Sturgeon's Law

So as a nice surprise on my birthday yesterday, I found out my poem "Sturgeon's Law" will be appearing in the next issue of Court Green. That's another of the fun journals I've really wanted to get into, so hurray!

Labels: journals, poetry, publication

...for a journal to say they wouldn't publish poems that had been posted to online workshops, given that:

• Those poems are drafts that are almost always changed by the time they go out seeking publication.
• Good online workshops are search-engine-resistant.
• Good online workshops flush their old drafts after a fairly short amount of time.
  
• Most online workshops at least allow the poet to go back and delete the draft prior to submission or publication.
  
• Regardless of the limitless potential audience of the Internet, most online workshops have an actual audience well under 100.
• Most online workshop denizens are prone to posting about when and where their work is appearing, which will increase the profile of the journal, not hurt it.

I understand the desire to print(/upload) previously unpublished material: it's the desire for a scoop, and it also helps more non-name poets get published. But a "no online workshops" or "no blog drafts" rule doesn't fit that desire, plus is silly and unenforceable.

Seems to me a better rule would be "nothing I can find by Googling." This would allow posting and subsequent deletion of drafts on blogs, and posting to online workshops, but prevent "permanent" posting on personal websites and other such things the editors might not like. I've even printed a few Googlable poems in The Eleventh Muse because they were good poems--can't say that it hurt the journal's reputation or sales.

Labels: poetry, publication, workshops

Back from the mountains. My poem "Book Attacks" has been accepted for publication by Cimarron Review. More forthcoming.

Labels: poetry, publication

Won't you go and sign up for the Publication Database? It's up to 107 entries now. If you e-mail and let me know you signed up, I'll upgrade your account so you can add journals.

Labels: poetry, publication

Have you editors out there ever been looking at a journal and seen a poem you were really close to taking for your own journal, and you're glad it found a good home, and maybe you feel a little regretful that you didn't publish it?

Here's one. Here's another (the third one). And this.

Labels: poetry, publication

As I've already told a few people, this 2007 Eleventh Muse is going to be my last as editor. I got tired of all the fundraising I have to do, and I need a break from it in general. If you have a submission outstanding with the Muse, that's in the backlog for the interim editors to look at. I'd like to thank all the officers and members of Poetry West, and all the assistant editors, for their support. Also, thank you to the many great poets who sent work. If I get back into editing, it'll probably be something online--the wider potential audience with lower overhead, and the opportunity for more innovation, seem like great ideas to me.

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I found out that my chapbook manuscript, Torched Verse Ends, was one of the finalists in the recent MiPOesias open chapbook reading period. Congratulations to the winner, Christine Hamm's excellently titled Children Having Trouble with Meat.

Labels: poetry, publication, The Eleventh Muse