Getting Started Stone Soup welcomes submissions from around the world by writers and artists ages 13 and younger. All submissions must come to us via Submittable. We do not accept submissions by email or by post. This page contains information and advice about submitting to the magazine; please refer to our full FAQ page if you have any remaining questions after reading this section. More Information About Submitting Work to Stone Soup General Information What is Stone Soup’s age limit? What is the length limit for written work? What happens when I submit something? I want to have a story published in Stone Soup. What advice can you give me? I want to send you a poem. Do you have any advice for me? I want to write a book, TV, or movie review. Do you have any advice for me? I want to be a Stone Soup artist. Do you have any advice for me? Does my story or poem have to be typed? May I submit more than one story or poem at a time? May I illustrate my own story? May I send the same story to Stone Soup and to another magazine, website, or contest? Does Stone Soup hold contests? When will my story be published? How will I be compensated? General Information You can improve your chances of getting published in Stone Soup by reading this page with its editorial guidelines and, even more importantly, by reading Stone Soup itself. If you don’t already have a subscription to Stone Soup, please consider subscribing now. By subscribing to Stone Soup, you  support the Children’s Art Foundation and the Stone Soup project—making it possible for future generations of kids to enjoy Stone Soup as well. So thank you! To get an idea of the kind of work we like and have published in the past, you may also want to order some of our Stone Soup anthologies or the annuals from the Stone Soup Store. Back to top What is Stone Soup’s age limit? Stone Soup welcomes submissions by children who are not yet in high school. If you are in high school (or its international equivalent), we recommend our page titled Where to Publish Writing by Teens and Older Students. It lists a variety of places that publish work by young people of various ages, including both print and online publications. Let us know if we should add any to the list. Back to top What is the length limit for written work? We have no minimum word length, but the maximum length for a story or personal narrative is 10,000 words. If you have a longer piece, please consider submitting it to our book contest, which we run annually during the summer. Note that the majority of the stories we publish are only 2-5 pages long. Back to top What happens when I submit something? We are a small staff, and we receive 200-300 submissions each month; however, we strive to respond to regular submissions within 10-12 weeks. We do offer an expedited submission option for an additional fee, to which we respond within two weeks. Often the wait for regular submissions will be much shorter than 10-12 weeks. Occasionally the wait will be longer—usually if it falls during a holiday or vacation period (e.g. late December, August), or if we are having a more involved editorial discussion about your work. Please be patient, and also don’t be discouraged if you hear a “no” the first time . . . or the first few times. We urge you to submit again! Many of our published authors tried several times before getting published. Note: We will not respond to status queries sent before 12 weeks for regular submissions, or two weeks for expedited submissions. Back to top I want to have a story published in Stone Soup. What advice can you give me? Send us stories about the things you feel most strongly about. Whether your work is about imaginary situations or real ones, use your own experiences and observations to give your work depth and a sense of reality. We publish stories on all subjects—dance, sports, problems at school, problems at home, magical places—and in all genres—literary fiction, science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, mystery; there is no limit to the subject matter of a Stone Soup story. What matters to us is not the subject. It is how interesting your story is to another reader. Does it have a strong beginning, middle, and end? If there is dialogue, is it realistic—is it the way people speak? If your story has talking animals, is there something about the way the animals think or move that feels true to that particular kind of animal? We have published many stories that beautifully describe a private place, like a favorite tree the character likes to sit under or a clearing in the woods. We love stories that describe special private places, places that are in some way magical. Lots of stories published in Stone Soup concern problems, like moving house or school, or having to compete in a sporting event or perform in a recital. And we have published many works of historical fiction as well. Whatever you choose to write about, be sure it comes from your heart. Tell us a story that you really and truly want to tell us. To get an idea of the kind of work we like, read stories and poems from past issues of Stone Soup. If you are not a subscriber, you can get a taste of what we publish from the text excerpts on our Instagram as well. Back to top I want to send you a poem. Do you have any advice for me? As with fiction, we publish all kinds of poems—poems that rhyme and poems that don’t, poems written in sentences and poems written in fragmented phrases, among many other types—and on all subjects—nature, religion, animals, science, ideas, relationships, and experiences. We have a preference for poems that are, for lack of … Continue reading How to Submit Writing and Art to Stone Soup