Rejections can be sweet...

However, their critique of the manuscript let me down very easy!  I am going to frame it and post it by my writing desk for encouragement!  Thank you, Thirty West Editorial panel!

Excerpts:

"These pieces are unique, fresh, and beautifully written. The muses here have constructed some unique narrative voices and superbly distinct pieces ..." "Supremely creative."

"...one must be widely-read and knowledgeable of literary, artistic, and historical touchstones to fully catch all of the allusions here. That makes the target audience for these pieces much less universal than some other pieces."  "The unique thoughtfulness and dedicated execution of these pieces far outweighs any audience concerns."

"Not only is this magnificent on a conceptual level, but the beauty in the writing lies in its use of literary devices throughout. For instance, the internal rhythm and rhyme in “Guinevere to Arthur” is so seamless as to seem easily done..."

"..the level of intellectualism and foresight, the knowledge and exploratory nature of poetic structure and elements, and the skill and artistry in execution make this a great piece that any publishing company should be honored to print."

Thirty West Publishing House's beautiful hand-bound chapbooks!

Thirty West Publishing House produces hand-bound chaplets and chapbooks.  As I previously posted, they recently chose my poem "The Surest Poison" as winner of their sonnet challenge (part of their celebration of National Poetry Month) and now editor Josh Dale is publishing a chaplet of all the weekly challenge winners!  It will include work from four different writers and four different genres/forms, and will include my winning sonnet as well as a second sonnet "Blood Pacts."  Many thanks to TWPH for their support of poetry and writers!  I would like to learn to make hand-bound chaps like these!  In Josh's picture, you see some of the tools he uses and the resulting chapbooks.

P.S.
If you look closely at the picture, you will see that my two poems happened to fall in the middle pages of the chaplet!

"The Surest Poison" wins Thirty West Publishing House's sonnet challenge

Many thanks to Thirty West Publishing House for choosing my poem, The Surest Poison, as winner of their sonnet challenge!  They are a micropress based in Philadelphia, which naturally appeals to me.  They will possibly re-publish this sonnet in a chaplet compilation of their contest winners.  This was a great way to celebrate National Poetry Month!

Irene Adler haunts Sherlock's mind....

My poem, "Very Truly Yours, Irene Norton, née Adler” which won 2nd place in Spark's Contest Two, will be published in Spark, A Creative Anthology Volume III on Halloween!  

“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen.... And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.”

― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Poetry Fireworks!

July began with a bang! On the 1st, I found out that my poem "Very Truly Yours, Irene Norton, née Adler" won 2nd prize in Spark, A Creative Anthology's Contest Two! I won $100, a subscription to American Poetry Review, a lifetime Premium subscription to Scribophile among many other goodies! Spark has the best contests!

"Very Truly Yours, Irene Norton, née Adler" is a re-imagining of the relationship between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. I find Irene Adler one of the most fascinating of his female characters, especially since she only appears in one story (the first!) and we know so little about her. That makes her fair game, as far as I'm concerned!

In my persona poems, I like to choose voices of people or fictional characters we know very little about in the personal sense, that way I can let my imagination run free! They may be famous, but have left little correspondence, or there may be some controversy about their motivation.

Another poem, "The Point of No Return" appears in Spark's Volume II, which is hot off the presses as of today! You can buy it at Amazon or directly from their site.
Every time I start to get discouraged with my writing, something positive like this happens and motivates me to continue! I just hope I don't get too addicted to this happening in such a timely way!

"Point of No Return" accepted by Spark, A Creative Anthology

Spark a Creative Anthology just accepted "Point of No Return," a sonnet in two septets honoring Harry K. Daghlian, Jr., the first American casualty of the Atomic Age.

I am very excited to be part of Spark's next volume. They have great contests which award not only cash prizes and publication, but also subscriptions and books!