~Telling Our Stories Press

Short Memoir Submission Guidelines~

Telling Our Stories Press seeks raw, close to the bone writing about meaningful personal experiences. We are seeking memoir that enlightens, entertains and connects with the reader at a basic human level – which usually naturally occurs when one examines ones life with depth, sincerity, and a desire for knowledge and understanding.

However, as with any memoir, there MUST be some uncovering of whatever wisdom was gained, (however slight) from a backward glance at an era in your life, experiences you’ve undergone, persons in your life, persons you’ve become, lessons learned, etc. We are especially partial to narratives created by the interior, personal writings derived  from creative journal writing. Your memoir should comprise meaningful moments, and readers should get a sense of why it was important to you to tell your story.

We are seeking literary personal narratives with well crafted writing employing literary techniques such as explicit or implied storyline, conflict, symbolism, theme, interiority, rich imagery and description. Entries will be judged on originality and the use of various structural forms, language and cohesive storytelling.

BUT, here at Telling Our Stories Press, we are also seeking memoir of different

SHAPES & SIZES.  We are seeking to push structure to create memoir art.

Your Short Memoir may include written or visually artistic entries consisting of one or more forms, such as:

Narrative Entries

Stream of consciousness, prose, poetry, personal essays, vignettes, lists, dialogues, open letters, written portraits (of self or others), alternative viewpoints (of an event, person or situation), diary excerpts, mutual journals (between you and another person OR you and other persons surrounding a theme, event, etc.), written journeys, memoir in altered perspectives (telling your story via the perspective of others); travelogues, spiritual journeys…

Visually Artistic Entries

Narrative photography, graphic memoir, illustrations, sketches, artistic entries personal narrative surrounding scrapbook mementoes, an array of arranged photos, self portraits (sketches, paintings, collage, etc.)

Mix and Match

Be creatively daring!

Tell your story by crafting memoir with of a combination of any of the above forms.

Images or artistic entries may be included with any category of memoir

Self portraits (of any form) and/or any images you consider as constructively contributing to your personal narrative are encouraged as well

Copyright

~Authors retain all rights to their work.

However, by submitting your memoir, you give us permission to publish the entirety or portions of your work in electronic (web-based and eBook format) or print publications by Telling Our Stories Press in subsequent anthology collections and/or chapbook series.

~We accept simultaneous submissions. Please be sure that you have appropriate rights to your work in the event that your work is selected for electronic (web-based and eBook format) and/or print publication by Telling Our Stories Press.

Submission Specs

Include a brief biographical statement with your submission

Text files should be submitted as either .doc or .rtf or .txt formatted files

Artwork and/or images should be formatted in JPEG or TIFF or EPS formats with a resolution of 300 -600 dpi

Files consisting of text and images may be submitted as either JPEG or .doc files (with images embedded therein)

Artwork files should be formatted to fit a maximum page dimension of 7” x 10”

All files that are too large for email transmission should be placed on a CD (especially those containing images)

Please use TIFF, EPS or highest resolution JPEG files for scanned images

We are currently only able to publish in black and white for print publications.

Page count based on standard margins with 12 pt font, double spaced text; (poetry may be single spaced)

Multiple Category submissions accepted.

Electronic submissions are sufficient for Category I and Category II

Electronic and 2 hard copies are required for Categories III & IV submissions

Please allow up to 7-10 days for a response acknowledging receipt of your submission.

Please allow up to 6-12 weeks for notification of your piece being accepted for publication in a forthcoming short memoir anthology or collection.

For a confirmation of receipt of your memoir submitted via mail, please include a self-addressed stamped postcard and we will return it once we receive your submission.

Manuscripts will not be returned.

Please note that the publication date of accepted work depends highly upon the volume of received and selected submissions in conjunction with thematic anthology approaches during publication cycles.

In some instances, some edits may be needed to fit the vision of the short memoir publications. In such instances, we will seek permission prior to publishing any edited versions of your submissions.

You will be notified prior to any publication.

We are currently accepting short memoir submissions for

The UltraShort^TM Memoir Project.