and writing a bunch more books! 

So you start by hitting the app store with your smartphone (or you can just do it yourself with a timer, I suppose, but I am trying out this free app to see if it keeps track of stats and stuff ... there are also paid versions).

Then you handle your settings. I left mine on the default. So I proofread for 25 minutes and then take a break. I plan to also use this for writing so I can get articles and ebooks actually WORKED ON! After every 4 sets, you get a longer break. I'll have to use this to switch out the laundry, do some dishes, throw dinner in the slow cooker, brush my teeth, get dressed, etc. I am only doing this in the mornings so far when the kids are sleeping and I am not distracted or interrupted. Once the kids are up, all bets are off and it's homeschool and family time until I can get more work done at night, usually about another hour until my brain is too tired to think.

The timer goes quietly for 25 minutes and then buzzes or can go off with an alarm with noise and then switches to 4 minutes of break (yes, you can pause it if you need to). Sometimes I might grab my 5-pound weights I keep by my desk (a 1950s Formica table in the corner of the kitchen, my "office") or do some planks or squats. Or check email. But the point is when that time is up I have to get back to work. No more languishing in Facebook land for me!

I'd love to hear about your tips, tricks and tools for getting things done! And be sure to come back to read my review of Chris Jones' book! You'll love it!

Write for The New York Times Parenting Outlet

Jessica Grose, Lead Editor, Parenting

The New York Times
@JessGrose

"I am thrilled to announce the NYT Parenting newsletter! For the next month or so, we'll be publishing the newsletter and a handful of articles each week. 

Then in early May, we will launch a beautiful, robust website. We'll be covering fertility and pregnancy up through kids age 5 or 6 and your lives with them, and giving you evidence-based guidance, news, and personal stories every day. It is my sincerest hope that the site will prevent you from a panicked 3 am google that lands you on a BabyCenter message board telling you that crystals and essential oils will heal your baby's rickets. The full site launches in May.

Pitch guidelines:

For general submissions please send to: parenting_submissions@nytimes.com

Rates depend on the type of piece.

What is NYTParenting?

Modeled after what the Times did with NYTCooking, NYTParenting will be a robust section of the Times website (parenting.nytimes.com) with new and archival content, and a newsletter. NYTParenting is set to launch over Spring 2019.

We will mostly cover topics ranging from fertility and pregnancy to kids through ages 5 or 6, but we'll also be doing a lot of coverage on issues that affect parents of young children. 

We will have articles and essays, as well as guides — which are a content form with a specific structure and which are meant to answer thorny parenting problems in a service-y, research-backed way. For now, we’re mostly coming up with ideas for guides in house.

A bit about us, philosophically:
• We are for parents who want evidence-based solutions to problems with their kids or with their own lives. We recognize that you had a baby — not a lobotomy. Your wants and needs still matter.
• We are for mothers AND fathers. Almost all parenting products are explicitly or implicitly gendered. Through design, editorial choices and framing, we will not be. We recognize that every family is different, and we are mindful of that.

What we're looking for:

Essays and articles in the 1,000-1,200 word range.

For articles, we're looking for timely ideas, whether they're cultural or trendy (What's the next baby shark? Why is everyone feeding their kid European formula?), based on new studies and how they affect parents (Are you really supposed to monitor your kid while they brush their teeth til they're 8?), or second-day stories on news events (How does family separation affect brain development?).

While we cover fertility through age 6, and will assign on topics affecting kids and parents in that range, we are especially focusing on the following topics in the near term for essays:

--How parenting has changed your identity, or how your identity has intersected with your parenting experience
--Relationships (with your partner, with your parents or in-laws, with your friends, with your first child when you have a second...)
--Life with babies and toddlers

We're also trying out an essay series called The Hardest Part

The Hardest Part will be a series of essays about the parts of parenting that you’ve found to be the most unexpectedly difficult, and how you worked through them (or didn't).

The tone can be as serious or as funny as the subject matter requires. It can be as straightforward as, "The hardest part of parenting is dealing with my kids during the winter," or "The hardest part of parenting is handling my kid's severe allergies," or as esoteric as, "The hardest part of parenting is how emotionally spent I feel at the end of each day.""

3/29/19 originally posted

Have files of article reprints that you own but have no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my thick 441-page print book of tips, tricks, and insider information, as well as 384 paying parenting and family markets! You can order "How to Get Published (and Paid!) Writing About Your Kids" on Amazon here.

UPDATED Chicken Soup for the Soul Writing Opportunities and Submission Guidelines

Chicken Soup for the Soul has an astounding collection of inspiring books! I remember about 15 years ago when I got the one for mothers for Mother's Day and I still have it, all Post-It noted and highlighted! Click here to check out their possible upcoming books, which you can contribute to! They update it all the time as they publish more and come up with more ideas! Here are some that are coming up!

Age Is Just a Number

**Title Change: This was previously titled The Golden Years or Second Wind. If you submitted a story for that title a few years ago, please do not resubmit it. We have it and it will be considered for this new title.**

So, you’re a certain age now, and you’re ready for what’s next. You might be enjoying an empty nest, or starting a second career, or winding down a first one. You might be downsizing, or traveling, or caring for elderly parents.

You might be going on the adventure of a lifetime or taking long walks in the woods. The one thing you know for sure is that you’re not ready to stop living! You feel energetic and young and there is still so much more to see and do and give and enjoy.

We are looking for stories about the humorous or serious sides of life after 60. Here are some suggested topics but we know you can think of many more:

• Time for a new career
• Trying new things
• Bucket lists and adventure
• Volunteering and mentoring
• Exercising and sports
• Sports cars!
• New love interests
• Internet dating
• The wisdom of age
• New passions
• Raising grandchildren… or still raising grown children!
• Moving to a new place
• Moving to an active retirement community
• Taking the time to do what you’ve always wanted to do
• Handling loss and illness
• Caring for elderly parents
• Using new technology
• Reinventing yourself, in big ways and small
• Handling a spouse’s retirement or new career
• Travel
• Downsizing and moving
• Divorce and recovery

The DEADLINE DATE for story and poem submissions is MAY 31, 2020.

Christmas Is in the Air

**This title was changed from Stories about Christmas to Christmas Is in the Air. If you previously submitted your story or poem for Stories about Christmas we have it in our system and it will be considered for the revised title. No need to resubmit.**

Everyone loves holiday stories and our contributors write great ones. They are so good that we create a new edition for the holiday season every year. We are now collecting stories for our HOLIDAY 2020 book and we are looking for stories about the entire December holiday season, including Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, and New Year’s festivities too.

We want to hear about your holiday memories and traditions. The rituals of the holiday season give a rhythm to the years and create a foundation for our lives, as we gather with family, with our communities at church, at school, and even at the mall, to share the special spirit of the season, brightening those long winter days. Please share your special stories about the holiday season with us. Be sure that they are “Santa safe” so that we don’t spoil the magic for precocious readers!

Here are some suggested topics, but we know you can think of many more:

• The True Meaning of the Holidays
• Holiday Traditions
• Memories of the Holiday Season
• The Love of Family
• Family Reunions
• Holiday Humor
• Gift Giving
• Gift Receiving
• Regifting
• Decorating
• Eat, Eat, Eat... and Be Merry
• Christmas Through the Eyes of a Child
• Christmas Through the Eyes of Your Pets!
• Here Comes Santa Claus
• Things that went wrong!
• Holiday food and traditions
• The weird things your family does
• Funny anecdotes
• ... and any other stories you would like to share

If we published your story in a previous Christmas book please do not submit it again. We will not publish it. If you submitted a story and we did not publish it and it will fit in this book, please do submit it again.

The deadline date for story and poem submissions has been extended to APRIL 30, 2020.

Listen to Your Dreams

When we are asleep, we dream. Are dreams a connection to the unconscious mind? Are they omens of things to come—both good and bad? Dreams are often the way we tap into our own inner wisdom. Sixth sense, gut feeling, premonitions, instinct. Whatever you call it, sometimes we have no logical reason for knowing something—but still we know it.

We want to know about your dreams. What have you learned from your dreams? Did you listen? Did any of your dreams come true? Did a dream strengthen your faith or help you change the direction your life was headed in? Did some miraculous insight serve as a warning about something that was going to happen?

Please do not submit stories about realizing your dreams, as in aspirations or hopes. We are talking about dreams while you are asleep! Here are some suggested topics but we know you will be able to think and write about many more:

• Dreams about finding love
• Dreams that saved you or a loved one from danger/death
• Dreams that helped you face your fears
• Dreams that changed the direction of your life
• Dreams in which you communicated with a loved one, either dead or alive
• Dreams that caused epiphanies
• Dreams that changed your behavior
• Dreams that made you more adventurous
• Dreams that contained important warnings or medical information
• Dreams that gave you comfort or helped your forgive someone
• Dreams that made you more optimistic/happier
• Dream journaling and how-to use your dreams more effectively
• Premonitions that came true or saved you from something bad
• Learning to trust your inner guidance [we may do a chapter about inner guidance even if it occurs during your waking hours]
• Amazing coincidences and synchronicity [again, we may do a chapter about this even if these things occurred during your waking hours]

The deadline date for story and poem submissions has been extended to April 3, 2020.

Miracles & Divine Intervention

101 Awesome Stories about Hope, Miracles, Angels, Amazing Coincidences, Unexplained Happenings, Answered Prayers, Miraculous Healing, and Messages from Heaven

** Please note that this title was previously posted as Stories of Divine Intervention**

Miracles are all around us if we’re open to them. Sometimes we just can’t explain how good things came about. Are they celestial, otherworldly, heavenly? However they happened, these events give us peace and comfort, guidance, hope and faith.

We are looking for powerful, amazing stories about:

• Divine intervention and timing
• Miracles
• Angels
• Coincidences
• Unexplained happenings
• Answered prayers
• Miraculous healing
• Messages and signs from heaven

These true stories can be religious or non-religious. We just want them to make people say “wow”—stories that will give our readers chills, in a good way!

In addition to the topics listed above, here are some more that may help you recall that perfect story to share with our readers:

• Angel visitations – messages from an angel
• Everyday miracles and hope
• Signs and wonder
• Messages or guidance from those who have passed on
• Dreams and premonitions
• Miraculous healings or recoveries
• Visions and revelations
• Unexplained happenings
• When something, against all odds, worked out
• Mysterious helpers
• Unexplained happenings
• Amazing coincidences
• Near misses and astonishing luck
• Answered prayers
• Stories that make you say, “you’re not going to believe what just happened…”
• Stories that have people exclaiming “really?!” when they finish reading them

Please note that we are not looking for stories about people who are “angels” because they do nice things. Please do not submit eulogies about a loved one who has died and is now an “angel.”

The deadline for story and poem submissions is AUGUST 31, 2020.

Stories about Self-care and Me Time

Do you ever say that you’ll take care of yourself AFTER you finish your to-do list? That’s what we did until we started putting ourselves ON our to-do list, right there with the other people we care for.

Self-care is what we all neglect most. And we’re waking up to its importance. We care for children and partners and parents and friends. We care for pets and homes and volunteer organizations. But, in order to take care of others you must first take care of yourself. And that is not being selfish.

Taking care of yourself is not just about your physical health but includes your emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing too. Self-care includes that all-important “me time” whether that means exercising or reading or meditating or having lunch with friends. Whatever your psyche needs is your “me time.”

We are looking for your stories about how you neglected your self-care and then how you realized its importance and so you now engage in it.

Here are some ideas to get your creative juices going:

• How do you achieve work/life balance?
• When you realized you were NOT engaging in self-care, realized how important that is and what that realization was like
• How you turned the situation around and found your self-care and your me time
• The consequences of NOT taking care of yourself
• The benefits of proper self-care and me time
• The benefits of getting enough sleep
• The consequences of being sleep-deprived
• How do you handle your self-care and me time? Share your tips and examples.
• Have you made a difference to friends and family members too by encouraging them to take care of themselves?
• Your favorite ways to spend “me time”
• How do you relax and rejuvenate your mind, body and soul?
• Self-care for physical wellbeing, whether it’s proper nutrition, exercise, environment, making those doctor appointments, addressing addictions (including the legal ones)
• Self-care for emotional and mental wellbeing, whether it’s stress reduction, editing your calendar, changing who you spend time with, cutting back on obligations, seeing a therapist
• What’s your strategy for including self-care in your daily life?
• What have you added to your life?
• What have you eliminated from your life?
• WHO have you eliminated from your life? Self-care includes removing negativity and toxic people from your life, too!

**PLEASE NOTE that the deadline date for story and poem submissions has been extended to SEPTEMBER 30, 2020.

"If the story or poem you wrote is published by us, you will be paid $200 upon publication of the book plus you will receive ten free copies of the book your story or poem appears in."

We have many Chicken Soup for the Soul books in development and we frequently add new titles. If you have a great story or poem you want to submit but it doesn’t fit with any of the topics below, please save it and check this page again in the future to see if we have added a topic that’s a better match.

If you have a story or poem that you think fits two of the topics below, you may submit it to both. Then let us know in the Comments section that you’ve done so. Also, you may submit more than one piece for each book.

We are always looking for new talent. So whether you are a regular contributor or new to our family, please share your story or poem with us. If this is your first time, please visit our Story Guidelines page, which will answer many of your questions about subject matter, length, and style.

Have files of article reprints that you own but have no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my thick 441-page print book of tips, tricks, and insider information, as well as 384 paying parenting and family markets! You can order "How to Get Published (and Paid!) Writing About Your Kids" on Amazon here.

2020 First Quarter Kick-Butt Work-from-Home Income Report

Writer friends, the McLoughlin household is healthy and happy and ready to head into Q2 2020 (April, May, and June) and I wish the same for you!

First quarter ended well, even though I was also homeschooling, running a household, and my husband was in Kuwait for 7 weeks of it. Hey, then let's throw in a pandemic on top of everything else, and I wore down all my pencil erasers getting rid of things on our calendar for the next couple of months. Oh, and right after my husband barely got out of Kuwait and back home on March 13, he went into full work-from-home mode alongside me. A challenge for sure!

I am still blessed to be able to work from home proofreading, blogging, writing articles, and writing books and to be able to do it in my sweatpants or swimsuit, out on the deck or at the dining room table, at my house or traveling with my kids and husband for his work to places like Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Chicago, Florida, and more.

I like to share my income with you to show you that I am a real person with real challenges and successes. No, it is not a full-time income, but I am not aiming for that. I am thankful and grateful that my husband has a good job, and my main job is homeschooling. Words are my part-time job for now. When the kids are grown I foresee working more hours with my word career and helping to pay for travel and retirement. But that's at least 10 years away :-)

Before you wonder where all my money goes because I live a regular life, consider $1,200 spent on Catholic camp for husband/daughter (had to pay for him as a chaperone) combined with husband/teen sons going to a Catholic conference. Put that together with payments on braces for three kids, dental implant payments for me, paying off a credit card (woo hoo!), and keeping up with some other fun things we might want to do (drive-in!), my working really does contribute to the household expenses and "extras."

See you back here on July 1st! And if you want to work on Fiverr, please use my referral link!

Have files of article reprints that you own but have no clue where to start reselling them? Have ideas for some fantastic new pieces but no idea who might want them? Check out my thick 441-page print book of tips, tricks, and insider information, as well as 384 paying parenting and family markets! You can order "How to Get Published (and Paid!) Writing About Your Kids" on Amazon here.