Submissions

Submissions are open from 1 July 2026 until 19 August for our kids’ edition:

– Contributors must be 16 or under (please state their age when submitting).
– The theme is: use your imagination!
– Strictly no A.I. whatsoever.
– One piece of written work (either one poem or one short story) and/or one illustration per child.
– Please make sure any images are scanned in at a high resolution.

Contributors will receive a pdf copy of the finished magazine (and print copies will be available to buy online).
We will do our best to include as many submissions as possible, but not everyone will be chosen.

Submissions should be emailed to editor@thetoypress.com.  

All submitted material must be suitable for an audience of 10 or under. 

Please add up to three poems (no more than 40 lines each) or one short story (no more than 500 words) into the body of your email. 

We welcome illustration contributions too – please email these as a jpeg / png / pdf attachment. 

Please use either Poetry Submission, Story Submission, or Art Submission in the subject line.  

All submitted material should be previously unpublished (personal blogs are fine) and be the contributor’s own work. 

We are happy to accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know asap if your work has been accepted elsewhere and you wish to withdraw. 

We welcome contributors aged 18 or over from any background from anywhere in the world. 

Copyright remains with the contributor and you are more than welcome to publish your work elsewhere following its publication in The Toy. 

Our purpose is to promote a wide range of writers and artists, and to encourage young children to read. Unfortunately, contributor payments are not available at this time, but this will be reviewed in the future.  We will donate any profit we make from selling The Toy to charity.

We aim to respond to all submissions within two weeks of the closing date. Sadly, we will not be able to include everyone who submits to us, but if it’s a no this time, we would love to see more from you in the future.  The editor’s decision is final and no further correspondence will be entered into.