Yes. Check out these opportunities.

Children's Magazines and Ezines
A good place to look is at the magazines you read. Do you see a kid's or children's section? Or there might be a "reader's art" section. Here are some I found:

Amazing Kids! Online Magazine - writing, art, photography or videography, by kids ages of 5 to 18.

chixLIT - by and for girls 13-17 OR chixLITtle for girls 7-12.

Creative Kids Magazine - for kids 8 to 16. "Material may include cartoons, songs, stories between 500 and 1200 words, puzzles, photographs, artwork, games, editorials, poetry, and plays, as well as any other creative work that can fit in the pages of the magazine."

KidPub - books and stories by kids online - free to read, but membership ($12.95) is required to publish stories.

New Moon Girls - writing and art by girls 8 and up.

Stone Soup Magazine - features stories, poems and art by kids 8 to 13

Contests
Contests aimed at children are a good place for young people to submit. Here are a few.

The Young Voices Foundation 2013 contest ends February 28th. This year's theme is: Young Voices of America Speak of Heroes Among Us

Adventure Write Kids has an annual contest for kids under the age of 19.

Creative Communication offers poetry and essay contests for kids ages K-12.

Miss Literati offers writing contests and book giveaways.

National Geographic Kids has some contests - looks as if photos is a consistent contest and others vary.

PBS Kids has a story writing and illustrating contest for kids in K-3rd grade.

Scholastic has an annual Kids Are Authors contest.

Other
Young Authors Guide - this website has advice, links to magazines, and contests ordered by deadline.

The Young Writer's Guide to Getting Published by Kathy Henderson has been a good resource in the past, but the copy on Amazon is pretty dated (2001)

Young Writers Society is an online communities for young writers - ages 13+

Advice
Same as with adults submitting, kids and teens need to follow the directions exactly.

Publication is a slow process. Even magazine publications can take a long time. Years ago I sold a piece to Highlights and it took three years before it was published. But it appeared in their 50th anniversary addition so that made the wait worthwhile. (Fortunately, they pay on acceptance.)

Work-for-hire is often quicker, but still not immediate. This past week I got two of the three books I wrote for Unibooks (Korea) in late 2011. We finished rewrites in early 2012. Published under the Tuntun label which produces books to teach Korean children English, these books are written by native English speakers. I'm very pleased with how my books, both retellings of Aesop fables, turned out. Each cover has some special effects of shiny texture. (I'm sure there is some correct technical word, but I don't know it.)

BELLING THE CAT was illustrated by Kwak Jinyoung. Jinyoung did a great job. The mice crack me up. The cat is nice and wicked (from a mouse's point of view). There are two fold out pages and one fold up page, which was a fun surprise. I also like how she did some lettering as if it was cut out fabric.








THE FOX AND THE CRANE was illustrated by Son Junghyun. Junghyun put in lots of details that mean kids could spend a long time reading and rereading before they notice them all. I especially like the image of Fox pulling a trick on Rabbit. Look at the sidewalk and trees in this image.

I worked with two editors on these books and we did a number of revisions. I worked with a different editor on a third book, MY SHADOW, that is to come out next month.

Some of my friends wrote books for Tuntun also and got their copies recently, too:
Jo S. Kittinger: I JUMP UP, I COME BACK DOWN (about gravity) and THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF. Read about Jo on her website.

Monica Harris: SASHA'S SENSES, SOPHIE & GYURI'S FUN DAY - review 2, SOPHIE & GYURI'S FUN DAY - review 3. Monica lost her webmaster so plans to focus on updating her site in 2013.

Another friend, like me, is waiting for further copies. Genny Heikka will be getting A TRIP TO THE SUPERMARKET soon. On her site you can see she's done a lot of books for this company.

If you're heartbroken, don't let it stop you from writing and submitting, at least without great thought. Be encouraged by this guest post by Krista Van Dolzer:


When Cupid* asked me to share a little advice and encouragement about the querying process, my first thought was that I was the perfect person to write this post :) I queried my first manuscript in 2008, and here it is, 2012, and I'm just landing an agent, almost four years exactly after I sent my first query.

To be honest, I thought my last manuscript was going to be the One. It was the third manuscript I'd queried, so I definitely knew what I was doing, and my request rate was well over fifty percent. I received multiple revision requests and got all kinds of positive feedback, but in the end, nobody loved it enough to offer.

I was devastated, heartbroken. I'd thrown myself over the cliff, certain my parachute was finally going to open, but instead, I slammed into the pavement in full-scale freefall. The rejections hurt more because I knew how close I was.

I started querying my fourth manuscript in a weird in-between place. I felt good about the project, really good (one of my critique partners read the whole thing in one sitting, and another couldn't wait to recommend it to her agent), but I was well aware of the fact that querying, like life, usually doesn't turn out the way we expect it to.

And so it was with Steve. (That's what I call him around the house, since THE REGENERATED MAN AND ME is a little more of a mouthful.) I'd imagined getting an offer within a couple of weeks from one of the fast responders I'd queried, but that didn't happen.

As it turned out, what did happen was way better than anything I could have planned.

A few weeks ago, I signed with Kate Schafer Testerman, the agent who was literally at the top of my list, and I couldn't be more excited. (If you're not already sick of me, you can check out part one and part two of the story on my blog.) She's the agent I would have picked if I could have picked anyone, and she picked me.

I'm not going to tell you to keep going, to never give up, because when you've been going for a while and you're still waiting for that miracle, that's the last thing you want anybody to tell you. Sometimes taking a step back, at least for a while, is the best thing to do, and that's okay. But what I am going to say is that you never know when life will surprise you. We writers should know better than anyone that the best stories are the ones you don't try to force.

Picture is courtesy of Anita Patterson on morguefile.com.

Read more about Krista on her blog, Mother. Write. (Repeat.). And check out her Agent Inbox feature.

If you can't see the comment box, click on the title above.

Guest post by Authoress
Excerpts* from her Miss Snark's Next Victim blog on April 23rd:

Lots of people in this business won't mince their words. If it's something you're not used to, it's time to get used to it.

It doesn't mean you suck.

It doesn't mean you should give up.

It doesn't mean the universe is ending.

What it means is: Some people won't mince their words. That is all. You may be expecting something other than what you receive. You may feel stunned or numb or flabbergasted when you read someone's response to your work--especially if that "someone" is an agent or editor with whom you were hoping to find some level of favor.

Welcome to the World of Showing People What You've Written.

It's not fun. It's not something that most of us can get used to overnight. But the Thick Skin is an important part of our journey, so if you haven't started growing yours yet, now's the time.

I don't have a big magenta eraser for editing less-than-tactful critiques and comments. I may not like them, but they are a reality for us as writers.

We need to reel them in with the rest of the fish, and cast them away if they don't serve a purpose.

Interestingly, often they do serve a purpose--if only to teach us to rise above our emotions and keep pressing on.


*photo above and text used by permission
-picture to right courtesy of morguefile.com

I'd like to add this quote by another writer, Julia Sorel: "If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances." So take the chances that come your way, sort through the fish that are caught, and keep the ones that improve your writing. (Remember, they may not be the easy ones.)

Plug into these resources:

ARTICLES/BLOG ENTRIES

"Book Packaging: Under-explored Terrain for Freelancers" by Jenna Glatzer

"Breaking Into the Juvenile Market as a Writer for Hire" by Rachel Plummer

"How to Find a Work-for-Hire Assignment with a Book Packager" - (This is a sample work-for-hire article - see how no author credit?)

"How to Write School Curriculum"

"Know Your Rights: Works Made for Hire"

"Template Work-For-Hire Packet"

"Tips for Writing for the Education Market" by Evelyn B. Christensen

"What You Need to Know About Work for Hire" by Jan Fields

"Work for Hire FAQ" by Vijaya Bodach

"Work for Hire, or How to Get Work in Children's Books Quicker" by A. Humann

"Works Made for Hire Under the 1976 Copyright Act" - United States Copyright Office

"Writing for the Educational Market" by Margo L. Dill

Some other posts on work-for-hire on my site:
"How'd You Get That Gig?"
"Diane Bailey, Work-for-hire Champion"

Work-for-Hire vs. Royalty Writing (Part 1) and Work-for-Hire vs. Royalty Writing (Part 2) with Nancy I. Sanders

Educational Markets for Children's Writers - Evelyn B. Christensen

Guide in Links: Book Packaging and Work-for-Hire - Chandler Craig

Writing for the Education Market - a discussion and resource for freelance writing and working for the education market.