We publish about 50 stories per year.
We pay $15 upon publication, which could be as long as a year later.

A story MUST have the writer's mailing address on the same page as the story, or it is guaranteed to get lost.
Writers should send a story in the body of an email, (stories@elizabethclaire.com) not as attachments.

In the subject line of the email put "Story by [student's name]."

We can reply to emailed stories within a week. Unfortunately we do not have staff time to reply to stories that are mailed in, but we read them all, and they have as good a chance of being published. Stories sent by regular mail should be typed in a plain type face or neatly written. Send to:

THIS IS YOUR PAGE
Easy English NEWS
P.O. Box 2596
Fair Lawn, NJ 07410

We publish stories that

1. are true first-person story: that is, something that happened to the writer. It should be the original work of a reader of Easy English NEWS
2. of interest to our readers–all newcomers to the U.S.
3. are 100-300 words in length
4. are not very similar to something we have published before

The stories do not have to have perfect grammar, but should be the writer's best effort. (That is, a teacher should not have every student in the class send me their first drafts hoping I will comment on them and correct them).

I will cut, rearrange, and correct grammar to make the story understandable to our readers and fit the space.

We are looking for stories about one incident with details, of travel to the U. S.; shocking experience, a problem with English, culture shock, getting a job, misunderstandings, fears, embarrassments, danger, etc., that our readers can relate to or learn from. Our readers enjoy reading about others' surprises about American culture, hard jobs, visiting an American place of interest, joining a club, and so forth. It's also good to read about bad experiences getting cheated or scammed, so they can avoid such bad fortune.

We DON'T Publish:

• students' poetry, opinion, or essays
• stories of incidents in the native country that have no relevance to immigrant's experience here. Exceptions: experiences of war, earthquakes, separations, etc.
• stories written for some other purpose that don't fit our guidelines.

We don't have a need for stories of the type that cover two or three years such as: "I came to the U.S. and didn't speak English. It was terrible. I was lost and confused. Finally someone helped me. Now I speak English and have many friends." These are wonderful stories, but we have published many of them, and they begin to all sound alike. Read the stories we publish for several months to get a better idea of what we are looking for.

Please explain to your students: We receive hundreds of stories per year. We can't publish them all. It is not a reflection on their story that we don't choose it. Only if it comes by email can we acknowledge that we received it. Sometimes a story gets separated from the address of the writer. So if a student sees their story in the paper, and didn't get a letter from us with a check for $15, please have them email, write or call us (888-296-1090) with their story name, their name, and full address.

Send your story to stories@elizabethclaire.com.
In the subject line of the email put "Story by [Writer's name]."

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