Oct 12 2008
Poetry Submissions - What Not To Do
I publish a triannual ezine and receive hundreds of submissions per year. The guidelines for submissions are very clear and concise. First we only accept email submissions because it is an ezine. Second we only accept three poems per submission.
Recently I received a submission by snail mail which consisted of fourteen typewritten poems. The submission was from a very well known poet. I won’t mention names here. I emailed the poet, thanked her for her submission and explained we do not accept snail mail submissions or submissions exceeding the 3 poem limit and told her to read our guidelines. The next day I receive an email submission with 12 poems, a bio, and publication credits. Okay, by this time I was very annoyed. I wrote back and again asked her to read our guidelines. Next day, she wrote a short note asking me “don’t you recognize my name?” I had to laugh at that one. I wrote back and explained that it didn’t really matter who she was and that the guidelines apply to all whether you are well known or not. Long story short a couple of days later I received another submission from her following the guidelines to the letter.So, in closing, don’t do what this poet did. Follow guidelines because they are there for a reason and the editor will be happy you did. Also, never let your ego take over when submitting poetry.
More about my ezine tomorrow as I’ll be making an offer to all of you writers and artists out there
Time for me to catch some zzz’s
It is important no matter what kind of work you are submitting to always follow submission guidelines to the letter. I don’t know how many times I have heard that is an editor’s biggest pet peeve, and that they will send the work back without looking at it.
http://startwriting.today.com/
I believe that what happens in your bedroom should stay in your bedroom. Whose business is it which acts you and your partner participate in as long as you are both consenting adults? With the state of the world today society trying to manage two people who love one another is ridiculous- if they put as much energy in some of the other issues perhaps we would be living in a different world.
LMAO @ “don’t you recognize my name.” As if that means you can just gloss over rules & regulations.
Just my opinion, but I would also advise not blogging about people’s errors so that anyone–even themselves–can recognise who is being discussed as a negative example. I will assume this example is anonymised.
Thanks for commenting and yes it is anonymised.