A brand-new children's literary magazine is in the works at the BYU English department.
BYU English professors Ann Dee Ellis and Chris Crowe are currently organizing Wild Honey, a literary magazine publishing fiction and poetry for children ages 6-12. The professors anticipate publishing the magazine's first issue in Winter 2025.
“Here at BYU, we have a lot of writing for young readers,” Ellis said. “We have Inscape, which is an amazing literary magazine, but I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a children’s magazine coming out of the university that would focus on literary fiction and poetry for kids?’”
The magazine could have a wide reach because many parents want their children to read, Ellis said.
“We just want it to be enriching and also to really push literary children’s fiction — really good children’s fiction for kids that they can have access to in short form,” Ellis said. They also plan to include puzzles in the magazine.
While they want the literature to be of a high caliber, Crowe said they also hope the magazine will be inspiring and uplifting in some way.
Ellis and Crowe said they are currently planning to do an open submission for the magazine, allowing all to submit fiction and poetry. This may include students and published writers. Ellis and Crowe also expressed their hopes to feature famous writers who attended BYU, such as Orson Scott Card or Brandon Sanderson.
“We’re also hoping to have a section that’s kid-written, so kids can submit stories and poetry, too,” Ellis said. “There’s a historical magazine called St. Nicholas that took child submissions back in the day and a lot of famous writers who became famous writers submitted as kids, so we’re hoping to have a forum for kids to be able to share their work.”
Ellis and Crowe intend to publish the magazine both online and in print.
Christie Seamons, a senior from Sandy studying English is interested in joining the magazine's staff in Fall 2024. The magazine would be a fun opportunity to try children’s literature, she said.
“One big motivation is just the professor that is co-creating it,” Seamons said. “Chris Crowe is just wonderful — a wonderful professor and a wonderful person.”
BYU students interested in writing for young readers can sign up to work on staff in Fall 2024 and Winter 2025. Working on staff can count as English+ internship credit for English majors by enrolling in ENGL 394.