where's my poetry editor hat?

[elisem]

Yep, I'm the new poetry editor for Apex magazine.

Right now, I'm writing the submission guidelines. In another venue*, I found myself musing on what ... OK, ranting on what people shouldn't send me. I thought I'd better bring it over here for your reading delectation.



Don't Send Me:

1) Anything you wrote after thinking, "Oh, speculative poetry must be
an easy sell, especially for a mainstream poet like myself. I'll just
stick a unicorn in it or a spaceship or something. After all, there
cannot possibly be a vibrant poetry culture already going on there,
with some kick-ass poets."

2) Anything whose remarkable element is merely that it is speculative.
(It may be remarkable to you, but it's bread and butter to us.) Don't
just wave a neat idea or a set of atmospheric phrases around and call
it a poem. Go somewhere with it. No, take us somewhere with it. Or
bring that somewhere to us. Or make us see that it's been here all
along, underneath.

3) Anything written from a position of apathy about or contempt for
the genre of speculative fiction. Love the genre of speculative fiction
because it speaks to you. Or love-hate it because it speaks to you but
leaves you out much of the time -- and then write me something that
brings your speculative cosmos into focus.


However, if you really want to triumph, break any of these rules by
writing something so brilliant that I have to buy it anyhow. (This is
known as the Mike Ford method.)


*The WELL, if you were wondering.

Comments

[aedifica]

Oh, neat! Do you know sovay? If you don't, I'd like to introduce you sometime when we three are all in the same place. She's one of the poetry editors for Strange Horizons, and I think you might be likely to get along.

[elisem]

I know her online a little, and would be delighted to be introduced and meet (or re-meet, if as seems likely we have met in some convention whirl at some point) her when we three are in the same place sometime. Is plan! Excellent plan.

[sovay]

(or re-meet, if as seems likely we have met in some convention whirl at some point)

We met in person at Wiscon in 2005, where I bought "Remember What You Say in Dreams #4" that turned into "The Salt House" (and which I still owe you pictures of me being married in), and then briefly at a song circle in Boskone three or four years ago now. We should totally hang out with aedifica. Will you be at either Arisia or Readercon this year?

[elisem]

Ah! Excellent, then: re-meeting!

I don't have plans right now to be at Arisia or Readercon, but I'm looking at my calendar tomorrow with planning in mind. Will let you know as soon as I know how all the pieces fit together.

[sraun]

Congratulations!

[elisem]

Thanks! I'm excited about it.

[jjhunter]

Please forgive me while I go laugh into a metaphorical paper bag for a moment. SMALL WORLD. I believe we have my housemate the ever-awesome stultiloquentia in common?

More seriously, congrats on your new position! The snippets I hear from Stulti make Apex's managing team sound like incredible group of people to work with, and if your talent for entire stories in stone and an evocative titular phrase translate well to finding gems in words alone, I very much look forward to what you curate.

[elisem]

We very well may, but when my character for this incarnation got rolled up, apparently I took the disad* "has difficulty connecting logins, pseuds, noms-de-plume, nicknames and meatspace names", so I know a lot of people but don't always know that I know them, if that makes any sense. (Every so often at a convention or party or online, several names suddenly fold together like an antique fan being closed, and I have to recalibrate my internal nameservers again.) Which is a long way of saying "Probably, yeah, but they're have to remind me who they are?"

And thank you! It does seem an excellent bunch, and I'm going to learn a lot of good things in good company there, I believe. And have serious fun.



*The points probably went into whimsy. Or finding things. There's a story about sand dollars you can ask wild_irises about.

[jjhunter]

Heh, I have similar problems with names (hard enough to remember one name, let alone multiplex). If it helps connect the pseuds, Stulti's other editing gig is with the TWC.

Good company and serious fun are things that go well to together; I'm pleased for you, and for the magazine for getting you.

[onyxlynx]

1. Mazel tov!!!
2. Suspecting that a proper poetry editor hat has balconies.;-)

[elisem]

Thanks!

And it definitely should have something. Balconies might be just the thing.

[edschweppe]

Woohoo! Congratulations!

I'll just stick a unicorn in it or a spaceship or something.

Just glue some gears on it (and call it spec-poetry) ... never mind, that doesn't scan.

[elisem]

It might not scan, but that's very much the phenomenon.

[adeliej]

Congratulations! I'll be interested to read the next issue.

[elisem]

Thanks! I hope we bring you good things.

[sine_nomine]

This sounds like much goodness and excitingness.

Mazel Tov!

[elisem]

Thank you! I am so excited about it.

[sovay]

Yep, I'm the new poetry editor for Apex magazine.

Congratulations!

(I will send poems to you.)

[elisem]

:dances for joy:

[stultiloquentia]

Well, hello, there. :)

[elisem]

Hiya!!

[jjhunter]

p.s. for when you have surplus of unicorn, there's a cookbook for that.

[elisem]

The recipe for codswallop also intrigues me. :-)