Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

The information we collect depends on how you interact with Red Place Acres and which Services you choose to use.

Information you provide to us

We may collect your name, email address, mailing information when needed for fulfillment, the content of messages you send us, and information you choose to provide when you request information, join a mailing list or community feature, make a business inquiry, participate in a survey or event, or otherwise communicate with us.

Literary projects, contests, and submissions

If you submit writing, poetry, nominations, source links, biographical information, or other materials for Red Threads, Hope or Mope?, a prize, anthology, publishing opportunity, or another literary project, we may collect the submission itself together with your name, email, optional byline, general region, eligibility confirmations, permissions, source links, and other information needed to review and administer the submission. Hope or Mope? submissions are stored privately for editorial review and are not automatically published. Additional submission terms may apply to a specific opportunity.

Purchases and commercial interactions

If you purchase a Red Place Acres product through a third-party retailer or platform, that provider may process your payment and transaction information. Red Place Acres may receive limited order, fulfillment, royalty, or customer-service information from those providers. We do not ask you to send full payment-card numbers by ordinary email.

Information collected automatically

Our website, hosting provider, and security services may automatically receive technical information such as your Internet Protocol address, browser and device type, operating system, referring page, pages viewed, approximate location derived from an IP address, timestamps, and diagnostic or security information. The exact information available to us may depend on the hosting, analytics, and security tools in use at the time of your visit.

Information from social media and other sources

If you interact with Red Place Acres or Mara Bunsucker through a social media platform or another third-party service, we may receive information that the platform makes available to us in accordance with your settings and its own privacy practices.

2. How We Collect Information

We collect information directly from you when you contact us or voluntarily provide it, automatically through website and hosting technologies, and from service providers or platforms that support transactions, communications, distribution, security, analytics, or social media interactions.

3. How We Use Information

We may use personal information to:

• operate, maintain, secure, and improve the Services;
• respond to messages, requests, media inquiries, consulting inquiries, and customer-service needs;
• administer literary submissions, contests, prizes, events, community programs, or educational activities;
• support orders, fulfillment, publishing, distribution, and related business operations;
• send newsletters, announcements, or promotional communications when you have requested or permitted them;
• understand how visitors use our website and improve accessibility, performance, content, and user experience;
• detect abuse, fraud, security threats, or unlawful activity;
• protect our rights, intellectual property, users, and business; and
• comply with legal, tax, accounting, regulatory, or contractual obligations.

4. How We Disclose Information

We do not disclose personal information simply because we can. We may disclose information when it is reasonably necessary to operate the Services or meet a legal obligation, including to the following categories of recipients:

• Service providers. Hosting, security, email, analytics, website, professional, fulfillment, distribution, and technology providers that perform services for us.
• Retail, payment, and distribution partners. When needed to complete or support a transaction or publishing-related service.
• Editorial reviewers and professional advisers. Editors, judges or reviewers, accountants, attorneys, insurers, and other advisers when reasonably necessary to review submissions or support our operations.
• Legal and safety recipients. Government authorities or other parties when required by law or when reasonably necessary to protect rights, safety, property, or the integrity of the Services.
• Selected public publication. If we select your submission and the applicable submission terms permit publication, the approved byline and selected content may be published publicly on Red Place Acres websites, newsletters, and social channels. Your private legal name and email are not published merely because you submit.
• Business-transfer recipients. A successor or potential successor in connection with a merger, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar business transaction, subject to appropriate safeguards.

Red Place Acres does not currently sell personal information for monetary consideration. We also do not currently use personal information collected through this website for cross-context behavioral advertising. If our practices materially change, we will update this policy and provide any choices required by applicable law.

5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website or the services that support it may use cookies, local storage, log files, and similar technologies for functions such as security, site operation, preferences, performance, and measurement. Your browser may allow you to block or delete cookies. Blocking certain technologies may affect how some website features work.

If Red Place Acres later adds optional analytics, advertising, or other tracking technologies that require additional notice or consent, we will update our disclosures and controls as appropriate.

6. Third-Party Services and Links

Our Services may link to booksellers, social networks, video platforms, professional networks, payment providers, or other third-party services. Those services operate independently from Red Place Acres. We encourage you to review their privacy notices before providing personal information to them.

7. Sensitive Information

Please do not send Social Security numbers, government identification numbers, passwords, full payment-card information, medical records, or other highly sensitive information through ordinary email or general website messages unless Red Place Acres has specifically requested it through an appropriate secure process.

8. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy, including to provide requested Services, review and administer submissions, maintain appropriate publication and permission records, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and meet legal, tax, accounting, or security obligations. Declined or withdrawn submission records may be retained for a reasonable administrative and legal recordkeeping period; selected or published work and associated permission records may be retained longer as part of our publishing history. Retention periods vary based on the type of information and the reason it was collected.

9. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information. No website, transmission method, or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, so we cannot promise absolute security.

10. Your Choices and Privacy Rights

You can choose not to provide information that is not required for a particular Service. You may unsubscribe from promotional email by using the unsubscribe option provided in the message, when available, or by contacting us.

Privacy rights that may apply

Depending on where you live and whether an applicable privacy law covers our processing, you may have rights to request access to, correction of, deletion of, or a portable copy of certain personal information. Applicable law may also provide rights to opt out of certain sales, sharing, targeted advertising, or qualifying profiling, and to limit certain uses of sensitive personal information.

Red Place Acres does not currently sell personal information for monetary consideration or use personal information collected through this website for cross-context behavioral advertising. If those practices change, we will update this policy and provide any legally required opt-out method before or when the change takes effect.

Browser privacy signals

Some browsers and extensions can transmit privacy preference signals, including Global Privacy Control (GPC). Where applicable law requires us to recognize a valid opt-out preference signal, we will treat a recognized signal as a request for the browser or device from which it is sent. Because our current website does not use personal information for sale or cross-context behavioral advertising, such a signal may not change the present website experience.

Submitting and verifying a request

To submit a privacy request, email contact@redplaceacres.com with the subject line Privacy Request. Please describe the request and the email address or other information reasonably necessary for us to locate the relevant records. We may take reasonable steps to verify your identity before acting on a request and may retain limited records needed to document the request and our response.

Where permitted by applicable law, an authorized agent may submit a request on your behalf. We may request evidence of the agent's authority and may ask you to verify your identity directly with us. If applicable law gives you a right to appeal a decision on a privacy request, you may submit an appeal using the same email address with the subject line Privacy Appeal.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right provided by applicable law.

11. Children's Privacy

The general Red Place Acres website is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly accept direct Hope or Mope? submissions from anyone under 18. Direct submitters must confirm that they are adults.

An adult may submit a Youth Rising nomination or story about a minor if the adult is a parent/legal guardian or an authorized representative with permission to provide the information. Red Place Acres may require additional written permission before publishing an identifiable minor. If we learn that personal information was submitted directly by a child without appropriate authorization, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.

If Red Place Acres later offers a specific educational activity or submission process intended for minors, we will provide any additional notice, consent, verification, retention, and parental-control procedures required for that activity before collecting personal information.

12. United States Processing and International Visitors

Red Place Acres LLC is a United States company. Information may be processed and stored in the United States and in other locations where our service providers operate, subject to applicable law and appropriate safeguards.

13. Updates to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as our Services, technology, or legal obligations change. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when this policy was most recently revised. Material changes may also be highlighted through the website or another reasonable notice method.