If you’re over the age of twenty-five, chances are you look back on your teen years with fondness. Ah, the days of football games, proms, and pep rallies. Do we really forget so soon the hours spent agonizing over wearing the right outfit, the tears spilled in the restroom over a hastily scrawled break-up note, or the searing pain of finding your name omitted from the list of players who made the team? Add to that college applications, drug use, and bomb threats; today’s teens face serious issues every day. But there are many ways you can write about weighty issues without increasing their burdens. If you can jump back into those high school days while addressing the concerns of today’s teen, the challenges they face can provide you with endless topics for articles, fiction, interviews, quizzes, and more.
If you’ve got the voice of today’s teen ringing in your ears, and your finger on the pulse of current trends, then you can write for the mainstream girls markets. Main topics of interest are fashion, beauty, friendship, television, movies, gossip, and boys.
Seventeen
Pay: $1-$1.50/word
Girls’ Life
Pay: $150-$450
Get in touch with your literary side, connecting with young adults through short stories, poetry, and essays.
Religious publishers look for writers that can tackle heavy-hitting issues while offering their readers hope. If you recall the victories as clearly as the hurts and heartaches then you can bring hope to a hurting teen by finding purpose in life’s struggles. Stories and articles should have a strong spiritual message showing teens how to apply faith to their lives.
On Course
Pay: $15-$80
Insight
Pay: $50-$125
Articles that inspire young adults to pursue their dreams and be an example to others are sought after from these Christian publishers:
Live
Pay: $.10/word
Relate
Pay: $50-$700
What’s with all the talk about heartache and angst? Weren’t those teen years full of fun and freedom? Hours spent biking, hiking, and scouting. If you’d like a shot at reliving the passions of your youth, then give these markets a try.
Boys’ Life
Pay: $50-$1,500
Did/do you have a hobby that will give you insight into some of these specialized markets? Write an authentic story or article that will fit into one of these niches.
Skating
Request guidelines at info -at- usfigureskating.org
Pay: $75-$150
Chess Life
Pay: $100/page
Thrasher
Pay: $.15/word
Pointe
Send for guidelines.
Pay: $125-$400
American Cheerleader
Pay: $100-$250
Tell the true stories of teens making positive, responsible choices, sans any religious slant, for this publication distributed through the public school system.
Listen
Pay: $80-$150
Do you have a knack for finding the humor in any situation? Offer a lighthearted look in the mirror in the form of a quiz. Who can resist the temptation of answering 5-10 questions when that all-important, insightful answer waits at the end?
Shine Brightly
Pay: $.03-$.05/word
Relate
Pay: $100-$200
And it wouldn’t be high school without the academics.
ChemMatters
Guidelines available by email.
Pay: $500-$1,000
No matter how far back a blast to the past will take you, it’s well worth the journey. Regardless of your age or writing style, you can reawaken experiences and insights and then step into the future to meet today’s teens.
Ruth Schiffmann enjoys writing for many different audiences, but her first love has always been writing for teens. Her stories and articles for children, teens, and adults have appeared in more than seventy publications.