As I published the last post, I realised I’d missed something out.

One of the new titles I was looking at asks for a donation to accompany the poems. It’s less than the cost of buying a coffee at a coffee shop, so I suppose it isn’t ruinous. But it seems wrong. as I discussed recently. I would link to the previous post, but I can’t remember when it was. And I’m too lazy to look.

Regretfully, I won’t be submitting. If it was a printed magazine I would probably buy a subscription, but I am in two minds with online magazines. I know there are costs involved, but I also know I have costs for WP, for newspaper archives and for other research services I use. Somewhere I have to draw a line.

The second was a magazine that doesn’t send rejections. They say if you haven’t heard after a month you can take that as a rejection. It’s one way of cutting down the workload, and avoids having to be nice to hundreds of people, no matter how bad their work is, but it’s also a bit rude. I have, in the past, submitted to magazine with this approach but never been successful. Maybe it’s because my negativity transmits itself, maybe it’s because it’s an approach favoured by young, cutting edge editors and I’m just a dull, old-fashioned poet.

I know I often say I’m looking for new places to submit but there are some lines I don’t want to cross. Paying to be published is one.

I’m not quite so sure about the other. Which is worse – a guaranteed (though impersonal) one month cut off, or an editor who waits three months to reply.  (Some, to be fair, reply in days – they are the best!)

Photos from May 2016