The WMF Archives: Writing Opportunity: The Christian Science Monitor

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Writing Opportunity: The Christian Science Monitor

6:00 AM

By Pam Houghton

Last week, I wrote about my adventure getting published in the Christian Science Monitor.

I recently submitted another essay to them, and thought their auto-reply would be useful to anyone looking to pitch essays or poems, published in the Home Forum section, to a well-respected publication.

The nice thing about this response is they're pretty specific about what they're looking for, and if you don't hear from them within three weeks, you can pretty much figure they took a pass. I love knowing where I stand!

It's a long shot to get in - they get a lot of submissions. But you never know when yours might hit the right chord. Mine did - once. I got lucky!

Here it is.

Thank you for your submission. This automatic response confirms that we have received your poem or essay and will contact you within two weeks if we plan to use it.

For additional information about The Home Forum, please keep reading:

OVERVIEW

The Home Forum looks for upbeat, personal essays from 400 to 800 words. We also welcome short poems (no more than 18 lines). All material must be original and previously unpublished. For seasonal material, be aware that if you submit something that is about a particular month, holiday, event (back to school, graduation), or season, we need to receive it a minimum of six weeks ahead (the earlier the better).

MORE ON ESSAYS
These are first-person, nonfiction explorations of how you responded to a place, a person, a situation, an event, or happenings in everyday life. Tell a story; share a funny true tale. The humor should be gentle.

We accept essays on a wide variety of subjects, and encourage timely, newsy topics. However, we don’t deal with the topics of death, aging and disease.

Some examples:
www.csmonitor.com/2007/1115/p18s03-hfes.html
www.csmonitor.com/2002/0605/p18s03-hfes.html
www.csmonitor.com/2008/1119/p17s01-lifo.html

We are always looking for essays on travel, parenting (your experiences with children as opposed to advice for someone else), home, family, gardening, neighborhood, and community.

Some examples:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/p18s03-hfgn.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0803/p19s01-hfes.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1027/p18s03-hfes.html

We are unable to accept travel pieces that are the result of a sponsored trip (i.e., the writer accepted free transportation, lodging, etc.)

MORE ON POETRY

Poetry that appears in The Home Forum explores and celebrates life. It provides a respite from the bleakness that appears in so much contemporary verse. We are particularly interested in poetry that has an international flavor or that offers some global or cultural insights. Short poems are more likely to be accepted (because of space constraints) than poems that are more than 18 lines long.

We do not publish work that presents people in helpless or hopeless states. Nor do we print poetry about death, aging, and illness, or anything dark, violent, sensual or overtly religious.

Submissions are now accepted only by e-mail, one poem per e-mail; no more than 5 poems submitted at one time. In order to preserve line breaks and indents, you may want to consider using a Microsoft Word attachment. (We are not able to open any other attachments. If you don’t use Word, just paste the text into the e-mail.)

HOW TO PITCH AND FOLLOW UP

Personal essays, travel, and poetry: Submit finished work only, via e-mail: homeforum@csmonitor.com

Please be aware that if your e-mail account has a spam filter that blocks messages from “unauthorized” senders – and you have not added Home Forum to your authorized list -- you will not hear from us.

Thank you for not e-mailing the section’s editors directly; that only slows down consideration of your work. Always use homeforum@csmonitor.com. We are not able to respond to individual submissions, but will contact you within two weeks of receiving your essay or poem if we plan to use it.

PLEASE NOTE
Be sure to include your contact information (e-mail address, daytime telephone, mailing address) with your submission. Please include a word count with essay submissions.

We are unable to accept:
Faxed submissions.
Telephone queries.
Simultaneous submissions.
Previously published material.
Articles that result from a press trip, free lodging or meals, etc.

We look forward to working with you.

The Home Forum editors

Labels: christian science monitor, essays, Pam Houghton, poetry, writing opportunities

15 comments:

Sheila Ruth Siler said...: This was VERY informative, thank you for sharing!; March 6, 2010 7:30 AM
Rebecca said...: I looked at the Christian Science Monitor's website and couldn't find the "guidelines" for writers. Do they pay? If so, how much? Where is the Home Forum?

Thanks and thanks for publishing the information about getting published with the Christian Science Monitor. I'll refer back to this post.; March 6, 2010 8:22 AM
Pam Houghton said...: Sheila - glad it helped.

Rebecca - they pay. For essays ~ $125.00.

Here is the link to the Home Forum section:

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/%28view%29/all

Here is the link to Contributor's Guidelines (includes guidelines for everything):

http://www.csmonitor.com/About/Contributor-guidelines

You'll probably have to copy and paste the links into your browser.; March 6, 2010 6:46 PM
Rebecca said...: Thanks for the information!; March 6, 2010 11:48 PM
PM27 said...: Pam, thanks so much for writing your article. It gave me the courage to send in material to this well-known publication. Today, I received an acceptance for a poetry submission! So glad you shared your experiences with this publication.; April 16, 2010 10:23 PM
Pam Houghton said...: That is terrific! Glad it worked for you. Send it to us after it gets published!; April 17, 2010 6:59 AM
PM27 said...: The monitor said it will be a few weeks before it is published; then, one week later it will be posted in the online edition. I will send a link to it.
Thanks again, Pam.; April 24, 2010 1:18 PM
Anonymous said...: How long does it take to hear from them when they DO want your work?; May 26, 2010 10:16 PM
Pam Houghton said...: They say if you don't hear from them within three weeks, then they've passed on your work. I think I heard within a week to 10 days that they were going to publish mine.; May 27, 2010 6:47 AM
Anonymous said...: Thanks, Pam! It's about 10 days now. Not sure if that's good or bad. I'm still kicking myself for following up with the last pub. I sent it to after not hearing for a month (they said 3 weeks too) I think it gave them reason to reject me and you never want to do that- and they would have paid a lot more.; May 27, 2010 8:52 AM
Pam Houghton said...: It's a tough call, but follow-up is a good habit to get into. I don't think you need to follow up with CSM though - if you don't hear within 3 weeks, move on. Good luck!; May 27, 2010 8:59 AM
Anonymous said...: Thanks! Do you have other forums here too? Just found your website, like it a lot.; May 27, 2010 9:03 AM
Pam Houghton said...: Do you mean writing forums? I don't. But the WM Network has four separate websites - here is the link if you want to check it out.

http://www.thewmnetwork.com/

Thanks for the comment about my website.; May 27, 2010 9:10 AM
Angela Atkinson said...: We also have a writers' community group if you're interested. Here's the link: http://groups.google.com/group/The_WM_Freelance_Connection

It's free to join.; May 27, 2010 9:15 AM
Susanis said...: I joined. Thanks, Angela and Pam. Still waiting on CSM, but it's not two weeks yet- oh, and a holiday weekend to boot.; May 28, 2010 1:27 PM