A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Special Needs

For this very special collection, we seek uplifting true stories about
the ins and outs, ups and downs, blessing and challenges of parenting
children with special needs. The stories will cover children of all
ages (birth to adult) and a wide range of developmental, physical, and
mental delays/disabilities . No matter how difficult the
experiences/ emotions conveyed in a story might be (we want them to be
authentic, after all), the story must reveal a positive aspect,
resolution, or outcome and must be of comfort to parents of children
with special needs. Stories may be serious, humorous, insightful,
heartwarming, or inspiring. The majority of the stories will be
written by parents of children with special needs; we will also
consider stories written by adult children with special needs. (No
articles or commentaries by clinicians, please.)

Special Needs Children submission deadline: September 15, 2008

Basic Guidelines

All Cup of Comfort stories must be original; true; appropriate for
mainstream Americans (adult, primarily women); inspiring, comforting,
and/or uplifting; and 1,000 to 2,000 words.

Creative nonfiction and narrative essays preferred (that is,
incorporating such fictive elements as scene, dialogue, character/plot
development, imagery, and literary word usage). Whether serious or
humorous, the story should be authentic and engaging.

Electronic submissions preferred. One submission per email. Copy and
paste (or type) into body of email. No formatting (no indents,
centering, doublespace, bold, underline, etc.). To: wordsinger@aol. com.

Mailed submissions are acceptable. Standard typed manuscript
(double-spaced, indents). Send as many submissions per envelope as
you'd like, but include one SASE per submission. To: Colleen Sell,
71563 London Rd., Cottage Grove, Oregon, 97424, USA.

Each submission must include: author's full name, mailing address,
email address, phone number, story title, story wordcount, and theme
of volume for which it is being submitted (i.e., Grieving Hearts).