Good Evening all! With all of the new faces, I thought now would be a good time to repost the writers expectations/ rules for submission, and to emphasize once again the fact that publishing is a participation sport, and if you are sitting there thinking about submitting something, GO FOR IT! I am sure everyone who has submitted would agree, I am very easy to work with, and am more than happy to help you out to get your story into print. Have a fabulous evening all! Writer’s expectations/ rules for submission to Restoring the Circle Magazine By Tonia Goertz, Publisher/ Editor I want first to thank you for your interest in submitting your work to Restoring the Circle Magazine. It is my honor to be able to publish the work of talented writers, reporters, and photographers. In the interest of having everyone on the same page, I have created the following guidelines (rules) to make life easier for everyone. 1. All stories should have a working title and a “By line” to be located at the top of the story. (See top of page) 2. Stories should be submitted as word documents using Times New Roman 14 with left side alignment. Single line spacing with indents at the beginning of the paragraphs is preferable formatting. Stories may, with prior permission, be written into an e-mail and submitted that way. We will NOT refuse submissions simply for formatting issues. Please contact us to see what can be arranged. 3. All pictures should be submitted as .jpeg; .png; .bmp; or .tiff originals separate from the story copy/ text. The .jpeg format is preferred. Please do not create .PDF files or word documents with the pictures already pasted in as the first thing that has to be done is they have to be pulled apart anyhow. Send them separately. THE ONLY EXCEPTION: Pow wow flyers or other event announcements may be submitted as .PDF files. 4. All pictures should have what is called a cut line- one or two short sentences telling who is in the picture, maybe where it was taken, etc. that will appear below the picture within the story. 5. Stories should be no more than 1500 words. Stories of more than 1500 words must have approval. 6. The deadline for submissions in any given month is the 5th as we will be publishing on the 15th. If you have event coverage after the 5th, contact Restoring the Circle and we will decide together if it is possible to hold space that month, or if it should run in the following issue. 7. Please be aware that your story may be edited for punctuation, spelling, grammar, and word usage. IE if you have submitted a story about your grandmother, and in that story you are referring to her, but instead of writing her, you write he- Restoring the Circle will fix that. We all do it occasionally, and making you look as fabulous as possible is our job. If there are major corrections to be made, or clarity issues, someone will likely contact you with questions or suggestions. If significant edits are made, we will return the copy to the writer for approval prior to publishing. That means it is your responsibility to reply to that email or call us to let us know if the edits are ok with you in a timely fashion. If you don’t reply, the story may be held until we hear from you. 8. Until such time as there is enough of a following to justify a print magazine, each edition of the publication will be available on line with MagCloud or whomever they are merging with. The links will be available at the time of publication. Through them, you may purchase a bound magazine. Subscriptions will not be immediately available. 9. This endeavor is a labor of love for all of us. We are all volunteers, and as such, Restoring the Circle cannot, at this time, offer monetary payment for submissions. 10. If you are submitting something that you have had published previously and made changes to, please note that under the by line of the story. IE the top of your page should look like this: Honoring held for local youth By Joe Shmoe Revised copy previously published in Valley Press, Issue 22, on Jan. 1, 2014 This is very important because while the story and pictures are indeed yours, if the story has been previously published, there are copyright issues to be addressed between Restoring the Circle and whoever ran it first. We will not knowingly reprint an article or picture without credits. 11. For your information, when you choose to submit work, you are giving Restoring the Circle Magazine the right to first publication and use of the submission in perpetuity within the original issue in which it appears. You retain all other rights to use your work. Contact us: By e-mail at: RestoringtheCircle@yahoo By phone at: 507-820-1318: if you don’t get an answer, leave a message please. By mail at: Restoring the Circle Magazine, PO Box 27, Flandreau, SD 57028 12. We will not knowingly publish slanderous or libelous articles or statements within articles. IE if you state Joe Shmoe is a child molester- that means that charges have been filed, AND he has been convicted in court on those charges; otherwise he is SUSPECTED of being a child molester if charges have been filed and court is pending. If none of those things are happening or have happened, we can run the story stating her uncle or the store owner or whatever, but we cannot call the person by name. The same goes for all other legal issues that might find their way into an article including but not limited to physical abusers, drunk drivers, etc. If there is such an issue, we WILL contact the writer directly to address how best to handle each situation. 13. We will NOT run questionable health advice. If you wish to write articles on health and fitness, wonderful, but please be cautious about how you phrase things- we will not run anything that touts miracle cures, rapid weight loss in unhealthy ways (IE for example eat only grapefruit for a month), or anything else that could potentially make someone ill or injure them. Now that you have the rules, you may be wondering who is running the show. To start with, the whole thing will be edited and compiled by myself, with a couple extra sets of eyes to make sure all of the I’s are dotted, and T’s are crossed. The formatting requirements are in place to help me make all of this happen in a timely manner. Ultimately, there will be others brought in to help with layout, graphics, advertising and promotions. If you have those skills, and are willing to help out, please let me know. I am a graduate of South Dakota State University with my major being Editorial Sequence Journalism with minors in English and Native American Studies. I have worked at 2 local newspapers, and for one online magazine. My publication philosophy is that the stories or copy that runs is more important than any graphics work that appears in the publication, but I will take the same care with the graphics as the words. It is our words that make us who we are. That said, while I take the role of editor seriously, I am a very light hand when it comes to editing. Unless something is glaringly wrong- wrong word, wrong spelling, wrong sentence structure, or something is unclear- your work is wholly your own. This publication will have a strong emphasis on Native writers and photographers, but will not shy away from running the work of others. I am Irish and German by birth, and Lakota/ Dine/and Anishinabee through ceremony. I am a US Army non-combat veteran, and if you can’t tell from the picture, I am a woman. In creating this publication I am honoring all of the people in my life who have stood with me and for me as I have learned to walk the red road. I have chosen to undertake this project for all of the aunties and grandmothers who have said “we need a strong voice and a place to share it.” I don’t know if I am the right one to be attempting this, but as I have been told, it is better to try and fail than not to try. I suspect we will all be learning together. At the end of the day though, this isn’t MY magazine, this is YOUR magazine! The content, pictures, graphics, all of these are yours! I am just here to give you a place to share them with the world. I believe in teamwork, and for me, family comes first! That means if you commit to a submission and you have an illness or a death, I am totally willing to work with you to allow you to take care of both your family and your story. To make this work effectively and efficiently I need from you your name as you want it printed in the magazine; a phone number where you can be reached in case there are questions about your article and the best times to call you; an email address that you check regularly as that is likely to be the first way I contact you with questions unless I find something on deadline; and a promise that if you submit something from our magazine elsewhere that you will credit us as we expect to credit others. (See #10 above.) I look forward to working with you!
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 01:48:28 +0000
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