Poetry Monday: Tincture Journal

The acceptance for publication in Tincture Issue 11 was probably the best acceptance I’ve ever received.  It not only came within a day of my submission, but in addition to a very warm acceptance, poetry editor Stuart Barnes said something to me along the lines of: “I’ve been re-reading Quark Soup, and was hoping you’d submit.”  I know another more well-known poet used to such accolades would not be so ecstatic by the idea of someone re-reading my first traditionally published chapbook (Picaro Press - who have have kept it “in-stock” all these years), but I don’t often hear the phrase “re-reading Quark Soup”, much less in conjunction with “hoping you’d submit.” 

Barnes is no slouch as a poet himself.  After being a runner up last year, he’s just won this year’s Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for his manuscript The Staysails, which will be published by the University of Queensland Press in 2016.  I intend to grab a copy as soon as it becomes available (I’ve read many of the Shapcott award books and they’ve been, without exception, superb), and I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels personal pride at Stuart’s well-deserved win. The poetry world is a small one, and one of the things I like best about it is that poets tend, in the main, to support one another through reading each other’s work, publishing, reviewing, and promoting, and above all, connecting over it. Despite the solitary nature of the writing process, there’s something particularly communal about poetry, perhaps because it allows such deep and instant insight into emotion, meaning, and beauty, converging the personal with the universal.

Small journals tend to encourage the communal response, and Tincture does it particularly well.  It’s impeccably edited, beautifully presented (a perfect example of how electronic media should be presented), and offers a wide range of carefully curated work: poetry and prose, fiction, nonfiction, interviews.  Issue Eleven, which I’m reading right now, is Kindle or iPad friendly (so you can carry it with you), easy to read (while, for example, waiting for the dentist and other otherwise lost moments), and basically wonderful. I’m proud to have my work published alongside such company.   You can buy a copy of Issue Eleven for just $A8.00 (on today’s xe that’s 5.70usd - such a bargain) here:
http://tincture-journal.com/buy-a-tincture/

The View From Here makes an agreement with top houses

In what's got to be an incredible first, online literary magazine The View From Here has signed an agreement with 14 highly regarded publishing houses including Random House Bloomsbury and Penguin Books.

Under the Publishers' View Agreement The View From Here will work with key people in the industry from around the world to help publishers identify fresh new talent.

"We look forward to working more closely with The View from Here, a creative, forward-thinking magazine that will help us spot and promote new talent."
Alessandro Gallenzi – Publisher and Managing Director, Alma Books

Each publisher has entered into an agreement whereby they will appoint a key member of their staff to read the printed edition of The View From Here every month, with a view to looking for talent they'd be interested in working with. The Publisher's that have entered into the agreement are:

UK: Random House, Bloomsbury, Canongate, Penguin Books, Fourth Estate, Faber & Faber, Little Brown Book Group, Legend Press, Alma Books and Tindal Street Press
USA: Unbridled Books and Milkweed Editions
Australia: Text Publishing and Allen & Unwin

Mike French, the Senior Editor of the magazine, said, " We want to build on our reputation for championing and encouraging the best emerging writers and poets and the Publishers' View Agreement gives us the means to achieve that. Historically, literary magazines have been a way for talented writers to get their work out there and get noticed by Publishing Houses but we wanted to build on this and have a clear structured channel so this process wasn't left to chance."

In a climate where literary consultants advise writers to avoid the slush pile at all costs this is a new and exciting way to get noticed. And unlike many routes to bypass the slush pile, it doesn't involve hours of networking every day to get noticed and more importantly the process does not take a fee from authors at any stage of getting their work infront of the editors, and in some cases, directors of the publishing houses. In a climate where access to those with influence normally comes with a price tag ( literary consultancies will often take a cut from an author's advance if they represent them ) the Publishers' View Agreement means effective help for writers without seeing them as a source of income. And as the majority of writers earn comparatively little we believe this is a socially responsible scheme.

If you're a writer and are interested (and if you're a writer, you should be interested!) then visit The View From Here's submissions page:
http://www.viewfromheremagazine-submissions.com