editors speak

ColumbiaKids

Last month we mentioned the fantastic new kid’s magazine launching in August 2008 from the Washington State Historical Society: ColumbiaKids. The plan is to bring a whole new twist to exploring Pacific Northwest History. We liked the idea of this great new magazine so much that we knew we had to find out more – and ColumbiaKids Managing Editor (and head of education for the Washington State History Museum) Stephanie Lile took time to help us understand this great magazine better. I think you’ll find this interview as exciting as we did.

KMW: The readers of Kid Magazine Writers are professional freelancers, so naturally, their first interest is in getting content into ColumbiaKids. What kind of content are you most hoping for?
SL: We are looking for articles and stories with lively, kid-friendly language and a specific Pacific Northwest focus. Submissions that use the “rock in water” analogy of construction—moving from a specific Pacific Northwest subject on to its national and global ties (when relevant) will get the most attention. We also want to receive articles and stories that are well researched and that include about five solid bibliographical sources. We ask for this not only for fact-checking purposes, but also because we want to encourage kids to dig deeper by giving them clues to do so.

KMW: Is there any specific department that you would be most excited about seeing submissions for?
SL: They are all wide open. But perhaps the ones that we’d most like to see people get creative with are the departments that push the dynamic web medium. These include such departments as “Pod Puzzle” and “Northwest Hot Spot.”

The Pod Puzzle is essentially an audio script that works best if posed as a mystery with a resolution at the end. Then “Northwest Hot Spot,” which can be an illustration, photograph, or historic image, is totally open to writers who want to build on an image from a museum or personal collection. In these cases, we ask that the writer supply permission and credit information at the time of submission, and of course, any image in the Washington State Historical Society collection is an easy option as well. For this department, writers simply draft the clues for the clickable hotspots (a street sign, house, sculpture, landscape feature etc.) and write a short “reveal” that tells the reader where the image is from and what is unique about that place.

KMW: Now, I know you would like to see finished manuscripts. If a writer has an idea but wonders if it might be too recent or maybe not quite "Pacific Northwest" enough -- can he/she query or do you really prefer not to deal with queries at all? We want to help writers submit in exactly the fashion you most prefer.
SL: Absolutely! If you’re wondering, write to us—send an e-mail query for a quicker reply. I can usually get a sense whether a story will work for us in two or three sentences.

KMW: I see that you will accept some short historical fiction, but of a very specific sort. To keep you from drowning in historical fiction, can you tell us exactly what you would want for "One Day in History?"
SL: I have to admit, the inclusion of this department was a difficult “sell” to some of our staff members. Our mother publication, Columbia, is a highly acclaimed journal of Pacific Northwest history written largely by experts in their fields. It is strictly nonfiction, and so the idea of including historical fiction was precarious for an organization devoted to working with historical fact. After all, we’re basically a bunch of history geeks who secretly delight in picking apart books and films that don’t quite get the historical details right. :-)

All that said, however, studies have revealed (sadly) that kids tend to learn more history outside of school than in school—and most of that comes from historical fiction and film. Because of that, we have become dedicated to helping teachers, writers, and filmmakers access information that will make their works more historically accurate. We (ColumbiaKids’ editors and writers) have an obligation to our readers to do OUR homework and present subjects in a truthful light—right down to the shoes on a character’s feet and the sugar she uses in tea. For many writers this is a true challenge. Hence, we begin with a single day in history.

For the purposes of ColumbiaKids, stories that have a child as the central character, that blend action with emotion, and include well-researched historical detail will be winners for us. For example, don’t write about the Chinese Expulsion or the great Seattle fire from an adult’s point of view, make your main character be a child who witnessed it.

Writers who are working on or who have published an historical novel set in the Pacific Northwest may consider submitting an excerpt. We also ask authors to include an end note that explains what aspects of the story they chose to fictionalize and what they took from hard evidence. This will help kids begin to understand how we as writers work with and interpret information from the past.

KMW: Could you describe how the type of article a child might read in Cobblestone or Cricket would be different when seen through your magazine's vision for its readers? Would the only difference be location -- or do you have further vision in mind?
SL: Quite honestly, because we are museum based, we lean toward stories that get kids thinking about objects and images as sources of historical evidence. That means starting with a story about a person, place, or object grounded in the Pacific Northwest, then finding relationships between that person, place, or object and others that are similar further afield.

For example, a while back some kids came to me during a school visit in Des Moines, Washington, and asked if I could help them research a brick they had been using for home plate in their baseball games. I admit, I was skeptical. It was a brick after all—about as ordinary an object as you can find. But they were earnest and we began to research it anyway. As we did, a strange web of connections emerged. From the well-worn writing on the brick—which after much trial and error turned out be MIZZOU/A.P. Green—we located the brick refractory in Columbia, Missouri. From the name MIZZOU, we ascertained that the brick had been specially developed by the Geology Department at University of Missouri at Columbia, that MIZZOU was the nickname of the school, and that the original version of the brick had been made for use by NASA at early rocket launch sites. What’s more, that little yellow brick led us to discover that Des Moines, Washington had been founded by people from Des Moines, Iowa who had agreed to send supplies to help get the early settlement started if it was given the mother-city’s name.

While I’m not proposing that everyone send us stories about bricks, accurate details are important. We are not likely to accept a general article about native baskets, for example, if it fails to include the specific Northwest tribes who made them or tell how and where they were used. We’re big on giving kids geographical references. It’s important for kids to get a sense of where they are in relation to the subject of the story, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction.

Most of all, in terms of overarching vision, we want kids to see that exploring the past is fun and challenging. This magazine is as much for a kid who lives in the Pacific Northwest as it is for a kid living in Hong Kong. It was born out of a need expressed by children from all over the country who write to us asking about the very people, places, and objects of the Pacific Northwest that we hope to feature in ColumbiaKids.

KMW: Some of your short filler pieces sound fascinating. Can you tell me more about your POD puzzles? -- I know a chance to do a little play will excite a few of our readers. And the Northwest hot spot sounds like so much fun, can you tell me a bit about these and how long those "fly out" facts would be.
SL: The “Pod Puzzle” is one of those fun fillers that allow us to appeal to kids who are better listeners than readers. We approach it as a puzzle because we want to avoid the old “info dump” that sounds like someone reading from a text book. We want nonfiction stories or legends that invite the listener into another world—which, in our case, it’s some point in Pacific Northwest history. For that reason, Pod Puzzles can go in a multitude of directions, from single voice to many voices, from music-based to poetry. It can be zippy in tone or it can be a bedtime story. Because Pod Puzzles are audio recordings, there has to be a distinct rhythm and flow to the piece, and writers should read their work aloud before submitting it. We acknowledge that many children don’t have people who read to them on a regular basis, so this is one small way to offer them that experience.

While we hope many illustrators will submit to “Northwest Hot Spot,” there are still many options for writers to use historic—and modern—images. The idea is to present a picture of a place that has about five to eight “hotspots” (technically termed “mouse-overs”) that present short 10-25 word clues to the history, significance, and geographic location of the place.

As another example, we have an exhibit in our History Lab Learning Center called “Postcard Place” that challenges visitors to find the modern version of a place depicted in an historic postcard. With this in mind, we’d even be open to a “then and now” type of submission in which kids would have to find the five to eight things in two different pictures of the same place that have changed over time. So many fun options!

KMW: Remind us again about how can writers get your writers guidelines. And also, for an article to really interest you, what would you want to see in terms of sources?
SL: Since we are in the midst of a complete redesign of our museum Web site, information about ColumbiaKids is best requested via e-mail. Once we have launched our new site, writers will be able to obtain guidelines there. The other nice thing about e-mailing us for guidelines is that you’ll be contacted later with the option to become a founding subscriber to ColumbiaKids (did I mention it’s free?).

KMW: What rights do you ask from your contributors?
SL: Like a couple of other online kids’ magazines, we buy First World Electronic Rights and Archival Rights. This means that we accept articles that have not been published on the internet before. These are one-time rights with the Archival Right to keep them active as long as we choose to in the context they were originally published in ColumbiaKids. In certain instances, we may ask an author to sell us All Rights.

KMW: What are your overall dreams for ColumbiaKids?
SL: We want to push the envelope. For us ColumbiaKids is a way to serve one of our underserved audiences directly. It’s a way to help address the literacy challenges young people face every day. It’s a place to try new things and explore new ways of understanding our past. The e-zine will allow us to tackle subjects more recent in our history (our main exhibit hall currently only goes up to about 1950) while celebrating people of all cultures and walks of life.

But first, we simply want to see the publication succeed. By that I mean we want to see it be useful and inspiring to the kids and writers who will ultimately make it unique and different. It is a publication that is entirely dependent on sponsorship, so we want to make our sponsors—and our writers, illustrators, and readers—proud to be connected with it.

This page last updated on 02 February 2008