Contest Still Open

We seem to have been on a bit of a posting hiatus lately, but we're back!


Our poetry chapbook contest is still open. Details. We've received dozens of entries so far and are purging them of identifiers for our readers, and piling them up. Everyone who has submitted to the contest so far seems to have followed our guidelines. I only want to mention three things, though.

1) this is a chapbook contest, so keep the collection short

2) it helps if you actually give your collection some sort of thought. Throwing some poems together and not titling it makes it seem like you have not put much effort into it - as a collection.

3) remember who you are sending the collection to. Don't call us by a different company name or write the wrong title of the collection on your introductory letter.


Aside from that, keep the submissions coming. We appreciate a challenge. The better the writing, the more difficult the decision.

Spring cleaning in the brain

One of our daily press priorities is upkeeping our web presence. Whether it's working on the website, updating our blog, maintaining our social networking sites,or searching the website for other opportunities, we frequent the internet. It can be at the expense of other tasks, depending on what needs to be done. And it always comes at the expense of our own creative outlet. I can manage to work for an hour or two every few weekends. But more often than not, it's clic clic clic-di di di- cli cli, keyboard tapping for the press.

As a trained visual artist I can work in a number of media, but I often resort to collage because it's portable, fast, and doesn't need to dry. I used to paint fairly often; I haven't in three years. I used to draw, weekly at least; now twice a year is a good record for me. It's all pretty much been replaced by drag-and-drop and clic clic clic.

The point of all this is that it's good once in a while to return to an old-used method. Step away from the computer and television screen. I know it can be distracting to have no distractions, but do it anyway. Now, just spend some time with yourself, even if you don't actually make anything new. You need to have some alone time, unplugged from the internet world.

I'm no Ted Kaczynski. I think that the computer can be very useful.

Yesterday while waiting at the bus, I was listening to a little girl try to recall the names of Santa's reindeer with her dad. She couldn't think of them all. She avowed, "when I get home I'm gonna type into the computer 'Santa's reindeer names' and see what they are.'" It's a handy thing, the internet. But it can be white noise too.

So spend some time with a pen. Focus on your own mental distractions for an hour or two. It's refreshing and it's good for your work and yourself.

this is the sort of project we seek

Katy made this small "art book" a few years ago, and Tom Tavenner put it up as a flipbook, it's the sort of project that we seek as a Press. Katy's little book

Into the home stretch

It's almost mid-February and we are rounding the final turn, heading into the home stretch for our 2009 poetry chapbook contest. It's exciting for us as we will soon be publishing yet another NEW book (which we thrive to do). I am one of the readers but as this is a blind submission process, only Kate (the non-poet) actually sees all the raw submissions before dividing up the stacks and sending them off to our various readers, who then send their favorites to our JUDGE. This year that would be Deborah Ager of 32 poems magazine.