Learning around Publishing
Publishing Opportunities
It is amazing what opportunities can appear out of the blue. We attended an evening that celebrated women adventurers earlier this year at SHAFF. The roving questioner there asked the girls to stand up at the event and give an impromptu explanation about their current ed-venture and the changes that have happened to them in the last few years. She praised them for their courage and had a brief conversation with them afterwards. The girls must have had an impact on her because, out of the blue, we recently received an email, requesting that the girls each write a short article for the online magazine that she produces, Sports Liberated. The theme of the issue was Adventure and she wanted their them to write about their experiences. She remembered from her conversation with them, that Amy loved writing and that Ella’s passion is photography.
The girls excitedly accepted the offer. They read through examples of previous articles from other issues to get an understanding of the style, length and layout then began planning what they wanted to write. A short email exchange with the editor gave an insight into the world of publishing with expectations of deadlines and explanations of terminology such as standfirsts. Both girls had to stick to a word count and struggled to limit their ideas to a restricted amount but each of them worked hard. Amy focused on writing a summary of the year of ed-venture. Ella, on the other hand, focused on her highlights of the year linked to animals and included photographs with captions.
The girls were treated like any contributer to the magazine and were expected to submit their articles by the given deadline. This driving factor ensured the work got done in good time and knowing that it was to be published online to a real audience made it a truly purposeful and rewarding task. They each received feedback from the editor, praising them for the hard work and submitting it on time. It was a real life experience that they enjoyed – both felt very proud to see their writing appear in the magazine.
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