January 2017
Some time ago I came across KART, a site for children's book reviews. Authors can submit
their books, but must then wait with crossed fingers and toes, for it to be 'chosen'. Well, I took the plunge and submitted two - Glass Dreams and The Secret of Pooks Wood. I am now holding my breath...
I have been gradually compiling a batch of humorous stories for a collection which I am going to entitle 'Confessions', and I selected one for entry into Writing Magazine's Humour Story Competition. The closing date is March, so I got in in plenty of time! Funnily enough, I entered, having seen the invitation in a copy of the magazine which was in my pile by the computer. It was only after I submitted it electronically that I realised that the prompt was from a year-old magazine. Good job it's an annual contest!
I have come across Visual Verse several times on Facebook. It's a poetry site where poets are invited to submit a poem in a limited amount of time based on a supplied image. I saw the photo, was instantly inspired, rattled off a poem and submitted it - only to be informed by the editor that 31 words was too short. The word count had to be at least 50. Just goes to show that you have to read the rules and guidelines! I'll try again next month.
Another publication which was looking for submissions was Popshot. I have submitted to them once before, without luck. This time, they were looking for pieces written for the theme 'Future', and were happy to accept work previously published. That was fortunate as my poem 'To the unborn' seemed to fit. I am waiting to hear.
Update: My poem was selected for publication! Here is a quote from the acceptance email:
'After extensively whittling down the shortlist over the last week, it gives me great pleasure to let you know that your poem — To the unborn — has been chosen for publication in our forthcoming 'Future' issue. Thanks so much for sending it in for consideration; it's an absolute beauty of a piece and we can't wait to immortalise it in print.'
It's been a long, long time since I've submitted anything to agents or publishers and I think that 2017 should be the year that I try. To kick off, I submitted my brand new children's book to an agent that I came across on Twitter. I won't mention any names or organisations just yet.
January has been quite a productive month for subs. I sent a poem to Sixteen for Issue 5 which has the theme of Green, as well as a children's poem to the prestigious Caterpillar for their poetry prize competition which is to be judged by John Hegley.
And as it's the last day of January today, I guess that's it. I'll update this post with any news, if there is any!
