Segullah features literary and visual art created by Latter-day Saint women. We encourage contributions from beginners as well as practiced amateurs and professionals.
We accept electronic submissions only. By submitting work to Segullah, contributors implicitly accept the terms of our copyright policy. Segullah has the right of first refusal to publish all submissions. No work may be submitted simultaneously to Segullah and to any other contest or publication. Authors whose work is accepted for publication will receive a complimentary copy of the issue containing their work.
UPCOMING ISSUES:
Spring/Summer 2012
Theme: Justice and Mercy
Coming in March 2012
Submissions closed
Fall/Winter 2011
Contest issue (contest entries only)
Coming in September 2012
Submissions deadline: December 31, 2011
Spring/Summer 2013
Theme: Disability and Mormonism
Coming in March 2013
Submissions Deadline: September 1, 2012
Submission Categories
Creative Nonfiction | Poetry | Visual Art
Additional Submission Information
Issue Themes | Essay Helps | Style Guidelines | Copyright Policy
Creative Nonfiction Submissions
We accept personal essays, narratives, and other creative nonfiction pieces written by LDS women which correspond to our upcoming issue theme, or which address other subjects in harmony with our mission statement. Please read a variety of pieces from our archive to understand what we are looking for. Our Essay Helps guide may also be useful for you. Suggested length is 1000-3500 words.
To submit your work, please follow these instructions:
- See style guidelines for instructions on formatting your submission.
- Send your submission in the body of the email, not as an attachment.
- In the email body include your full name, street address, email address, phone number, and your essay’s word count.
- In the email subject line type the title of your essay, followed by your full name.
- Send your submission to submit.prose [at] segullah [dot] org. You will receive an automated email response confirming our receipt of your submission.
- Inquiries for the prose editor may be sent to prose.editor [at] segullah [dot] org.
Submissions accepted for publication are subject to thorough revision under the guidance of an editor.
Poetry Submissions
We accept submissions which correspond with our upcomingissue theme, or which address other subjects in harmony with our mission statement. If this is your first time submitting, we prefer you to send two to three poems in order for our board to get a better impression of your work as a whole (although you may send just one if you prefer). Please choose your best, most polished pieces to exemplify your writing.
To submit your work, please follow these instructions:
- Send your entire submission, with one to three titled poems, in the body of one email, not as an attachment.
- Please check your spelling carefully, since any unusual spelling in a poem will be considered intentional.
- Include your full name, address, phone number, and email address at the top of the page.
- In the subject line of your email, type the titles of your poems, followed by your full name.
- Email poetry submissions to submit.poetry [at] segullah [dot] org. You will receive an automated email response confirming our receipt of your submission.
- Inquiries for the poetry editor may be sent to poetry.editor [at] segullah [dot] org.
Visual Art
We feature one visual artist per issue. If you’re interested in being considered as a featured artist, please query the art director at visual.art [at] segullah [dot] org.
Themes
Issue themes are broad concepts intended to solicit a wide spectrum of insights and perspectives. The theme for our Spring/Summer 2012 issue is Disability and Mormonism.
Essay Helps
Essay Helps: Printable (pdf 37KB) Version
A personal essay features life experiences which illustrate an idea. Essayist Edward Hoaglund explains that an essay “hangs somewhere between two sturdy poles: this is what I think, and this is what I am.” Your idea—what I think—is the core of the essay; it need not be stated explicitly, but it does need to be clear. The style and voice you use in communicating your idea reveals aspects of your self—“what I am.”
We are looking for essays which:
- Focus on the “local”—people you know, places you’ve been, things you’ve experienced.
- Use a conversational approach. Most personal essays are “chatty” or “talky,” although some may be more formal in tone. Use first person.
- Employ effective story-telling techniques (such as blending of scene and summary; imagery and five-sense appeal; characterization; active verb; “show not tell”).
- Rely on subtle meaning and avoid heavy-handed moralizing.
- Feature an authentic voice–this requires honesty about your feelings and ideas.
- Provide a good “road map” of where the essay is going (or, at least, where it has been).
- Use structure to emphasize meaning. You might try coming at your issue from a variety of different angles rather than using a methodical approach.
- Consider other points of view. Exploring conflicting ideas may lend depth to your essay’s meaning.
Through employing these techniques, you may move beyond merely reporting an experience or evidencing a point to creating insightful, personable literary art. Essayist Philip Lopate emphasizes, “While it is true that historically the essay is related to rhetoric, it in fact seeks to persuade more by the delights of literary style than anything else.”
You may also find the articles filed under writing tips at our blog to be helpful.
References:
Edward Hoaglund, The Tugman’s Passage (New York: Random House, 1982), 25.
The Art of the Personal Essay, Phillip Lopate, ed. (NY: Anchor Books Doubleday, 1994), 301.
Style Guidelines
Style Guidelines: Printable (pdf, 39KB) Version
We follow the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.). To make the editing process run more smoothly, we ask authors to format their works as follows:
- Single space after punctuation marks and in between sentences. This is the current publishing industry standard. If you prepared your manuscript using two spaces after periods and colons, please remove the extra spaces. (An easy way to check for extra spaces is to use the “show ¶” command in your word processing program.)
- Single space between lines.
- Double space between paragraphs. Do not indent at the beginning of paragraphs.
- Use a plain font in 12-point size.
- Allow the program to wrap the right edge automatically.
- If documentation is required, use endnotes.
- Include your full name, phone number, e-mail address and street address at the beginning of your email.
- Include your essay’s title near the beginning of the email.
- Proofread carefully. There are many errors that your word processing program will not identify. We suggest having someone else read your manuscript and offer suggestions.
If you have additional questions about style, you can find the fifteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style at most libraries and bookstores.
Copyright Policy
Copyright 2005-2011, The Segullah Group, Inc. All rights reserved. This notice pertains to journal issues and all other website material. For use and permission inquiries, or for more information about our copyright policy, contact the editor at editor.in.chief AT segullah DOT org. Inquiries pertaining to individual pieces will be forwarded to the respective author/artist.
By submitting their work to Segullah, contributors implicity license The Segullah Group to print, re-print, distribute, and display their work, in whole or in part, in print and web versions of the journal, without compensation of any kind. Published authors retain full rights over their work, and may submit their work to other publications after it has appeared in Segullah without obtaining permission; however, Segullah should be acknowledged as the place of first publication.
Authors who quote from other works must secure any necessary permissions, and will be responsible for any infractions of copyright law within their pieces.
The Segullah Group does not accept submissions which are under consideration by other publications. Submissions not used in the forthcoming issue of Segullah may be held, with the author’s permission, for possible use in later issues. Non-published authors are free to submit their work to other publications if they have received a rejection notice, or if they have requested their work on hold to be released from our files.
Heather Campbell Personal Essay Contest
Personal essays are first-person accounts of life experiences based on a central theme or idea. Please read a variety of essays from our archive to understand what we are looking for. Our Essay Helps guide may also be useful for you.
We welcome unpublished personal essays as entries for our annual contest. Entries may address any subject in harmony with our mission statement. Entries should not exceed 3500 words. Entrants must be female members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The winner of the previous year’s essay contest is ineligible to enter.Members of the staff and their families are ineligible to enter.
Entries will be judged by Segullah editors. The winning author receives the Heather Campbell Award for Excellence in Writing ($100). We publish the winning essay, any honorable mentions, and other contest entries in our Fall/Winter issue. The judges reserve the right to withhold the award if none of the entries merits it. All essays accepted for publication are be subject to thorough revision under the guidance of an editor.
To enter your essay in the contest, please follow these instructions:
- See style guidelines for instructions on formatting your submission.
- Send your submission in the body of the email, not as an attachment.
- In the email body include your full name, street address, email address, phone number, and your essay’s word count.
- In the email subject line type the title of your essay, followed by your full name.
- Send your entry to essay.contest [at] segullah [dot] org. You will receive an automated email response confirming our receipt of your submission.
- Other correspondence regarding the Heather Campbell Essay Contest may be sent to prose [at] segullah [dot] org
Annual Deadline: December 31
Contest finalists will be announced in our Spring/Summer issue. The winner will be announced in our Fall/Winter issue. The finalists and winner will be notified in advance.
We gratefully acknowledge Beverly B. Campbell for sponsoring this contest in honor of her daughter Heather.