Writers Guidelines/Photograph Submission Guidelines
Thank you. We greatly appreciate your interest in writing for Today’s Urban Parent. Our magazine is based on a foundation of reader-submitted and family friendly work. We welcome unsolicited articles, and we encourage you to familiarize yourself with our publishing goals.
Editorial Vision
The purpose of the magazine is to provide and distribute information to parents and families about various issues that have an impact upon their child’s educational, social, emotional, and physical development.
To empower parents with the skills and information so they are able to support their child’s educational, physical, social, and emotional development.
To inspire families to live up to their potential which will have a positive and lasting impact on their community.
To create a community of people who are willing to protect and uplift the institution of family
Our main objective is to be truly helpful, to provide information that empowers our readers to make changes, and supports them in being their own experts. We like articles that have a strong point of view and come from the heart, that are challenging or evocative. We also take pride in publishing well-researched, extensively documented articles. When submitting this type of article, please use only the most updated research, from primary sources. Our choice of articles depends on the other material we have published on the subject, how new the topic is to us, and how unique the presentation is. It helps if you include photos.
Today’s Urban Parent is an online monthly publication with a projected national readership of more than 60,000 monthly. We regularly cover the following subject areas:
- The Art of Parenting focuses on the inspirational and spiritual side of parenting. Here is where we share ideas and philosophies that help us to be the kinds of parents we want to be.
- Family Focus features a family who is making a difference in areas such as: making a positive impact in their community, families who have succeeded in spite of obstacles, etc.
- Health explores new approaches to health care for the whole family. We welcome coverage of a wide range of topics, encouraging articles on approaches to common childhood health questions.
- A Child's World contains articles that reflect the world as a child sees it. In this section, we especially like to feature activities, crafts, arts, music, poetry, and stories for and by children.
- Learning Methods features articles on innovative, multidimensional, people-centered approaches to education. This section focuses on how people learn as well as where they learn, and includes learning about traditional subjects as well as subjects usually thought of as outside the realm of education: responsibility, ethics, adventure, etc. We want to know about new, as well as rediscovered "old," ways of learning, with attention to schools and methods that support the full potential of the child.
- Resources contains informative and helpful links of organizations that supports the mission of Today’s Urban Parent.
Finance includes articles such as teaching children about money management, saving for college, building generational wealth, as well as other topics that impact families financially.
- Community highlights organizations that are making a positive impact in lives of urban families. This area will feature events that are family centered.
Queries. We encourage you to send a query if you are unsure of our interest in the topic of your article. A query is a one-page specific description and outline of your article. You can query us on more than one topic at a time.
The length of an article is not a significant consideration. Although we do not have a recommended length, do not let length be a limitation. Say what you have to say. Make sure that your article is written in a parent friendly manner.
Fact Checking Your article will be fact-checked before being published in Today’s Urban Parent. Therefore, we require that your research be as current as possible. You should source actual published studies, not books in which the studies are quoted. The latter is called a secondary reference, and is not reliable. Your research should also be organized and readily available, so you will be able to respond to fact-checkers questions quickly and accurately.
Double-space your article and leave wide side margins for possible notations. When submitting an electronic file, please save your article as a Word Document and e-mail it as an attachment. We accept hard copy submissions in the mail.
E-mail: urbanparentmagazine@gmail.com
Mail: 500 West Silver Spring Drive, Suite K-200, Glendale, WI 53217
Phone: 414-847-6418
Please do not send us an article that you have already submitted elsewhere unless you have had the article returned or have heard that it is not going to be used. Please, also, do not send book-length manuscripts. We prefer to publish only original material, but will occasionally publish excerpts from books.
Keep a copy of your article. We will return mailed submissions after consideration only if a SASE is included with your submission.
Please include a photo and a brief bionote (1-2 sentences) at the end of your submission, so that we can print it if your article is used.
Please include your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address on the first page of your manuscript or article, as well as your name and the page number on each subsequent page. Include your phone number and e-mail with all correspondence.
Our procedure is to read and respond to articles within four to six weeks of receiving them. This can be a long time to wait, especially if you are eager for a reply. Please be patient. Contact us if you wish to inquire about your manuscript before hearing from us.
Once an article is received and we retain it, we may want to keep it for up to a year; we plan quite a bit in advance and may have already selected articles for upcoming issues before we receive your article. Final decisions are made only after all articles on hand are evaluated. Even when an article is selected for an issue, it may be pulled for lack of space. These uncertainties make it difficult for us to be as specific in our acceptance as we would like; we appreciate your understanding of this creative process. We try not to keep an article longer than 6 months because, although we may like it, we feel it should have a chance in another market.
Our hardest task is returning articles that we cannot use. We try to be honest in our replies, but it is not always possible to provide in-depth feedback. We evaluate all articles in light of the other articles we have on hand, when last we covered the subject, and our readers' interest in the subject matter. We retain only a small percentage of the articles we receive.
We pay between $25 and $50 for a magazine article, the amount to be negotiated at the time it is selected for and laid out in an issue. Payment is made 90 days from publication date for one-time use of the article.
We accept articles on a speculative basis so even if we have expressed an interest in, or given you the approval for a proposed article, we cannot guarantee its publication.
Photography Contest
If you would like to submit a photo, you may send us photocopies, reprints, digital photos, or low-resolution scans of your work.
(If we decide to use a photo in the magazine, we will ask for the original.)
Send photos to:
Today’s Urban Parent
500 West Silver Spring Drive, Suite K-200
Glendale, WI 53217
urbanparentmagazine@gmail.com
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