Special STEPPARENTING Issue! ***edited***

We’re doing a special issue focusing on STEPPARENTING, and we need your help and your writing!

Here at Literary Mama, we’ve always welcomed — encouraged — made it our mission — to feature the many voices and faces of motherhood. That includes stepmothers, of course. As a stepmother, and as the author of a bestselling stepparenting book, I’m keenly aware that stepparents are under-considered, under-heard, under-recognized.

Unfortunately, that’s been true even here at Literary Mama.

Yes, we’ve published the occasional piece by a stepmother, but we just don’t get many submissions. I suspect many stepmothers don’t feel fully qualified to speak out in a literary magazine with “Mama” as part of the title.

Okay, time to change all that. Next March, we’re publishing a month’s worth of writing by stepmothers about the stepparenting experience. Please submit! And please, if you know a stepmother who has something contribute, pass this Call for Submissions on to her.

And if you’re a mother who is not a stepmother who writes about stepparenting, please send us your work, too.

***We are not looking for submissions from the STEPCHILD’s point of view!***

Call for Submissions
(Please circulate widely)

Literary Mama, an internationally-acclaimed online literary magazine (https://literarymama.com) seeks top-notch writing for a special March 2007 issue: Stepparenting.

According to The Stepfamily Foundation, 64% of families today live in some form of divorced and/or stepfamily relationship. From Snow White’s evil witch of a stepmother to Hamlet’s stepfather (who killed Hamlet’s dad, married his mother, and stole the throne), stepmothers and stepfathers get a bad rap in literature. And the stepparent point of view? Rarely seen and explored.

For our Special Issue on Stepparenting, Literary Mama seeks fiction, creative nonfiction, literary reflections, poetry, and a guest column (“Faces of Motherhood”) BY stepparents ABOUT the stepparenting experience.

Deadline: December 31, 2006

Our guidelines vary by department. Before submitting, review individual guidelines at: https://literarymama.com/submissions/

FICTION:
Submissions in the text of an email along with a brief cover letter. Please put “Stepparenting Submission from Your Name” in the subject heading.
Editor: Susan Ito — fiction@literarymama.com

CREATIVE NON-FICTION:
Submissions both in the text of an email and as an attachment.
Editor: Shari MacDonald Strong — nonfiction@literarymama.com

LITERARY REFLECTIONS:
Submissions of 750-5000 words in the text of an email and/or attached Word document, along with a brief cover letter.
Editor: Caroline Grant — litcrit@literarymama.com

POETRY
Poems of any length and form. Maximum of four poems per submission. Please send submissions in the text of an email.
Editor: Rachel Iverson — poetry@literarymama.com

“FACES OF MOTHERHOOD” COLUMN:
Seeking personal essays of 600-1200 words about how being a “mom-by-marriage” makes you feel out of step with the mainstream image of mothers. Send submissions in the text of an email, along with a brief cover letter.
Editors: Marjorie Osterhout and Erin Sullivan — columns@literarymama.com

General notes:
* Response time up to 4 weeks.
* Authors retain rights. Please credit us if your work is republished.
* Simultaneous submissions okay as long as you notify us if accepted elsewhere.
* We prefer previously unpublished work. We will consider reprints, however, if you have the rights and the work is not currently available online.
* Electronic submissions only.
* Literary Mama attracts over 30,000 unique visitors a month. We do not, however, pay our writers or editors — we are all volunteers here.

More Questions? info@literarymama.com