Week #5

Barry joined us today to offer up some wisdom and insights into the world of publishing. A published author several novels and a great many literary magazines over, he definitely has a wealth of knowledge and we got to pick his brain for an hour.

Some things that came up were:

• using Post-Its as cover letters with a quick note such as "Dear Editors, Hope you have time to look over some of my stuff, Signed" to show, in effect, you've done this before
• keeping track of submissions using hard copies which enables several drafts of the same piece to be kept on file even after the computer file has been revised
• agents being necessary to get book contracts but otherwise generally obsolete people in most other types of publishing (especially the kind we are doing, sending our stuff out ourselves to smaller names)
• not hoarding your "best piece" hoping it will be published in The New Yorker because you will write better things as time goes by so don't get too attached. The publishing process is about letting this child of sorts out into the world and you have to have faith. You can always make another baby whenever you want something to dote on
• you are your most efficient marketer, publisher, etc.
• Barry's blog, Poetry Matters
• using numerous rejections of the same piece as hints that the piece may need more work
• the convenience of email/electronic submission and its pros and cons (pro=easy, fast; con=so easy more people are submitting which ups the competition)

It was a day filled with fruit baskets of knowledge!

Barry also shared with us some other resources for writers seeking places for publication in addition to the ones on Poets&Writers.org:

USA Magazines

Poetry Publishers Who Accept Email Submissions

Literary Magazines

Creative Writing Opportunities Listserv

As Barry says, "onward!"

Week #4

IT'S WEEK FOUR ALREADY!?!




wtf.

The Dalai Lama is visiting our school today. And it's Alumni weekend. Needless to say, there are people everywhere. Too many people.

I almost ran over 3 people biking to class.

CCS' annual writing contests are now accepting submissions: http://www.ccs.ucsb.edu/award/writing_contests/

DEADLINE MAY 1ST, 2009

I need some new sunglasses.
Last night I found out that my boyfriend and I have very different tastes in women.
I tried to convince my doctor to give me a booster for my meningitis shot and she wouldn't give it to me. She said I didn't need it. What she fails to realize is that need is not my concern. I it because I do not want meningitis. It kills you within like, 24 hours, or something ridiculous like that.

Week #3

We are making headway!
Talked about the following:

1. Format of documents
2. Cover letters
3. Bios
4. SASEs
5. Misc. (file names, email subjects, page #s, etc.)
6. Blog addresses
7. Picking publications

We have made some discoveries already:

1. Every publisher has a certain way they want submissions formatted (inc. file names, email subjects, page #s, etc.)
2. Big-name publishers often want you to cough up 2 or 3 bucks to have your stuff edited
3. Desmond is addicted to Facebook
4. It takes roughly 4 stamps to send a 10+ pg. manuscript in a large envelope
5. Submitting work is a lot of work

No rejection slips as of yet, nor any acceptances either, so we wait.

Next week, we are moving on to agents and will try to get more submissions out.
Everyone has been challenged to send at least one by snail mail in order to replete my wallet of the 100 stamps + 150 large envelopes + 500 small envelopes that I bought at Costco specifically for this purpose.




I sent away two submissions today.

Colloquium Week #2

Ok well minor snafoo regarding class time began our second session and what sucked about it was that it was totally my bad.

But many good things came out of our second class, including

blogs!

I spent all day today transferring my blogspot blog to tumblr, trying to make it look exactly like the blogspot one I spent hours making. The only thing I couldn’t get to transfer was the double line border around the header. Boo.

We began submissions today!
I originally estimated that we might be able to send out 10 submissions / half hour but was proved horribly wrong when the average number for the people I polled after class was 1.2 submissions / half hour.

Although this made me look like a fool, my hope for this class is rejuvenated because I was worried that we might run out of things to do and that, apparently, is not the case. This confirms that my original idea for this colloquium was correct:

You need a set-aside time to submit your work.

Why?

Because it takes fucking forever!

I submitted to the Bellevue Literary Review and Brink Magazine a short story and some poems, so : progress =)

Jordan played some really cool music to keep the silence out of the room while we toiled away on submissions and that turned out to be a good mood-maker.

I have yet to decide which blog I will keep, this one or my blogspot. I miss the second border inside the header, but perhaps I will get over it.