Guidelines for Secular Stories

Format for submission

Please send your story in a format that can be edited.

You can write/paste it directly into the email or attach it as a file.

Content guidelines

While writing your story, please keep these guidelines in mind:

  • Keep the text between 250-1500 words.

  • Write in first person perspective (“I…”), with your experience, strength and hope.

  • The tone should be inclusive, respectful and friendly to non-believers and believers both.

  • We'd particularly like to read how you work a secular program and how you get past any obstacles you’ve encountered.

  • Please observe the usual OA restrictions: avoid outside issues except as they relate to your food story, and don't name any non-OA approved sources.

  • We ask that your submission be in keeping with the Twelve Traditions, Concepts of Service and the Unity with Diversity Policy.

  • Sign the story with your name and last initial, or in another anonymous way.

 

Examples:

  • It's okay to describe your feelings about traditional meetings and approaches, leaving out the opinions and criticism, and putting in what happened, what was hard about it, and how you've overcome the difficulty.

  • It’s okay to write that you use an alternative approach or alternative literature, just don't give any names of books or other sources.

 

You may find it helpful to write on a specific topic, instead of all your experience at once,
here are some examples of topics to explore:

  • The power to stay abstinent

  • Coping with alienation

  • Concepts of Higher Power

  • Writing your own steps

  • Secular equivalents to prayer

  • Surrender and letting go

  • Honesty to self and others

  • Secular sponsoring

  • Defining abstinence

  • Accountability

  • Food, family and culture

  • Overcoming emotional eating

  • Outreach and social support

  • Self-acceptance and self-care

  • Body image

  • Learning self-compassion

  • Handling setbacks

  • Prejudice and food behaviour

Important information

The goal of The Secular Stories Project is to make the stories into an OA publication.
While doing so, we will follow the OA Guidelines for locally produced literature, found here:
https://oa.org/guidelines-meetings/locally-produced-literature/

By submitting your story, you warrant that you are the sole owner and original author of the story and have the full right to submit it to the project.

By submitting your story, you give The Secular Stories Project the right to edit*, copy, distribute, publish, reproduce, or copyright your story. You agree that you will make no monetary or other claim for the use of you story.

 

  *Minor editing will be done by us, like correcting spelling, grammar and sentence structures.
If more editing is needed, we will contact you so you can edit the text yourself.