Submissions & Future Issues

You are cordially invited to submit an article, photograph, poem, graphic artwork, etc. to our magazine. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact us via our web form for our Writer's Guidelines. You may also contact us or make submissions by calling 541-937-2567 ext. 116 or writing Communities Magazine, 81868 Lost Valley Lane, Dexter, OR 97431.

Below is our most recent Call for Articles, including upcoming issue themes and general information about submitting articles and photos.

Call for Articles

Communities Magazine is now seeking articles for issue #140, "Politics in Community." The issue will be out in September 2008.

Please send your article idea to us by Sunday, April 6. (Early submissions are appreciated.)

Your final article must reach us by Friday, May 23.

Theme articles: "Politics in Community"

What is your community's relationship to politics? For example, are larger-scale political awareness and action important to you individually and/or collectively? Do community members have relatively unified or diverse viewpoints on political issues? How do you discuss political subjects? Do you have a community etiquette about when and where it's ok to talk politics, and when it is not? Do internal politics operate within your community that either mirror or contrast with the political dynamics of the larger society? How do you handle political disagreements and internal political tensions? How do you present yourselves and your political viewpoints to people outside of your community? Do you see yourselves as contributing to political change on a local and/or a society-wide level?

We are seeking articles about:

• Creating community in your neighborhood
• Starting a new community
• Process & communication issues in community
• Seeking community to join

Article and Photo Submissions

1. What "Submitting" an Article Means: We will promise to read your article, but we may respectfully decline it and not publish it, or save it and publish it in a future issue. We also reserve the right to edit, shorten, or revise your article. Most of the time we contact authors about this ahead of time and get their comments, corrections, etc.
2. Getting Permission Ahead of Time: Please send the article only when you have permission from anyone you need it from, such as fellow community members. It's difficult for us to get all set to run an article only to find that the author's fellow community members say No at the last minute.
3. Publication Rights: Once your article appears in Communities magazine, we own first North American Publishing Rights. This means your article appears in Communities magazine the first time it appears in North America. After that, you own it again. If you’d like to use it elsewhere, you can, and we would appreciate your using an attribution line saying, "This article first appeared in Communities magazine, (date); for further information on Communities magazine: communities.ic.org."

4. Photos: If we publish your article, we want to accompany it with compelling images that illustrate your subject. You know your subject best, so we are appealing to you for images. If you submit an article idea, our Photo Editor will send you our photo guidelines, including how to send us your photos. In the meantime, we hope this guide will help you. If the task seems overwhelming, see if someone else in your community likes taking pictures. They might already have great images to go with your article.

   If you would like to submit an article but cannot supply photos, that’s fine; however, you must give us plenty of advance notice so that if we use your article we can get an illustrator.

   No matter how you send us your photos, please remember to include information for the caption of each photo, as well as the full name of whomever we should credit for the photo, including their community name. Also, if there are people in the photo, then get permission to use the photo in Communities magazine. A good caption includes the location, all the names of the people or group in the photo, and the date if that applies. Also, please prepare to send hi res images; web photos rarely will be usable.

   Thanks for your contributions, and have fun!

   Content of the submitted images: If the story is focused on a certain person or group, include a photograph of them. Always get as close to your subject as possible. Photographs of your subjects engaged in their work or in their environment make for interesting photos. We will assume that any people in your photos have already given you permission to appear in Communities magazine. If you think this will be a problem, please take care of it before sending us photos.

   You may also include additional, ambient photographs of a home, a table setting, food, art, or landscape, along with your people shots. We are a magazine about people and communities but every picture does not need to have people in it. Maybe the image is a row of colorful shoes next to a playground that suggests children, for example.

   Modern digital cameras put the power of making beautiful images in all our hands. Use the power and have fun!

5. Cover photos:

   We pay $150 for the images we use on the cover. If you are interested in submitting images for the cover, please study the call for articles posted for that issue. The best way to achieve a winning cover is to study the magazine of course. Be aware that your image must work behind the masthead, cover titles, etc.—normally the top of the image should not be vital to the image meaning, for example. We are seeking thought-provoking approaches to visually communicating community—images which speak in new and interesting ways. Surprise us. Think about what you would want to see/say on a newsstand. Feel free to contact the photo editor with images or suggestions. You will need at least a 6 MB camera at the highest resolution of capture for cover photos.

Chris Roth
Editor, Communities Magazine