Abroad View
An ideal forum for WT pieces from the field. Abroad View is published twice a year and contains first person articles, journalistic features, research, commentaries, creative writing, poetry, culture reviews and recommendations, e-mail excerpts, selected blogs, photos, and artwork.
You can submit articles year round, but the cut-off dates for the biannual print editions are May 1 for the fall edition and November 1 for the spring edition.
They pay an honorarium ($25 for articles and photos) and run contests for essays. Your audience here are college students who are about to or have studied abroad. Many of them may be interested in a program like WorldTeach after their experiences, so they want to hear what you have to tell them.
Glimpse Quarterly
An ideal place for WT Volunteers to submit! They publish widely on their website so your piece is likely to appear somewhere. You do not have to be a “writer.” The Glimpse Quarterly editorial staff will work with you to “teach you the basic tenants of creative non-fiction.” Plus, they'll take anything: essays, stories, poems, photos. They even have an "in the classroom" section.
No pay but excellent experience for beginning writers. They also promote articles to other places: One returned volunteer had his story reprinted by the Providence Journal.
Glimpse Quarterly is primarily interested in the experiences of those volunteering, working, and/or studying in a single place for an extended period of time of one month or more.
They host a theme contest every Spring and Fall.
Go World Travel
This is a web page that archives past volumes. They pay an honorarium ($25 for articles with photos) on publication.
Guava Magazine
This is a new, sassy travel magazine for women. Think Cosmopolitan for travel.
National Geographic Traveler
National Geographic Traveler has just run its first Campus Magazine for Study Abroad. If you think writing for college students is beneath you, just remember that if National Geographic publishes your writing, you are made. Payment is made upon publication.
South American Explorer
A great option for our Guyana, Ecuador, Chile volunteers! Like most of the magazines listed here, SA Explorer loves photographs accompanying “articles by knowledgeable authors about their specialty.” They also state that “even the most wretched and awful submissions are greeted with cries of joy and read in the most favorable light" if received according to their submission guidelines. What do you have to lose?!
Student Traveler
Students on our summer programs would do particularly well to submit to this magazine, looking for photos and quality writing about all aspects of travel for students. (And they pay for article/photo submissions!)
Transitions Abroad
By the same editors of Abroad View (listed above), Transitions Abroad is a widely used website. It focuses on practical information gained from first-hand experience, for readers who travel for something more than the sights. Current and accurate information is essential. This website is primarily a place for travelers to share information through full-length articles or brief summaries (800-1500 words) on a topic related to work, study, travel, or living abroad. They offer an honorarium of between $50 and $150.
Wanderlust
The British publication Wanderlust aims to cover all aspects of special-interest travel and local culture. Off-the-beaten-track destinations, secret corners of the world, and unusual angles on well-known places are always given particular consideration. Payment is made upon publication.
For more ideas and links:
Commercial Travel Writing Site
Publication Inspiration, by Christopher Canniff
“Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping, I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something. This enables me to store up enough strength to endure until the next interruption.
- Isaac Asimov
“[After talking with many would-be writers], I have concluded that most do not want to be writers…they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a successful manuscript…They aspire to the rewards of writing, but not to the travail."
- James A. Michener
Like Isaac Asimov, I always look forward to writing something. But I am also like most of Michener’s would-be writers: I aspire to the rewards of writing without the travail, quickly producing a successful work before moving on the next one, having completed the thing in its entirety instead of being in the process of completing it.
This article is a recounting of events which led to my reward of a fictional short story entitled “Solitude” which has been published in an anthology entitled: “Tales from the Dark: Stories of the Supernatural,” Tightrope Books, October 2006.
This is my first short fiction publication. While it seems like a small accomplishment, it may be more. I made my only fiction short story submission to a literary magazine, Storyteller in Ottawa. The submission was subsequently rejected. One of the Writers-in-Residence I worked with (from Wayne State University, who started Marick Press) said the rejection letter was encouraging because, although it stated that my piece wasn't suitable for their particular publication, I shouldn’t let this dissuade me from making further submissions to them. A note about rejection letters: I never knew the importance of reading their content, and this is something I learned from working with Marick Press. If a publisher takes the time to write and sign a rejection letter, it is a very good thing. In one rejection letter, a Canadian publisher suggested that something I sent them be submitted to a professional editor, and they outlined possible resources for me to further polish my work. While I took this as a form letter—something they might send to any and all of those who made submissions—I was informed that the letter indicated they were actually interested in the work, but that it needed some more polishing.
I received a call for submissions from Tightrope Books for an anthology some time later. I made a submission and heard nothing after that. I had volunteered my time for Tightrope Books, attending press launches, book launches, an independent book fair, readings, etc. I also volunteered my time with Marick Press, their (then) sister press in Detroit, Michigan. I attempted to obtain collaboration with another publisher in Windsor, talking with an editor there who said that not only was he interested in the collaboration, but that he was also interested in seeing some of my work. This volunteering therefore gave me the opportunity to interface with other publishers and writers, and allowed me many potential avenues for publication.
About a year later, I received another call for submissions from Tightrope Books. I submitted the same story I had submitted to Storyteller magazine. It was subsequently accepted for inclusion in an anthology which featured 28 Canadian writers, one of whom was a creative writing teacher, others being professional writers, novel writers, etc. While this all might seem rather anti-climatic (no large reward except for five author’s copies, all of which were given away to family and friends, no additional offers to publish any additional short stories to date) it isn’t. I have my name in print. I have a starting point: a published fictional short story. It gave me the encouragement I needed to send out four additional short stories to literary magazines. It also gave me the motivation to apply to the Humber School for Writers, one of Canada’s top writing schools, where I have been accepted and have started the program with David Adams Richards as my writing mentor. They have a Literary Agency attached to the school. Perhaps nothing will come from this. Perhaps I am fooling myself. Perhaps I am no writer at all. But without this one short story publication, I might never have known.
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