This month another new literary zine has come to my attention. A Swift Exit is an online poetry magazine that is currently advertising its submission call for Issue 1 and 2. Check the details on their site as the issues may be themed.
I’m glad that more poetry and fiction zines are starting up amidst the closure of some long-established print markets.
Continue reading
This month I’ve got a lot on my plate elsewhere, so just doing a little check-in with all you readers, writers and editors to give you an update.
A lot to contend with – miniatures painted and decorated by Leilanie Stewart
Those of you who have sent books/ magazines for review…you haven’t been forgotten! I will get round to reading and reviewing your work as soon as I can, though it might take a couple of months. Thanks for sending your poetry pamphlet/magazine issue and novel for consideration.
Readers & writers, I’ll post more competitions when I can get my head out of the sand. Or maybe the sand out of my head.
If only a writer could live in a world where other earthly matters didn’t exist…how much brain power would be freed up to write? It could be scary!
My poetess heroine versus the world in the latest instalment: The Proletarian Poet part 3 – It’s not a hobby!
Enjoy 😄
[Updated 15 August 2018: At the time this post was written in 2015, the Melita Hume Prize was free to enter. In 2018 there is now a submission charge. Please note that at the time Leilanie Stewart was longlisted for the Melita Hume Prize in 2014, and Joseph Robert longlisted for the Melita Hume Prize in 2015, there were no submission fees to enter.]
This week my poet and writer hubby, Joseph Robert, received word that his poetry collection has been longlisted for the Melita Hume poetry prize 2015. It’s obvious that as one half of a writing couple I’m super proud of him, but the news deserves a space here too!
For those who don’t know about it, the Melita Hume prize is a poetry competition run by Eyewear Publishing for poets under 35 years old who have compiled a book-length poetry collection. This year the first place winner will get £1500 and will find out by June 2015.
Keep reading for updates!
Yesteryear, dinosaurs and poetry…another strange video which I actually recorded in June last year and only just dug out of the archive. Soon to be republished as a bonus poem in A Model Archaeologist (Eyewear Publishing 2015) and first published in Weyfarers Issue 110 (Guildford Poets Press 2011).
This month my hubby poet, Joseph Robert’s poem – Morning Song – appears in Walking Is Still Honest magazine (WISH). What a great way to kick off the long bank holiday weekend…another publication for us to celebrate!
Here is my latest comic strip chapter in the saga of a starving artist. What will the world heap upon the weary poet’s shoulders this time?
Novel research
This month, I’m very excited to have finished the final draft of my second novel. It’s a fantasy novel this time, the idea for which I got in the summer of 2013. After a week of research, I wrote the first draft in a month during my summer holiday break from the secondary school where I worked. In total I wrote 3 drafts as follows:
Draft 1: getting the basic plot & characterisation in a comprehensible story
Last month I reviewed Ken W Simpson’s poetry collection, Patterns of Perception on my blog. This month my review has been published in the March issue of Ashvamegh magazine. Ken has had much success with his new collection and I hope his promotion work continues to bring his poetry to a wider audience all over the world.
Zen Dog – copyright Edward Monkton
During the past month I have contributed to editing and selecting poems for publication in Ashvamegh. Although I have previously edited anthologies of poetry by young people for publication, joining the editorial board of Ashvamegh has been a new experience in terms of reading and editing work by adults.
Simon Robson’s latest pamphlet, Puerto De La Cruz at 50, offers a variation on his last holiday-themed pamphlet, Marakech A-ha, which I reviewed last year. The travel observations of people, place and culture are present, as before, though the tone of the pamphlet is different. Here, Robson not only explores a journey abroad, but a journey through middle-age. The traveller seeks a quiet atmosphere; a sleepy town and a hotel tucked away up a mountainside where even the volcanoes sleep. Noisy young couples bring unwelcome distraction forcing the poet to reflect wistfully on his holiday alone:
Leilanie Stewart 