Submission Guidelines
1. General Information
2. Call for Participation - Native Writers on Writing
3. Poetry and Literary Collections
4. Children’s Books
5. New Work Submissions Closed

Red Cedar Publishing

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We will be adding links to other plain text pages as we create them. Links to our regular pages can be found at the bottom of this page.

1. General Information

We are primarily interested in hearing from writers who are members or descendants of the tribes of Turtle Island. However, if you are descendant from the indigenous or aboriginal peoples of any colonized land and write primarily in English, we would be happy to consider your query.

We have developed submission guidelines for all our current projects. You will find links to the specific projects in the banner at the top of this page. We will eventually be accepting submissions for some additional anthologies. When we are ready to begin accepting submission for those projects you will find an announcement on this page.

Before submitting or querying please see the 'General Articles on Writing' posted on our Resources page. You will find helpful information to polish you query letter and submission.

If you find you don't quite meet our submissions criteria, yet, please visit our Resources and Colloquy pages. We hope to add content on a regular basis to help you further your writing endeavors. Meanwhile, check out our Opportunities page and begin work on rounding out your publication credits.

We are uncertain how long our current reading period will be open. Queries and submissions will only be accepted until our publishing docket is full. Our next reading period will be posted on this page as soon as it is determined.

Thanks,

Red Cedar Publishing

red_cedar_publishing@earthlink.net

2. Call for Participation - Native Writers on Writing:

Literary Writing: Art & Craft

Writing is the art of being fluent in the flowing processes of rain and river as well as the exacting technical craft of arranging phonemes, words, phrases, fragments, or sentences into expressive narrative. Literary writing involves the creative free flowing expression of ideas and the structuring of these ideas into comprehensible and aesthetic arrangements of words, stanzas, paragraphs, etc.

These skills, which must be married within the writers "voice" generally develop separately. Their development, nurture, growth, and feeding must be attended to constantly and by alternating turns. The very food of the creative process may insult the techniques of good written English. The discipline of technique may wilt the delicate flower of creative expression. Yet, technique must be honed; creativity must flow - if we aspire to literary writing.

This delicate balancing act is achieved by every writer in different ways. It is important to remember that it is a balancing act. We must not let the technical considerations bury our creative voice. But then, if we aspire to be published and our writing shared, neither should we completely abandon the conventions of language and culture.

We each began this journey when we first used language to form thoughts; when we first picked up crayons and began to make marks. Our paths may cross at different points of our journeys; the experience we have gained may help others along the way. The exchange of stories on how we each develop our craft, our technique, how we preserve our sometimes delicate creative voice can form part of our sustenance for the task at hand.

Red Cedar Publishing would like to ask Native and other writers to reflect deeply on their process of balancing art and technical craft, of nurturing soul, voice, and grammar. We would like to post a number of stories (or links to stories on other web sites) on the journeys of individual writers. For this project we would like to focus on how writers have developed their voice, how they keep their technical skills in tact, and how they keep the creativity flowing.

We are looking for quality first person 1 - 3 page stories on this journey we call writing. Writing should be in a relaxed but formal style - and well edited. Be sure to check out our New Work page. Essays on writing will be introduced in a similar fashion. Please include links we can use to introduce you in your query.

Writers will retain all rights to their work. If we receive enough quality submissions from Native writers, we may consider the publication of a collection of essays on the topic in the future. However, all writers will be contacted in advance to make sure they would like to be included.

We do not have a budget to reimburse writers for this project. All accepted pieces will include up to 6 lines of information on the author. You are welcome to include links to your web site and information on your other writing projects. Please see the articles below on using your writing to promote your web site:

My Favorite Traffic Generation Technique
http://www.site-reference.com/Internet-Marketing/98/index.html
Do I Really Need to Write Articles for E-Zines?
http://www.site-reference.com/Internet-Marketing/4891/index.html

For more information please send query to red_cedar_publishing@earthlink.net
Please note: We do not open attachments or accept snail-mailed manuscripts. We prefer to review manuscripts as links to web documents, however, if your piece is not posted on the web you are welcome to include the first three paragraphs with your query.

3. Submission Guidelines for Poetry and Literary Collections

Please Query First! We do not accept unsolicited submissions.

We are interested in hearing from Native poets, who have some Internet savvy and a book length manuscript of at least 62 text pages. Your manuscript should be a collection of your own writing (in Microsoft Word) and can include - in addition to poetry; essays, articles, short stories or other prose. Before contacting us please set up a profile or home page and include the following information:

1. A short bio: No longer than a single page. Your bio should tell the story of your writing history, experience, and accomplishments.

2. Publication Credits: We are looking for writers with at least a full page of credits - If you have more, great! In that case a list of recent publication credits will suffice. Feel free to include on-line and print publications. Each entry should list the title of the piece, genre - poem, article, essay, etc., publisher, type of publication - magazine, web site, anthology, etc., and date. Include a list of any awards you may have won.

3. Links to any web sites that have published your poetry.

4. Optional: A selection of your recent and not so recent poetry; to illustrate the range of your work - if not adequately reflected by Internet sites that have published your writing,

Once you have your page up, please send a short note and a link to your page to: red_cedar_publishing@earthlink.com

Please note: Many Internet service providers and e-mail services providers offer free web space to their subscribers. They often have free easy to use software and templates for you to use to design your pages. Please contact your service providers for more information. (We will be posting links to articles on setting up free web sites on our Resources page in the near future. Please come back and check it out.)

Also on our Resources page you will find links to general articles on writing, information on support groups for writers, suggested reading, and other helpful information to assist writers who do not, as yet, meet our qualifications. If you are just beginning to work on your publication credits, or need to add to your growing list see our Opportunities page for a number of calls for submissions.

Thank you for considering,

Red Cedar Publishing

4. Children’s Books:

We plan to publish at least one picture, story, read-a-loud, or early reading book per year beginning in ’06 or ‘07. Our focus will be on books that support the frame work of literacy acquisition (in English) for Native and mixed-blood children from birth to eight years old. (We will also consider the publication of bi-lingual children’s books in English and a Native Language, French, or Spanish – as long as it supports our main focus.)

We are interested in receiving queries from Native writers for children’s books that address the following themes:
1. Familiar Words - Characters and narrative that use language and words in culturally specific ways.
2. Familiar Images - Illustrations in which Indian children will be able to recognize culturally specific elements.
3. English Phonemes - Culturally specific stories, or stories with culturally specific illustrations, that use alliteration or rhyme to help children hear the sounds of English and make letter sound associations.
4. Contemporary Issues – Stories that address issues and challenges faced by Indian and mixed-blood children in today’s world - and provide positive resolution. Themes can include: moving to the rez, moving to town, bullying, discrimination, stereotypes, etc.

____

The specific culture(s) addressed can include reservations, home lands, and other rural and urban communities. We hope to help expand the culturally relevant early literature (in English) available to North American Indian and mixed blood children.

Writers will need to arrange for the illustrations of their books. If we accept a book on concept – pending illustration – we can post a call for artists on the web-site. However, we have no idea how effective this will be in finding an appropriate illustrator.

Before querying we hope you will check out our Resources page. The section on “General Articles on Writing” contains two links that we hope you will visit before sending in your query letter: “Understanding Editorial Guidelines,” and “Writing Query Letters.”

Your query letter should include: mention of or links to your publication credits – if any, list of degrees or credentials in ECE or related fields – if any, brief comments on your manuscript from professionals in education or early childhood education (especially important if you lack previous publication credits or related degrees or credentials), links to your personal, business, or associations home page – if any, the proposed title of your book, number of pages, and the age range of your target audience, the specific culture your book addresses, and your tribal affiliation or descent. Send your query by e-mail to: red_cedar_publishing@earthlink.net

Thank you for considering,

Red Cedar Publishing

5. New Work – Submissions Closed:

We will be featuring up to five poets at a time on our New Work page. Each poet will have the opportunity to add and rotate new poetry on a regular basis. Poets will also be rotated from time to time. As we rotate poets from the New Work page we will establish a Poets page to feature links to their work and home pages on the Internet.

We will select from poets who are either: 1. planning on contributing to our up-coming anthologies or, 2. working on a collection of their own work to be published by Red Cedar Publishing. Please keep this in mind when querying about submitting to New Work.

Before sending your query letter, please check out New Work, paying close attention to how we introduce our poets and how we close each entry. In your query letter include links to your on-line publications, a link to your home page – or other page that contains biographical information, and a brief list of your literary accomplishments. Also, let us know if you are working on a literary collection of your own or if you would like to contribute to up-coming anthologies.

Anthologies are currently planned on the subject of “Native Writers on Writing,” “Coming Home – tales of Urban Indians returning to their Homelands,” and “Sacred Land.” Poets who are (or have been) featured on New Work will be given first priority for consideration in our anthologies.

Send your query or questions to: red_cedar_publishing@earthlink.net

Thank you for considering,

Red Cedar Publishing