Look guys, we made it! I’m still feeling a bit under the weather with a persistent cough that no OTC medication seems to be able to tame, which made being one of four lovely featured poets last night at a library quite interesting. I read for about 10 minutes including two newer poems, one from each of my chapbooks and then quite a few from Paper House. I’m at that point now, where I am kind of tired from reading from the old collections. My first chapbook At the A & P Meridiem is down to only about 6 copies in my possession. I don’t think I’m going to reorder (at least for a while) once those sell. I’m ready to move onto new things and I have plenty of PH and Atom copies to sell and then Fat Girl will be out in September. ANNNND I have a reader looking over what might be a 4th chapbook that I can start sending to publishers 
I may not be writing anything new, but I keep working on revisions and sending my stuff out there.
Speaking of which:
- Submitted: 3 items: group of photos, set of poems and 1 essay.
- Accepted: Zilch
- Rejected: Nothing. THAT IS WEIRD!
I procrastinated this afternoon by going through more of my online folders to see which photos I thought appropriate to send out. I’m slowly working through them all, then I want to make my way to other computers (phones etc) and even the printed pictures and slides I have from pre-digital years to see what I should scale in. It is a slow process.
The poems I sent out were the last of the new material that I thought were keepers. I typed everything from my notebook and, except for the one still up on poem Thursday, I’ve cleaned house and no new ideas are coming to me right now which is ok (I know I know, I talked about this before). I know as soon as I start reading some work I really enjoy, I’ll start writing again. That’s always how it works with me. I’m inspired by other writers. I will always say my first love is reading.
My lone essay was one I pulled from 6 months of no response. I only changed one word which means I’m either way too in love with the essay or it is just perfect (HA!). I doubt the latter.
A few more notes on publication stuff. I forgot to mention my Fabio poem is now up in Wild Goose Poetry Review and that one of my stories Sex of Food is up in Steel Toe Review (PG-13, ya’ll!). Still not sure what I am going to do with the remaining fiction pieces I have. Under 5000 words of flash fiction does not a chapbook make! And, one of my previously accepted photographs titled “Once” is now up in LitSnack.
Last thing. What do you guys think of editors publishing their own material in their magazines? I read a new print publication recently called fresh. It doesn’t appear they are taking non-solicited material at this time. Do a lot of magazines publish mainly themselves and people they know when they start up? I know, my start-ups have often involved people I knew – at first – cause that’s how word got out, but I’ve always held back from publishing my own words in my own mags. What do you guys think?
Hope you guys wrote, submitted or at least though of words this week! See ya around the web
and around
and around
At the Dead Mule, we don’t publish our own creative work, but we do publish book reviews we’ve written.
Yes, I can totally see doing that. I do a few little blog posts that are sort of commentary from time to time on Referential.
We can post anything we want to the blog, but mostly I post announcements.
I love hearing about your writing life.
Congratulations on a poem, a picture and a story being up! One of all three! 
You have a lot going on , with Fat Girl coming out this year and another book length getting read . . .wow!!!
Part of the fun for me in reading at Referential or the Dead Mule, is all of the variety of artists. I love that! 
It’s exciting to me to see what others can write and what they write about and how they convey it and their style and etc. etc. etc. ha! What is it that made you want to start Referential, Jessie, since it wasn’t to highlight your own work?
I didn’t submit this week. But, I’m working on something for Highlights For Kids. I’ve submitted a lot to them over the years, with no luck. Hoping to wear them down one day I guess. haha! I love kids and like writing for them. This is the first time in a while that something has come to me to write, children-wise. Fun!
I don’t know quite what to think about your last question for us! It would be nice still, to read, but almost like a chapbook or something if they didn’t take other work. Guess it’s their right, huh? Different.
I tried highlights years ago but I haven’t written kids stuff in a while. That’s a great goal though!
Debbie, I really like helping other people find a place for their work. I like the editorial side of things. Sometimes I think about giving it up because I don’t have a lot of time but I really like meeting new writers
I submitted last week and had a poem accepted within 24 hours – double joy! I have organised some submissions. I received an email saying that some poems I sent in a few months back were still being considered [which was thoughtful]. Plenty of stuff to work on.
Your second topic: I think there exists a conflict of interest when editors publish their own stuff. Publishing friends I understand, so long as the poems are judged on their merit, but one’s own stuff…it just sounds and seems unethical.
Thanks, as always, for your blog, Jessie.
Congrats on the acceptance! I want to actually do some writing tonight but I’m finding the tv all too comforting
I enjoyed looking around in litsnack! Loved you photo…I am compiling a list, set a goal for end of March, so we will see…
Congrats Jessie, and I agree…one who does the publishing, should not be doing their work too…
But then what are you going to do with Zombue poetry hehe. Litsnack is a neat site. I love taking a break with them
Its open for debate, I will not post my own work, but if anyone is interested, let me know…he thought it would be fun for me to own it with my Zombie Crush going on, he really feels my writing has evolved in a way…know any one that would want to help look at work to go up? I have to get the site up now, start to launch next month…
Are you on CRWOPPS? If you want to set it up more as a lit mag, you could make a call for submissions and/or for editors to help
I’m so impressed with your submission schedule! I think I need to set some more goals around that (inspired by you)…I drag my feet when it comes to submitting as often as I need to.
It is getting harder and harder for me to do the submission work each week. It is a grind, but your work never gets out there if you don’t do it!