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Tales from a Small Planet is an online magazine and resource center for people living outside their home countries. We invite you to submit material consistent with our theme: "What It's Really Like to Live There," for the following sections of the magazine. We are NOT interested in traditional travel pieces or journalistic descriptions of a country -- instead, we want the expat writer to reveal his or her personal experiences, discovering a new culture (with delight, frustration, bewilderment, bemusement ...) and building a new life in a new place. Please also read through our archives to get an idea of the kind of thing we're looking for. The Road Less Traveled: personal essays that show how a cross-cultural encounter brought the expat writer to some sort of realization -- about the host culture, his or her home culture, or the human condition itself -- while including lots of interesting, authentic details about life in another country. Covered Wagons: Pioneering a Life Overseas: personal essays that explore how living in another countries has affected your life: your adjustment, how you fit in, culture shock, new experiences (positive or negative), etc. Short Fiction from a Small Planet: short stories that illuminate some aspect of the expatriate experience. Novel Visions: an excerpt from your finished novel (published or unpublished) that can stand alone as a story illuminating some aspect of the expatriate experience. Postcards from the Edge: These are short personal essays about bizarre customs or phenomena you happen to notice in a foreign culture - or your own. Practical Planet: This section features useful information for expatriates on subjects such as working abroad, managing stress, moving with children, etc. Poetry: again, we're looking for your unique insights into the expatriate experience. Way Off Base: black humor and satire about living overseas. Way Off Broadway (Lyric Lampoons): "sung to the tune of..." songs, illustrating some aspect of life overseas. Over the Wires: fake news items, mainly poking fun at U.S. Foreign Service personnel and other expatriates. Books: Sorry, we no longer publish original book reviews -- leaving that to Amazon -- but if you would like to recommend a book of special interest to expatriates, please let us know so we can add a link to it. Think you have the perfect piece for us, but it doesn't fit in any category? Try us - we're flexible! All work must be original - no "mangled English signs" or forwarded internet humor, please. Study current material on the site to get a sense of our style. If you have a few ideas but are not sure if they would be right for us, you are welcome to query us and ask. Send your submission in the body of an e-mail or as a Word or RTF attachment. (Please tell us in the body of your email that you are sending us an attachment--otherwise we may get paranoid about you.) All submissions are reviewed by our editors, and if they fit our guidelines, they are sent to a volunteer Submissions Panel. We usually work with our authors to edit pieces before publication. Please be advised that our wheels turn a bit slowly -- as with many small literary magazines, it can take a year or more from the original submission to actual publication. We are currently unable to provide financial compensation, but we are happy to include the following links and background material with every published piece:
After working with us to edit and publish a piece on Tales, several of our authors have also received later compensation through awards and/or reprints in textbooks and anthologies. Send queries/submissions to Patricia Linderman, Editor in Chief, at editor@talesmag.com.
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Writer's Guidelines