Misc magazine bits
Frogpond, a favourite haiku magazine, sent an encouraging and instructive note yesterday. Yes, a rejection, but I was still thrilled to get it. I'm in fact as heartened by an encouraging suggestion from them as an acceptance from tinywords. They say in part: "Further simplification, images with fewer components, is what we would be looking for. We look forward to publishing some of your work soon."
Today I got a note from Grain reminding me they don't read in the summer. Shoot! And I knew that! Well, I now have eight first-rate poems to go begging for a home. (I sent six to Grain, but have one that didn't fit with that batch, and a new one.) I think I will break them into two batches, and round each out a little with the "you never know" poems. Now, where to send them?
Amazing how tempting it is to spend the afternoon on the submissions. Must resist and do either a) actual writing, or b) freelance stuff that pays.
(Thinking of Frogpond's note brings to mind some unsolicited poetry publication advice: I know many writers -- particularly beginning writers -- are put off by suggestions from editors. Well, editors can be as wrong-headed as anyone else, but when they take a moment to jot a note to you, be flattered at least. Of the hundreds of things in their pile, they have taken a moment and another moment to read and read and read yours, and to answer it, somehow. This is a Considerable Thing. Honour it and take it seriously.)
3 Comments
It’s so true re: editors! Having spent a significant portion of my life over the past four years hip-deep in the slush pile, I can vouch for the fact that if I’ve taken the time to actually write a note, any note, on the reject slip, I’ve genuinely found the work intriguing/compelling and my efforts to encourage the author are quite sincere. Plus, it seems that rejections can occur for a myriad of reasons even when an editor is quite taken with a piece … perhaps it’s just not quite right for the magazine, or perhaps it simply won’t fit well/mesh with the rest of the issue, or perhaps the editor just hasn’t quite fallen into the groove of how to read a particular author’s work just yet due to only a single (or very limited) exposure. Ah . .. the submissions game!
True, true, true, yea verily.
Here’s my little add on: I like SASEs, even though we at the New Quarterly will reply by e-mail at request. I often scribble a little something on poems while the slush pile is spread out everywhere. I can’t afford the time to re-type the jottings into e-mail, even on those occasions when they might make sense without the little arrows into the poem. So if you, like me, live in hope of a mere scribble from someone in an editor hat, consider splurging on stamps.
Oh, and by the way, I trade Canadian Stamps for American, British, Australian, and South African. Write to me! Help me defeat IRCs!
Erin, as the new caretaker of the salt and light web ring I have corrected your URL at the ring admin and home page.
But to remain a member of the ring I need you to CORRECT the ring home page in the ring code on your page. I am going to email that to you and then you or James need to copy it into your html at the place you want the ring to appear.
OK? OK :)
thrive!, O