Historically speaking the usual way to
have your poetry accepted for publication in Scribble on the Net or The
Nexus Collection, is to be discovered in either Scribble the Fido Net Echo
or in Wordlovers the eGroup.
Because I have a wide variety of interests I tend
to amble about the net as in real life seeking whom I may devour - no wait
- that's someone else ! What I do is to pounce on morsels of verse or poetry
that appeal to me and seem not to be published. So the second way to be
published in our e-zine anthology is to be asked. hinted at or manipulated
into, sharing your work.
The third way is to submit your work via e-mail
to either
SCRIBBLER
or THE EDITOR
The Scribbler deals with the main Scribble site,
The Editor with 'The Collection'. The rules are however the same.
I prefer to read your poems in text format.
Please keep the setting out as plain as you can
- I enjoy illustrations but they are almost always impossible to import
into html unless they are in jpeg or gif form - and we need to be able
to load pages smoothly and efficiently so there is a size restriction too.
Please tell me who you are. I find it very frustrating
to read a fine poem and have not the slightest idea where it came from
or what I am allowed to do with it. Include your name - and your permission
to publish - if possible on the poem itself. I prefer to find the poem
or poems in the text of the email unless you are sending me seventy at
a time.
Please include a note of the nation you represent.
I am more than happy to publish you as Tainui, Takutimi, Cherokee, or Australian,
Scots, or Czech. If you are expatriot I'm pleased to take note of that
also. I do not necessarily want your family tree - though I find such things
fascinating - but if you are McArthur of McArthur - or Speaker to the Interior
I'ld be sure to take a bit of notice. Profession is also interesting..
I also enjoy having a list of your accomplishments.
This does not have to be in good english. Published: 1978, Journal of Thieves
and misdemeanours, winner Prize Chump 1989 - and so on. Or even - nothing
so far I'm still submitting to Punch and getting no where. Mother of five
certainly 'counts'. If your entry appears in the Indices this guarantees
that you will have a little more attention than 'e-mail'.
Some submissions are in themselves a work of art.
Everyone knows this lightens an editor's heart. I do like to know before
hand that a poem is what is coming down however, so it is a good idea to
put in your header *Submission for Scribble*: *Submission for Nexus* -
*Poem - for publication ?* or something of that sort. 'Cheers!' conveys
nothing more than a vague unease in my mind, and Hi there ! suggests that
someone is about to tell me about a wonderful deal or a car which i might
win if only my address were somewhere to the right of the Pacific Ocean.
'My little Black Spot' may be a fine title for your poem - but should I
find it as a header to an e-mail I'm inclined to wonder if the spam spawn
has found me again with an offer of free laundry detergent. This
delays my inclination to read and may even lead to the extinction of your
fine work from my letter box without so much as a cursory editorial glance.
I do not (terribly) want to visit your web page
in order to find your poem. You've already published it, and I'm sure you've
done a fine job. However, put your url at the bottom of your email and
even if it has nothing to do with poetry I'm almost bound to visit. Meanwhile,
I have a family which is only too happy to keep my training in 'fetch'
up to competition standard. I need no future practice thank you very much.
That's all that I can think of at present. No one
has truly irritated me for so long that I'm dittering for want of
matter.
Quite simply: neat and tidy is beautiful. Great
spelling and grammar are also enticements to read on. Persuade me at least
that your spelling is intentional and your lack of punctuation intended
to suggest layered meanings in my mind by being tidy in your layout and
you are half way there.
Finally - unless I think of something else before
I click 'save' and exit - there are now so many submissions to the Scribble
and Nexus sites that only the very best can be accepted, and some of the
best don't make it instantaneously either.
Let that encourage you to try however ! Go for it.
Send me your work. Give your creative soul a chance. I'm convinced that
each of us has at least one perfect poem in us. But not all good poets
have - the muse - the tone of consistent outstanding writing. And not all
good poets write good poems all the time. There are big names here,
they didn't start out that way, and there are names no one ever heard of
attached to poems about which we receive countless letters of praise. We
have one poem poets and prolific authors. There are even poets who have
gone on to greater and better things, not currently being exhibited at
all. We found them First !!
Be warned. There may be a long silence. I like to
chew on poems for a while and I don't always get them published all that
quickly. For some reason I never seem to have all that much time left over
to write letters. But sooner or later you will hear..
sincerely
Alys
