Time: 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Location:
Driving Park Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library
1422 East Livingston Ave. – Columbus, Ohio 43205

It takes more than good content! In this three-hour, hands-on workshop, I’ll give you the tools you need to understand the world of children’s magazines.

I’ll take you behind the scenes at Cricket Media and demonstrate how an editorial team’s work relates to you. Then you’ll learn how to analyze a magazine in a hands-on exercise. Finally, you’ll have time to work on a submission based on current magazine needs.

You’ll leave with a better understanding of how to be successful in magazines and a great start to your own submission! Writers and illustrators at all levels are encouraged to attend!

Registration: https://ohiocensouth.scbwi.org/events/the-craft-of-childrens-magazines-a-hands-on-workshop-with-tracy-vonder-brink/

The Aztec civilization has fascinated me ever since I read about the discovery of Tenochtitlán in National Geographic in the 70s, so I jumped at the chance to write about it for a series on world civilizations. (Although they wouldn’t have called themselves Aztecs–that was a European word.)

The July/August issue of Click is all about marsupials, and I wrote an article about how kangaroos hop. As I was writing, I discovered there were tons of kangaroo photos on the stock photo services we use, and they fit what I was describing, so I turned it into a photo essay.

I had two articles published in May/June! For ASK, I wrote about what scientists are really looking for when they say they’re “searching for life on Mars.” (Hint: it’s not little green men. Although that would be cool.) The Click theme was getting sick and staying well, so my article was about strep throat–and hopefully made it a little less scary for our young readers. Jeffrey Ebbeler provided the illustrations for the Mars article, and Mark Hicks illustrated the strep throat story.

If you’re looking for magazines that take submissions, here’s what I’ve used:

The Book is a downloadable PDF, free to members of SCBWI, and includes magazines as part of its market listings. The Book is updated every year.

The Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market guide also has magazine markets as part of its listings and is also updated every year. It’s not free but can often be found the in the library. The future of this guide is a bit uncertain, as its publisher recently declared bankruptcy, but the 2019 edition is out there!

Magazine Markets for Children’s Writers is similar to the other two, but because its focus is only magazines, it also has listings for children-adjacent magazines, such as parenting magazines and magazines for teachers.  I’ve never found it in my library, but at $21.95, it won’t break the bank too much.

Evelyn B. Christensen is an author and an incredibly generous soul because she keeps free listings on her websites to help out other writers. Thank you, Evelyn!

With any guide, I’d recommend it only be a starting point. Magazine publishing changes too fast for guides–especially the print ones–to keep up, especially when it comes to submission calls. Use the guide to identify a magazine that interests you, then follow up with the publisher’s website to find its guidelines, submission calls, and contract terms.

Happy submitting!

This afternoon I was so fortunate to be able to talk about writing for children’s magazines with a group of writers and illustrators at the Marvelous Midwest SCBWI conference. I love writing for magazines, I love sharing what I know with others, and I hope I inspired them today!