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Contact Us | Writers' Guidelines | Space Advertising CHURCH Magazine is an award-winning professional quarterly of pastoral theology and ministry. It is written especially for pastors, parish staff, parish leaders, and the directors and staffs of diocesan offices. It is published by the National Pastoral Life Center. • Editor: Liz O'Connor Contact Us: To reach the editors, send an email to:
CHURCH welcomes your unsolicited manuscript provided that it
Reading several issues of CHURCH magazine will give you the best idea of the type of articles—including style and length—that we publish. Unpublished writers might begin by writing for the Parish Bulletin section. Articles in the Bulletin concern some specific parish program or activity. Write a lively opening paragraph to pique the readers' interest. Then, in 1,500 words or less—five or six double-spaced, typed pages—describe the program. When and how did it start and for what purpose or with what goal? How many people and who (not names, but which groups of people—parents, the elderly, etc.) in the parish are involved? Who leads it (volunteers, a paid staff member, etc.)? Who is served (what age group, type of need, and so on)? When does the group meet? Is there any process of self-evaluation by participants or parish staff? What are the program's strengths and weaknesses? Which parts of this project or program can serve as a model for other parishes? What is the significance of the project? End your article with a bang so readers leave it with a sense of the strength of the article —a great quote, a memorable summary, etc. Try to be fresh, authoritative, and helpful. Avoid "I" and "we"/"they" language for the most part (there are times when it is appropriate, such as a reflection on “My father’s wake”). Typically, it is better to use "St. Mary parish" or "the health care ministers" or the "participants," and so on. Use gender-inclusive language except where it would become very awkward, but do not use a plural (they, their) to refer back to a singular (a person, anyone). The Upfront section offers reflections, arguments, discussions, and an occasional editorial piece on theological, liturgical, sacramental, historical, sociological, psychological, or managerial issues of interest to parish professionals. For ideas, look through the CHURCH Index on our website for titles of articles we have published. We will seldom publish more than one article on the same subject during the same year, unless it is appreciably different in content and style than what we have published. The essays should be written in a clear and concise style appropriate to serious students of the subject who are not scholars or academicians. Use no footnotes; put any necessary citations (title, author, publisher, date) into the text itself. Word length (approximately) 2,000 to 2,500 words. The best way to send an article is as a Microsoft Word or plain text attachment (do not send a WordPerfect document) to an e-mail addressed either to or . That saves us the labor of re-typing the article with the possibility of introducing errors. Should you prefer to send a manuscript by mail, please enclose a SASE if you want your unpublished material returned. In either case, include your full name telephone, fax, address, e-mail, and any other information we can use to contact you about your manuscript. Please use reinforced packaging on all photos or samples of art work. Please be patient with us! We are a very small staff and the people on the reading committee generally do not meet about future-use manuscripts while we are working close to deadline on the current issue. The process usually takes a minimum of six to eight weeks. You will be notified as soon as possible if we determine that we cannot use your manuscript. Thank you for thinking about writing for CHURCH Write: Email: ;
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