How to Get Published as a Teenager

4 min readMay 8

From a young age, I desperately wanted to get published, but I felt like my age was holding me back. In reality, there are a variety of ways young writers can get published, and I wanted to share some of the tidbits that I have picked up over the years.

What You Can Publish

The first step for wanting to get published is figuring out what you enjoy writing—whether it's short stories, poetry, creative writing, non-fiction writing (such as essays or articles), or even art. Once you figure out what you enjoy creating, you can hone your skills in that one thing. For example, if you enjoy writing short stories, you can write multiple short stories over the years and get them edited either professionally or self-edit to perfect your craft.

It might be hard to choose one thing, which is completely okay! If you’re anything like me, then you probably enjoy many things. Over the years, I have focused on many things I like, such as writing articles, short stories, and even a book (if you are interested in publishing a book, I outlined the process and journey in my article Yes, You Can Publish a Book as a Teenager (Here’s How).

Where to Submit

Once you have decided on your areas of interest, you can look into avenues of publication such as:

Magazines: Contains a collection of written work (usually essays, articles, stories, poems) and photography or art.
Anthologies: Usually contain only one type of written work (ex. ‘Short Story Anthology’ or ‘Poetry Anthology). Can be centered around a theme/topic.
Online publications: Digital web content that contains content based on what the publications are looking for (usually have guidelines).
Contests: For various creations, usually contain a prompt and/or guidelines such as a word count or the number of lines. Usually associated with a prize.

Here is an article I wrote with 10 places to submit for Young Writers, but there are also many other places you can find online!