Submit Your Darlings

In the summer, and with school out, and my writing schedule eaten up - I love turning to shorter work, stories, poems, hybrid tales that are neither one or the other. There are plenty of places to send work at the moment. I posted previously about submitting to magazines  (and must update the list of Irish magazines - they've tripled in the past few years, a really good sign.) 

Words Ireland have a good list of magazines HERE. In the meantime, Mslexia are currently inviting submissions from women writers for their showcase section. They want stories of up to 2,200 words, poems of up to 40 lines, and short scripts of up to 1,000 words. 

The themes are...

Issue 76: YESTERYEAR
It’s often said that the past is another country. For this theme we invite you to take your imagination on a journey to history or prehistory and tell us about the poignant, tragic or amazing people and events you discovered there.  CLOSING DATE: 4 September 2017

Issue 77: BEWITCHED
For this theme we’re look for stories and poems with a mythical, mystical or paranormal aspect to them. So channel your inner Rowling and Pullman and open the door to daemons, dungeons and dragons.  CLOSING DATE: 4 December 2017

Submitting your work

Entries are judged anonymously, so please put your name on a separate cover sheet and omit your name from your poem or story. To send us your submissions online, fill in the form below and upload your submission document .

To send your entries by post, write to
Mslexia Publications
PO Box 656
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE99 1PZ.

For more info click HERE

Strokestown International Poetry Competition

Nearing the end of my novel, soon. A few more weeks, I hope! Its been a long haul. It helps that the short people are back at school, though they'll have almost seven weeks of 'off days' (between holy days, bank holidays, and religious festivals etc...) this year....so better keep my head down -  but in the meantime - Poetry... The 2017 Strokestown International Poetry Festival Competition is open for entries. I went to this festival a few years ago and had a ball, it was great crack, very fine poetry and even a guided mountain climb. There'll be a festival anthology this year - in which shortlisted entrants will feature alongside the work of the judges and other poets. Shortlisted poets for each of these competitions will also be asked to read a selection of their poems as part of the festival, and will receive a reading fee of €200. Closing date:  2^nd December, 2016. For details, rules and entry forms see Here Good luck if you enter :)

Magma Competition 2012

Louise Brooks.
No connection to the post, just a fascinating image!

Magma Poetry Magazine has a different editor for every issue, and is well worth checking out. There are two prizes and a few weeks to the deadline...

Magma Judge’s Prize
For a poem of 11 to 80 lines. All poem entries of 11 to 80 lines will be entered for the Judge’s Prize which this year will be judged by award-winning poet Gillian Clarke. First Prize £500, Second £200, Third £100

Magma Editors’ Prize
This celebrates the short poem and is open to poems of up to 10 lines. First prize £500, Second £200, Plus 10 Special Mentions £10 each. All 15 winners will have their poems published in our Spring Issue 2013 and be invited to read alongside Gillian Clarke at Magma’s prize-giving event early next year.

Competition Entry Period: 16 October 2012 to 16 December 2012
 Your poem(s) will need to be attached in a Word document.  Once you have completed the entry form and attached your poems you will be directed to make your secure online payment via PayPal or by credit card.  Click here to complete online entry form Entries are also welcome by post until 16 December

Postal entry forms can be downloaded here.
Fees: £5 per poem or £15 for four poems

Full Rules for the Competition are found here.

Some words from the judge:
'I will read the poems in the shortening days, light fading as it does this November afternoon until I must switch on the light to continue. As always, the poems will drift into three piles on the table: Yes, No, and Maybe. The ‘No’s form by far the biggest pile. ‘Maybe’ makes the medium pile. A quiet ‘maybe’ can sometimes move at subsequent readings to the ‘yes’ pile, and even win. A ‘no’ never wins. In the ‘yes’ pile, smallest of all, every poem rings true and sings with a distinct voice. Any one of them might win. The ‘no’ category is the easiest to decide.  Something in the language from the very first line fails to convince, the use of a cliché, an archaism, a false note, an over-elaboration, an abstraction, is the instant decider. It is often clear that this is the first poem the author has ever written. Sometimes, possessed by powerful emotion, the writer imagines that is enough. However sad the autobiography or passionate the love, a poem without the music and truth of a real poet’s voice is strangely un-moving. It is not its author’s pain or passion that moves us, but the language that carries it, the cadence. We are moved by the way language itself moves.

I was recently called upon to respond briefly to a comparison between the poetry of Wilfred Owen and a new anthology of verse by soldiers and their families written today. Although I believe that we all have something to say, and that poetry is for everyone, I must admit the verse in the anthology was rarely close to being poetry.  Sincerity is not enough. Although the soldiers’ pain was real, not a line remained to sing in the mind. Owen’s words, read once, are unforgettable almost a century after he wrote them. He was to die days before the war ended, but it is not his tragedy that endures but his poetry. Like soldiers today, his experience of war was real and raw, but his rage, his pain, his pity and his love live in the voice of his poetry.

In a competition judge’s ‘yes’ pile are poems with that special quality, the poet’s ‘voice’. They ring true and the reader is at once convinced. It’s like taste, where sweet, savoury, salt or sour create an instant, physical response. You don’t have to be a poet to recognise it. Your mind knows it for the real thing, and will not let it go.'

The Galway Review Wants You

Here's a call for submission from The Galway Review for their print anthology coming out in January 2013. This printed and bound work will be the  first print venture for The Galway Review -

To submit simply send poems, reviews, short stories, or journals tothegalwayreview@gmail.com with ‘Anthology Submission’ in the subject field. Please send your writings within the body of the email and attach the photographs as jpegs. We can’t wait to see your work! Please keep your submissions clear and sharp. 

Remember  that:

• readers who lack your particular background, may need a simple and clear context;
• the writings ought to make sense to readers anywhere in the world, not just to your own self.

If you want to bounce an idea off the editor before you write it up, then please do. Just get in touch, we at The Galway Review would be happy to help! 

Our deadline is December 1st 2012 – that gives you loads of time.

By supporting The Galway Review you are supporting creativity. We provide a platform for showcasing incredibly talented writers and photographers in Galway.

The Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize 2012

 

Just in from the Moth Magazine - The Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize 2012 is officially launched! The first prize is €5,000 (!) plus two nights B&B for two (including one evening meal). The second and third prizes are €1,000 and €500 respectively. 

 

The judge this year is Leontia Flynn, winner of a Forward Prize for Best First Collection and a Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. You can enter as many poems as you like. It costs €6 per poem (or €7.50 per poem if you're sending a money order).

You can enter online via the website or send your entries to:

The Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize
c/o The Moth
The Bog Road
Dromard
Cavan
Co. Cavan
Ireland

The closing date is 31 December 2012.Thats plenty of time to get writing, and its international too, open to anyone, anywhere...and the new edition of the Moth looks gorgeous!