My pet hate

Today, among other things, I've been reading subs for Poetrix, and I was all set to blog about the wonders of discovering the perfect image embedded in a poem, and more on our editorial process, when I came across one of my pet hates. And maybe this is a pet hate because I do the typesetting, and more than once we have been caught out with people who have submitted to multiple publishers, but my pet hate is people who write in their cover letter "...and if I have not heard from you in three months I will feel free to send my work elsewhere". Excuse me while my blood chocolates on the way to boiling. (Old microbiology term -- at around fifty-six degrees C, blood denatures and turns a lovely chocolate colour.)

This particular offender was dated 31 May, so quite possibly the poems I was reading are now doing the rounds somewhere else. I am a writer too, so I know it's a frustrating game of waiting. I get it -- I really do. And I get that some places do hold onto stuff forever -- and perhaps we seem guilty of that too, but the fact remains that every issue has in the prelims our closing dates: 28 February and 31 August. Now, these dates have not changed in the over-ten-years that we have been producing the magazine. We have been very open about how we operate. We do not read submissions as they come in, but pool them and begin reading after the closing date. It's really up to you to find out what those dates are if you want to time limit how long we have to read. It's a fair guess that if you send your work on 31 May, you're not going to make the 28 Feb deadline. And if you're only going to let us hold them three months, then that expires on ... wait for it ... yes, 31 August, which gives us exactly zero days to formulate a response.

We have a committee that reads all poems, which means they have to circulate between at least five of us. Want to keep us to three months? Then try sending just before the closing date. I realise that not everyone can buy a copy of every magazine, but if you're not prepared to do the groundwork, then don't limit time this way. As I said, I get it. But writers need to get that this work we do in bringing out a magazine is a labour of love. We don't get paid for it. We try to break even so the magazine at least pays for itself, but we spend many hours reading and considering submissions, making selections, having editorial meetings, collating work, typesetting, proofreading, sending out acceptances and rejections and then putting it all together and mailing it out to submitters or subscribers. (And my pet love is all our subscribers -- you guys keep us alive, and we really do appreciate that!) We need to streamline our work too. Writers who do time-limit their work may feel they're taking a professional approach, but I see it as someone who either doesn't understand or doesn't care to understand the process. It means that we now have to do extra work contacting the author to find whether or not their work is still available. Honestly, editors are looking for reasons to reject your work. Don't ever give them a reason to say no.

Sorry about the rant, but my blood is ever so slowly turning brown.

Poetrix meeting

Today, Western Women Writers had our Poetrix meeting. I'm not sure how many other magazines manage their submissions by editorial committee or for those who do how crazy their meetings are, but this one was a doozy. We always have fun -- and this has been heightened by our adapting visual cues to indicate whether or not we like a poem. It's much quicker than having to go around the circle, and everyone saying yes or no. So a vertical arm above the head is a yes, a horizontal arm position in front of the body is a maybe, and a maybe-yes (for those of us fence-sitting) is a diagonal position in between yes and maybe.

But today Margaret one of our members was sick and couldn't attend the meeting, so I had to be two people -- my left arm was my responses and my right arm was hers. I had trouble enough keeping track of who was doing what, but when we both said yes, I felt like a cricket umpire indicating a six.

I'm not sure why the hilarity level was so high, other than that we had started in high spirits anyway, but I joked that Margaret must be the serious one because we were almost besides ourselves today. Much discussion of the poems followed, and led to some intriguing oneliners. Five of us comprised the committe this time, and a poem needed at least three yeses to get in, and two yeses and two maybes to get on the maybe pile. Once we'd finished going through them all, Sherryl counted the number of poems, and estimated the extent of the mag at this stage, and then we started on the maybe pile, and this was when the fun (and negotiation) really began. Two of us "stood on the table" for poems today -- poems that we felt really strongly about but which didn't have a big enough consensus to get in. We figure if someone feels strongly enough to fight for it, then it's probably a worthwhile inclusion. (Metaphorically standing on the table is a tradition that dates back to the early days of Poetrix when Lissa, one of our members, fought for one that we all didn't like, and we all said no, so she read it out to us, and we said no, so she read it out in a louder voice, and we said no, and so she read it even more forcefully, and we said no, and someone told her she had to get on the table to read it, and she said she would, and we decided then that she felt so strongly we should just accept it or she'd never shut up. Then, lo and behold, we got a letter from someone who said they loved that poem. I think that was a lesson to all of us, one we've learnt well from.

Anyway, we had lots of great poems for this issue, which made the competition fierce -- a problem all editors welcome, I'm sure. By the end of the session, we felt like we'd done a good job. Now comes the worst part: sending out the rejection letters. Depressing, because we're all writers and understand what it's like to receive them. But the reality is that we can't accept everything we receive, and perhaps, in the long run, that makes those acceptence letters so much more worthwhile.