Guidelines

For Teens

In short, we publish a monthly issue on our blog to show adults in our community what you're all about.

What we are looking for:

• Sound Off will accept poetry, short fiction, blogs, journal entries, lyrics, cartoons, photography and original artwork from Five Town area teens in Appleton, Hope, Camden, Rockport and Lincolnville.  But we're not just limited to traditional media, writing or art. If you create video, make a sculpture, have photos from a trip abroad, make your own jewelry, volunteer somewhere, write a blog, or do something cool and interesting in your free time, we wanna know about it!

•  Submissions may be under your real name, anonymous or under a pseudonym. We can also Photoshop your photo if you wish.

• Chosen pieces will be featured in this blog. From those submissions, occasionally a piece winds up in The Pen Bay Pilot (with an even larger readership of more than 8,000 people). Other submissions may make it into later Sound Off issues.

• By getting one of your pieces published in this blog or The Pen Bay Pilot, you will have an official published credit that can be used to build up a portfolio.

For Adults

• Sound Off, which is overseen by the staff and Board of Five Town Communities That Care, has been in circulation for more than a year, published by the Herald Gazette and as of March, 2012, now in blog format. 

• Five Town Communities That Care publishes Sound Off in order to increase the number of youth who have one of the protective factors that helps keep kids out of trouble—recognition for pro-social involvement. (Most local youth say adults don't notice when they do good things in our town.) Sound Off is meant to give more adults a window into the world of our local teens, and to focus attention on the positive contributions that they make to our community.

• Educators, parents and community leaders are encouraged to connect teens with the Sound Off editor, Kay Stephens, who works personally with those who submit work.  (She is always happy to come in and meet with them personally.) Sound Off  is also open to individual teenagers who want to submit on their own. 

• Adults don't have to forward a teen's work to us. Actually, we encourage the teen to do that on his/her own. All we ask is that if you think a piece is good enough for publication, you encourage the teen to contact us.

• All of the teen submissions have some sort of adult or parent comment and context attached to each piece chosen for publication. All submissions are reviewed by the FTCTC board and edited by Stephens. Sound Off staff may require the use of a pseudonym in order to publish some pieces, and will always allow the use of pen names when requested by the teen.  Sound Off staff will also obtain parental permission to publish the work of minors.

The conversation between adults and teens has already begun with Sound Off. We want to make this a place for positive, thoughtful and thought-provoking expression. Help us spread the word by following the blog and sharing on social media.

For questions or to submit, email editor@fivetownctc.org, call (207) 236-9800 or mail to: Five Town Communities That Care, P.O. Box 1135, 219 Meadow Street, Rockport, ME 04856. Please include a real name and a phone number so Stephens can get in touch with you for editing purposes.