Do you love to write? Do you know others who are great writers?
If so, this is your chance to get involved in the writing of a landmark book for mothers. The Power of Moms will be publishing our first book in 2011, and we want you to be a part of it!
Basic Idea Behind the Book:
Learning Circles have been spreading rapidly over the past year and we decided to put together a book as the "manual" for the upcoming year of our Learning Circles program. We came up with a great list of what we believe to be the "12 Powers of Motherhood"(detailed below), one for each month of the year.
As we thought more and more about this book project and researched the books currently available to mothers, we realized that we'd hit on something pretty unique. There are tons of excellent books out there to help mothers take care of their children and teach their children important things in effective ways. But there aren't any books that really help MOTHERS progress and grow and learn through the experience of motherhood in a systematic, comforting, bite-by-bite manner.
Word of this unique book project spread and we are now in discussions with a major publisher right now. Our plan is to lift, inspire and comfort women across the world who'd like to focus on one universal motherhood principle or "power" each month. They could use the book in conjunction with their participation in a Learning Circle or they could simply buy it and enjoy it on their own.
Co-Authors/Current Participants:
New York Times Best-selling author (and Saren's wonderful mother) Linda Eyre has graciously agreed to write the foreword to our book, and authors will include three of the Eyre daughters (Saren, Shawni, and Saydi) and several of our excellent Power of Moms writers, Sarah Turner, Catherine Arveseth, Allyson Reynolds, and April Perry. We would love to add your name to this list.
Submission Guidelines:
Our vision is to feature one main essay (1500-2500 words) for each "Power" (outlined below) and then supplement that essay with illustrating examples, stories, and poetry (100-500 words each). We see mothers picking up this book during a few precious, quiet moments and coming away uplifted and armed with fresh ideas and important reminders.
The tone of each main essay should be conversational, approachable, and engaging with a good balance of "showing" (through examples and stories) and "telling" (making important points and bringing together your examples and stories).
Supplementary material should help illustrate an important sub-point on each topic via short examples and stories or poems (i.e. a story showing how your patience increased through a specific experience, a poem about enjoying a special moment with your child, an example of how you changed your perspective on something and it made your load seem lighter, a moment when you realized something new through an experience, etc.). See the outline for more examples of the types of supplementary material we're looking for.
Deadline for Submissions:
All submissions must be emailed to contest@powerofmoms.com by November 15th, 2010. We know that's not giving you a lot of time, but if we made it any later, we'd all procrastinate until a couple days before anyway. (Working with a publisher has moved our timeline way up...but we have faith in you!)
This is an incredible opportunity to use your voice to strengthen mothers all over the world with the experiences you've had and the ideas you've developed.
Judging:
Each submission will be reviewed by several Power of Moms editors and board members. If your submission is not selected for this book, we would still love to consider it for publication on this website. No hurt feelings, okay? We'll announce the finalists after Thanksgiving.
Compensation/Copyrights:
We're not at a point where we can pay our contributors, but each of our primary authors will receive five free books--as well as the exciting opportunity to become a published writer and share her thoughts with thousands of other mothers. Those that contribute shorter, supplementary material that is selected for inclusion in the book will receive 2 free books. Copyrights within the published book will belong to The Power of Moms, LLC and/or our publisher. (We'll provide more details if your submission is selected.)
More information here.
This blog is no longer updated. Please instead visit Writers For Diversity for new opportunities for women/ LGBT writers and writers of color. Thank you.
