BYU English Professors Will Establish a New Children's Literary Journal

BYU's English department introduces Wild Honey, a children's literary magazine showcasing fiction and poetry for ages 6-12. Launching Winter 2025.

on Jan 23, 2024

BYU English Professors Will Establish a New Children's Literary Journal

The BYU English department is now working on a new children's literary magazine.

Ann Dee Ellis and Chris Crowe, BYU English professors, are now organising Wild Honey, a literary magazine that will publish fiction and poetry for children aged 6 to 12. The lecturers want to publish the magazine's inaugural edition in Winter 2025.

"Here at BYU, we have a lot of writing for young readers," said Ellis. "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?'"

Ellis believes the magazine has a broad reach because many parents want their children to read.

"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 went on to say. They also intend to incorporate riddles in the magazine.

While they want the books to be of great quality, Crowe hopes the magazine will also be inspirational and uplifting in some way.

Ellis and Crowe stated that they are currently preparing an open submission for the magazine, allowing anyone to submit fiction and poetry. This may contain both students and published writers. Ellis and Crowe have indicated interest in featuring well-known BYU alumni like as Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson.

"We're also hoping to have a section that's kid-written, so kids can submit stories and poetry, too," Ellis went on to say. "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 want to publish the magazine both online and in print.

Christie Seamons, a Sandy senior studying English, is interested in joining the magazine's staff in the autumn of 2024. She described the magazine as a great way to try out children's books.

"One big motivation is just the professor that is co-creating it," he said. "Chris Crowe is just wonderful — a wonderful professor and a wonderful person."

BYU students interested in writing for young readers can apply to work on staff in Fall 2024 and Winter 2025. Working on staff can serve as English+ internship credit for English majors who enroll in ENGL 394.