Send Us Your Work - PUENTES / BRIDGES

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PUENTES / BRIDGES /

Issue #3 · Fall 1999 | Back Issues | Send Us Your Work

Mándanos tu trabajo / Send Us Your Work

PUENTES comes out four times a year, at the start of every season. The next one, Issue #4 (Winter), goes up in late December. Deadline: December 1.

What I'm looking for

Poems, short stories, short essays and memories, in English, in Spanish, or in both. Mixed is my favorite. If you write the way your family talks, and your family talks in two languages at once, then that's how I want it.

I especially want writing about this part of the world, la frontera, the desert, the border towns and the cities, the people who live on one side and work on the other, and the people who've never crossed at all. But it doesn't have to be about that. If you're from Chicago or Los Angeles or Guadalajara and you've got something, send it. A bridge has two ends.

Anybody can send. You don't have to be a student or a "real" writer. Some of our best pieces have come from people who'd never written anything down before. Our youngest writer so far is 15 and our oldest is 73.

No translation needed

You do not have to translate your piece. If you want it printed with a translation next to it, send both and I'll put them side by side, but that's your choice. I'm not going to ask anybody to explain their own language.

And please don't "fix" your Spanish or your English to make it sound like a textbook. I'll correct a typo if you ask me to. Otherwise I print it the way you wrote it.

How to send

· E-mail it to [email protected]
· Paste it right into the body of the e-mail. No attachments, please. The computers at school won't open them, and I'm not going to risk a virus on my mom's computer.
· Up to 3 poems, or 1 story or essay of up to 2,000 words.
· Tell me your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your city. That's how your name will appear. I don't print full names or e-mail addresses, so nobody can track you down from PUENTES. (If you tell me your age, I might mention it in my editor's note. Tell me if you'd rather I didn't.)
· If you want, tell me a little about yourself and the piece. I like knowing.

What happens next

I read everything myself, usually twice. You'll hear back from me within four weeks, yes or no, and if it's no I'll try to tell you why. If you haven't heard in four weeks, my e-mail ate it. Send it again.

You keep all the rights to your work. All PUENTES gets is permission to put it on this site. If you want me to take it down later, I will.

I can't pay anybody. I'm a student. I'm paying in gratitude and a link.

What I won't print

Anything hateful about anybody. Anything that would embarrass your grandmother. Anything you didn't write yourself. If I find out a piece was copied from somewhere, I'll take it down and you're done.

Gracias por leer, and thank you for thinking about sending us something. Every issue, there's at least one piece that makes me sit back in my chair at the computer lab and say "¡órale!" out loud, and the guy at the next computer looks at me funny. I hope it's yours.

— Kristin

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Last updated September 23, 1999