Guide for Teachers;

Submitting your students’ work…

We welcome materials from students across Canada and encourage their teachers to get them involved in What If? Many What If? alumni have gone on to careers as graphic designers, teachers, editors, and other fields related to the arts in Canada. At least one student, originally published in What If? has had her own book accepted for publication. We have also had many rights requests that have led to students’ work that was originally published in What If? now published in high school text books. It is always very exciting for the student when their work is accepted for publication, not to mention gratifying for the teacher.

How do you get your students involved?

• We welcome group submissions. Often teachers will gather up a Writer’s Craft or English class’s written work and send it as a bulk submission to the magazine. All we ask is that you make sure the students include contact information if you would like us to get back to them individually or you include your contact information if you would prefer to be contacted.
• Writing projects with realism. We have teachers who assign a writing project and to make it even more ‘real’ have their students submit the material individually complete with self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASE) for our response, or have them submit individually by email. We respond to all submissions.
• There are so many different ways to have written material published in the new What If? that there is truly something for everyone:
  • Poetry
  • Short fiction
  • Perspectives editorial and opinion pieces
  • ‘What’s your story?’ personal experience pieces
  • Music/CD reviews
  • Book reviews…have your students send us their email address and we’ll send them our review list. We even send out the book they choose and they get to keep it when they’re finished
  • ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ where students can express their thoughts on the things that have given their lives meaning
• Artwork and illustration. We are always looking for illustrators to create the artwork that accompanies our poems and stories as well as for our free-standing artwork pages. We have also dedicated our free-standing artwork pages to specific schools when we receive group submissions, so get your art classes involved as well.
• Photography. We use photos on our poetry pages as well as in the free-standing photo pages; submissions from shutter-bugs are always welcome.
• Comic strips or editorial cartoons. We rarely get these in our inbox so if the work is good then publication is a shoe-in.
• Audio and video files. We’ve created a new space on our website for those creative filmmakers, animators, and musicians that you have in your schools. We accept spoken word files as well.

As you can see, when it comes to creativity we cover the bases. If you have students 19 years of age and under attending a Canadian school they are eligible to submit their work to What If?

Do you subscribe to What If? in your school?

Schools with What If? subscriptions are five times more likely to see students from their schools published in our magazine or on our website. This is not because we play favourites but because the more students you expose to this opportunity, the more students are actually inspired to submit. For as little as $24.99 per year you may well be giving the next Margaret Atwood, Gordon Lightfoot, Irving Layton, or James Cameron their place to start.

Start now…

We are always looking for material and we promise to respond to every submission provided we are given the tools to do so (SASE or email address). The ability to write and create is not going to be an optional skill in the 21^st Century job market. Will your kids be ready?

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