Submissions
Our emphasis is on new writing and artwork created by Latter-day Saint women. We encourage contributions from beginners as well as practiced amateurs and professionals.
We are now accepting submissions for our Open Theme Fall/Winter 2008 issue.
We are also accepting submissions for our essay contest.
For detailed guidelines, see subsections listed to the right.
Issue themes are broad concepts intended to solicit a wide spectrum of insights and perspectives. The themes are not strict topics to follow. We encourage contributors to pursue thoughtful, imaginative interpretations and applications of the themes. We also welcome submissions addressing other topics which support our mission statement.
Spring 2009
Gifts of the Spirit
Deadline: September 7, 2008
Summer 2009
Contest Issue (Entries from 2008 personal essay contest and poetry contest.
Deadline: December 31, 2008
Essay Helps: Printable (pdf 37KB) Version
A personal essay features life experiences which illustrate an idea. Essayist Edward Hoaglund explains that an essay “hangs somewhere between two sturdy poles: this is what I think, and this is what I am.” Your idea—what I think—is the core of the essay; it need not be stated explicitly, but it does need to be clear. The style and voice you use in communicating your idea reveals aspects of your self—“what I am.”
We are looking for essays which:
- Focus on the “local”—people you know, places you’ve been, things you’ve experienced.
- Use a conversational approach. Most personal essays are “chatty” or “talky,” although some may be more formal in tone. Use first person.
- Employ effective story-telling techniques (such as blending of scene and summary; imagery and five-sense appeal; characterization; active verb; “show not tell”).
- Rely on subtle meaning and avoid heavy-handed moralizing.
- Feature an authentic voice–this requires honesty about your feelings and ideas.
- Provide a good “road map” of where the essay is going (or, at least, where it has been).
- Use structure to emphasize meaning. You might try coming at your issue from a variety of different angles rather than using a methodical approach.
- Consider other points of view. Exploring conflicting ideas may lend depth to your essay’s meaning.
Through employing these techniques, you may move beyond merely reporting an experience or evidencing a point to creating insightful, personable literary art. Essayist Philip Lopate emphasizes, “While it is true that historically the essay is related to rhetoric, it in fact seeks to persuade more by the delights of literary style than anything else.”
You may also find the articles filed under writing tips at our blog to be helpful.
References:
Edward Hoaglund, The Tugman’s Passage (New York: Random House, 1982), 25.
The Art of the Personal Essay, Phillip Lopate, ed. (NY: Anchor Books Doubleday, 1994), 301.
Style Guidelines: Printable (pdf, 39KB) Version
We follow the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). To make the editing process run more smoothly, we ask authors to format their works as follows:
- Single space after punctuation marks and in between sentences. This is the current publishing industry standard. If you prepared your manuscript using two spaces after periods and colons, please remove the extra spaces. (An easy way to check for extra spaces is to use the "show ¶" command in your word processing program.)
- Single space between lines.
- Double space between paragraphs. Do not indent at the beginning of paragraphs.
- Use a plain font in 12-point size.
- Allow the program to wrap the right edge automatically.
- If documentation is required, use endnotes.
- Include your full name, phone number, e-mail address and street address at the beginning of your email.
- Include your essay’s title near the beginning of the email.
- Proofread carefully. There are many errors that your word processing program will not identify. We suggest having someone else read your manuscript and offer suggestions.
If you have additional questions about style, you can find the fifteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style at most libraries and bookstores.
Copyright 2005-2008, Segullah Group. All rights reserved. This notice pertains to the journal issues and to all other website material. For use and permission inquiries, or for more information about our copyright policy, contact the editor at editor.in.chief AT segullah DOT org. Inquiries pertaining to individual pieces will be forwarded to the respective author/artist.
By submitting their work to Segullah, contributors implicity license Segullah Group to print, re-print, distribute, and display their submission, in whole or in part. This license applies only to usage of submissions within a compiled work (journal issue). Issues may be published on paper and online. Authors who quote from other works must secure any necessary permissions, and will be responsible for any infractions of copyright law within their pieces.
Segullah Group does not accept submissions which are under consideration by other publications. Submissions not used in the forthcoming issue of Segullah may be held for possible use in later issues. Contributors must notify the editor if they intend to submit their piece to a different publication, or if they want their submission withdrawn from our files.