Can I Sit With You?

Can I Sit with You? (CISWY) does not assume responsibility for any information submitted by authors or readers. By submitting any work, each author/reader is stating they have properly followed all legal rules and regulations for writing and publishing.

Rights:
CISWY does not ask for nor retain exclusive rights to any work. We request the right to publish your work on our website indefinitely and on any future related websites or other platforms in whole or in part and for your work to be archived indefinitely. Chosen submissions will be incorporated into a printed book and sold for profit. You will be notified if your submission is chosen for the print publication. You will receive no compensation for any submission other than the glory of your name in print. You may publish your piece elsewhere at any time. We may use a portion of your work to advertise our website or book (by using a quote or summary, for example). This means that other websites may freely link to your story, but no one has the right to reprint your particular story without the prior express written permission from both of us.

Editing:
CISWY reserves the right to edit work before publishing, for length, spelling, grammar, style and clarity. You may submit changes to your story, or request its removal from our website at any time. If your submission appears in the print copy you will not be able to re-call your work for any reason. All submissions are reviewed before going live on the public site and therefore, may not be available immediately. We may choose not to publish foul or derogatory language, photographs or references we deem offensive with regard to race, religion, gender or sexual orientation or for any other reason we decide. Your submission will not be made public if it doesn’t meet our criteria for appropriate submission. CISWY is not able to provide feedback on stories accepted or rejected.

Opinion:
Published pieces are not necessarily the opinion of CISWY.

Personal Information:
Your full, real name will be required so that your copyright release is valid. This information will not be released to any third party. If you choose to publish with your real name you do so with the understanding that the Internet is a very big place and that information you reveal may be used against you by former spouses or friends, identity thieves, the media, current or future employers and lawyers of course. CISWY will not be held liable.

Age:
To comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), we do not collect information from children under the age of 13. If you are age 18 or younger, you must have the permission of your parent or guardian to complete your submission.

Story Type and Theme:
CISWY publishes personal accounts and anecdotes about the writers' most memorable experiences navigating the stormy social seas of elementary and middle school from people all over the world. (For non-Americans, this would be up to age 13.) The book's intended audience is children of elementary and middle school age, which means that the writing needs to be relatively straightforward. This does not mean dumb and simple and boring.

Submissions:
CISWY reviews and prefers stories between 800 and 1000 words (about 4 printed pages). Submissions may be an attachment in email or in the body text of an email. All stories must be submitted in plain text so that we may format for the website. Anyone from any country may submit their story, but at this time all stories must be in English or translated into English before submission.

Please email submissions to ciswysubmissions@gmail.com.

Your email subject line should read:

SUBMISSION: The Title of Your Story

In the body of the email please include your information:

My Title About How No One Ate Lunch With Me
By A. Kewl Pursin
(the name under which you would like to be published)
Age # at the time

Your full name
Your preferred contact email

Your text up to 1000 words (or attach plain text document).

Other Legal Issues:
When writing about others, please state explicitly in your submission to us that you have obtained permission from those in the story, or you have changed names or places for anonymity. By submitting you agree that your submission is your own work. You are liable for the content. We will not tolerate any plagiarism or copyright infringement.