General Submissions

Teachers & Writers Magazine is published by Teachers & Writers Collaborative to provide resources and inspiration in support of our stated mission:

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) celebrates the imagination through transformative writing and arts education for youth and lifelong learners. Our programs and publications inspire classroom innovation and create greater equity in and through the literary arts.

The magazine’s online format offers a wide and continually changing selection of lesson plans, articles, essays, and interviews tailored for those in the field of creative writing education. We publish both practical and theoretical work and look for writing that is vivid, original, concise, and geared toward a general audience.


The Bechtel Prize

Each year the Teachers & Writers Magazine editorial board awards the Bechtel Prize and a $1,000 honorarium for an essay describing a creative writing teaching experience, project, or activity that demonstrates innovation in creative writing instruction. 

T&W is now accepting submissions for the 2024 Bechtel Prize, judged by Garth Greenwell. The deadline for this year’s prize is January 12, 2024. Learn more about the Bechtel Prize and how to submit here:

General Submission Guidelines

Please read through these guidelines before submitting a query or manuscript. Instructions for making a submission are included below.

Audience

Our readers come to the magazine to find both inspiration and original approaches for teaching creative writing in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms, as well as in college and community settings.

Contributors

Most of the pieces we publish are penned by writers—working in a variety of genres—who teach their art in classrooms or by classroom teachers whose focus includes creative writing.

Payment

We believe writers should be paid for their work, and we provide compensation for published writing. Our compensation for articles ranges from $50 – $350, payable upon publication. All submissions are on spec, and there is no kill fee.

Articles We’re Looking For

Explore the categories below to see the types of article we commission along with pay rates, word count, and examples.

Favorite Classroom Writing Prompts

Pay: $75; Word count: 500-750 words

What is your favorite poem, essay, or short fiction to teach in the classroom? How do you use this piece as the basis for a creative writing lesson? What kind of student writing has the teaching of this piece inspired? Please limit your pitches to pieces you have taught already and not pieces you hope to teach. This should be a personal piece reflecting your teaching philosophy and lived experience.

Example favorite classroom writing prompt:

Narrative Lesson Plans

Pay: $100; Word Count: 750 – 2000 words

Narrative lesson plans take a deeper dive into a specific creative writing lesson plan. They present a clear, scaffolded approach from presentation to the main writing activity to the closing reflection. They also tell a story, sketching the atmosphere in the classroom (including snippets of class discussions, student questions and responses, difficulties and surprises the writer encountered, etc.), and give a sense of how the writer brings his or her creative philosophy to bear on the lesson at hand. These lesson plans should also include examples of student writing generated by the writing prompts in the piece.

[Note: Submissions should include signed permission for use of student writing from the student (if 18 or older) or from a parent/guardian (if the student is under 18). Download T&W Permission Form.]

The Art of Teaching Writing

Pay: $150; Word Count: 1000 words +

Do you have a thoughtful response to the latest news in arts education or the literary community that can impact the way we teach creative writing in the classroom? Share it with us. This may include articles, essays, editorials, and meditations on current issues, innovations, or concerns in arts education. Submissions may advocate for the value of literary arts education; explore using diverse voices from outside the traditional literary canon as models or looking at traditional texts in new ways; or provide glimpses into the joys, struggles, and successes of teaching creative writing both within and outside formal education settings.

Interviews

Pay: $150 – $350; Word Count: 1000 – 2500 words

Conversations with poets, novelists, essayists, nonfiction writers, and playwrights about their work and craft, as well as their thoughts on creative writing education. Also conversations with individuals from other fields about the impact of the arts on their lives and why they believe arts education is important.

We are not looking for:

  • Poetry or works of fiction. T&W Magazine is not a literary magazine. We publish tools, resources, and reflections on the art of teaching creative writing.
  • Work written for an academic audience. We appreciate a lively personal style geared toward a general audience.
  • Lesson plans or articles focusing on other art forms or non-literary writing (such as visual art, performance art, academic writing). Exceptions may be made when integrated with creative writing on a case by case basis.

Submitting to Teachers & Writers Magazine

The initial approach to Teachers & Writers Magazine should be either:

  • A query with a brief (500 words maximum) description of the proposed article. You are encouraged to share a link to a writing sample that would give our editors a sense of the style in which you would write the proposed article.
  • If the piece is already written, a full submission that meets the word count guidelines above.

Submit all queries or full submissions to Teachers & Writers Magazine:


Rights

T&W reserves the right:

  • To publish articles accepted for Teachers & Writers Magazine in other T&W digital or print publications;
  • To authorize others to reprint articles in the form in which they appeared in the magazine; and
  • To authorize posting on non-T&W websites of articles in the form in which they appeared in the magazine, with credit to T&W and links to the magazine and T&W websites.