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

THE CREATIVE FLOW

Here's a nice opportunity for short story writers and poets. 

Dundalk FM100 is open for submission, they are looking for original short stories and poems for their programme, 'The Creative Flow'. Send...
 

Short stories (between 1500/1800 words) typed in double space
Poetry submissions (between 3  & 5 poems.) 

The authors will get to read their work, and should be available for interview during the programme. 

Send submissions to jacinta@dundalkfm.com or hand a hard copy into the station reception.

The Stony Thursday Book

The Stony Thursday Book, one of Irelands longest running journals,  is seeking poetry submissions from local, national and international poets for its next issue. Submissions are being sought in both English and Irish.

How to Submit:
- Each poet should send no more than 6 poems.
- Submitted poems must be previously unpublished.
- Submissions are being accepted by email and by post.
- When submitting poems in hardcopy please write your name and address on     each page. Please mark envelopes: ‘The Stony Thursday Book 2014’.
- When submitting by email please reference ‘TSTB 2014’ in your subject line.

Send poems to:
The Stony Thursday Book 2014, Arts Office, Limerick City & County Council, City Hall, Merchant’s Quay, Limerick
Or by email to: artsoffice@limerick.ie 

Closing Date for Submissions: Friday 8th August 2014

 Note on the Editor:
This year's editor is Peter Sirr. Peter has published eight collections of poetry with Gallery Press, including The Thing Is, 2009, winner of the Michael Hartnett Award, and a Selected Poems, 2005, also published in the US by Wake Forest University Press. He is also active as an editor, critic and translator. He has written drama and columns for radio, and Black Wreath, his first children’s novel will be published by the Irish publisher O’Brien Press in 2014. Currently, as well as writing, he teaches Literary Translation in Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of Aosdána.

Abridged - In Blue

Yves Klein

Abridged 0 – 34: In Blue Submission Call

Abridged, the poetry/art magazine is looking for submissions for its In Blue issue. 

A maximum of 3 poems may be submitted of any length. (I love that its any length, the usual 40 line limit can be a pain for the long winded amongst us.)

Art can be up to A4 size and can be in any media. It should be at least 300 dpi. 

Submissions can (preferably) be emailed to abridged@ymail.com 

or posted to: Abridged c/o The Verbal Arts Centre, Stable Lane and Mall Wall, Bishop Street Within, Derry BT48 6PU. Closing date for submission is 30th September 2013.

'This issue encourages the consideration of the vital connotations of the concept of ‘blue’ to the human condition and the individual’s contemplation of place, purpose, self and essence. The strong association of the colour blue with the natural (the sea and sky), the broken (melancholy) and the forbidden (pornography) have led to said colour concurrently evoking ideas of apparent wholesomeness, failure and seedy delinquency. Blue runs underneath us and domes above us; it is what bore us and what we aspire through imagination to return to: another dimension, another means of perceiving, breathing, moving, experiencing… It is the colour of the most subtle moods of pain, not burning with the disarming immediacy of horror or despair but throbbing in mellow multiplicity and tonal diversity, slowly moving through the depths of reflection. Blue dances with dappled light, altering perception and renewing reflection. In creative discourses we take it from outside us and hold it as our own, making our subtle moods of humanity material by weaving them through its soft, swelling diversity. Blue was our home, to blue we long to return. We wish to wallow in its mellow discontent hoping for a return to the good old days. Days that never did or could have existed: days that define us.

You can find out more HERE

New Online Quarterly

 

The Pickled Body  is a new online poetry magazine.
The theme for issue one is The Red Shoes.

 The call out alone is inspiring  - here's what they have to say....

 

 

'We love Kate Bush’s 1993 album The Red Shoes, inspired by a film we adore, Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 masterpiece – itself inspired by Andersen’s timeless fairytale. Among other things, The Red Shoes explores the conflict between dedicating your life to art and allowing the quotidian world to stop the dance.

 

So we want poems that possess or are possessed. Poems that move, that ache, that vibrate with the same energy as the Powell and Pressburger film or the music of Kate Bush. Poems that ask “have you ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing” (Why Should I Love You?); that say “it’s all right, I’ll come round when you’re not in” (You’re the One); that whisper: “just being alive, it can really hurt” (Moments of Pleasure); that “split me open with devotion” (Eat the Music). Poems that sing powerfully with the fire in your own life when you create, and you find those shoes impossible to take off.

 

You write because you must – but at what cost? Show us what possesses you. Send up to three of your best to thepickledbody@gmail.com by September 30th. As for wearing red shoes while composing – we’d particularly like to receive poems written while wearing nothing else.'

 

 

The Stony Thursday Book...

Wants Your Poems:

'One of the longest running literary journals in Ireland' celebrates its 38th Anniversary Edition this year. The editor is Paddy Bushe.

Submissions in both English and Irish are welcome.

Write your name and address on each page & send no more than 6 poems to: The Stony Thursday Book, The Arts Office, Limerick City Council, Merchant's Quay, Limerick. Or email: artsoffice@limerickcity.ie

The deadline for submissions is Friday 16th August 2013.

Poetry Ireland Introduction Series

Here's an opportunity from Poetry Ireland: The Poetry Ireland Introduction Series showcases emerging talent by offering a paid, public reading to poets working towards a first collection, and with a track record of publication in journals and magazines.

To apply for the Introductions series in Spring 2013, send no more than ten pages of poems and a short biographical note emphasising publication credits to: Introductions, Poetry Ireland, 32 Kildare St, D2

The closing date for receipt of entries is Monday 7 January 2013.

This year Doghouse Books in Co Kerry has agreed to read (without commitment from publisher or poet) the shortlisted Introductions readers, with a view to publishing one full collection within the following year.

Popshot

For an opportunity to have your poems published AND illustrated...this biannual UK based magazine is currently open for submissions. Here's what they have to say...

Each issue of Popshot contains a collection of poems written to a theme. These selected poems are individually sent out to a collection of illustrators who illustrate the poems according to their interpretation of the piece. These illustrations are then bound together with the poems to create a beautiful volume of literary and artistic goodness.
Guidelines: Poems must be 25 lines or less and written to the theme (Power). Send no more than 3 poems. We look for original, succinct, and thought provoking poetry - the kind that will allow our readers to see the subject in a way that they may not have otherwise considered. Poems with a focus on rhythm, repetition and pattern are preferred but this definitely doesn't mean obscure free verse is overlooked. Please include a paragraph or two about yourself, a short description of the poem, why you came to write it, and what it means to you.
Deadline: January 25th 2012 For more info click HERE

Other up coming deadlines include The Ballymaloe Poetry Prize and the Doire Poetry & Fiction Chapbook Competition, and of course, there's something else... something that doesn't involve writing... nah, it's gone. Can't of been that important:)

The Stony Thursday Book

"The Stony Thursday Book is calling for submissions from local, national and international poets for the next issue which will be published in Limerick, Ireland, as part of Cuisle, Limerick City International Poetry Festival* in October 2010. The Stony Thursday Book was founded by Limerick poets John Liddy and Jim Burke in 1975, and has also been edited by Mark Whelan, Kevin Byrne, Patrick Bourke and Knute Skinner and Thomas McCarthy. This year the editor will be Mark Whelan.

The Stony Thursday Book is one of the longest-running literary journals in Ireland and celebrated its 30th Anniversary Edition in 2005.Poetry submissions are now being accepted for issue No. 9 which will be published in October 2010. Closing date for submissions is August 13th 2010. How to submit: Send no more than 6 poems. When submitting poems, write your name and address on each page. Send poems to : The Arts Service, Limerick City Council, City Hall, Merchant's Quay, Limerick. Please mark your envelope: The Stony Thursday Book. Or by email : artsoffice@limerickcity.ie
(you may submit by email in word format with your name and details on each page)
Further information from: The Arts Service, Limerick City Council
Telephone : 061 407363 or 061 407421
*Cuisle, Limerick City International Poetry Festival will take place in
Limerick from 13th - 16th October"

I submitted last year, guess I wasn't successful as the only correspondence I got was an invite to the launch a few weeks after it was over! But what if...
Even so, will submit as it looks like a nice publication, would love to have work published in a fat book for a change (I rush to add that I'm grateful to be published anywhere! Am now bowing graciously to all editors in the universe...)

Can poems/stories published on a personal blog, or group writing blog be submitted as previously unpublished? Mslexia Magazine says, more or less, if your work has been published and been through a selection process, or won a prize - it's not eligible - but posted on a blog seems to be okay for them.
I imagine its the same for most publications, though I think any writing I post and later choose to submit somewhere, I'll save temporarily as a draft until I get invited to the already over launch party...or maybe even...
Will keep the faith, have had a few rejections on the poetry front in the last couple of weeks, enough to make me contrary enough to keep sending them out!