Publish your own work in anthologies, class publications, and Web sites

By Liz Matthews

Do you enjoy submitting to the Young Writer’s Project? Do you wish you could see your work in print more often? Here are some more ways to publish your writing.

Publish your work on your classroom walls. Teachers are always looking for ways to decorate their classrooms. Ask them to showcase your writing. Better yet, tell your teacher that you will be in charge of collecting student work to display throughout the year. Use construction paper, artistic scissors, and fun fonts to make it look more presentable. Remember to edit your work before displaying it.

Publish the old-fashioned way. Before typography was invented, people bound books by hand. There are endless ways to pull your work together. This can be achieved with a needle and thread or even duct tape and scissors. If you’re artistic or crafty, make a cover using paints, watercolor, or decoupage. Talk with your art teacher to see if they have any ideas. Be resourceful. Many local colleges and art centers offer classes on bookbinding. See if your teacher is interested in attending, or if they offer these classes for students. Choose around five of your strongest pieces, and them as a completed collection with a cover, title page, dedication, table of contents, and an about the author.

Class publications. Everyone in your class selects their favorite piece of finished writing. Then, revise this piece again on your own, and using peer editing. You can form an editorial group that will be in charge or collecting and laying out all of the work for a class publication. This group is responsible for the cover art, writing a forward, a dedication page, table of contents, and soliciting author bios from each students. You can also collect additional artwork to use throughout the book. The editorial group will also be in charge of researching different ways of binding the collection. It can be as simple as hole punching and using a plastic cover, or looking up local printers and getting the work professionally bound. A word of caution—if you do decide to use an outside printer, be sure to deliver the work at least six to eight weeks before the end of the school year.

Start a school literary journal. If your school doesn’t have a school publication for creative work, start one. Find a teacher who is willing to be the club’s advisor and five to ten kids who are interested in writing, and meet after school on a weekly basis. If you assign all of your group members a roll, the teacher does not need to play an active role in the process; they can just be responsible for the financial logistics. Make a school-wide announcement that you’re accepting submissions, and let them know that their work will be judged anonymously—meaning only the teacher will know the writers’ name and grade. At your weekly meetings, read each piece aloud, discuss what is and what’s not working, and then vote using a silent ballot. Vote yes, maybe, or no for each piece. The maybe pile will be important if you do not have enough acceptances. Have someone volunteer to tally the votes, and then inform the students by letter or e-mail whether or not their work has been accepted. After a few months of reading submissions, get to work on editing and layout for your journal. Use whatever programs are available to you at your school: Microsoft Word, Publication, or In-Design are all good programs for this type of work. Your school journal can come out once, twice, or three times a year—depending on how many submissions you receive, and the quality of the work.

Host publishing parties or open-mics when the journals come out, and invite the contributors to read their work aloud. These public events will create more buzz and enthusiasm for the journal, and possibly more involvement.

If you want to organize your staff, have students sign up for the following roles: Editor-in-chief, managing editor, fiction editor, poetry editor, arts editor, layout design, copyeditor, graphic designer, and publicist. The editor-in-chief could be in charge of writing the book’s forward, and running the weekly meetings. The managing editor is in charge of overseeing all aspects of production. The publicist can be in charge of making school-wide announcements, posting posters around the school, and announcing publication and open mic dates.

Web Sites
There are an endless amount of Web sites that publish student work and student blogs. Check out our links for where to submit.