How To Submit


Whoever you are, please consider submitting.

If you were a hotshot writer in high school, consider submitting. If you were one of those people who lacked confidence in your writing but Mr. Harrington or Ms. O or Mr. D’Onofrio kept pushing you, please consider submitting.  If you keep "scribbled secret notebooks and wild typewritten pages for yr own joy" like Jack Kerouac (pictured at left), please consider submitting.  If you are an adult with kids and a mortgage for whom high school is a distant memory, please consider submitting.  If you are a recent high school graduate and are feeling like a prisoner recently released from incarceration, please consider submitting.  If high school was one disaster after another, please consider submitting.  If high school was smooth sailing beginning to end, please consider submitting.  If you are a poet… or a mathematician … or a filmmaker … or a chiropractor … or a professional writer … or a teacher … or an artist …, please consider submitting.

Here are some categories for posts:

-  Letter to my 16-year-old self
-  Do Over:  If I could go through high school again…
-  My Real College Essay (What you would have written if you were being completely honest)
-  Top Ten Lists (high school related; for example, I might create a top ten list about how to survive four years of math class).
-  The book/movie/TV show that changed my life
-  What I know now that I wish I had known then
-  College application advice not found in the guidebooks (e.g., dealing with nervous parents, nosy peers, etc.)

Your idea might not fit into one of these categories -- which is perfectly fine.  As long as your post is geared toward high school in retrospect, it is probably OK.  The idea is for you to communicate directly with teenage readers with an eye toward revealing the truths about surviving high school that most adults (me, included) probably can't or won't tell you.

A few notes:
-  Swearing is OK (though not gratuitous)
-  This is not a Parker-sponsored blog
-  You should be shooting for somewhere around 650 words, the length of a college essay (though it’s OK if it’s under or over)

To submit:  start with an email to me.  650words@gmail.com.  Pitch me your idea and we’ll figure out when to post it.  Looking forward to hearing from you!

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