Since our post last time was quite long (featuring The Betty Lamp, an exciting story about the Revolutionary War which was first published in the March 1926 number of St Nicholas), I decided to feature something short and fun this week. Below you will find a puzzle originally published in the April 1924 number, submitted by Carl Blumenthal, age eleven. Can you figure it out?

This puzzle is below, in the body of the email, and also in a pdf download, which means you can print it out, give it to your kids, and let them figure it out! The answer to the puzzle will be in the pdf download. Comment below on what answer you got!!

Love,

Fiona

DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION HERE

AN ENGLISH CROSSWORD ENIGMA

By CARL BLUMENTHAL, AGE 11

Originally published in the April 1924 St Nicholas Magazine

My first is in Chester, but not in Birmingham;

My second, in Birmingham, but not in Stafford;

My third is in Stafford, but not in Kent;

My fourth is in Kent, but not in Newbury;

My fifth is in Newbury, but not in Hastings;

My sixth is in Hastings, but not in Plymouth;

My seventh is in Plymouth, but not in Cheltenham;

My eighth is in Cheltenham, but not in Southampton;

My ninth is in Southampton, but not in Bristol;

My tenth is in Bristol, but not in Sheffield;

My eleventh is in Sheffield, but not in London.

My whole name a famous englishman.

This week, I am featuring The Betty Lamp, a story by Gertrude Robinson about a girl during the Revolutionary War trying to save her brother. The story includes sneaking around Boston at night, an angry mob, and an appearance from General Washington himself. It was first published in the March 1926 number of St Nicholas, and it’s quite exciting!

I plan to offer some interesting information on the author of each selection; however, I’ll have to forego that this week, as when I looked up Gertrude Robinson all I could find was a chemist and an actress, neither of which, as far as I can tell, got published in St Nicholas.

Below is a link to a pdf download of The Betty Lamp as well as the full story in the body of the post. This means that you can read the story here on substack, or you can print it out and give it to your kids to read! I hope you enjoy it.

Love,

Fiona

DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION HERE

THE BETTY LAMP
By GERTRUDE ROBINSON

Originally published in the March 1926 St Nicholas Magazine

It all happened to my own great-grandmother, Barbary Ann Brewster. Every time I see the miniature De Puy painted on a pearl-inlaid tablet with real ebony mountings, I think of that wonderful day back in 1776. I have read about it so often in the leather-bound day-book that Great-grandmother was keeping even then, in her girlhood, that I learned the story by heart.

You know it was in the March of 1776 that Washington drove the British out of Boston. The city was so glad to have the ten months’ siege raised that it fairly lost its head with rejoicing.

Great-grandmother tells all about this in her day-book, but she found it hard to be gay herself. She was only eighteen, and her father, proud Judge Brewster, had forbidden her ever to mention her favorite brother Oliver again.

You see, a most terrible thing had happened. When the British retreated to their boats in the harbor, young Lieutenant Brewster went with them. And all Boston knew he went not as a prisoner, but as a deserter! Of course, the Brewster family disowned him, all but Barbary. But she was far too spirited to show her grief for her brother on that seventeenth of March, 1776. She stood beside her father at the gate, which opened on the long brick walk leading up to the white-pillared Brewster mansion, and waved her embroidered silken kerchief loyally at the troops marching past on their way to barracks on Copp’s Hill. A right fair maid she looked, in her blue satin brocade gown, wide-skirted, and with a snowy muslin stomacher under her surplice waist. Her bright brown hair was piled high over a cushion on her small head; her eyes exactly matched the wonderful blue of her gown, and her cheeks, the rare pink cameo at her throat. I know all about it, you understand, because it was in this very costume that De Puy painted her portrait a year later.

It was small wonder that Colonel Northrup, riding by on his brown Narragansett mare, reined up to speak with Judge Brewster, standing like a black velvet statue beside his daughter. A keen man was Judge Brewster, too, but he never knew when his friend the colonel slipped a scrap of a note between Barbary’s fingers. Barbary at once imagined that the note concerned her brother, who had been in the colonel’s regiment, though how he should have word of Oliver was a mystery too deep for her to fathom. You may be sure she found directly an opportunity to straighten out the crumpled scrap of paper and read it, though it smelled of snuff and set her to sneezing. There was no doubt—this was Oliver’s writing and Oliver’s message, even if she didn’t understand it!

I had to do it, and I’m not ashamed! Some day you’ll understand why. Destroy this at once; the minute you read it, blaze the Betty lamp three times in the east attic window at nine to-night to let me know you have this note and still believe in me.

Barbary Ann destroyed the scrap of paper by a candle flare in the scullery, while Indian Haila in the kitchen was making toast and brewing the Labrador tea all Boston drank in those days, scorning the tons of real tea-leaves smoldering in the warehouses along the docks.

“Colonel Northrup is staying to supper, Haila,” she explained later, as she watched her snatch the browning slices of bread in the circular iron toaster away from the blaze. “Be sure your cream sauce for the toast is rich, and get out the cherry conserve and the Banbury tart. Use the carved silver porringers and trenchers and the silver scones Father brought home from England last year, and spread the damask table mat.”

When supper was served the black-walnut wainscoted living-room in which they ate was a blaze of light from the twenty-five candles kindled in the immense glass candelabra in the center. Green waxen tapers also flamed in the brass candle-sticks placed at each end of the table. Barbary Ann sat demurely in the candle-light, and no one would have guessed that she had just burned a secret note, or that she was wondering how the colonel got it. From the colonel’s manner she had known at once it was something never to be mentioned or explained, that it would be a danger to Oliver if her father, or any, guessed that Colonel Northrup knew anything about her brother.

The men talked about the war, and about the young genius of a general, George Washington. As she listened, Barbary realized that the trouble with the mother country was not all over a tax on tea and stamped paper, but that there was a chance that the colonies would stand together and assert their independence of England. Could it be possible that Oliver believed it was wrong to think of separation from England? That he had gone over to Lord Howe’s fleet because he felt he must? Oh, it could not be! But he had said he was not ashamed of what he had done. He nearly always thought a little differently from other people about political questions, and about the country, but whatever he believed, and whatever his reasons for what he had done, he thought he was doing right. If only it were nine o’clock and she could blaze the Betty lamp in the attic window!

After supper they sat for a long time around the flickering fire in the parlor, while Barbary Ann played on the claw-footed rosewood spinet. It must have seemed ages to her before she was free to slip from the high-backed teakwood chair in front of the spinet and steal from the room.

It took her no time at all, you may be sure, to find the Betty lamp and fill it with the heavy whale-oil they used in those days and trim the wick. She climbed the attic stairs very softly in the dark and set the lamp on the sill of the east window, with two phosphorus sticks beside it with which to kindle the flame the instant nine o’clock should strike on the bell in Charlestown church-steeple a mile away.

At last they came, nine heavy booming strokes. Immediately, Barbary Ann struck a spark and blazed the Betty lamp. Then she lifted it high in the window, held it there a second, and withdrew it.

Three times she flashed her signal out over the city and across the dark waters of the harbor. Somewhere out there, in the enemy’s ship, was Oliver. What was he thinking? At any rate he knew that she still had faith in him. The Kingfisher, the Cerberus, the Samson—which ship was he on?

As she snuffed out the light, Judge Brewster’s voice arose below, summoning her to brew the posset. If her father knew what she had been doing!

While she was in the scullery brewing the posset, she heard voices in the kitchen—Haila’s hoarse, guttural tones and the mellow voice of Obed, the black servant of Colonel Northrup. Probably Haila had been giving him some dinner. Barbary Ann opened the buttery window a little and listened.

“An’ Massa Olly, they say, is out on the big ship with the redcoats an’ he’s goin’ to help ’em get the powder on Quigg’s Point afore the ships sail away to N’ York.” Obed’s voice rolled unctuously.

“Huh!” was all Haila said; but through the crack in the buttery window Barbary could see the ominous stiffening of her neck beneath the red handkerchief knotted about it. It was a sign that Haila was angry. She was very fond of Oliver.

“An’ they’re goin’ to catch him, they be to-night, come high tide at midnight. Then they’ll bring him home an’ hang him on a crooked tree on Boston Common fer a turncoat.”

“Huh!” snarled Haila.

But Barbary did not hear her, nor did she see the big room with its sanded floor and its rush-bottomed chairs and its table of deal boards. She did not see the slow fire in the fireplace, with Haila stirring porridge. She did not see Obed lolling along the settle. She was seeing what was going to happen at midnight unless she could find some way to stop it. She was seeing a ship’s long-boat stealing out from the fleet, landing at Quigg’s Point. She could see among the men who leaped out and went to work digging, digging with frantic haste to get the powder and bullets buried there by General Putnam the summer before, a tall dark, proud form—Oliver, her brother Oliver, who never before in all his life had done a dishonorable thing.

All the time she was stirring the posset, Barbary Ann was planning what she should do. She was listening, too. Obed chattered on.

“Nobody knows I thar—all hidden under the wharf, a-fixin’ my ol’ boat. They talk it all over—them Liberty Boys. If de cunn’l knew, he’d sure stop ’em an’ send soldiers. Them Liberty Boys wants the fun—”

Right then and there Barbary Ann knew she must not do what she had at first thought of doing. She couldn’t tell the colonel and ask him to save Oliver. If he knew, he’d in honor bound to send the soldiers to capture the party from the British ship. Then there’d be a court-martial, and that would mean hanging for Oliver, or shooting, just as surely as capture by the Liberty Boys.

Finally, the colonel drank the last of his posset and went away with a great clanking of sword and spurs, his boy at his heels. Barbary Ann slipped away to her room, but on her way she gathered in her kerchief a handful of the wood-ash in the fireplace. She smeared the ashes over her face and tied a dark kerchief about her bright hair. Then tiptoe she went down the hall to her brother Oliver’s room and found his long hooded cloak and his great boots. She wrapped herself in the cloak and pulled the hood over her head till it all but hid her face. Boots in hand, she went slipping like a little shadow out through the gate to the street.

Never before in her life had she been on Boston streets alone at night, and indeed for months few people had dared venture forth after nine o’clock, no matter how urgent their business. But now the streets were crowded with people, parading, rejoicing. There were bonfires, and cannonading from Dorchester Heights, where General Washington’s fortifications had won the day. How happy, how perfectly happy she could be if it were for Oliver’s danger! Oliver, who never thought the way anyone else did about anything. As she went swiftly and quietly through the side streets, where the lights were dim, she remembered the letter in the Boston Weekly Advertiser in January. The colonies were cautioned to be careful how they angered the mother country too far to Congress was advised to be prudent rather than venturesome not to stake the future of America on the small chance of winning against an astute politician like Lord North. The letter sounded like Oliver — he was always writing letters and little paragraphs which the “Advertiser” was glad to publish. This wasn’t signed, but even Colonel Northrup had joked him after it, had asked him who had borrowed his pen. “The New York Gazette”, that Tory sheet of Rivington’s, the king’s printer, had copied the letter with a flaming editorial comment. “There was one sane man even in Boston,” that was what Rivington had said.

Was that one man Oliver?

On the edge of the docks, Barbary Ann stopped to slip on the boots which she had carried. She had intended to take off her own little pumps before coming here, but the sound of approaching footsteps frightened her into plunging her feet, shoes and all, into the great stiff, military boots. Afterwards she was glad enough she had on her own shoes, but the two pairs, it seemed to her, went fairly thundering over the hollow footway.

Somewhere under the wharf she knew was the secret room where the Sons of Liberty held their rendezvous and where Obed had boasted of overhearing their plans. It might be he was romancing, for Obed loved to tell a good story.

Before she risked the one chance to save Oliver, the one chance that was also a terrible risk, she must make sure Obed had been telling the truth.

She crept along through the dark, searching for a ray of light between the cracks of the boards. It was a very dark night. A light of lantern showed the glimmer of water between the boards. It was a very dark night, but there was no time to lose. It would be night in an hour and if what Obed said was true, the Liberty Boys would be starting in a few minutes for Quigg’s Point.

At last she found a ray of light, coming through the cracks in the wall. Listening intently, she caught an indistinct murmur of voices. Then it must be true! Barbary’s fingers trembled, but she managed to lift the trap-door at one side of the wharf and crept down the slippery ladder to the floating dock with many others. With a knife which she had slipped into her pocket, she cut the mooring rope, climbed in, and paddled out between the piers.

Was it imagination, or had she seen a shadowy figure creeping down the ladder as she turned to get into the boat?

Presently, the faint light she made out another boat, following. A dark form raised itself from the gunwale, a lantern shot out and caught her paddles.

“Hist,” muttered a guttural voice.
Barbara stifled a scream. Only Haila! But what was she doing here?

“Let me on board,” whispered Haila. “If I know—Haila hear it all and guess what you do. Haila follow.”

Haila set the stroke, great sweeping strokes that Barbara Ann had trouble to match. But it was good—perhaps Haila’s strong arms would get her there in time, get her to the only man in Massachusetts who could save her brother Oliver. On, past the lights of Charlestown, just a few here and there since the burning. The clock struck eleven—eleven booming notes. Two hours since she flashed the Betty lamp from the attic window. Even then Oliver must have been preparing to lead the British to steal a store of powder on Quigg’s Point, the store General Washington needed so much! How could he? She put suspicion from her mind. Oliver was honest—he thought he was doing right. That was what she must say to General Washington when she got to Cambridge. She must get to him in the clock struck again, before twelve. That would give him time to get the men to the wharfs to intercept the Liberty Boys. General Washington was just. He wouldn’t want a man hung just for being honest, for doing what he thought was right, not by a mob on Boston Common. The boat was so slow! If only the bridge which General Putman’s men had destroyed to hinder the British were there.

On they went, slipping noiselessly through the water. Here and there, lights flared against the pitch-black night. A patrol boat hailed; a bullet hissed overhead. Haila rowed on, unheeding, and Barbara Ann held to keep stroke. On, into the dark, to the man who could save Oliver.

The clock struck the quarter-hour, struck the half-hour, struck the three-quarter hour. Then came the lights of Cambridge, flickering, a few here and there, came the voices of the sentries pacing rounds, came the grating of a keel on the shore. Barbary crept out, Haila after her, and pulled the boat up under some bushes. A sentry approached. Barbara and Haila dropped to the ground, motionless. The sentry passed on.

Barbara rose and ran through the dark, up from the shore and into the street, Haila behind her like a shadow. She knew the way well; in other days she had often been to the Vassall House, now Army Headquarters, and had sat on the wide lawn drinking tea, those days when tea-drinking was no sin. She knew a break in the hedge and crept through, when the sentry’s back was turned, and beat with the great knocker on the front door.

The church clock struck — twelve! The fight was beginning on Quigg’s Point!

The door was flung open, and before her stood one of General Washington’s guards. The great hall was a blaze of light from candles in the glass candelabrum that hung from the ceiling. It was crowded with men, soldiers, and the general’s guards—there they stood, all looking at her and at her shadow—Haila, wrapped in her enormous blanket shawl.

“I must see General Washington at once,” she declared, in her throaty contralto voice that her father had always said should have been a boy’s heritage.

“Come in the morning. The general is busy, now, and it is too late.”

Barbara Ann took a determined step forward, Haila pressing close behind. “Morning is too late. I—bear most important messages for the general’s own ear.”

The guard hesitated, and his eye fell upon Haila’s face. An Indian woman scout was one of Washington’s trusted spies. Perhaps this was she, and the young fellow a dispatch-bearer, as he said.

“Your name?” said he.
“I give it but to the general himself,” retorted Barbary Ann. “The matter presses!”

The guard walked smartly to the door of the great room at the end of the hall, where the audience-chamber was.

Barbary Ann held her head high, but she knew the men in the hall were studying her little figure in the great cloak and hood, studying the great Indian woman, an impassive statue behind her.

“The general will see you,” announced the guard, returning.

Then his eye fell upon Barbary Ann’s great boots. Terrible sights they must have been, covered with wharfside mud.

“Wait,” ordered the guard. “You do not enter the general’s audience-chamber in those boots. Here are slippers.”

And before Barbary Ann realized at all what was happening, the guard was down on his knees before her, had lifted one foot, and pulled off the great boot.

A silence fell upon the hall. The guards bent forward, their eyes popping with amazement; there on the floor knelt the man who had pulled off the boot, a blue satin pump-clad foot in one hand, the huge slipper he had been about to thrust upon it in the other.

“What’s this?” demanded a stern voice.

At that moment Barbary Ann had no thought of how ridiculous she must look, standing there in one great boot and one satin slipper. She snatched her foot free and ran toward the door where stood General Washington, his aide-de-camp Lieutenant Pendleton beside him.

“I pray you, give me audience alone, sir,” she begged. “’T is a great matter and for your ears only.”

A moment only did the general hesitate. Then he ushered her in and closed the door.

“I’m Barbary Ann Brewster,” said she at once, “come to save the life of my brother Oliver, who has done no wrong.”

In five minutes she had told her story. In less than ten, a detachment of soldiers were cantering off over the Neck to avert the tragedy on Boston Common.

“Secure the deserter Brewster from the expedition and bring him to me here, uninjured, at once,” Barbary Ann had heard the general order. His voice was very stern, and for a moment her heart almost stopped beating. Could it be that General Washington would punish Oliver as a deserter after what she had said to explain his strange ways? He was so just, she had been sure he would understand.

But what was the great General Washington whispering in her ear?

“Some men serve with their swords, and some with their brains, and your brother Oliver is the cleverest intelligence officer on my staff, though, but for your girl’s wit, he’d even now be paying the penalty of somebody’s prying. He told of the raid on Quigg’s Point, and of the part he had to play to avert suspicion, in a note I received from him but a few hours ago. Your note came with mine in a snuff-box he intrusted to a fisherman scout of mine, who visits the Cerberus with his wares. For Oliver’s safety, we decided not to interfere with the Britishers in their digging, and your note I sent to you by Colonel Northrup, commissioning him to get it to you in all secrecy. But even he does not suspect that Oliver is no turncoat except in his dress.”

And with that they bundled her off, together with Haila, under escort of Lieutenant Pendleton, anxious to get her home before she was missed and a hue and cry set up. Before they got there, though, the lieutenant told her that before many days it should be managed that Oliver escape. The day she read in “The Weekly Advertiser” a notice of reward for his recapture as a runaway from court-martial, she was to understand that he was safely on his journey to New York, there to take a place with Rivington, the king’s printer, on “The Gazette,” where he could gather much information that would be of value to General Washington.

Of course, Barbary Ann didn’t dare write all this in her day-book then, not for five long years, when the war was over and men back in the ways of peace. But she did write it then, and that is how I know the secret that on this night after the seventeenth of March, 1776, only three people knew, General Washington, Lieutenant Pendleton, and Barbary Ann herself—that is, excepting her brother, Oliver Brewster, whom the soldiers of Washington’s staff took from the hands of a mob on Boston Common, his head almost in the noose the Liberty Boys had made.

Two years into running the new St Nicholas Magazine, I got the most unexpected and welcome email from a kind and thoughtful friend of the magazine, Jane. She said that while organizing and selling a friend’s unneeded items, she had come across an almost full collection of the original St Nicholas Magazine! As you likely know, if you’re reading this, the magazine I run is named after and inspired by the St Nicholas Magazine that was published for kids from the 1870s to the 1940s.

Well, Jane asked whether I would like the collection shipped to me. Of course, I said yes. A few weeks later a very heavy box arrived on our doorstop. Now we have entire shelves in our attic, lined with St Nicholases, where previously we only had a small stack. These are beautiful magazines, made only more beautiful by their yellowed pages and tattered edges. The pages are full of articles, illustrations, puzzles, stories, riddles, photographs, and more; all by, or for, the children of a century ago. A serial by Louisa May Alcott. Photos by F Scott Fitzgerald as a kid. A favorite book list by a teenager in India. A biography of Laura Bridgemen. A crossword puzzle. A poem by Rudyard Kipling. I love poring over these magazines, and I think you guys would, too.

That’s why I started this Substack.

Do you know about my new St Nicholas Magazine? If you’re reading this, you’re most likely familiar with my quarterly for kids, where I publish stories, poems, artwork, and book reviews by children of all ages and all around the world. If you aren’t, check out my website, stnicholasmagazine.com, or my introductory post, St Nicholas Magazine, https://stnicholasmagazine.substack.com/p/st-nicholas-magazine. While I was certainly inspired by the original St Nicholas Magazine, my new one is different in several ways: as opposed to coming out every month, my magazine comes out four times a year, and while the original magazine included work by both children and adults, only kids can submit to the new St Nicholas Magazine.

St Nicholas League

The original St Nicholas had a St. Nicholas League for kids that gave them the encouragement and opportunity to be part of the magazine by submitting work and letters. I love the sense of belonging that I’m sure that it provided for the children, so I’ve decided to create a new St Nicholas League on Substack for the kids of today. When your family joins, you and your children will receive a personalized membership cards and many benefits!

Stories & Art from the Original St. Nicholas

By joining the St. Nicholas League for just five dollars a month, you will have access to a weekly printable story, poem, drawing, letters, article, etc, complete with their illustrations, from the original St Nicholas straight to your inbox. These biographies, nature stories, and serials are all a hundred years old or more, with the beautiful language and high quality story-telling of that time, and many of them, since their publication in St Nicholas, have never been available to the general public. My mother plans to create a slot in our morning time where we read the most recent selection from the St Nicholas League, and I think you all should too! I will often post seasonal and holiday selections, such as a Christmas story in December.

These are the core of what I’ll be creating for paying subscribers, but by no means is it the only thing!

Suggest and Vote on Assignments

Members of the St Nicholas League will also get to submit ideas and vote in what upcoming assignments will appear in our quarterly St. Nicholas Magazine. Found in every number of the new St Nicholas are optional prompts for stories, poems, drawings, and photographs. For instance, in the upcoming Spring 2026 number, the assignments are to write a story called The Storyteller, write a poem called A Recipe, draw a picture called Fairyland, and take a photo called A Picture Worth a Thousand Words. These assignments change in every issue, and now, for the first time, if you are a paying subscriber to my Substack, you will be able to help me choose the assignments for the next issue!

Pen-Pal Matchmaking

Another exciting upside that members of the St Nicholas League receive is the opportunity to get a pen-pal! We will provide a form where any member can list their name, age, and interests, and we will match them with someone else, so that they can write letters! This is so in line with the mission of our new St Nicholas, and with the mission of all homeschooling families: to build a community based on shared values and traditions, and to increase communications that aren’t all online!

I’m sure this will not be all we offer at the St Nicholas League, as it will probably grow over the next couple months. For the first month, however, everything I post at the St Nicholas substack will be free and open to everyone. This way, you can see whether it’s your cup of tea! Then, in May, it will all go behind closed doors, unless you join the NEW St. Nicholas League by becoming a paid subscriber!

I’m excited to be on this adventure with you all, bringing to life this forgotten but beautiful content! See you there!

Love,

Fiona

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I have always loved to read and write, and I have always loved journalism. When I was very young, these two interests came together to form newsletters that I circled through friends and family. At seven, my mom and I put together NFK — News for Kids — and filled it up with coloring pages, book reviews, and drawings from friends. Then, when I was eight and nine, I made Friends’ Annual Journal. The first year, we merely collected friends’ submissions, photocopied them, and stapled them together. But the year after that, my mom scanned the submissions, made a document, and printed it out. I loved that this journal looked professional and real! And, of course, I loved putting my stories and poems to good use.

For the next two years, I also ran Cameron Mill News. A small stapled journal that came out every other month, it was furnished with submissions from family members. My parents, siblings, and grandparents regularly submitted via email, which gave me that experience of sending out emails, receiving submissions, and compiling them into a magazine. My sisters would submit little stories and pictures; my mom had a column on the happenings at Cameron Mill; my grandfather wrote riddles and scholarly book reviews. Once my uncle submitted an essay on the Japanese alphabet, and my dad’s personal articles were always hilarious.

Of course, when I was making these first journals, I didn’t think about why it appealed to me so much. But I loved writing the emails asking for submissions, I loved the entries flooding in, I loved choosing what should go into the magazine and assembling those submissions into something interesting and beautiful. And I loved giving the magazines out and watching family and friends pore over them, laughing and showing each other what they had written!

All those magazines faded away slowly, and I began submitting all my stories and poems to a magazine for kids. I got published a couple times, which was really exciting! But when I was twelve, this magazine started sending out very political emails and publishing questionable submissions. So my mom said we’d have to unsubscribe.

I searched for a different place to submit my stories too, but in vain: There were not many magazines out there that accepted stories from kids, and also aligned with our worldview. And then, one day when my mom and I were talking, we had an idea: To start our own magazine, like the journals I had made earlier, but bigger and more professional. We would make a safe place for kids to submit their stories, poems, artwork, and book reviews; we would make it a beautiful magazine, full of good things to read and good ideas.

As we thought about making a new magazine, we remembered a magazine for kids that came out starting in the late 19th century and going into the mid 20th: St Nicholas Magazine, a beautiful publication that featured works by Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgeson Burnett, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. It also published works by kids all around the world — some of the names of the kids who were published might be familiar, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay and E.B. White! We have many, many vintage numbers of the old St Nicholas, and they are absolutely a blast to look through.

Taking our inspiration from St Nicholas Magazine, I named our new magazine after it, and started work on it right away — reaching out to friends, getting people involved, asking for submissions, putting the magazine together. The first number of my new St Nicholas came out in the summer of 2022 and was circled through friends and friends’ friends. It was such enormous fun that I just had to start work on the next number, and the next.

Four years later, sixteen numbers of St Nicholas have come out. I’ve published kids aged three to seventeen, from twenty different states and four different countries. St Nicholas has had stories about detectives and hot air balloons, poems about nature and books and ideas. My magazine has featured photos of rivers, drawings of fairies, and book reviews of The Lord of the Rings, The Pushcart Wars, and The Green Ember.

We also have a section of each magazine designated for themed assignments, where, in every number, there’s an assignment for prose, poetry, artwork, and photography. It’s so much fun to see how different kids interpret these prompts! And last of all, we always feature something from the original St Nicholas, providing a window into the way that kids wrote and thought a hundred years ago.

St Nicholas is different from other magazines because it was created with a traditional Christian vision in mind. Often magazines for kids and teens can be dark, edgy, noisy, and modern: But St Nicholas is not any of these things! Instead, I want to provide a simple, beautiful place for the budding authors and artists of the future to publish their work and see the work of others. Each number, thanks to the wonderful submissions I receive, is a pleasure to look through.

If you would like to purchase any numbers of St Nicholas, you can find them all here, at our website: https://www.stnicholasmagazine.com/. And if you would like to submit, please email me with your submission, as well as your name, age, address, and a photo of yourself, at stnicholasmag@gmail.com.

On this St Nicholas substack, I’ll be sharing highlights from the magazine, interesting related topics, and updates. If you’d like to be on top of things when it comes to this magazine, do subscribe!!

St Nicholas, pray for us!

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