Writer Guidelines

We welcome writing from corporate execs, university faculty, housewives and mommies. We recognize that wisdom and profound insight, humor and wit can reside within any of us, no matter the letters following our name or our position in society.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

 

1. SHE Magazine is all about women....their work, play, relationships, creativity, dreams, fears, health, style, wealth, bodies and souls. We celebrate the feminine....the spirited, sassy, independent, strong, daring, courageous, unique, outspoken, playful, bold, successful, controversial and passionate side of what makes us, us. We want to read about women doing stuff: whether it’s creating gardens, starting businesses, or building a better society; fixing things, from your hair to your new marketing plan to your life. We want to know the things you’ve done that you never thought you could do, but did. We want to read about how you turned lemons into lemonade and made things work. We want to read about women who say “Oh yeah? Says who?” to the lies they have been told about what is and is not possible. We also want some really juicy fiction along with poetry that makes us laugh and cry and essays that inspire us and get us thinking.

2. We encourage you to study the magazine to get a better idea what we are looking for.  Our style is more personal so we have many first-person stories; but we are also OK with those written in a more journalistic, third-person style.

3. Writers usually must be women living in North Carolina. Only rarely do we make exceptions.  And we typically only write ABOUT women living in North Carolina.

4. Length of articles: We like depth so we’ll accept pieces up to about 1500 words (and photos or artwork too); we are interested in short pieces that are concise (say, 500 words) but generally we like from 1000 words up to 1500, rarely more unless the article warrants those words.

5. We are interested in health related articles if they fit the guidelines in #1. We are interested in stories of your experiences with health crises, how you coped, who supported you, etc. Articles that inspire others or impart information that is new. We love reviews of books by regional writers. Our intention here is to exchange thoughts, information and insight on a range of issues of importance to women and their families.  If you have an idea for an article, send us an email to editor@shemagazine.net and we will discuss it with you.

6. If you are submitting a PROFILE of someone, please be sure they have approved the article before sending to submissions.  

PREPARING YOUR WORK

 

1. We are looking for excellence in the written word. We encourage a positive tone and active voice.  If there are good websites related to your article, do include their URL. We expect you to have carefully edited and proofed your work, and to have run a spell check.  Please don’t send us a “draft” of your article; do your editing and proofing before sending since we will usually start our proofing and layout right away and sending a new version simply complicates the process and can result in the wrong version being printed!

2. Include your bio at the end of your article. Two or three sentences should be sufficient. Please include in your bio whatever contact information you’d like for our readers to know and put it at the end of your article.  We don’t normally print photos of authors due to space considerations.

3. Please don’t indent your paragraphs, double space, or do “hard returns” at the end of sentences; all those make our job harder when we place your article into our layout.  You don’t need to try to “format” the article in any particular way since that formatting will not transfer to the actual magazine layout.

SUBMITTING YOUR WORK

 

1. Please send your article via email to editor@shemagazine.net as an attached Word document or directly in the email.

2. At this time we are not able to pay our writers. We want the rights to print your work and have it online, but otherwise, because we are not paying, we do not assume ownership—it is yours to do with as you will after it is published in SHE Magazine. If it is later published elsewhere, we simply ask that at the end you say “First published in SHE Magazine” and the date.

3. Even if we express interest in your work and say we intend to publish it, we never know until the very last minute if it will fit in print in a particular month… it may not fit until several months later; we will let you know once the final version goes to the printer.  If you decide not to wait but prefer to submit the article elsewhere, just let us know via email.

4. Please put the word SUBMISSION as the first word in the subject line; this helps us retrieve relevant emails easily.

5. The deadline is the first of the month AT LEAST ONE, PREFERABLY TWO MONTHS in advance. For example, we need to receive an article for the January issue by December 1st, preferably November 1st. We may possibly take work closer to the publication date, so email to ask if you are working on something but won’t have it by the two-month deadline… but the FINAL deadline is the first of the month prior to publication. We will give priority to those articles submitted earliest, all things being equal.