We appreciate your desire to contribute your story to our readers. While Focus on the Family Canada magazine is no longer in circulation, we are still interested in hearing your take on issues and topics you think Canadian families need to be aware of, from a Christian perspective. Any content we accept will likely be posted on our website and/or distributed through one of our monthly e-newsletters to our thousands of subscribers. Please be sure to read plenty of back issues of Focus on the Family Canada magazine and surf our website before submitting a query to get a sense of how we do things around here. If you want to learn more about Focus on the Family Canada, visit the About us section of our website.

Any queries regarding author submissions to Thriving Family magazine should be directed to Focus on the Family in the U.S., at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

We accept practical advice/tips, how-to, profile, inspirational, humorous, worldview, spiritual growth and holiday articles on matters concerning marriage, parenting (including single parenting), grandparenting and midlife issues. Articles are typically 350 to 700 words each. Please keep in mind the following guidelines for each segment of our readers:

For couples (in the first five years of marriage, no children)
Purpose: Provide the essentials of healthy marriage to newly married couples, encouraging them to grow in their relationship and faith, understand the nuances of joining two lives, plan for a future family and serve Christ as a couple.

For parents (married with children at home)
Purpose: Inspire and guide parents to raise children who are disciplined, service-oriented and have strong faith, while also helping parents balance marriage, faith and career. We want parents to enjoy the journey while helping them navigate the challenges of our culture.

For single parents
Purpose: Same as parenting, plus encourage and empower single parents to stand strong in their faith by addressing the unique challenges they face.

For midlife and beyond (married or single, no children at home, close to or in retirement)
Purpose: Encourage midlife readers to grow in faith, stay strong in their marriages (if married), adjust to the needs of adult children, love their grandchildren and serve in the church and community by addressing the needs and stages of midlife.

* Please do not submit personal testimonies, poetry, fiction or devotional articles.

Submissions

Please send unsolicited submissions by query letter to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with the word “query” in the subject line. Allow four to six weeks for response. Accepted content should be sent by email as a Microsoft Word document or text attachment to the same email address.

If major revisions are needed, the author will be asked to make those first. Once content is accepted, our staff edits for style, grammar, format, flow, word choice, pace, clarity, length, transitions, etc. We do not send the edited version back to the writer for approval. How-to articles have a better chance of being accepted when the author or source has recognized expertise in the subject. How-to articles must avoid the obvious.

The following topics list typical editorial needs for Focus on the Family Canada:

Marriage Topics
• Boundaries   
• Keeping your marriage strong despite a teen’s rebellion
• Drug use/gambling effects on a marriage
• Making common-sense choices as a couple
• Protecting time alone with your spouse
• Putting your spouse first: meeting his/her needs
• Spiritual intimacy
• Sacrificing for your spouse
• Coming to agreement on starting a family     
• Financial loss/crisis   
• Porn use   
• Affairs, physical or emotional
• Choices about opposite-sex friendships   
• Protecting marriage against outside influences (e.g. preventing porn use)
• Praying protection over marriage
• Priorities and choices as a couple   
• Forgiveness
• Recognizing spiritual attacks on marriage
• Temporary separations (through work, military)        
• When you’re no longer in love
• Chronic illness
• Conflicts over sex
• Effects of stress on marriage
• Building and preserving hope in your marriage so you are ready to face hardships when they arise   
• Protection against materialism
• Elements of true love   
• Benefits of serving others as a couple
• How cultural influences can affect marriage (e.g. soulmatism, attitude that marriage should make you happy, individualism, consumerism)

Parenting Topics
• Discernment, spiritual and practical
• Boundaries and privileges based on maturity level
• Industriousness/constructive use of time
• Educational choices
• Protective value of prayer
• Music and video games lives
• Parents most important call: intentionally passing on faith
• Giving kids a vision for their future
• Stay-at-home moms
• Value of a mother’s role
• Mothers and sons
• Value of a father’s role
• Homeschooling
• Cultural trends
• Learning disabilities/challenges
• Honesty
• Practical discipline
• Humility
• Using social networking to be a good example/witness
• Pornography and teens
• Dealing with bullies online and offline
• Biblical worldview: establishing it by exposing secular views
• Self-control
• Teaching kids how to be bold for Christ
• Raising peacemakers   
• Restraint against overscheduling: bringing balance to frenetic family life
• Patience: curbing the "instant gratification" culture
• Protecting kids from unhealthy strangers/predators
• Information and identity protection online for children
• Integrating scriptural truth into real life
• Modelling redemption
• The value of service
• Trusting God and showing it

Midlife Topics
• Wills, trusts and protecting inheritance
• Sandwich generation: balancing adult kids w/ aging parents
• Exemplifyiing faith and passing it on to family
• Roles and responsibilites with grandkids
• Alternative grandparenting (foster, adoptive, step)
• When grandkids are being verbally abused
• Agreeing to move or not (closer to adult children or grandkids)   
• Second career vs. retirement disagreements among couples
• Remembering marriage vows (esp. hard ones: poorer, sicker)
• Living beyond family   
• Asking for help when you need it
• Adjusting to a parent's remarriage
• Boundaries when adult kids want money
• Roles and responsibilities with adult non-married kids   
• Preparing married adult kids to parent
• Helping grandkids who have military parents   
• When a grandchild is gay   
• Long-distance grandparents
• Helping aging parents stay in their home as long as possible
• When an aging parent wants to end life (euthanasia)
• Fostering open communication in your family
• New communication tools (email, Skype, IMing, etc.)
• Welcoming blended-family/second-marriage situations
• Grandparents raising grandchildren
• Fostering gifts and talents in your grandkids
• Spoiling grandkids: how much is too much?
• Healthy sexuality
• Reshape marriage after retirement through dating
• Remarriage
• Using your gifts to help others, mentoring young people

About Focus on the Family Canada publications:

Focus on the Family is an international ministry and produces numerous print and electronic publications, which it distributes in a variety of formats on different distribution platforms around the world, both directly and through its affiliate offices.

Rights:

To reach our constituents around the world, we require the exclusive worldwide rights for all media and all delivery platforms for a period of sixty (60) days from the date of first use and the non-exclusive rights in perpetuity thereafter. In exceptional circumstances, Focus on the Family Canada will negotiate limited rights. We rarely accept second rights or publish reprints. Freelance Writer’s Agreement will be sent upon acceptance of a submission or a query.

Payment:

We pay $0.30 Canadian per word upon receipt of an invoice from the writer.

Revised February 2010