Submission Guidelines

E-mail your submissions to us. We prefer Word documents without fancy font-work. Be sure to include your name and a title you can be proud of.

Submissions should be 2000 words or less.

We consider any kind of writing: stories, poetry, essays, letters, jokes, recipes, legal briefs and/or advice, experiences at grocery stores, rejected manuscripts, advice for the lovelorn, suggestions for Starbucks drinks you'd like to see, persuasive letters, stories about local sports teams featuring kids, lists, retellings of fairy tales, folk tales, tall tales, tales about remodeling, memories of what it was like to be in fourth grade...

We like writing about books and music, especially books you've read recently and music you're crazy about. We'll consider anything as long it satisfies our audience: fourth graders and the parents of fourth graders.

We are partial to writing about Lake Washington. Don't you think it's a beautiful lake, the way it's different every single day? Even though you know it's going to be there when you wake up, you never know exactly what it'll look like. Some days it's a deep indigo, others it's been converted to grayscale. One day glassy, others choppy. We like writing about everyday things like that, things we take for granted but sometimes forget about.

Two categories

12 and under.

Over 12.

Students on our writing team will review all submissions in the under 12 category. The editor will screen over 12 submissions. If you're selected we will notify you by e-mail.