Told through visual, performing, literary, traditional, and folk arts
The victim of child trauma, abuse or neglect is likely to experience confusing, difficult and painful feelings. How does a child or adult sort out their many conflicting feelings concerning what happened or was done to them?
The CREATE Project is based on the idea that the traditional and contemporary arts, presented in the context of caring relationships, can help kids and families heal from trauma, abuse and neglect. The opportunity to create and experience the arts, in the setting of a caring community, opens the road to help heal individual children, their families, and our community as a whole.
In light of this perspective, the CREATE Project invites youth and adults to share their stores – told through whatever medium you choose. See submission guidelines and “Tell Your Story” submit button.
TELL YOUR STORY Program
The CREATE Project is pleased to invite youth and adults to share their stories, poetry, art, songs, and other creative work through our “Tell Your Story” Program. Please send us your submissions about how hope, beauty and the creative spirit can change everything for a child.
We also welcome fiction and nonfiction stories, essays, vignettes, poetry, art, songs, and other creative works about children who, like Green and Rebecca (see “Tell Our Story” below), are imprisoned in circumstances beyond their control.
The CREATE Project looks forward to seeing and sharing your creative submissions to the “Tell Your Story” Program. Please see our Submission Guidelines below for more information about how you can submit your story.
Join us. We would like to include your story.
Please read guidelines for submission below. Then email your story to createprojectny@gmail.com
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
TELL YOUR STORY Program: Scope, Purpose, Guidelines, Value
Ownership and copyright of all written and visual works is retained by the writer, artist, or photographer upon receipt of written permission (see permission form below) to the CREATE Project for use of their original work. Photography or written work that is the result of unlawful surveillance, evidence of a crime, taken in forbidden air space, or the result of harassment, trespass or other criminal law violations will not be accepted for use in the CREATE Project Tell Your Story Program. The CREATE Project Tell Your Story Program is shaped as a creative, documentary, academic, and investigatory endeavor with social, academic and historical value. The program avails itself of the protections of fair use, journalistic privileges, and recognition of the non-commercial nature for the use of the written pieces, artwork, and photography.
A CREATE Project story is about children, families, and community – personal perseverance, moments of connection, uplifting happenings, and heart wrenching challenges that must be overcome.
Tell your story about experiences you had when you were a child, or experiences of children who have crossed your path. Tell your story about witnessing how communities come together to celebrate, enjoy, and care for each other, as well as how they sometimes fail to protect the most vulnerable among us.
A CREATE Project story strives to inspire, motivate, and readers to feel, think, and act on behalf of all children everywhere. The story can be simple or intricate. Stories can be personal and filled with both positive and negative images, feelings, and events. Lively sensory descriptions can help readers feel the immediacy of the story.
CREATE Project stories follow an arc with a beginning, middle, and end. Often written in the first person, the stories often conclude with events that produce feelings, rather than simply making a statement. CREATE Project stories inspire readers to help children and act on their behalf.
Stories can depict acts of kindness, love, service or courage on behalf of a child, or can describe the plight of a particular child. Personal insight or messages of hope are encouraged.
1. Tell a story about children and their family or community, especially stories that incorporate the arts and tradition. The story can be about something that has happened to you or someone you know. Your story should be written in the first person and can be about yourself or a child or person close to you.
2. Tell your story in a way that will make the reader pause, reflect, cry, laugh, become inspired, or compelled to act.
• Draw the reader in with action at the beginning of your story. Do not start your story with an introduction about what you intend to say, or end with a concluding paragraph about what you just said.
• Speak from your heart. Use a pen name for your story if you do not want to use your real name.
• Don’t try fancy attempts with changing tenses. Writing in the present tense about something that happened in the past seldom works.
3. Keep your story to 1200 words or less. Tighten and edit! Very short stories or flash fiction are fine.
4. Identify your “story” as a true story, fiction, essay, creative nonfiction, a poem or a song.
5. Identify the ideal age of the audience for your story – juvenile, teen, young adult, adult.
TYPE OF SUBMISSION, AUDIENCE & AGE RANGE
Knowing who you are writing for is critical when starting the writing process. An audience is simply a particular reader or group of readers. Your audience will influence your decisions about content, emphasis, organization, style, and tone.
Knowing your audience helps you to make decisions about what information you should include, how you should arrange that information, and what kind of supporting details will be necessary for the reader to understand what you are presenting. It also influences the tone and structure of the document.
STORY TYPE: Please note the type of submission you are making. Is your written submission is a Poem, Story, Song, Fiction, Non-fiction, or essay? Is your image a photograph, drawing, painting, sculpture, craft, or other art form?
AUDIENCE AGE RANGE: Please note your which of the following audience age ranges your written piece is targeted for:
Juvenile –
– For kids ages 3-5
– For kids ages 6-10
– For kids ages 10-12
– For young teens
– For older teens
– For kids of any age
Adult
– for young adult
– for all adults
AUTHOR information (mark with “x”):
Adult_______
Youth_______ Your age_____________ Grade______________
• You must warrant that this Work is original and does not infringe the rights of any party.
• The Work your submitting is not currently under consideration elsewhere and the Work will not be submitted for publication elsewhere.
• No part of the Work submitted violates any copyright, moral right or other right of any third party; all graphic, photographic and image-related elements of the Work are used with permission of any person or entity with rights therein. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of New York (United States), without regard to its choice of law principles.
1. It is NOT: A sermon, an essay or eulogy.
2. It is NOT: An “as told to” story written by you for someone else. If you ghost-write a story for someone, we thank you for helping that person share his or her story. That person’s name will be listed as the author and he or she can acknowledge your help in the bio section.
3. It is NOT: A term paper, thesis, letter or journal entry.
4. It is NOT: About politics or issues unrelated to the welfare of children and families.
5. It is NOT: A biography or testimonial.
6. It is NOT: A journalistic article about a third party that reads like a newspaper article.
1. We love poems and songs that tell a story. A CREATE Project poem or song does the same job as a story. The reader goes away having learned your story, just through poetry or song instead of prose.
2. We do not publish poems or songs that do not tell a story about children, their culture, or the issues children face.
2. We cannot help you with your personal computer problems. If you have questions, such as, “How do I paste my story into the submission form?” please ask a friend or relative.
3. Please submit only stories or poems that have not been previously published. The only exception to this is if your work has only been published in a small local publication with limited circulation or on your own blog.
4. Please do not send us any book manuscripts as these will be automatically discarded.
Please be patient after you press the SUBMIT button. Wait for the next screen to come up with a message that says: Thank you! Your information has been received. This is your confirmation that we have received your story or poem and that it has been entered into our database. This is the only confirmation you will receive. There is no separate e-mail message from us. A very obvious “Error” message comes up if your submission does not go through.
How will you know if your story is selected? We do not send rejection letters, and we occasionally will save a submission for consideration for a future project. But in general, if you have not heard from us, that probably means we have decided not to use your story or poem. All stories must be accompanied by a standard permission release agreement. Make sure you sign and date the permission agreement, or your story will not be considered for publication. You can check the website for your story. We get many submissions online publication and only have room for a limited number of pieces, so please don’t take our silence personally!
It can take many months or longer for an online CREATE Project publication to be completed. Please be patient, as the selection of stories and poems is a time-consuming process. Please do not contact us to ask for an update about your story unless you need to know whether we are considering it because another publisher is interested in it too.
If we choose your story or poem for a future edition of a CREATE Project online publication or any of our other projects, we will notify you by e-mail and to confirm your permission to print it. We never publish anything without written permission from the author, and we get your approval for any edits we make.
If your e-mail address changes after you submit your story, be sure to let us know by emailing us. You need to let us know which topic you submitted to so that we can update your information.
If we publish your story, you will also become part of the CREATE Project family and will be entitled to receive our newsletter that is sent exclusively to our published writers, with advance notice of new topics, contests to win, CREATE Project merchandise, and more.
If your story is selected to appear in our online publication, you will be asked to sign our standard permission release agreement. That agreement asks for non-exclusive rights to publish your story. This means that you retain ownership of your story or poem but you grant us the rights to publish it and use it again in any future CREATE Project publication.[/expand]
We Welcome Your Stories, Songs, Essays, and Poems!
We have many CREATE Project online publications in development. If you have a great story or poem you want to submit but it doesn’t fit with any of the current topics (children and children’s issues), please save it and check this page again in the future to see if we have added a topic that’s a better match.
If you have a story or poem that you think fits the CREATE Project mission, you may submit it at any time. Then let us know in the Comments section that you’ve done so. Also, you may submit more than one piece for each online publication.
We are always looking for new talent. So whether you are a regular contributor or new to our family, please share your story or poem with us. If this is your first time, please visit our Story Guidelines page, which will answer many of your questions about subject matter, length, and style.
Please scroll through the categories and audience ages listed below. You can submit a story or other written piece for any topic dealing with children or children’s issues at any time. Then click on the Submit Your Story link and you will be taken to our submission form.