Write your own PFO

From Lighten Up, an online light verse magazine, via the Stammering Poet.

"You are an Editor explaining to a well-known poet, past or present, your reasons for not publishing a poem which he or she has submitted to you.

Entries, no longer than 16 lines and clearly identifying the poet, should be sent by August 10th to submissions@lightenup-online.co.uk, pasted in the body of the email itself - no attachments!

No prizes but the best ones will be published in Issue 10.

The picture is a PFO occluder. I think we all need one of those. Plus it's rather beautiful.

What do you want first?

The Good News:

I have 5 pieces accepted on the Quiet Quarter on Lyric FM on the theme of swimming. I'm recording them and will let you know the week so you can listen in either live or afterwards forever more on your Mp3/iPod or online.

The Bad News:
I was rejected by the Stinging Fly again. Both for my fantastic short stories and then for my brilliant poems. It's the same story for years. I have to accept that there are some publications that just gon't 'get' me and my stuff. Move on. Nothing more to see here.

Then, rejected by Poetry Ireland Review, New editor, new criteria.

Then, rejected from Acumen magazine. Very fast response.

I have enjoyed reading them but unfortunately am not able to make an offer for any this time. I found a lot to like here, but unfortunately nothing appealed quite enough for me to shortlist any.

I get around 5,000 poems a year and as I only publish 50 per issue,

And lastly (for now) Southword, a nice rejection

all different, all intriguing, competition is fierce, yadda, yadda, yadda

Their loss!

More Rejections

Here's another competition I didn't win. I didn't even get a poem in the anthology. F'nah. Congratulations Maggie and also Nuala in the anthology. There are four winning submissions this year. The work of thirty nine poets is published in the 2008 anthology Buzz. Lots of them will be reading at the Derwent Poetry Festival, October 17th to 19th. The judge this year was Jane Weir.

Templar Poetry Pamphlet Poets: 2008 - win £500 each and publication of their pamphlet.

Mike Barlow: Amicable Numbers. Mike already has two collections, Living on the Difference (Smith Doorstop) and Another Place (Salt).
Siobhan Campbell: That Water Speaks in Tongues Siobhan already has two collections, the Permanent Wave and The Cold that Burns (Blackstaff Press)
Katrina Naomi: Lunch at the Elephant & Castle
Maggie O’Dwyer: Yes, I’d love to dance

I had assumed this competition was for poets without a first collection. Silly me.

Anthology Poets: 2008 published in Buzz

Derek Adams, Meredith Andrea, Christopher Andrews, Catherine Benson, Mara Bergman, Clare Best, Annie Bien, Carole Bromley, Sally Clark, Jennifer Copley, Chris Culshaw, Emma Danes, Alyss Dye, Susanne Ehrardt, Nell Farrell, Maureen Gallagher, Elaine Gaston, David Gilbert, Jo Haslam, Pamela Johnson, Valerie Josephs, Pauline Keith, John Mackay, Catherine McLoughlin, Simone Mansell Broome, Helen Moore, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Jeremy Page, Geraldine Paine, Rennie Parker, Nick Pearson, Joan Poulson, Beth Somerford, Pauline Suett Barbieri, Kay Syrad, Simon Williams, Hilary Wilmot, Stephen Wilson, Michael J.Woods.

Also rejected from Succour.
Also did not win anything for my short story in the Bridport.
Onwards and upwards, mes amis.

Looking at things from another point of view

Writers have a duty to look at everyday things from another point of view. Morning coffee from the POV of the Barristo, the coffee bean, the cup. Commuting from the POV of the AA roadwatch lady, the homeless guy on a bench, the newly jobless, the piece of gum on the road.
Or a What if. What if the bus driver saw his wife out of the window in suspicious circumstances? What if your friendly security guy was replaced by his malevolent twin brother Richie? What if the office Lotto pool came up trumps?
What if you never send stuff out? You'll never get published and you'll never get rejected. What if you never put your heart on the line? You'll never get rejected.
Watch this.

P.S. Another day, another rejection. Bah.

Rejection and Results

Very down now. Two rejections from competitions in a very short time. Will I ever emerge? Will there be a book with my name on the spine.

Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition had 700 entries. The shortlist has a very international flavour. Results at the Frank O'Connor Short Story Festival in Cork on Saturday 20th September.

Elizabeth Costello of Dublin, Ireland.
Natalie Diaz of Surprise AZ USA
Benjamin Arda Doty of Minneapolis USA
Colm Keegan of Dublin, Ireland
Genine Lentine of San Francisco USA
Anna May Mangan of Wembly UK
Terese Svoboda of New York USA
Cathy Sweeney of Bray, Ireland
Michelle Tandoc-Pichereau of Cotes C'Armor, France
Julia Van Middlesworth of New Jersey USA

Over The Edge 'New Writer of The Year' shortlist. Some well known names here:

Megan Buckley, Galway
Fiona Clark Echlin, Tipperary
Denise Garvey, Galway
Eamonn Harrigan, Galway
Brian Kirk, Dublin
Tom Lavelle, Galway
Wes Lee, New Zealand
Mary Madec, Galway
Donny Mahoney, Dublin
Alan McMonagle, Galway
Brendan Murphy, Galway
Mairin O'Grady, Kildare
Aiden O'Reilly, Dublin
Hans-Joachim Quade, Galway
Evelyn Walsh, Dublin

Winners will be announced by competion judge, Celeste Augé, at the Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 25th, 6.30-8pm, when the Featured Readers will by Colette Bryce, Des Kavanagh & Orla Higgins. The reading is sponsored by Poetry Ireland.

Willesden Herald Short Story Competition

Well

The rather good sounding Willesden Herald Short Story Competition results are in and...there is no winner and no resultant anthology. From the blog, it looks like they had a hard time of it. 850 entries, a shortlist winnowed to 20 then 10 but none made the grade. The organisers did seem to dither openly when deciding what to do and left themselves open to some bitchy comments.

Writers get so touchy about rejection. Read some of the disgruntled comments. Even those shortlisted were disgruntled, refusing the money and asking for their shortlisted names not to be published. I think this was a result of the negative comments from the 840 who were not shortlisted. I don't think I would have rejected £500. There are some wierd writers out there.

It's hard sometimes to separate rejection of one particular story from rejection of your own person. It was the stories that weren't good enough.

Zadie Smith, the headline judge, issued a statement that was badly worded and condescending in my opinion. They were looking for 'great' writing, such a difficult thing to judge.

...does not mean that I or the other judges want to read hundreds of jolly stories of multicultural life on the streets of North London. Nor are we exclusively interested in cutesy American comedies, or self-referential post-modern vignettes, or college satires.

Is she trying to do a Simon Cowell?

If I said to most of the people who auditioned, 'Good job, awesome, well done,' it would have made me actually look and feel ridiculous. It's quite obvious most of the people who turned up for this audition were hopeless.

The Guardian has an interesting discussion here.
(Disclaimer - I didn't enter! but this blogger did.)

Rejection

Check this out. Poets on strike. Hilarious!

Feeling low today. My agent hasn't talked or emailed in a month. I am struggling to find time to write. Bits at pieces in stolen time.

I'm thinking about jacking in the contract. It doesn't pay huge and can be boring. It can be interesting too and I enjoy the contact. I don't use much of my terrific brain capacity though or skills built up over years in multi-nationals. My 15 year old child could do my job. I don't know what to do. Maybe I could try 4 days a week. They turned me down for a permanent job I was well skilled for from a few years ago. Not even interviewed. I'm used to rejections being a writer but when you get a rejection, it's not you personally that's getting rejected but that particular piece of writing. When you are rejected from a job, it's you, the person they are rejecting.

Rejected again. Are they trying to tell me something

But let's start with the good news.

Sunday Tribune Irish Writing pages. This Sunday. Check it out. Me! My short story. I heard yesterday and was jumping up and down all day and telling anyone who would listen (and some who wouldn't)
then I got an email from my agent.

Poolbeg turned me down. Said my novel was too English. What does that mean? The main character is too English? Too English for what? Does the Irish readers market want their female protagonists to be Irish? And go for Irish guys? I thought it would be interested for Irish readers to read about Ireland and the Irish as seen through English eyes. Or am I too English? Can't do much about that. What should I do now? Make my characters Irish (it's possible, thinking about it but a lot of work.) Would it be worthwhile? Abandon it, assuming the English publishers who haven't said No yet, will also say No? I'm flummoxed. Gutted. I mean, Paula has to know the market but I really don't understand it.

So as you can understand, the gloss has gone off the Sunday Tribune short story before it's even published.

Another rejection - poetry this time

After the joy of Cavan Window Publications acceptance, I've just had a rejection from Jan at Envoi magazine. I would really like to break into the UK poetry scene. I feel a lot of my poetry is more English than Irish in outlook. I've only had three poems published outside Ireland
Newfoundland anthology with Irish writers
coffeehouse (Wales - editor the aforementioned Jan)
Abridged - Derry (NI)

On the plus side, my blog is featured on the Poetry Ireland website and weekly newsletter - how cool is that! I wonder how it will affect my viewer stats?

And Do The Write Thing is number 19 in this weeks mass market fiction bestseller list. (That's up from last week!)

Another Rejection

I am despondent, running out of publishers who will recognise the quality of my novel and fall in love with it as quickly and deeply as my agent did. Transworld now rejected me too. They enjoyed reading it, they report, but didn't feel it would stand out from the crowd. What should I do to it to make it stand out from the crowd? Throw in an alien invasion? A suicide bomber? A treatise on illegal immigrant worker exploitation? I'm so fed up.
Transworld also own a huge number of imprints according to Writers and Artists Yearbook so does that mean they are all now closed to me and my lovely, witty, enjoyable read book? Or does each imprint have its own editor decide what it takes?

More Rejections

Oh yes. Here we go again. Another rejection from Hodder Ireland. The editor kept it for an extra two weeks beyond the date my agent requested though and had others in the office reading it, so I have to take that as positive. She also asked to see it again when rewritten and will send an email with some bullet point comments as guidance. She mentioned she found bits confusing, which is worrying. I'm so close to the book now, and obviously know what's going to happen, I can't see any confusion.

Feeling very low.

Also have had to bite the bullet and take a 3 month contract job for the money. Mortgage rates being what they are. I hate the idea of the commute, the hours in an office environment and time away from writing and reading. The whole family will have to adapt to the new regime too. I foresee tears (probably mine)

The worst thing is I have to cancel my week in Annaghmakkerig as it is right at the start of the contract. The house is closed from the end of October to January so little chance of a late respite and I was really looking forward to going.

Have a week now to beef up the book as best I can for sending out in the next round.

Patrick Kavanagh Poetry

Well, another rejection for the book from MacMillan, again positive while still saying no. Humbug.

I also got a copy of Revival from Whitehousepoets. I have a poem in there and it's in good company. Poets include Kevin Higgins, Clairr O'Connor, John O'Donnell, John W. Sexton and Noel Monahan.

Meanwhile, I have to let you know about the very prestigious Patrick Kavanagh Award for poets who are still to publish their first collection.

Deadline: 29 September 2007

The award is now in its 36th year. Previous winners include such heavyweights as Eílean Ní Chuilleanain, Paul Durcan, Thomas McCarthy, Peter Sirr, Sinead Morrisey, Conor Callaghan, Celia de Freine and Joseph Woods. Last year's winner was the wonderful and hughly talented Enda Coyle-Greene.

The winner of this year’s award will receive €2,500. There is also a second prize of €1,000 and a third prize of €500. Judges: Paula Meehan and Theo Dorgan. The Award will be presented on the evening of Friday 23rd November 2007 at the opening of the Annual Patrick Kavanagh Weekend in Inniskeen.
For rules and entry forms: Tel /Fax: 00353(0)429378560. E-mail: infoatpkc@eircom.net or download from their website.

Check out the great poem from Iggy McGovern about not winning the Patrick Kavanagh award. If memory serves me, it won the late lamented Rattlebag Poetry Slam.

Previous winners of the Patrick Kavanagh are collected in the book, Dancing with Kitty Stobling.

Stinging Fly

Stinging Fly is a literary mag edited by Declan Meade. It offers mostly fiction but also some poetry. In my personal opinion they usually choose urban, often depressive, sometimes look at me I've used drugs at some point in my life, now let's slit our wrists, type stories. And I'm not just saying this because my diverse offerings have been universally rejected by them (!) But the collection of short stories published last year 'These are our Lives' is worth reading.

Anyway they are running an open competition to get in on a free workshop with Sean O'Reilly on Saturday October 27th. Submit a work in progress, short story or extract by September 14th. Submissions should be clearly marked Fiction Workshop and sent to The Stinging Fly, PO Box 6016, Dublin 8.

8-10 participants so you will get a personal assessment but it says 'the selected participants will discuss and review the submitted pieces.' Sounds like a normal writers group to me except you won't know the participants beforehand so don't know how to approach the work and critique.

Two more rejections on the book front since - Harper Collins and Headline, no with positive comments.

No work from movieextras.ie yet either.

My statistics for this blog show 2 readers a day averaging a 2 second stay. What can you read in 2 seconds? Most seem to be automated spiders, I think.

Another Rejection

Well the next round of responses from the list of publishers has started. Little Brown said no though they liked my book.
Fed up.
It only needs one publisher to say yes though. That's what I keep telling myself.
Just finished Harry Potter. I do think this last book was better written than the last few. I have been avoiding reviews until now in case there were any spoilers but now I'll go trawling and see what else people think.

Jane Austen rejected

Well, if Jane Austen can't get published these days, is there much hope for the rest of us? David Lassman the director of the Jane Austen festival in Bath thought up a great way to get publicity for his event. He sent of barely disguised opening chapters and synopses to 18 British publishers of some of her best known and loved works. Without exception, they were all rejected and only one, Jonathan Cape, who recognised Pride and Prejudice. This was sent out as First Impressions, an early name Jane used herself (Which was also rejected at first 'by return of post')

Similarly in the US, a book called Steps by Jerzy Kosinski (I must admit I haven't heard of it) was sent out and similarly rejected. This book won the National Book Prize, the equivalent of the Booker, and sold over 400,00 copies. All the publishers and agents rejected it, including publishers of Kosinski's work. The publishing house Houghton Mifflin commented that it was reminiscent of Kosinski "but not in his league."

Here's an interesting post on the subject.

More Rejections

Yes, the ongoing saga of how to get published. Maybe this will be read in posterity as how the fabulously successful middle list author got her book published and we will all look back and laugh at the set backs and false hopes. Maybe.

Anyway, Penguin rejected me too. I would have loved to be published by Penguin. I feel like I was brought up on Penguin books. Ah well.

Have done a little more polishing and tried to warm up my main character so wh'e more sympathetic for the reader, more compassionate and out it's gone again to another list of publishers.

Ever hopeful. Ever typing with my fingers crossed!

More rejections

Rejection from Orion books yesterday - nice rejection but still a rejection - and Penguin today. Did a bit of tweaking and it's going back out to the next round today. Friday 13th holds no fears for me!

Dr. Seuss was rejected twenty-four times. In 1937 he was told this about his first book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

“…too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”

John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was declined by fifteen publishers and some thirty agents. His novels have more than 60 million copies in print.

When the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was finished, early in the New Year of 1996, Rowling visited Edinburgh Central Library to look up the Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book in search of a literary agent. Her first approach had been unsuccessful: a brief rejection letter. She then posted a sample of three chapters and a covering letter to Christopher Little Literary Agents, based in Fulham. It was here that a young reader, Bryony Evans, read the first chapter and laughed. Evans passed the chapters to Fleur Howle, a freelance reader, who agreed with her assessment and together they persuaded Little to sign up Rowling. A few days later Rowling received a letter asking for the remainder of the manuscript. The agency sent Rowling’s 200-page script to 12 publishers, all of whom, to their eternal regret, turned down the book. Harper Collins showed interest but was too slow in formulating a bid and so the first book by the most lucrative writer in the world was picked up by Bloomsbury for an advance of £1,500.

Updates

Well, another (nice) rejection from Simon and Schuster. Two more before the next round. Fingers crossed we won't need it. I have been reading up on rejections. I'll post later.

Got a rejection from BBC Northern Ireland for the Tony Doyle Award for New television writers. I suppose it was a stretch but I am very fond of my story. It will have to find a different home and perhaps form.

Read this and weep or laugh, the truth about the slush pile.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/05/the_shocking_truth_about_the_s.html
Particularly some of the comments below. Publishers run a business. 90-95% of what they receive is completely unpublishable - which is good for people who produce publishable work - and it takes time and effort even to post out a form letter. I know I appreciate any feedback at all, however hard hitting but the urge to respond is tough to control. So feedback is rare and unusual. The number of acceptances from the slushpile is sobering. Having an agent speeds the process up but doesn't that just move the slushpile from the publishers' offices to the agents'?

The National Gallery class went great. Enthusiastic feedback. Hope they have me back.

Got a text from movieextras about availability but nothing happened beyond that.

University of Hertfordshire Writing Award

Well, I didn't even get into the top 20 stories that are going in the anthology for this competition. Very disappointing. It may be worth getting a copy when it's released to see they type of story they were looking for. Maybe I'm not literary enough. I want a good plot/story and characters in my stories. Sometimes that comes into conflict with requirements for literary, modernist writing, I find. Any comments?

I would have liked to have done the MA course though.

I heard the winner of another prose writing contest and, although there were obviously good bits of writing in it, I came away thinking, OK, so what at the end. I didn't rate it at all, It didn't seem to go anyway, just wandering musings and observations. Surely there's more to writing than that?

Wigtown Poetry Competition

Wel, I guess I didn't win a prize at the Wigtown poetry competition. Shame, I could use a serious injection of cash now. We have no money, less than no money and writing pay so very, very little. I've been looking for a permanent job in the arts administration side but nothing doing. I just got another rejection this morning. Being rejected is part and parcel of writing and I suppose I'm use to it. They're rejecting a piece of work as being unsuitable (or not good enough) but being rejected for a job is rejecting me as a person and it's very depressing. I suppose I have to go to agencies now, maybe temping. Yuck.