Submit Content
Each month, on our homepage, North Star features articles and essays of particular interest to our audience. We usually showcase one "Feature Article" and one "Community Voices" essay, each of which is described below.
We invite and encourage those who are comfortable using their real names to do so. While we understand each person has a unique experience and may or may not feel comfortable being publicly open about this issue, we do not believe ours is a shameful condition and invite your help in connecting real faces and names with this sensitive topic.
Nevertheless, we fully respect whatever level of anonymity is requested by those submitting articles and essays. Please keep this in mind when submitting material, especially personal essays, which often include many personal details about the author. We will contact you before publishing your submission to confirm what level of anonymity you prefer. We hope you will feel safe and welcome submitting material.
Submit a Feature Article
The Featured Article is most often an article or address by a General Authority of the church or another inspirational writer/speaker. These are articles for and submitted by you. As a community-oriented organization, we want to know what articles or addresses have been most meaningful and helpful to you in your efforts to live according to your values and beliefs as a Latter-day Saint.
How you can participate:
Think of an article or an address — preferably one available online — by a church leader or other inspirational writer that has had greatest impact on you, either in teaching you an important principle or in providing greater inspiration and motivation to move forward in your faith with greater hope, peace, and perspective. These addresses can be text, audio, or video.
Articles may or may not specifically address homosexuality but should be relevant to life as a committed Latter-day Saint affected by the issue.
Please submit articles to the email address below. Include the title of the article and a link to its location on the web. If the article is offered in multiple formats (i.e., text, audio, and/or video), please provide links to each format.
The Subject line of your email should read, "Submissions: General Feature". Include in your email a brief (fewer than 500 words) statement of how that article has blessed and benefited you personally, perhaps sharing a particularly meaningful quote from it and the insights it provided you. We would like these statements to be personal and from the heart rather than merely descriptive.
Submissions should be sent to submissions@northstarlds.org.
Submit a Community Voices Essay
Community Voices are personal essays written by people within our community. An important part of our mission is to provide a forum which gives voice to the perspectives, experiences, and testimonies of individual Latter-day Saints — real stories of real people — who are striving to live the gospel in accordance with the doctrines and precepts of the church. If you would like to share a personal essay on how a particular experience or realization has influenced your personal and spiritual growth, your relationship with God, or your commitment to the gospel or the church, we would love to hear it.
How you can participate:
We are interested in submissions from individuals directly affected by same-gender attraction, including:
- Men and women
- Single, Married, or divorced
- Spouses, both male and female
- Parents, siblings, or other family members
- Those who have been in same-sex relationships who are now active and faithful
- Those who have never acted on their attractions
- Those who have found some resolution
- Those whose feelings are unresolved but who feel peace and hope in the gospel
- Examples of encouraging or difficult family, spousal, and church leader interaction
- Local Church leaders
Themes and topics of essays could include:
- Specific experiences affecting your decision to remain committed to the gospel
- Experiences with professional or therapeutic assistance
- Experience working with your local church leaders for support, repentance, or reactivation
- Experience opening up to family and friends
- Experience in marriage and its challenges and benefits
- Full-time missions: how the issue has affected your preparation for a mission and the challenges and benefits of serving
- Personal or spiritual change brought by applying the atonement in your life
- Gospel doctrines or teachings of church leaders
- Parents' experiences with and support of their children who came to them about homosexual attraction and who remain active in the church, have left the church, or have attempted or committed suicide
- Spouses' perspective on fulfilling marriages or finding healing from divorce or hurtful spousal behavior
- Church leaders' perspective and experience working with members who experience same-gender attraction
We are looking for honest and candid essays which capture the realities and complexities of issues surrounding homosexual attraction and faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Perspectives, experiences, and beliefs may vary, and we expect only that core beliefs and values be in harmony with the gospel and the teachings of General Authorities of the church.
We hope you'll consider sharing your experiences!
Please submit your essay to the email address below, either in the body of the message or as an attachment, preferably in Word or PDF format. Also feel free to email us to request a specific topic or theme you would like to see essays about.
The Subject line of your email should read, "Submissions: Community Voices".
Submissions should be sent to submissions@northstarlds.org.