Given how little I've been writing during pandemic-times (let alone even considering submitting!) I certainly had to steel myself in order to print off the 33 poems that fell under my topic and then tackle to mighty task of sorting and culling them. I was only allowed 15-30 poems according to Rattle Poetry Prize guidelines - and please note here that submission guidelines are sacrosanct - they are the law we, the published writers live by.
Two hours later, I had a manuscript. Yes, a collection that I'd ordered and reordered; pulled poems from and then added back; a grouping that I'd sat on the floor and read out loud to myself. In short, I had a mocked-up cover and 28 climate-change poems that I was proud of. Three had been previously published (Canada, U.S.A., Ireland) so an acknowledgement page was required. This process took longer than dropping each electronic copy into the word.doc and much longer than the process of using the services of Submittable to enter my work before the approaching deadline. I've taken a leap. Used skills acquired over the past decade. Sent work out into the greater world that would otherwise languish on my computer. In short, I've been bold! And now I wait (until April). I never have any positive expectations (always assuming I won't succeed) so that I can be astonishingly, pleasantly surprised if (indeed) I do (fingers crossed). Hope you can take a brave step forward in your writing or submitting? Here's power to you!
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It's the New Year. And I've spent months and months working my lists of knit apparel, but not done very much writing. Now it's time to whip those lazy, disused muscles that I flexed compiling my first and second poetry collections together in order to gather enough for a chapbook to submit to Rattle Magazine's Prize (https://www.rattle.com/ chapbooks/prize/)...due-date January 15th. Yikes! That's sooner than it feels in cover-time! As some might know, I've been writing climate change poetry (among other things) these past few years. I needed to skulk though my computer files, seeking out potential candidates from my published file, ready-for-submission file as well as those raw-writing pieces in my WIP file. This list is long enough to more than suffice for the 15-30 poem guidelines dictated by the publication. Now comes the rigorous selection process (always a hard thing to do when evaluating your own work!) List made - printing out the batch, tomorrow. I have an expansive tabletop just waiting to be covered with paper. Then comes the ordering, reordering, culling, keeping? I'll keep you posted on my journey over the next week or so. Here's me, wrapped in one of my latest keep-warm creations (designed by a South American designer, Joji Locatelli). As long as I can satiate the cravings for colour in my life, perhaps the winter won't seem so long. Wish me luck... |
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August 2023
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