Four paying markets for short stories, poetry & personal essays, plus the G&M Facts & Arguments essays

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Skirt! publishes two personal essays every month on topics relating to women and women’s interests. All essays for consideration should be submitted in their entirety and be between 800 and 1,100 words. Essays must fit one of our monthly themes.

Payment for essays is $200.

Submissions read year-round. The submission deadline for each issue is the 1st of each month for the following month.

Deadline for December issue: Nov 1, 2016. Essay Theme: Stories about the merriest of holiday times.  Full submission guidelines here. 

The First Line.  Publishes stories, poetry, creative nonfiction. They give the first line; you write the stories. For Nov 1, 2016, deadline, your story must begin with the line: "In the six years I spent tracking David Addley, it never occurred to me that he didn’t exist." Full submission guidelines here.

Payment: $25 - $50 for fiction; $5 - $10 for poetry, and $25 for nonfiction.  

Ellipsis is an annual literary journal published by students at Westminster College. Publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama and art. 

Payment: $50 for prose; $10 for poetry. 

Deadline: November 1, 2016.

Sockdolager is an on-line quarterly that publishes short fiction, mostly science fiction and fantasy. Currently looking for stories for special issue: Women of War. 

Payment: 2 cents per word; $15 for reprints. 

Deadline: November 1, 2016.

The Globe & Mail publishes a Facts & Arguments Essay every day, Monday through Friday and is continually looking for new material. This is a forum for you to share your own experiences and viewpoints.  Here’s what they’re looking for: an original voice; an unexpected view; an unfamiliar perspective; humour; vivid details that show us rather than tell us; anecdotes that illuminate a wider theme.

A successful Essay may be funny, surprising, touching or enlightening – or all of these. It may present a slice of life or a powerful experience that changed you in some way. It may be a meditation on something that matters to you. It goes beyond a rant, and it is deft in moving from the particular to the universal.

Above all, an Essay should be personal rather than political. It must be true, not fictional.

Here are some recent Essays we thought were very successful:

1.       My wife’s affair? It’s kind of a funny story (by Sean Curren)

2.      Sex and the invisible woman (by Laurie Lewis)

3.      The maze at the end of Mom’s road (by Brian Wickers)

Essays should be about 900 words. It's a good idea to get yours as close to that as you can. Don’t expect the editors to cut it for you.

Email your essay to facts@globeandmail.com 

In the subject line, be sure to put "essay submission" and the topic (in 2 or 3 words). The topic is especially important if your piece is tied to an event or season.

Please submit your essay in 2 forms – as a Word.doc attachment, and copied and pasted into the body of the e-mail.

Include a contact number where you can be reached during the day. No payment.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, St. John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Navigating tip: For more paying markets, go to the Labels for this posting listed below and click on Paying Markets, or Best Paying Markets. In the list of Labels, you’ll also find a links to various other collections of postings.