After more than three decades, Celebrate Life continues to be the number-one publication of the pro-life movement and is the nation’s only pro-life magazine. Our mission is to encourage and educate pro-life activists. With a nationwide circulation exceeding 65,000, we offer writers a national venue for their work.
Celebrate Life is faith-based, featuring human-interest stories, news, devotions, action items and advice on a wide range of pro-life topics. We only print materials in harmony with the teachings of the Catholic Church. We purchase first rights to original material accepted for publication. As a general rule, we do not accept reprints, poetry and works of fiction.
Themes
Celebrate Life publishes a variety of articles in each issue and is pleased to consider your article for publication.
Every issue will deal with abortion and adoption. Other common themes include the following:
- Chastity
- Contraception and sterilization
- Elder care and respect for the dignity of the elderly
- Stem cell research or therapy—moral and immoral approaches
- Euthanasia
- Eugenics
- Exceptions in abortion laws (i.e., for rape, incest, life of the mother, gross fetal deformity, etc.)—why we must oppose them
- Human cloning
- Human personhood and the personhood movement
- Infertility—moral and immoral approaches
- Marriage, as it relates to other topics on this list
- Miscarriage and stillbirth
- Organ donation
- Natural family planning
- Parenting in accordance with pro-life/pro-chastity values
- Population control and population decline
- Pro-life activists and heroes
- Pro-life/anti-life activities and legislation/initiatives
- Sex education
- Special needs children/parenting/adoption
- Special needs/disabled/chronically ill adults
- Unplanned pregnancy
- Vaccines/vaccines made from aborted babies or human embryonic materials; vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases (such as Gardasil)
We are always seeking holiday-related material that relates specifically to at least one of the abovementioned topics in our theme list. Our greatest need is for stories set during (or relating to) Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day and our national holidays: Memorial Day, Independence Day and Thanksgiving. Such material can be created by adding a holiday-related tie-in to an article on a topic in our theme list.
Examples of potential articles:
- Interviews with prominent pro-life activists
- Current laws and their effect on pro-lifers
- Interviews with birth mothers, adoptive mothers and people who were adopted as children
- Interviews with rape or incest victims who didn’t abort their babies (emphasis on the fact that we cannot allow exceptions in our defense of life, and that the trauma of abortion does not relieve, but only exacerbates the initial trauma of the rape or incest)
- How to start a pro-life activity or group in your community or church
Submission guidelines
Electronic manuscripts:
Material may be submitted on CD-ROM, floppy disk or via e-mail (clmag@all.org). Include the article within the e-mail text or as a Microsoft Word attachment.
Paper manuscripts:
Type or print all paper manuscripts in 12-point, Times New Roman type, double-spaced on clean white paper, with 1-inch margins. On the first page of the manuscript, include the following:
- manuscript title
- author's name
- address, phone number and e-mail address (if you have one)
- daytime phone number
- date
- approximate word count
Include the author’s name and the manuscript title at the top of each subsequent page.
Number all pages. Limit article length to 1,600 words unless instructed otherwise by the Celebrate Life editorial staff.
Time-sensitive articles (referring to current legislation/news or holiday-oriented) should be noted in a cover letter. Current-events articles, holiday articles, and articles with appropriate photos or artwork get top priority in our processing procedure.
Please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) for return of unused manuscripts.
Again, articles submitted with appropriate pictures, or for which pictures are available, receive highest priority.
Photography guidelines
At Celebrate Life, we believe that an article’s quality and readability are greatly enhanced by photographs of persons mentioned in the article and/or the article’s topic(s), when this is appropriate for the subject matter. We can accept photos as digital files or hard-copy originals. Following the guidelines below will greatly help you to provide us with high-quality images that are suitable for publication.
Digital images:
- Use full-color images.
- Use the highest setting on your camera (minimum of 1760 x 1168 resolution).
- Don’t use image compression.
- Use jpeg or tiff format.
- Images can be sent via e-mail (one or two at a time), or mailed to American Life League on a CD.
Hard-copy original photographic prints:
Celebrate Life’s design and production department has one of the best color scanners available. We will welcome any original photographs that you can send to accompany your article, and please be assured we will take the utmost care in handling them and ensuring their safe return.
For your convenience, peace of mind and the safe transport of your treasured photographs, we will provide you with our FedEx account number to facilitate the shipping and return of your photographs.
If you need help with any part of this process, we will be happy to assist you in any way that we can.
