I grew up in Cuba reading "El Aposento Alto" (The Upper Room). This was a wonderful devotional I read from cover to cover whenever the new issue would come out. The stories in it inspired and strenghtened me, especially after Castro took over the country and communism was established.

I was delighted to discover that The Upper Room publishes a devotional for kids they call Pockets. I stumbled upon this when posting the introduction of one of our books4children listserv members, Jane Heitman, to the CCF site. Heitman's writing has been published in Pockets. My delight doubled when we added a link back to Pockets from Heitman's page and found out that Pockets sponsor a Fiction-Writing Contest.  They didn't have one in 2009 but are planning on holding one in 2010. 

Pockets is a Christian publication. If you can write from that perspective then this might be a good venue for you to submit your writing. Its target audience is 6-12 year old kids. Their posted Writers' Guidelines answer many of the questions we normally ask ourselves prior to submitting our writing, especially what they pay upon acceptance. It was good to see they accept not just stories but also poetry and activities and games.

I also appreciated the fact that they list their Upcoming Themes online with each theme having its own individual deadline as to when you need to submit by.