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Contributors'
Guidelines
Natural
Child Magazine
is a source of trustworthy,
inspiring information and intelligent discussion to
help parents birth and raise healthy, happy children...naturally!
Beginning with the July/August 2008 issue, Natural Child magazine, along
with Life Learning
magazine, is being reintegrated back into Natural Life magazine, where they
both began over three decades ago. Natural Life is one of
the oldest and most respected natural lifestyle publications in
North America and a pioneer in the fast growing field of
healthy, sustainable family living.
For awhile now, we have been noticing a large overlap among subscribers,
contributors and advertisers of our three magazines. Readers have told
us that they have sometimes been confused as to which one of our magazines
they were reading! The merger eliminates the redundancies and puts into
practice the important ecological principle that less is more.
When my husband Rolf and I launched Natural Life
magazine in 1976, the purpose was twofold. We wanted an enterprise that would allow
us to facilitate the life learning of our two daughters Heidi and Melanie
and we wanted to provide readers with information about sustainable family
living and unschooling. For 32 years now, we have explored ways to eat lower
on the food chain; to build smaller, more energy-efficient homes; to birth
our children at home, to educate them there as well, and to live with them
in a loving and non-coercive manner. Natural Life's mission has been to
demonstrate how these are not restrictions, but exciting opportunities to
create social and environmental sustainability by choosing the least harmful
ways of living on this finite planet and building new paradigms.
Most of the wonderful contributors to Natural Child magazine
are writing for
Natural Life. And we invite you to do so as well. Here are Natural Life's
contributor's guidelines.
The combined July/August issue has just gone to the printer and will be in
the mail and on the newsstands for July 1. Meanwhile, here is a preview
to give you a flavor of how it all fits together.
In addition, we are seeking writers for this website, which will
continue to be a source of inspiration and information, as well as
community, for parents interested in green, healthy living from pregnancy
through birth and early childhood. Here are some guidelines for web content.
 Natural
Child Magazine is a positive but non-preachy source of
information for parents who want to explore environmentally-sound family
life for the sake of their children and the Earth. We believe that mothers and fathers are experts about what is best for the
well-being of their own families. We provide a place for them to share
natural living strategies for their families. We seek to support them in their choices
and in their search
for unbiased facts that provide an alternative to the information found in traditional consumer parenting magazines.
We support breastfeeding, cloth diapering, complementary health care,
organics and all things natural.
Our
focus is on green family living. Examples of topics for which we seek
website submissions include: healthy
pregnancy, feeding your child naturally, vegetarian babies, making your
own organic baby food, creating a natural nursery, environmentally sound
cleaning strategies, connecting children to nature, natural childhood remedies, natural family fun and
play, non-competitive games, holistic grandparenting, homebirth, breastfeeding issues,
babywearing, cosleeping, vaccination
pros and cons, circumcision pros and cons, non-coercive parenting and non-violent
communication.
Editorial
Style
Since
our website visitors live around the world, our articles
need to reflect that. Please avoid using local slang or other terminology,
as well as references to specific seasons or weather. Resources, where
provided, should be as international in scope as possible.
We do not publish "advertorials" or articles
promoting products or services.
We use gender-neutral language and appreciate our
writers structuring their work to avoid referring to all people as
"he". If necessary, accepted articles will be edited to reflect
this policy. Articles
include both mothers and fathers, and focus on outcomes for children. They
must include a sensitivity to child health and the environment.
How
to Query Us
Please
query first by email with an outline of your proposed
article and a bit of background about you and your experience with the
topic and with writing.
We appreciate
knowing if your article has been published elsewhere - either in print or
on the web - in the past, or if
you have submitted it elsewhere recently. We are unable to
pay contributors.
By submitting an article to us, you are giving us your permission to publish
and archive the
article on this website and, possibly publish it in print in Natural Life magazine.
Writers retain all other rights to their work, and are therefore free to
contribute their articles to other magazines or web sites without our
permission. However, as a courtesy, we ask that you not publish the
article anywhere else while it is on the homepage of the website.
Your article will be edited
for spelling, punctuation, grammar, clarity, space and consistency in tune
with our editorial style.
If major renovations are required, your article will be returned to you
for reworking.
Wendy
Priesnitz, Editor
revised June, 2008
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