Editor Interview: Stories of Life

Short stories of faith

inScribe journal, the creative writing journal of Tabor College, Adelaide, South Australia

Madeleine L'Engle
CS Lewis
Penelope Wilcock
Luci Shaw
Elizabeth Goudge
Rosanne Hawke
JA Cooper
Bruce Dawe

Stories of Life is one of the few opportunities Australian Christian writers have to share their experiences of faith. One of our distinctives is that we focus on helping writers to write well about faith, which is a peculiarly demanding type of storytelling. We offer resources online to this end, and a month during the entry period of the competition when prospective submissions can receive free feedback. Part of our understanding of writing faith well is to make it accessible to those who do not share the same faith or experience. Our audience is a mix of those who identify as having a personal faith and those who don't. Empowering writers and inviting a wide range of readers are key values for the competition and resulting publication.

Read the guidelines and examples on the website, and use the resources freely provided.

The ideal submission is authentic, uses language with thought and clarity, and does not attempt to teach, preach or convert the reader. The writer's focus needs to be on encouraging readers. It is respectful of others' beliefs (including the range of expressions and beliefs within Christianity). It may be confident or hesitant, express a firm faith or struggle with doubt, raise questions that will encourage readers to pursue their own journeys of faith but without undermining them. The experience shared can be miraculous or 'ordinary' or anything in between. Submissions based on someone else's story are acceptable but only with the approval of the other person/people (where they are still living). Writers must be willing to accept editorial input if their story is selected for publication.

Our writers do not need to have publication experience. Our submission process is electronic, via the website during the submission period (April to July inclusive) and there is no opportunity for a cover letter. Stories are judged by their merit in a blind process (which means judges do not know the identity of the writer). Editors send a shortlist to the judges in a similarly blind process.

Stories of Life only publishes short stories within two categories: 'Short' is up to 500 words, 'Open' is up to 1500 words. We read the entire submission.

We work as an editorial team of 2-3 editors who read all the submissions. Our administrator/communications officer also reads them. Once we have read them, we compare notes about suitability and the kind of editing that might be required.
My approach involves making a few notes about each piece but without any editing details on the first read through. If we all agree that the story is appropriate to be judged, it goes on the shortlist without any editing. Once the judges have their list, we begin to edit those stories because they will all be included in the publication. Because one of our key values is to help writers improve their writing, we put considerable effort into working with them when their story has merit but the words needs work. Where significant editing is needed, we work directly with the writers. For this we use Track Changes in Microsoft Word, where we can make comments for the writer to consider, as well as changes to the text that they need to approve. Our communications officer keeps in touch with the writers to smooth this process.

Stories of Life has an educational goal in addition to the publication itself. Editing is an important part of the process, not only for the standard of the output but in upskilling writers. Some submissions need little or no editing - these are often prizewinners in the competition. Substantive editing is offered freely during our feedback month in June, (submissions close at the end of July). We strongly advise writers to make use of this learning opportunity.
Once submissions have been made to the competition, some further substantive editing may be offered if the story is considered desirable for the publication. Most stories have some copy editing changes. Writers need to accept that their work may be edited, but all changes will be made known to them prior to publication. They have a small window (perhaps a working week) to respond if they find errors or are unhappy with the editing their work received, but there are no guarantees that their story will be published if they don't agree with the editing. We respect each author's right to disagree, and stories may be withdrawn if that is the case. However, we work hard to communicate with authors so that we can come to a mutually satisfactory result.