Verse in Highlights High Five Magazine, Submission to Publication Journey

Tah Dah! A Tree, verse by me, Diana Ting Delosh with art by Marta Alvarez is published in the April 2023 issue of Highlights High Five magazine on Page 4.

The submission to publication journey for these 4 short lines began last spring, when I saw a call for submissions by Highlights for their Magazines in the May 2022 issue of Children's Book Insider. I actually almost didn't submit, A Tree, because it is sooo short and simple. But I did submit it along with 2 others in mid-May. About a month later, the editors passed on the 2 that I thought had a better shot. But no word about A Tree. I waited, wondering if it had been overlooked. Waited a bit more. Then on August 31, while I was on vacation, I got an email from Highlights saying that they are delighted to accept, "A Tree" for publication. 

WOO HOO!

Then more waiting. Finally on December 12, I receive a PDF  to check for typos on my verse and to let me know that it's scheduled for the April 2023 issue.  All in all it took about 10 months from submission to publication.

YAY!

Note: Highlights use Submittable.com for all their submissions. You can do multiple submissions BUT each submission must  be sent individually. What's nice for us, doing the submitting is that: Submittable sends a confirmation letter for each of your submissions and you can check on your submission status yourself. Submittable also sends you an email to let you know when the editor has reviewed and  passed on your submission, title. You don't have any direct contact with Highlights until they accept your work.

You can find me at:

Website: dianadelosh.com

Instagram: @dtdelosh

Post: @dtdelosh

Check out my illustrations on products at:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

 

Mice by another name?

I recently received a call from my Highlights/High Five editor concerning my poem, Pip & Squeak. It had just come to their attention that there is a picture book by the same title and it also features mice. HORRORS! Needless to say we needed to come up with a new title and names for the 2 characters in our poem. Here I thought I had been so-o-o clever with the title. Pip and Squeak was a play on the word pipsqueak. What fun. Note - I did think of them as mice when it was first drafted eons ago, but when I submitted it to High Five last summer - I left it to the editors to decide: mice, kids, squirrels, geckos, whatever. They came up with mice. Probably because the names Pip and Squeak screams - Mice. So now the renaming begins. I call and suggest Skip and Scamp along with a few others. Skip and Scamp is chosen but then discarded. I think of more names. Skip and Scout, Rose and Bud, Bud and Twiggy, Stick and Twig, Skip and Clover, Skip and Flora. I'm also Googling to see what turns up and low and behold Bud and Twiggy is a famous couple! After a few more rounds of names, a decision is made: Skip and Scout. Just in time for it to get back in the production line to be published in the August 2009 issue of High Five magazine.

Needless to say from now on I'll do a search before I sub...but than again who knows what happens before it actually gets published!

Peeping Zombies!

How's this for an eye catching title - Do Dead People Watch You While You're in the Shower? Can you imagine? What a concept! Yes, this is a real title of a book I saw while browsing the shelves of a bookstore. It's non-fiction. Definitely stopped me dead in my tracks and made me look. No I didn't buy it. Now if Hitchcock's movie, Psycho didn't creep you out about showers, here's this lovely thought.

UGH! Lost Another Dummy

It's been 7 months, 3 submission status queries and no response/no dummy/nothing. Yup - IT'S BEEN LONG ENOUGH. I can now file my picture book dummy/manuscript submission, UGH!, officially under lost/rejected. It was a requested submission so I was assured it would be returned in my S.A.S.E. But I guess not. It takes 5 hours to make my dummies. Which is why I try and be careful where/to whom I'm subbing. But mistakes do happen. This is most frustrating. I hate that many book publishers have switched to this policy of only replying if they are interested. I preferred the form rejection note. At least they returned your work!

On the otherhand it may not even be the publisher's fault. A friend of mine reported that a dummy, that he assumed had been trashed was returned to him by the postmaster with a note saying that it had separated from the envelope and they were sending it to the address on the business card pasted in the front of the book. The package had made it to his local postoffice, where the postal machines chewed up the envelope and spit the dummy out on the floor. Months later - the dummy was found and luckily they saw the business card pasted into the front of the dummy. Hurrah for the USPS for trying.

So what's there to do? Grumble grumble -some teeth nashing - vent & whine. I can't even have the satisfaction of OD-ing on chocolate as it's not even a real rejection. Oh well - I guess I'll just whip out the duplicate dummy and sub it to this place that still returns submissions via S.A.S.E. and hope nothing goes wrong. I'll take a clear cut rejection anyday over as I haven't received a reply I assume it's rejected.