Found In My Journal — Updated 2021 Submission Guidelines
By: Found In My Journal
Tags: Introduction, Publication, Writing, Ｍedium, Submission Guidelines

Interested in joining us? Here’s how:

1. Be added as a writer

Join us by commenting on this post with your Medium username.

“Please add me as a writer! @yourcorrectmediumusername.” Our editorial team will monitor this account regularly and you should be added within 48 hours. One of our editors will provide a response to your comment, letting you know you’ve been designated as a writer.

Found In My Journal should appear in your options to “Add to Publication”

Image captured from Medium.com by publication

2. Write your submission

What we accept and category guidelines

FIMJ has 3 main writing categories — nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. All submissions must be tagged as such. All submissions must be original work and any quotes must be properly credited.

FICTION : We love fiction! Read time: 3 to 10 minutes.

: We love fiction! Read time: POETRY : Poetry of all forms: Read time: no minimum

: Poetry of all forms: Read time: NONFICTION: Submissions of personal essay, lyric prose, short nonfiction stories, and creative writing will fall into nonfiction. Read time: 3 to 10 minutes.

Your submission must include 1 of the above tags.

POETRY SPECIFIC GUIDELINES — Poetry Editor, Julia Marsiglio has provided additional information regarding the Poetry section:

We don’t accept short-form, listicles, or stories previously published on Medium, and reserve the right to reject any piece deemed inappropriate for our publication.

Values Statement

As a publication focused on our shared humanity, we will accept only work that adheres to our values:

QUALITY: We take immense pride in this publication and encourage you to submit your best, proofread work.

We take immense pride in this publication and encourage you to submit your best, proofread work. AUTHENTICITY : We are committed to courageously sharing our truth.

: We are committed to courageously sharing our truth. HEALING: Through writing, we begin to heal ourselves. By sharing our writing, we help others heal.

Through writing, we begin to heal ourselves. By sharing our writing, we help others heal. INCLUSIVITY: Everyone is welcome here. Your work may not contain any hate speech or discrimination of any kind. As a publication, we support marginalized communities and will edit with that lens. Occasionally we may ask you to examine some of the language and implications of your work with that in mind.

Everyone is welcome here. Your work may not contain any hate speech or discrimination of any kind. As a publication, we support marginalized communities and will edit with that lens. Occasionally we may ask you to examine some of the language and implications of your work with that in mind. SUPPORT: We support one another on our individual writing journeys. Together, we are stronger. We encourage you to support fellow FIMJ writers in whichever way feels most authentic to you, may that be through claps, highlights, responses, or a connection that goes beyond Medium.

3. Format your work

Headlines

Headlines must be in Title Case. You can use Title Case Converter to be sure.

Subhead must be sentence case and can be formatted by highlighting the subhead and formatting with the small T.

Kickers are fine — but must be ALL CAPS.

It should look like this:

Photos and Images

You must have the rights to use any images — see Medium Guidelines regarding images.

Credit all images — even if they are provided by you.

You are welcome to insert images in your stories, but keep it to a minimum and only if they add value to your story.

Self Promotion: You may insert a short Bio and one embedded story to promote another example of your work at the bottom of your story. Place it between inserted breaks.

It should look like this:

Image provided by publication

4. Proof and edit carefully

It makes us sad when a potentially good story is lost to spelling and grammatical errors.

Take your time

Use an aid like Grammarly or ProWritingAid.

Read it out loud

Have someone else read it

Use the Read aloud option on your computer

We all make mistakes, but they are greatly minimized by making the extra effort. Should your submission have too many errors, we will ask you to clean it up before considering it.

5. Submit to FIMJ

Once you have been successfully added as a writer you can submit to Found in my Journal from your draft! Simply click the three dots on the top right of the draft page and click “Add to publication”. Once the list of publications populates, click “Found In My Journal” to publish with us. Then click the “Publish” button just to the left of the three dots. It will open the Publish screen. Remember to tag with “Poetry, Nonfiction, or Fiction” so it shows up under our publication’s Feature Pages Tabs and choose up to four other tags to help increase the visibility of your work.

Image captured from Medium.com by publication

6. Check notifications

We communicate with you through *private notes left on your draft. Please turn on notifications and allow these in your account settings.

We will try to communicate with you within 24 hours of your submission, although there may be times around weekends and holidays that we may take a little longer.

7. Stay involved

Medium is a relational platform and rewards the connection between readers and writers. We encourage all our writers to support one another, learn from each other, and grow together.

The more we give, the more we receive.

Follow the publication on Medium, Twitter, Facebook, and once added as a writer, join our private Facebook Group and connect with other FIMJ writers!

Need writing ideas? Check out our monthly Writing Prompt!