LaChance Publishing Seeking Stories

LaChance publishing is a non-fiction publisher that publishes books about health topics and fitness. Their "Voices Of" series of anthologies is seeking 500-3,000 word personal essays on the following topics:

Alzheimer’s Disease
Anorexia/Bulimia
Breast Cancer
Depression
Epilepsy

They are also seeking stories about dogs who've made a difference in people's lives. From the website:

MORE Good Dogs Doing Good


"Following on the success of Good Dogs Doing Good, we’re planning a second volume of uplifting, true stories of dogs that have transformed people’s lives.

What we need: True stories of literary merit that show the real, positive and transformative impact a dog has had in your life or the lives of your family or loved ones. For example, has a dog aided you through an illness or given you new insights on yourself or your life? Good Dogs Doing Good itself is the best reference. Your story should be 500-3,000 words.

What we do NOT need: Stories that focus primarily on a dog’s adorable characteristics."

There is no information listed on payment.

Alimentum: Literary Magazine About Food

As we head into the great season of eating, I thought I'd feature a lit mag dedicated to gustatory delights and frights, Alimentum. They publish food-related fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. Right now they are hosting a poetry contest.

Deadline: December 1, 2009

Prize: $500 and publication

Entry Fee: $15 (Includes one year subscription)

Submissions: Via Snailmail Only

Alimentum

P.O. Box 210028

Nashville, TN 37221

Here are some menupoems they have online.

I could wax poetic about food, no problem. Now where is that verse I wrote about bread?

Guide to Literary Agents Blog on Non-Fiction Agents and Memoirs

Check out the Diana Finch Literary Agency profiled on the Guide to Literary Agents Blog. It also has a great post on four things you should do when writing your memoir.

I'm really liking the Guide to Literary Agents Blog. They have an Agent Advice series that Q&A's agents on the publishing industry.

My Grandma should have written a memoir. This  is her as a Harvey Girl, peeking over the woman third from left.

Chicken Soup is Looking for Stories About Twenty-Somethings

According to the Apathy Myth Blog, Chicken Soup needs submissions for a book about the Twenty-something crowd. You do not have to be in your twenties to contribute. It can be about when you were twenty-something or the experience of a twenty-something you know.

The deadline is January 7, 2008, and you'll receive $200 if published. Think inspirational. Duh. It's a chicken soup book, so I guess I don't need to tell you that. My twenties were a blur. No. Stop thinking that. I didn't mean it that way. I had two little kids and no sleep. Seriously.

Call for Stories Appreciating Black Fathers

The Appreciating Black Fathers website is seeking positive stories about black fathers.

Stories must be true and between 350-1,500 words. They prefer new stories but will consider previously published material.

Deadline: November 15, 2007

Selected stories will be published in a book, and authors will receive a $25 honorarium.

A future call for stories on black mothers is in the works.

Sauce Magazine Seeks Food Essays

Thanks to Donna V for this notice.

Sauce Magazine , the St. Louis Metro Area's Restaurant Guide, is seeking food essay submissions for a new column. So if you can carry on about cheese, wax rhapsodic about rutabagas, or write drool-worthy prose about your favorite food experiences/memories, write an essay and submit it to Sauce.

Essays should be around 900 words and 12 will be featured in a monthly column published over the next year in the magazine. The deadline for essay submissions is November 15, 2007.

If they get enough gastronomic essays, they may continue the column after 2008. See the editor's letter below for details.

Letter from the Editor of St. Louis's Sauce Magazine:

Hello wordsmiths and friends of Sauce!

I'm really excited to tell you about a new column we'll be starting in Sauce in January: a column made up of personal essays (aka narrative nonfiction or creative nonfiction), featuring an essay written by a different author each month. Having food in the mix somewhere is the reason such essays will fit in Sauce, but the real goal here is to spotlight great stories, exceptional storytelling and beautiful writing. This is one of my favorite writing forms, and I'm convinced that you'd all be great for this.

The essays can be about *anything* (really!), as long as food factors in somewhere -- either directly, as a main character or the main focus of the story -- a description of the first time the author ate an exotic ingredient, for example, or perhaps a story about experiencing the food in Italy -- or indirectly, as a component of the story or as a background element. A look at a family's kooky dynamic as told through a typical family dinner hour is an example; so is the chapter in Ruth Reichl's "Tender at the Bone" where she hints at her mother's mental illness by describing her mother's "quirk" of serving dangerously old food to guests. Absolutely any story is fair game here, as long as it's personal, real and original.

As great writers with diverse and interesting experiences, I'm hopeful that you'll want to contribute an essay to the column. But I'll have to ask you to bear with me a bit. Since this is a new column for us, and a kind of writing that we don't typically publish, I've been working out the best way to collect enough essays (12) to be sure we'll be able to publish a year's worth of columns. I'm casting a wide net, with the hope that enough of you will be interested in sharing your food memories, thoughts and insights that this new column will be a go. I hate to call this a contest, but I guess it sort of is...

So I'd like to invite all of you to contribute a personal essay that has something to do with food to Sauce by November 15, 2007. We'll publish the best 12, one per month throughout 2007 (and beyond, if we get enough responses!). We'll choose those 12 blindly; authors will be paid for published essays (and this column will be an exception to our normal practice of paying upon publication -- since we'll be collecting column content so far in advance, the selected writers will be paid in advance). Word count is 900 words. Please email (or mail) submissions to me, with "essay" in the subject line.

I hope you're as excited about this new project as I am. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me. Now, go dig up your favorite food memory/story and get writing!!
PS-- feel free to extend this invite to other great writers you know!

Cheers,
Katie O'Connor
Senior Editor

Sauce Magazine
1820 Chouteau Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63103

Missouri Writer's Guild and Springfield Writer's Guild Contest Deadlines Soon

Just a reminder, entries to both the Missouri Writer's Guild Winter Contest and the Springfield Writer's Guild Contest must be postmarked by October 1st.

Both contests accept fiction, non-fiction, and poetry entries, so you have to have something you can send, right? You can't win if you don't enter... I've heard that somewhere before.

Of course, entering contests can get to be expensive. The Springfield Contest is really reasonable at $1 & $2 entry fees, and even the $5 at the Missouri Writer's Guild isn't bad. I usually stick to contests I'm familiar with, so I know they are reputable. Some contests are as legit as the latest capital hill lobbyist headed to jail. So let's be careful out there, people. (Ancient television reference dating me horribly)

Finding Fresh Ideas for Articles - Non-Fiction Books

Sometimes finding article ideas to pitch is like finding that matching sock. It seems like the sucker will never surface. So when my brain has turned to cream cheese, I fall back on a few methods that make my grey matter work less and get my fingers writing more. So if you're stuck for article ideas to pitch this week -

Look at new non-fiction books.
Most authors are thrilled to give interviews on the subject of their book. Focus on a specific aspect of their book small enough for a magazine article. This gives you a topic idea and a possible source to draw from when you write the article.

Go to Amazon.com and click on books and then at the top click on new and future releases. You can further narrow the search by clicking on non-fiction. Then read the reviews to see what topics the book covers, or google the author's website for more details.

Example: Danica McKellar just came out with a new book called Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail. You could pitch an article about how girls can suceed at math to kids/teen mags, or spin it a different way and pitch an article to adult magszines on showing parents how they can help their girls succeed at math. And asking Danica for interview wouldn't hurt.

Research Tip - Google News Alerts

Researching a topic? Google has a form that lets you sign up for Google News Alerts based on key words.

So if you are researching a non-fiction article or book, sign up for a Google News Alert request, and it will email you links to the latest web information containing these words. I have an alert for the key words "overweight," "children," and "teens" because I'm working on a book about overweight teenagers.

They have five variations on the Google Alert, so you can customize it according to your needs.

• 'News' alerts will email links to the latest news articles with your keywords, taken from the top ten of a Google news search on that topic.

• 'Web' alerts will email links to the latest web pages with your keywords, taken from the top twenty results of a Google Web search.

• 'Blog' alerts will email links to the latest blogs with your keywords, taken from the top ten results of a Google Blog search.

• 'Groups' alerts will email links about groups with your keywords, taken from the top fifty results of a Google Groups search.

• 'Comprehensive' alerts combine all of the above in one email to provide the widest overview of results on your topic keywords.
  

Some stories will be repeats of the same information, so not everything is useful. The up side is you get a flash if breaking news or new information appears about your topic. You choose how often Google checks for info. It can be as developments happen or once a day. That doesn't mean you'll receive an email each day. If there are no hits on your topic, it doesn't send an email informing you. You receive emails when it finds results.

Go back and cancel the alert when you're finished using it. You can register for up to 1000 different Google Alerts for topics you're researching.

Tip: Choose your key words carefully - it's better to be a bit broad and then delete stories that are off the mark. You can always go back and adjust the Google alert if you're receiving too many off-target alerts. So if you're looking for information on writing, you might key in "writer," "writers," "writing," "authors" and other word variations that might be used.