Submission Terms

1. Who May Submit

Direct submitters must be at least 18 years old. An adult may submit a Youth Rising nomination or story concerning a minor only if the adult is the minor's parent or legal guardian, or an authorized school/community representative who has permission to provide the information. Red Place Acres may require additional written permission before publishing an identifiable minor. We do not knowingly accept direct submissions from children or teens under 18 at this time.

2. What You Are Promising

By submitting, you represent that the material is original to you or that you have all rights and permissions needed to submit it; that your submission does not knowingly infringe copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights; and that you have not knowingly included unlawful, defamatory, threatening, deceptive, or materially false content.

Do not upload or paste copyrighted news articles, photographs, videos, poems, or other third-party works merely because they are available online. For a news story, invention, research project, or public event, send us the source link and your own description of why it matters.

3. Human Authorship and AI

Hope or Mope? is built around real human voices. Poetry and first-person creative submissions must be substantially human-authored. Generative AI may not be used to compose or rewrite substantive creative portions of a submission. Ordinary spelling/grammar correction, transcription, translation assistance, accessibility technology, and similar tools that do not replace the contributor's creative authorship are permitted. Red Place Acres may ask about the use of AI or other assistive technologies.

4. Ownership and Review License

You retain copyright in material you own. By submitting, you grant Red Place Acres LLC a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to receive, store, reproduce internally, back up, review, fact-check, and share the submission with employees, contractors, professional advisers, or editorial reviewers as reasonably necessary to evaluate and administer the submission.

This review license does not give Red Place Acres ownership of your work and does not by itself authorize commercial book or anthology publication.

5. Contributor License if Selected

You retain copyright. By submitting under the Contributor Agreement, you grant Red Place Acres LLC a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license that becomes effective for publication if your work is selected to copyedit and format the submitted work; reproduce, publish, print, distribute, sell, display, and make the selected work available as part of the founding Hope or Mope? anthology in print, ebook, and substantially equivalent anthology editions; publish the selected work or reasonable excerpts through Red Threads; and use reasonable excerpts, titles, contributor names/bylines, and approved promotional materials to market the anthology and related Red Place Acres editorial coverage.

The license does not transfer your copyright and is not exclusive: you remain free to use and publish your work elsewhere. Red Place Acres will not intentionally change the material meaning of a personal story without consulting the contributor when reasonably practicable. Material adaptations, standalone licensing of the work, film/dramatic rights, merchandise rights, or uses unrelated to the anthology/Red Threads are not granted by this agreement and require additional permission.

Grand Prize and Featured Winner profile benefits—including a portrait, website, or social handles—are optional. We will use a contributor photo or profile detail only if the adult contributor provides or approves it for that purpose. We do not publish minors' social-media handles.

6. Publicity, Names, and People in Your Story

You may request publication under a pen name. Your legal name and email are collected privately for administration. If your submission identifies another person, especially a minor or private individual, do not include private contact information, home addresses, precise routines, confidential records, or other sensitive details. You are responsible for having permission to provide photographs, private communications, or other material that requires consent. Red Place Acres may anonymize, edit, delay, or decline publication to protect privacy and safety.

7. Editorial Discretion and Verification

Submission does not guarantee publication, a response, compensation, or future contest eligibility. Red Place Acres may verify factual claims, contact sources, request documentation or releases, edit accepted work, decline a submission, or remove published material when we reasonably believe correction or removal is appropriate for legal, safety, editorial, or accuracy reasons.

Nothing submitted through the form is treated as confidential. Do not send trade secrets, confidential business information, passwords, government identification numbers, full financial information, medical records, or other highly sensitive data.

8. Withdrawal and Corrections

You may request withdrawal while a submission is still under review by contacting us. If work has already been published or promoted, Red Place Acres may preserve reasonable archival and business records and cannot guarantee removal from third-party shares, search caches, printed materials, or social posts already distributed. We will consider good-faith correction and removal requests in light of accuracy, safety, legal obligations, and the public record.

9. Founding Anthology Competition

Submission is free. Entries submitted through the Hope or Mope? form during the posted founding anthology entry period may be considered for the judged anthology selections described in the Founding Anthology Competition Rules. Selection does not transfer copyright. If selected, publication proceeds under the Contributor Agreement and license accepted electronically with the submission, subject to eligibility and rights verification.

10. Privacy and General Terms

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information. Our Terms of Use also apply to use of the website. If these Submission Terms conflict with the general Terms for a Hope or Mope? submission, these Submission Terms control for that submission.

10. Agreement Record

For administrative and rights-verification purposes, Red Place Acres records the Contributor Agreement version and UTC acceptance timestamp associated with each submission. The current version is HOM-ANTHOLOGY-2026-09-12-v1. Material changes to future submission terms will use a new version identifier and will not retroactively expand rights already granted without additional consent.