The Ottawa Churches Chronicle welcomes submissions in the following genres: non-fiction essays, community news reports, personal reflections, and flash fiction. We’re a volunteer-driven online journal and we’re not in a position to pay honorariums. Thank you for choosing to share your work with us and for your patience as you wait to hear back on your submission. Please allow one week for a response before following up.
We welcome the following genres and themes:
- Non-fiction essays (up to 3,000 words): On the history, development or current trajectory of individual parishes, faith communities, religious congregations, and orders in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario.
- Personal reflections (up to 1,000 words): On your involvement in faith communities in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario or your family’s historic connection to them, as well as broader reflections on faith, doubt or the transcendent.
- Community news reports (up to 1,000 words): On recent events and developments in your church community that may be of interest to a readership that extends beyond your fellow parishioners.
- Flash fiction (up to 1,000 words): Creative writing that incorporates themes of faith, spirituality, doubt, and the transcendent. While we encourage submissions from local and Canadian authors, all are welcome to share their flash fiction with us, regardless of where they live.
We won’t publish pieces that focus on the “hot button” political issues of the day. These tend to drown out everything else. We’re creating a space for the “everything else.”
We consider original and previously unpublished work for publication in The Ottawa Churches Chronicle. On rare occasions, we may publish works that have appeared in print, but not online. We acquire first serial rights and archival rights for original material published on our website. Copyright reverts to the author once their piece has been published, but we retain the right to archive their work on our site.
Please email your submission as a .doc, .docx, or a .pdf file attachment. Include a brief bio in the body of your email, explaining your connection to this region and/or to the Chronicle’s themes. If you’ve used AI in any aspect of the writing or researching process, be sure to disclose this in your email and explain how you’ve relied on it. Submitting AI-generated content or the undisclosed use of AI will result in a rejection.
Please submit your work to: editor@ottawachurches.ca