Founded in 1973, Stone Soup is the leading national (and international) magazine of writing and art by young writers and artists. Stone Soup accepts work by young writers and artists through U.S. eighth grade or its equivalent. To submit, simply click on the appropriate category below and follow the instructions.
How to Submit
- Type cover letter text into the cover letter field with any additional information you'd like to send.
- Use the Add File button to find the file on your computer that you would like to submit. Select the file and click on the Open button. Your file will then appear in the "file" field.
- Review your information to confirm that it is correct. Click Submit and you're done!
- You should receive a confirmation email letting you know that we've received your submission.
- If you are having any technical issues with your submission, please write directly to the Submittable team: support@submittable.com
Important Notes
- Our current response time is about three months. We wish we could respond with personal feedback, but the volume of submissions received and the small size of our staff make this impossible.
- To make sure that you receive our email responses, set your spam filter to accept messages from editor@stonesoup.com. Otherwise, notifications may end up in your "junk" or "spam" folder, or be deleted by your e-mail system. You can also check the status of your submission at any time by logging into your Submittable account.
- We can only consider submissions written in the English language. We welcome translations of work into English.
- We will consider previously published work—but it depends on where it was published! So, if this applies to you, please note in your cover letter where the piece appeared and when.
- You may submit in multiple genres at once—for example, a set of poems, a story, and artwork—but please do not submit multiple works of the same genre simultaneously. Rather, please wait to hear back in one genre before submitting in it again.
- Stone Soup welcomes the work of writers and artists from marginalized communities, identities, and traditions. We do not tolerate submissions that contain hate speech or engage in bigotry or discrimination of any kind.
To increase your chances of publication, please read the more detailed guidelines on our website: http://www.stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/
NEW GUIDELINE FOR REPEAT SUBMITTERS:
After having work accepted to the magazine, please wait at least three months before submitting again in any genre. This will help us ensure greater diversity of contributors in each issue. Thank you!
By submitting, you consent to receiving occasional news and updates, which you can opt out at any time.
Send us Your Response to the first Weekly Creativity Challenge of the Month
Every Monday, we publish a Weekly Creativity prompt at our website, Stonesoup.com. The first one of the month is also a flash contest! For this contest, all you have to do is pick up the Weekly Creativity Challenge prompt published on the first Monday of the month, and submit your response to it by midnight Pacific time on the following Sunday.
Contest Details
Genre: The Weekly Creativity prompt will specify exactly what we want you to do. Make sure that you are responding to the prompt that was posted on the first Monday of the current month. The first week of the month is the only wee that this contest runs. Check for the prompt here.
Length: It depends on the prompt. Some of them will have specific instructions (e.g. write a 10 line poem, or a three paragraph piece of prose, or compose a still life photograph). Other writing prompts might be more open, suggesting you write a story or rework one you already have, or make a piece of art on a theme. Where the prompt specifies, follow the guidance on length and/or medium. If it doesn't specify, it's up to you how long or short you make your writing (but remember, this is a flash contest, so we don't expect you to write a novel!).
Age Limit: For the flash contests, we will accept work from those age 13 and under.
Deadline: Sunday at 11:59 midnight (Pacific Time).
Entry fee: $2.00
Results and Prizes: We will select 5 Winners and 5 Honorable Mentions by the following Wednesday.
Publication: We will publish the 5 Winners' work on the Stone Soup Blog; and announce each week's Winners and Honorable Mentions in our Saturday Newsletter.
What kinds of images are we look for?
We are always looking for vivid and innovative drawings, photographs, paintings, collages, and prints to feature in the magazine. All images should be complete scenes in color, filling the entire page.
In general, we are less interested/in need of images of animals at this time; however, if you have a particularly wonderful image of an animal, we would love to see it! Know that we do have more opportunity to use images of dogs and cats than images of exotic animals like lions or tigers. We are particularly excited to see landscapes and city scenes, portraits and images with people in them, as well as more abstract images like this, this, or this.
Image requirements
Please upload a high-res photograph of your artwork in the largest file size possible. Your image should be at least 500kb large—we cannot accept images smaller than that—and ideally 1mb or more. There is no maximum file size, and, in fact, bigger is better in terms of quality!
If you are sending in a photograph of a painting or other work, please make sure there is no glare on it. Always prioritize a clear, crisp image of the artwork over a zoomed-in view with no background; we can always crop the image but will need to ask you to resend if the initial image is of low quality.
Submitting multiple images
We encourage you to submit multiple images at once, but ask that you please group them all in one submission; you can submit up to five files at one time.
Please do not submit more than one group of images at a time. Wait for a response from us before submitting again.
NEW GUIDELINE FOR REPEAT SUBMITTERS:
After having work accepted to the magazine, please wait at least six months before submitting again in any genre. This will help us ensure greater diversity of contributors in each issue. Thank you!
We consider stories on any subject and in any form, all year round, by young writers up to U.S. 8th grade (or its international equivalent). We have no minimum length. For stories, our maximum length is 10,000 words. If you have a longer piece, please consider submitting to our book contest, which we run annually during the summer.
If your story is TRUE, please submit it to our "Nonfiction (Memoir & Personal Narrative)" category instead.
NEW GUIDELINE FOR REPEAT SUBMITTERS:
After having work accepted to the magazine, please wait at least six months before submitting again in any genre. This will help us ensure greater diversity of contributors in each issue. Thank you!
How to Submit
- Upload only ONE submission; wait until you receive a response to your submission before uploading any more.
- Type cover letter text into the cover letter field with any additional information you'd like to send.
- Your submission should be single-spaced in Arial font, size 12. The header at the top of your piece should look like this:
Title
by First Name Last Name, Age
City, State (or Country if you are not from the US)
Example:
The Submission
by Emma Wood, 32
Santa Cruz, CA
- Use the Add File button to find the file on your computer that you would like to submit. Select the file and click on the Open button. Your file will then appear in the "file" field.
- Review your information to confirm that it is correct. Click Submit and you're done!
- You should receive a confirmation email letting you know that we've received your submission.
- If you are having any technical issues with your submission, please write directly to the Submittable team: support@submittable.com
Important Notes
- Our current response time is about three months. We wish we could respond with personal feedback, but the volume of submissions received and the small size of our staff make this impossible.
- To make sure that you receive our e-mail responses, set your spam filter to accept messages from editor@stonesoup.com. Otherwise, notifications may end up in your "junk" or "spam" folder, or be deleted by your e-mail system. You can also check the status of your submission at any time by logging into your Submittable account.
- We can only consider submissions written in the English language. We welcome translations of work into English.
- We consider only previously unpublished work. Work that has appeared online for any reason is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted. However, we can be flexible. If you are unsure whether your piece counts as published or not, please write to editor@stonesoup.com..
To increase your chances of publication, please read the detailed guidelines on our website:
http://www.stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/
We consider poems on any subject and in any form, all year round, by young writers up to U.S. 8th grade (or its international equivalent) .
NEW GUIDELINE FOR REPEAT SUBMITTERS:
After having work accepted to the magazine, please wait at least six months before submitting again in any genre. This will help us ensure greater diversity of contributors in each issue. Thank you!
How to Submit
- Do not submit multiple poems separately. Please submit all your poems together in one document.
- We prefer to read a packet of at least 3 poems by submitters but you may submit anywhere from 1-5 poems in one submissions.
- Your submission should be in Arial font, size 12. The header at the top of each poem should look like this:
Title
by First Name Last Name, Age
City, State (or Country if you are not from the US)
Example:
The Submission
by Emma Wood, 32
Santa Cruz, CA
Fill in the title(s) of the work(s) you are submitting. If you are submitting more than one poem, separate the titles with commas.
- Type cover letter text into the cover letter field with any additional information you'd like to send.
- Use the Add File button to find the file on your computer that you would like to submit. Select the file and click on the Open button. Your file will then appear in the "file" field.
- Review your information to confirm that it is correct. Click Submit and you're done!
- You should receive a confirmation email letting you know that we've received your submission.
- If you are having any technical issues with your submission, please write directly to the Submittable team: support@submittable.com
Important Notes
- Our current response time is about three months. We wish we could respond with personal feedback, but the volume of submissions received and the small size of our staff make this impossible.
- To make sure that you receive our e-mail responses, set your spam filter to accept messages from editor@stonesoup.com. Otherwise, notifications may end up in your "junk" or "spam" folder, or be deleted by your e-mail system. You can also check the status of your submission at any time by logging into your Submittable account.
- We can only consider submissions written in the English language. We welcome translations of work into English.
- We consider only previously unpublished work. Work that has appeared online for any reason is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted. However, we can be flexible. If you are unsure whether your piece counts as published or not, please write to editor@stonesoup.com.
To increase your chances of publication, please read the detailed guidelines on our website: http://www.stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/
We consider personal narratives on any subject and in any form, all year round, by young writers up to U.S. 8th grade (or its international equivalent). We have no minimum length; our maximum length is 10,000 words. If you have a longer piece, please consider submitting to our book contest, which we run annually during the summer.
Note that we are looking for personal narratives--I.e. vividly told stories about the big and small moments in your life--not, at the moment, for informational or academic essays. If you have an essay of that type, please consider submitting it as a blog post instead.
NEW GUIDELINE FOR REPEAT SUBMITTERS:
After having work accepted to the magazine, please wait at least six months before submitting again in any genre. This will help us ensure greater diversity of contributors in each issue. Thank you!
How to Submit
- Upload only ONE submission; wait until you receive a response to your submission before uploading any more.
- Type cover letter text into the cover letter field with any additional information you'd like to send.
- Your submission should be single-spaced in Arial font, size 12. The header at the top of your piece should look like this:
Title
by First Name Last Name, Age
City, State (or Country if you are not from the US)
Example:
The Submission
by Emma Wood, 32
Santa Cruz, CA
- Use the Add File button to find the file on your computer that you would like to submit. Select the file and click on the Open button. Your file will then appear in the "file" field.
- Review your information to confirm that it is correct. Click Submit and you're done!
- You should receive a confirmation email letting you know that we've received your submission.
- If you are having any technical issues with your submission, please write directly to the Submittable team: support@submittable.com
Important Notes
- Our current response time is about three months. We wish we could respond with personal feedback, but the volume of submissions received and the small size of our staff make this impossible.
- To make sure that you receive our e-mail responses, set your spam filter to accept messages from editor@stonesoup.com. Otherwise, notifications may end up in your "junk" or "spam" folder, or be deleted by your e-mail system. You can also check the status of your submission at any time by logging into your Submittable account.
- We can only consider submissions written in the English language. We welcome translations of work into English.
- We consider only previously unpublished work. Work that has appeared online for any reason is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted. However, we can be flexible. If you are unsure whether your piece counts as published or not, please write to editor@stonesoup.com.
To increase your chances of publication, please read the detailed guidelines on our website:
http://www.stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/
Basic Requirements for Plays
We consider plays on any subject, all year round, by writers 13 and younger. There is no minimum length.
Read Our Detailed Guidelines
To increase your chances of publication, please read the detailed guidelines on our website:
http://www.stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/
NEW GUIDELINE FOR REPEAT SUBMITTERS:
After having work accepted to the magazine, please wait at least six months before submitting again in any genre. This will help us ensure greater diversity of contributors in each issue. Thank you!
We are always actively looking for writers to contribute to our blog. Do you have a lot to say about a single topic—sports, fashion, art, writing, books, music, animals, science, theater, travel, crafting, video games? Do you love writing reviews—of books, TV shows, video games, poems? If so, we want to hear from you!
To be considered please submit a post of between 350-600 words. A blog post can be many different things. It can be a review, a reflection, a story, a how-to, an opinion piece, or an account. It can include pictures, diagrams, videos, maps, comics—you name it!
Let us know in the cover letter whether you are interested in becoming a regular blogger (contributing anywhere from once a month to once a week) or if you are just interested in submitting once.
*
Multimedia
Scratch/Little Bits: This is the category for computer-based multimedia projects. This includes Scratch projects, projects created with LittleBits, RaspberryPi or any other computer system or software/hardware combination that you have used creativity. The emphasis here is on creativity. Projects don't have to tell a story, but as story writing is very important to the Stone Soup project, we are definitely interested in narratives that you might be telling through Scratch or some other programming language.
Video: Your video may be fiction or nonfiction. Both live action and animated videos are accepted for online publication and for the Stone Soup YouTube channel. We don't have a length limit, but if you are new to making films, we suggest you keep your video under five minutes. Videos often require teamwork. Please be sure to list in the credits all the people, including adults, who worked on the video. We only ask that the lead writers and directors be age fourteen or younger.
Spoken Word: Read a poem or a story. You may send us a sound file or a video. You may read your own work, something you find at the Stone Soup Online website, or anything else that might appeal to you. We are looking for strong presentations. As we are looking for work to publish this means that sound quality is important. A brilliant reading with poor sound will not be accepted. Please test your sound before you make your finished recording.
*
For Music
Original music by young composers. We are open to any music style including classical and jazz.
Please upload the written music, if the music has been written down, and/or has any lyrics, along with the best quality recording you can make. If you can make a video of the performance that should also be uploaded. A link to existing recordings at YouTube, Vimeo, or elsewhere on the internet may be provided in lieu of a fresh video or audio recording just for us.
Basic Requirements
We consider stories and poems on any subject, all year round, by writers 13 and younger. The maximum length for a Stone Soup story is 10,000 words. There is no minimum length.
Special Instructions for Teachers
Be sure that each entry includes the student's name, age, birthdate, address, parent's name, parent's email address, and parent's phone number in the header or on a cover page. Limit: 10 stories or poems per classroom submission.
Read Our Detailed Guidelines
To increase your chances of publication, please read the detailed guidelines on our website:
http://www.stonesoup.com/stone-soup-contributor-guideline/