STORY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2015 ALMANAC TAKEN ANYTIME!

PHOTOS/ARTWORK DEADLINE FOR 2014 ALMANAC IS END OF MARCH 2013. MORE DETAILS HERE.

The Saint Paul Almanac is always looking for unique Saint Paul stories. Whether you're a professional writer or writing for the first time, we're interested in reading your work and publishing it. No matter what age you are—whether 9 years old or 121 years old, no matter where you are from or where you are now, we want to read your stories about our city.

Some ideas

what happened to me in Saint Paul
a love letter to Saint Paul
what I hate about Saint Paul
humorous weather forecasts for Saint Paul
the lost Saint Paul
a Saint Paul puzzler
a favorite place in Saint Paul (now or in the past)
childhood memories of Saint Paul
a favorite organization or business in Saint Paul (now or in the past)
your family's experience growing food in Saint Paul
getting lost in Saint Paul
your experience as an immigrant to Saint Paul
the rivers and creeks of Saint Paul
the parks of Saint Paul
Saint Paul after midnight
weird work in Saint Paul
your favorite Saint Paul teacher (now or in the past)
special trails and hikes in Saint Paul
birding and wildlife watching in Saint Paul

Please send us your stories of 650 words or less by Dec. 15, 2012. If your work has been selected for the 2014 Saint Paul Almanac, you will be contacted in June 2013. If you are not contacted, your work was not selected.

We pay small stipends on publication. Unfortunately, due to the volume of submissions, we are no longer able to respond to each work individually. Do not be discouraged. Each year is a new year. Repeat submissions are always welcome!

Thank you for wishing to participate in the Saint Paul Almanac's democratic experiment in publishing. We eagerly await your submission, and we are grateful for your willingness to shape it to the publication's needs. Please read the writer's guidelines below for further information on the content, tone, and format of submissions.

Submission deadline for the 2015 Almanac: December 15, 2013

Where to send your story

Via Email:
stories@saintpaulalmanac.org

Via Mail:
Saint Paul Almanac
275 East Fourth St.,
Suite 735
Saint Paul, MN 55101
Traditional mail is discouraged, unless you have no access to email.

Writers' Guidelines

We receive hundreds of submissions every year, and we read each one carefully. To help you understand the Almanac's format, please keep the following points in mind:

Make it personal

Daily and weekly newspapers and tv/radio news provide Saint Paulites with plenty of straight news. What the Almanac is looking for is something much more personal. Describe an experience of your life here. Everyone has unique stories to share that are compelling to a broader audience.

Be specific

It's the bright particulars that give stories their charm and uniqueness. Help your readers see, hear, touch, taste, and smell the experiences you're writing about. Specifics help you tell your story.

Don't advertise

The Almanac is published by a nonprofit organization. We don't take advertisements, and we don't publish them in the guise of stories. If you want to sing the praises of your favorite bartender or grocery store, dig a little deeper—our readers want a living profile of a person or place.

Stay within word counts

One of the Almanac's goals each year is to publish the broadest and deepest possible range of writers. For this reason, we must limit the length of pieces, and we may have to further limit them through careful copyediting. Most of our selections are 300 words (or less) or 600 words (or less). If you want to submit a longer piece, please contact the editor by email first and describe the piece you want to submit. We will let you know if you should send the longer piece or not.

Be frisky & consider alternate submission formats

Have you written a poem, lyrics to a song, or a short scene that you'd like to submit? Essays aren't the only things we publish—we're happy to look at other formats, including graphic fiction, photographs, cartoons and—remember we have a website—music, video and multimedia.

Remember that we're in this together

Just as you bring unique experience to the submissions you send us, we bring something unique to publishing the Almanac's selections. Your and our work is a collaboration. We may need to tighten or shorten what you've sent us; we may need to ask you to rewrite or add something to it. Please don't think of such editing as criticism of your writing—it is not. Editors are the midwives to your words, helping them to be born into the world of a specific publication.

Help us keep our costs down

Formatting selections is expensive. If you believe in and want to support the Almanac, please help us keep our expenses down by submitting your contributions this way:

Put your name and the title of your submission on the left instead of centered.
After the period at the end of a sentence, use only a single space (not two spaces) before you begin another sentence.
When you email us your submission, please give the file a title that uses your last name, and then one or two words to describe the contents—for example, GraysonMoundPark.doc
Include a short (50 words or fewer) biography at the end of your submission. Funny is good!

Contract

By submitting to the Saint Paul Almanac, you agree to the following terms, which grant the Almanac unlimited use of your piece in print, on the web, or elsewhere, and which also affirms that you are completely free to resell or re-license your work anywhere else without our permission:

Author understands the material provided is to be used in the Saint Paul Almanac in a compilation that the Saint Paul Almanac will own and copyright in its name. Author grants the Saint Paul Almanac copyright rights to the material for use in the Saint Paul Almanac, Saint Paul Almanac website, and any subsequent repurposing of the material (new editions, “Best of” editions, etc.). The author shall be free, without any approval from the Saint Paul Almanac to use or license their material in any other way the author wishes. In the case of articles and stories, the publisher will copyedit pieces for general readability and space considerations. Poetry may be edited with agreement by the poet.

All writers receive $50 for their accepted submission, plus one free book.

The author warrants that the material is original and that the author owns the publishing and all other rights to the material and that said rights are not subject to any prior agreement or other right that may interfere with or impair the rights of the Saint Paul Almanac under this agreement.