Regarding the Winning Writers website, for a while I took only their free email newsletter listing poetry contests without entry fees. Curious, and so you don't have to, and so I have the info for the people who ask me, I finally subscribed to their Poetry Contest Insider, for which I pay $9.95 per quarter. This admits me to a well-organized database of more than 750(!) U.S. and U.K. poetry contests, both free and with entry fees.
Winning Writers sponsors its own 2 poetry contests, and "assists" in 3 more, all prominently offering top prizes in the unusually high and attractive $1500-$2000 range, and judged by their staff. One contest has no entry fee. The others do. As a premium subscriber I am permitted to see the prizewinning poems and the honorable mention poems. They tend to be lengthy and craft-free, in the way beginning poets' works are. And now I have a better sense of how the site and its staff support themselves, and who supports them: thousands of poets artificially hungry for artificial prizes.
Showing posts with label poetry publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry publishing. Show all posts
Friday, August 20, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
A Schedule: First Two Days
Sunday, May 30. Wake 5 a.m. in dread (nothing's really wrong). Coffee on porch, paging through a friend's poems. At 7:30 a.m. decide I must use the cool of the day for brushcutting and lawn mowing. After three hours of that, I shower, lunch, create no-knead bread dough and set it to rise, then, unbelievably, needing to escape the house, I go to the gym, grocery, and gas station. After dinner look at a friend's poems. Decide it's now or never to do my scheduled work. So tired I feel poisoned, but that has killed the dread. Taking up a copy of Rattle, Summer 2010 issue, I find exceptionally good poetry and interviews with Carl Phillips and Aram Saroyan. I read also the author bios. Gemma Mathewson's includes this: "Poetry is, for me, a kind of skywriting. It involves melding the twin vertigoes of altitude and disclosure, in the medium of vapor. " Good read. Want my work in that mag. Bed 9:30 p.m.
Monday, May 31. Wake 6:30 a.m. Feed birds. Bales of straw are required to complete my yard project, but it's too early to shop. I could plant tomato plants, but remembering yesterday, I halt myself and at 7:30 a.m. begin assembling chapbook for Midwest Chapbook Series competition run by Laurel Review, litmag from Northwest Missouri State University. Deadline is June 1; do it now or never. First chapbook competition I have ever entered, following my own advice to attempt the local before I try national. Picking up the contest guidelines I see I've scribbled on it a possible chapbook title: Soviet Life. I like it and use it. Manuscript and mailing package assembled and finished by 11:30 a.m. Manage to do it by literally gritting my teeth. Relieved it's done.
Monday, May 31. Wake 6:30 a.m. Feed birds. Bales of straw are required to complete my yard project, but it's too early to shop. I could plant tomato plants, but remembering yesterday, I halt myself and at 7:30 a.m. begin assembling chapbook for Midwest Chapbook Series competition run by Laurel Review, litmag from Northwest Missouri State University. Deadline is June 1; do it now or never. First chapbook competition I have ever entered, following my own advice to attempt the local before I try national. Picking up the contest guidelines I see I've scribbled on it a possible chapbook title: Soviet Life. I like it and use it. Manuscript and mailing package assembled and finished by 11:30 a.m. Manage to do it by literally gritting my teeth. Relieved it's done.
Monday, May 17, 2010
They'll Do It Every Time
Poets who have poems accepted frequently tell each other, "...and from the set of poems I sent, the editor picked the one I liked least," or "the one that I thought was weakest," ....thereby creating a "Can I Get a Witness" moment:
"That happens to me, too!"
"They never take what I think are my best poems!"
"They took the one I sent as 'filler'!"
"I sent that one just to patronize them, and that's the one they printed!"
"They always do that!"
This phenomenon needs a name. Why do editors single out your least favorite submission when fellow poets, your teachers, and critics (who may or may not know you) zero in on the best ones right away? Is this a "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Come On-a My House" thing, where the artist freaks because his lamest song becomes the biggest hit?
In my case, I notice "they" "almost always" select the shortest of the poems I send, and then they always want changes in it. Either that, or it will appear with a typo or misprint (most recently: "indefinitely" instead of "infinitely"). It seems to be a joke that the universe plays on poets. But I say that only because otherwise I must conclude it's a joke poets play on themselves.
"That happens to me, too!"
"They never take what I think are my best poems!"
"They took the one I sent as 'filler'!"
"I sent that one just to patronize them, and that's the one they printed!"
"They always do that!"
This phenomenon needs a name. Why do editors single out your least favorite submission when fellow poets, your teachers, and critics (who may or may not know you) zero in on the best ones right away? Is this a "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Come On-a My House" thing, where the artist freaks because his lamest song becomes the biggest hit?
In my case, I notice "they" "almost always" select the shortest of the poems I send, and then they always want changes in it. Either that, or it will appear with a typo or misprint (most recently: "indefinitely" instead of "infinitely"). It seems to be a joke that the universe plays on poets. But I say that only because otherwise I must conclude it's a joke poets play on themselves.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Publishing Opportunities
Doubts about the value of my work tend to snake up on me in February, and last year I seized a whole day by the throat, 23 February, and sent piles of manuscripts to places likely to want them. My results were quite good. To help find places that might want my work, I visited websites such as these:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CRWROPPS-B/ - Updated Daily
My favorite. Moderated by poet Alison Joseph of SIU-Carbondale. Sample item: "CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Bone Bouquet seeks to publish the best new writing by female poets, from artists both established and emerging. We are especially. . ."
http://www.pw.org/classifieds - Updated Bimonthly
Sample item: "EKPHRASIS, a biannual journal, seeking poems, each based on a single work of art. Free or formal verse considered. No simultaneous submissions. Previously published OK if credited. . ."
www.litmags.org (Don't use their search boxes; they don't work. Click on "List All Mags" at the top, and go from there.) - New mags listed almost daily
Sample: "A Thousand Faces is the quarterly journal of superhuman fiction. Published four times a year simultaneously online and in print, A Thousand Faces is the next step in the evolution of the superhero genre. . ."
http://www.winningwriters.com (If you are into contests.) Register to look at the free-contest database. Be sure to click on the Month with the deadlines you want or it will show only January.
Sample: "Free contest offers decent-sized prizes and web publication for creative travel essays about living and working abroad. Enter online only. . ."
Good luck!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CRWROPPS-B/ - Updated Daily
My favorite. Moderated by poet Alison Joseph of SIU-Carbondale. Sample item: "CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Bone Bouquet seeks to publish the best new writing by female poets, from artists both established and emerging. We are especially. . ."
http://www.pw.org/classifieds - Updated Bimonthly
Sample item: "EKPHRASIS, a biannual journal, seeking poems, each based on a single work of art. Free or formal verse considered. No simultaneous submissions. Previously published OK if credited. . ."
www.litmags.org (Don't use their search boxes; they don't work. Click on "List All Mags" at the top, and go from there.) - New mags listed almost daily
Sample: "A Thousand Faces is the quarterly journal of superhuman fiction. Published four times a year simultaneously online and in print, A Thousand Faces is the next step in the evolution of the superhero genre. . ."
http://www.winningwriters.com (If you are into contests.) Register to look at the free-contest database. Be sure to click on the Month with the deadlines you want or it will show only January.
Sample: "Free contest offers decent-sized prizes and web publication for creative travel essays about living and working abroad. Enter online only. . ."
Good luck!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Split Oak Press
Split Oak Press, new in Ithaca, NY, is looking for poetry manuscripts. See the Split Oak Press website here. Thanks to Anthony Di Renzo for the tip.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Your Future Holds Many Many Chapbooks
Every poet’s got a chapbook, is making one, is competing to publish one – and is showing us the future. Readers want
Q. But will people download poetry chapbooks?
A. I think they will. I’d rather pay $9.95 and see half of that $9.95 going to the poet. Easy to make a PDF of a pretty chapbook. It'd cost nothing to add a sound file, too, so one can hear the poet read a few poems. In the chilly electronic cocoons that we're spinning for ourselves so that we can't be hurt, we're going to be craving more truth and intimacy. Poetry will fill the need.
I’d only miss getting the poet’s autograph and smile.
- short
- intimate
- prettily designed
- highly portable and
- cheaply-had books. Chapbooks seem disposable because they seem slight; but then they’re not so disposable, because they’re usually not worth the trouble to re-sell.
Q. But will people download poetry chapbooks?
A. I think they will. I’d rather pay $9.95 and see half of that $9.95 going to the poet. Easy to make a PDF of a pretty chapbook. It'd cost nothing to add a sound file, too, so one can hear the poet read a few poems. In the chilly electronic cocoons that we're spinning for ourselves so that we can't be hurt, we're going to be craving more truth and intimacy. Poetry will fill the need.
I’d only miss getting the poet’s autograph and smile.
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