Guidelines for Writers

Let’s start by saying that this is pretty informal. The premise is that of a big juicy letter full of ideas from a gathering of friends. We jazz it up, turning it into the herbal confection that our readers have come to love and subscribe to over and over again. The magazine is crammed full of the things herbal enthusiasts are looking for—crafting ideas, recipes, medicinal info and how-to, growing information and lots of new and old herbal knowledge. 
Submissions MUST be original work. 

Deadlines & Topics
Here are our publication deadlines along with a basic idea of what is in each issue—we’re based mostly on the seasons in how we put together upcoming issues. There has never been a shortage of new and interesting subjects, and people just keep coming up with new stuff on their own:

December 1st—Jan/Feb

This issue tends to focus on crafting with dried botanicals, soaping or body care, staying healthy through the bad weather, and the new “herb of the year.”

February 1st—Mar/Apr

We start thinking about what we’ll be planting soon, wildcrafting goes into full swing, crafts are most welcome, and spring ailments.

April 1st—May/June
June 1st — Jul/Aug

Both these issues are full of recipes and crafts using all the stuff that’s growing outside. There’s wildcrafting to do and new plants to discuss. Body care and garden crafts are of interest too.

August 1st—Sept/Oct

This is the harvest issue. We’re drying our bounty and finding ways to preserve it for the winter. Lots of crafts and recipes.

October 1st—Nov/Dec

Our holiday issue is full of recipes and crafts—especially things that we can make and share with our loved ones as gifts.

EXTRA! is our smaller, in between, informal mailing that started when we became digital.  This can be anything.  Puzzles, poems, recipes, videos of interest to herbies, are all good options. Deadlines are:
Jan 1 -  Feb issue
March 1 - April issue
May 1 - June issue
July 1 - August issue
Sept 1 -   October issue
Nov 1 -  December issue

We’re just a tiny operation, so we can’t pay cash for articles, but we have a page in the magazine where we publish short (50-ish word) bios and a pic of the writers.

The Essential Herbal magazine is always looking for instructions for interesting crafts, good unusual recipes, and medicinal uses of herbs. From time to time, we receive a lovely poem, an article musing on the beauty of the plant world, wild crafting, eating wild foods, or letters containing recipes for salves or culinary treats. And that is exactly the way we like it.

Check and see if there is anything you would like to add. Give us your name, email, and website, and we’ll add them to the article.

Short articles can be inserted into the body of an e-mail if you are unsure of how to format. We prefer to receive articles in plain text (.txt) format. PDF's as pre-formatted articles are extremely difficult to work with, since we'll need to take them apart and any illustration will be too small for print. Length of articles is anywhere from ½ page to 4 pages.

Regarding photos and drawings:

• JPG, PNG, GIF, or TIF are the best graphic formats for us. PDF is also fine, but it sometimes requires editing on our end. If your pictures are in another format, we can’t always open them and they may not be included with the article!

Articles and artwork may be posted with full credit on our blog or various social media for the purpose of promotion of TEH. We may also include it (again, with full credit) in a compilation of magazine content for publication at a later date.

We ask that you do not publish the submission elsewhere (including your own social media) until the issue is expired and the next has come out.