On Submissions

I've no lack of poems and stories to contribute to the mythological tradition, but securing a spot in print for one's voice to be heard is not an easy task.  I've read enough of seasoned authors' advice to know that's more the norm than it isn't.

Still, it's hard to judge which is the right place or publication: which journal or e-magazine or blog is one with which I stand less of a risk, tremblingly pressing into its editors' hands my submission.  It's not an easy guess, especially if trying to stay true to one's own voice and finding that it is not the trend (either in style, tradition, or philosophy) for the genres in which the work is written.

Or that one's work simply isn't good enough (yet?).  Ouch.

Gustav Dore

Here's an interesting and practical reflection by poet Donna Lewis Cowan, author of Between Gods.

And here's a little glimpse at something I've submitted lately.

In the telling, they forgot
Achilles later had a sister
birthed through foam-flecked mourning.
Her mother labored, faint
as vapor, salt as sea, and pressed in her
a secret wound.  The wise
naiads sang, "Let her be fair
as apple's flesh, with a glance
of clouded mirrors, and let her be
cursed
to lie in idle love or waste
immortal minutes chipped from beggared fate
with words on her lyre and foxglove
on her fingertips."

Speaking of submissions, don't forget to make yours to Spinning Straw into Gold's fairy tale writing contest.  Practically speaking, I intend everyone to be a winner in one way or another.  So consider entering, if only (if only!) for other writers' fellowship.