Submissions
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.- You have consulted with the PACFTB Project Administrator to receive input and approval for your topic.
- Your work has not been published elsewhere, nor is it under consideration with another publisher.
- You have read the Instructions to Authors and have made your best effort to adhere to them.
- Your work uses the Biography or Feature Article Submission Template and your work is in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or RTF document file format.
- For biographical works, you have included an abstract of 100 word and a biography of 500-1,000 words. For feature article works, no abstract is required. Your Feature Article is 1,000-2,500 words.
- Your work emphasizes connections to Pennsylvania.
- Your work ends with a list of Sources, listed in MLA format, 9th edition.
- Where available, you have provided permanent URLs for each Source.
- As a condition of publishing your work, you agree to license it under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any format and to adapt the material for any purpose, even commercially, so long as they provide attribution to the Pennsylvania Center for the Book (PACFTB) and the authors. You also agree that PACFTB will have the right to update your work and/or remove your work from the site if PACFTB employees determine that it is no longer current, or no longer meets the project's inclusion criteria.
Biographies: Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania
Biographies for the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania are developed in consultation with the project's Administrator and Editorial Board. Before submitting a biography, please contact the Administrator, Bernadette A. Lear (BAL19@psu.edu, 717-948-6360), to find out whether your topic meets the project’s Inclusion Guidelines and to ensure that a biography about the same person isn’t already in production. The Administrator will share your idea with at least 2 Editorial Board members before
authorizing you to proceed with writing.
Our inclusion guidelines for biographical topics are: alignment with PACFTB's mission; relevance to PA; diversity, equity, and inclusion; the biographical candidate's achievements/contributions; lack of similar biographical coverage in other sources; and alignment with PA educational standards.
Once authorized to proceed, please download and use our Biography Submission Template, which begins with metadata that will enable PACFTB staff to categorize, index, map, and publish the biography on our site. Following that, the template includes space for an abstract of 100 words, a biography of 500-1000 words, a list of sources, an image, and a list of the person's most important creative works (this is primarily for literary authors and entertainers). For more details, see our Instructions to Authors (New and Revised Biographies).
The biographies featured in the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania project represent various phases of our evolving project. Not all of them represent our current writing standards. If you are looking for good models, see our biographies for Bob Saget and Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.
All submissions are anonymously peer-reviewed by at least 2 members of the Editorial Board. Our acceptance criteria include accuracy; authority/quality of research/use of sources; completeness/development; currency; diversity, equity, and inclusion; Pennsylvania connections/purpose/relevance; and quality of writing/organization/style. Final acceptance of your work is contingent upon successful peer review and revision. Submissions may be rejected after 2 unsuccessful rounds of revision.
Feature Articles: Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania
Feature Articles for the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania are developed in consultation with the project's Administrator and Editorial Board. Before submitting a feature article, please contact the Administrator, Bernadette A. Lear (BAL19@psu.edu, 717-948-6360), to find out whether your topic meets the project’s Inclusion Guidelines and to ensure that a feature article about the same topic isn’t already in production. The Administrator will share your idea with at least 2 Editorial Board members before authorizing you to proceed with writing.
Our inclusion guidelines for feature article topics are: alignment with PACFTB's mission; relevance to PA; diversity, equity, and inclusion; the topic's impact/contributions; lack of similar coverage in other sources; and alignment with PA educational standards.
Once authorized to proceed, please download and use our Feature Article Submission Template which begins with metadata that will enable PACFTB staff to categorize, index, map, and publish the feature article on our site. Following that, the template includes space for feature article of approximately 2000 words, a list of sources, and images. For more details, see our Instructions for Authors: Feature Articles.
The feature articles currently in the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania project represent various phases of our evolving project. Not all of them represent our current writing standards. If you are looking for good models, see our feature article for Yellow Fever.
All submissions are anonymously peer-reviewed by at least 2 members of the Editorial Board. Our acceptance criteria include accuracy; authority/quality of research/use of sources; completeness/development; currency; diversity, equity, and inclusion; Pennsylvania connections/purpose/relevance; and quality of writing/organization/style. Final acceptance of your work is contingent upon successful peer review and revision. Submissions may be rejected after 2 unsuccessful rounds of revision.
Copyright Notice
As a condition of publishing your biography or feature article as part of the Literary and Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania project, you must license the work under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any format and to adapt the material for any purpose, even commercially, so long as they provide attribution to the Pennsylvania Center for the Book (PACFTB) and the authors. PACFTB will also have the right to update your work and/or remove your work from the site if PACFTB employees determine that it is no longer current, or no longer meets the project's inclusion criteria. This enables PACFTB to continue to provide accurate and relevant information to the public.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered on this site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this project and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.