At a maximum of 500 words, letters to the editor should include contact information so the publication can verify that you are a member of the community and/or readership.

Opinion pieces get paid
If your feelings are stronger than what the word count of a letter to the editor allows, consider doubling the word count to approximately 1000 words and sending it in to a newspaper as an OP-ED [opinion/editorial]. While it is a bigger gamble whether or not an OP-ED gets published, odds are that if it is, you’ll be paid.

Local leads the way
Yes, you have probably heard it before, but this is so important, it bears repeating. Local newspapers lead the way for encouraging new writers - especially if the paper is a small town press. Always on the hunt for new blood, editors of weeklies are more willing to work with new writers who may have little experience, but great effort.

Don’t knock the ‘Net
Another overlooked break-in market is the Internet. There are poetry sites, parenting boards, home and decorating sites, and e-zines galore that genuinely need writers. With more and more people relying on the Web as a main source for news and information, this is a vast arena for writers of all genres. When surfing the Net, check out writer’s guidelines on your favorite sites. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can start seeing your byline.

Freebies for clips
Last but not least, if you are just getting started in your writing vocation, check out the host of poetry publications, writing contests, church bulletins, community publications and group newsletters that need content. Get creative – widen your vision. While a clip from Newsweek is more impressive than one from Grandma Eddy’s Pickles and Pots Newsletter, still, someone has to write for Grandma Eddy, right?

It can happen
If you are interested in getting published, start with what you can do. You can find a publication that will publish you today – if not today, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, this week. If not this week, this month. You can make it happen. Set a goal, educate yourself, write something interesting and charge ahead.

Tama Westman writes the Off the Page column for Write From Home. As a correspondent and columnist, she publishes news articles, feature stories and her column, Cuppa Thoughts, regularly with her local paper, the Chaska Herald. She has served as the editor of the award-winning literary and arts magazine, Haute Dish. As a freelancer, her articles appear in several local newspapers and, nationally in The Gathering and Light & Life Magazine.

She teaches creative writing and poetry classes with the AHEAD program (Achieving Higher Education and Dreams) at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN, mentors high school journalism students and helps to edit the column of her 18-year old, British-bred cat on coolpetsites.com, Purrfect Gypsy – The Cat’s Eye View. She is married with two college-enrolled children, and keeps her balance with a cup of tea taken in the afternoon in her English garden. Her published clips can be viewed via her Web site, http://www.tamawestman.com and she can be reached at tamajoy@earthlink.net.