from the
Publisher...
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6/23/03
Today is the first day we've awakened to
clear skies since May 1! It's been so long since we've had decent
weather that I forgot what it is like. Such a long, cool, wet spring
and (so far) summer makes for miserable dispositions, and your's truly
is Queen of Misery right now. Hopefully the sun will stick around
long enough to lift my (and everyone else's) spirits.
The good news, however, is that the
2003 edition of mp is available and is one of the best issues ever.
The printer did an excellent job and I'm as proud as any parent can be
of this baby.
The Simile Contest on the Contests
page is underway - with 4 entries to choose from. Be sure to vote
for your favorite Simile - AND don't forget to enter the Loella Cady Lamphier
Prize for Poetry Contest, as well.
miller's pond is also sponsoring
another new contest this year - the Reader's Choice Award. Readers
can nominate their choice for the Featured Poet section in the 2004 issue.
Those eligible for nomination are all poets who appeared in the 2003 -
except the current Featured Poet. Vote for your favorite poet in
the 2003 issue by sending a postcard with your name, address, and e-mail
(if applicable), along with the name of your choice for Featured Poet to:
FEATURED POET
% H&H Press
RR 2, Box 239
Middlebury Center, PA 16935
OR - you can vote on-line HERE.
Please vote only once. Votes will be accepted until Nov. 1.
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2/04/03
So here it is, the second month into 2003
already! Have you taken steps to fulfill your New Year's Writing
Resolution yet? Get at it, and submit!
You can't get published if you don't
submit.
The nation mourns the loss of more heroes
with the tragedy of the Columbia space shuttle. As with 9/11/01,
I'm sure much of our healing will be through words, be they in story, song
or poetic form.
The next issue of mp is being prepared
for the press as I write this. The pond, once again, sparkles with
a stunning school of poets selected by Editor David Cazden.
The winners of the 2003 Loella Cady
Lamphier Prize for Poetry Contest have been announced - the list is visible
in the scrolling box on the Contests
page. There were so many great poems in the contest this year, Judge
Vivian Shipley actually chose 14 Honorable Mentions instead of the usual
10. My congratulations to each poet who entered, for the competition
was as stiff as a February wind.
| Don't
like that simile? Then vote for the Simile of your choice, as suggested
by 4 creative poets on our Contests
page. |
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11/10/02
Hello, again, Dear Poets.
The year is quickly coming to an end,
and the 2003 issue is now closed to submissions. We have a great
line-up of Poets for you - some familiar, as well as some new to the Pond.
Robert Cooperman returns with an interesting ballad from the old West and
our Featured Poet has made more appearances in on-line publications than
in print magazines, so I'm pleased to give her work the exposure it deserves
on the printed page.
The winners of the Loella Cady Lamphier
Prize for Poetry has also been selected, and Judge Vivian Shipley had quite
a task of choosing from all the excellent poems submitted. I'll announce
the winners in Dec. If you sent in an SASE for a list of the winners,
look for it in your mail box soon.
Keep checking the Guidelines often for
the latest changes in our policies. Our reading period has changed,
and soon the mailing address will change for those who prefer to submit
for our hard copy version via U.S. mail instead of electronically.
A reminder, though: both editors now prefer to deal with electronic
submissions, so if you haven't tried to use our on-line submission form,
please do so.
As much as we'd like to go to press
twice a year, we are still currently an annual magazine. This remains
so due to a number of factors. Based on the volume of quality submissions
we receive, coupled with the number of copies sold, we could either produce
two smaller issues a year, or publish one double issue. We opted
for the latter, as it is more cost-effective for us. In effect, our
subscribers are getting the same number of great poems in a single issue
once a year that they would get if the magazine were published twice a
year, but at a lower price than if they had to pay for a 2-issue subscription.
If you would like to see the hard copy version of miller's pond published
twice a year, help spread the word...and buy a copy today!
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8/18/02
Editor Dave Cazden tells me some of the
submissions he's recently looked at have contained SASE's with the old
postage rate. Because we are a VERY small publishing house,
with an even smaller budget, we cannot afford to pay the extra postage
on these submissions when we return them, so in all likelyhood, they will
either be returned to the sender as Postage Due, or the postoffice will
refuse to deliver them. If you sent us a submission several months
ago, prior to the postage rates increase, and you didn't take into account
that your submission would be returned after the postage rates increased,
you need to be aware of this fact. You also need to be aware that
we DO post a reading period, and that submissions sent prior to or after
that period may take longer to respond to than submissions sent during
the reading period. If you are not familiar with this reading period,
please read our Guidelines-
the link is conveniently on the left side of this web page.
If you haven't purchased a copy of the
2003
Poets Market published by Writer's Digest Books, do so. It not
only has a terrific interview with me in it - providing you with a ton
a valuable insights into the publishing world of small press magazines,
but there are lots of terrific interviews by other authors, editors, and
publishers, plus hundreds of markets, both on-line and in-print, for you
to submit your work to. It's definitely one of the most valuable
reference books you should have on your shelf!
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5/20/02
The moment you have all been waiting for
- very patiently, I might add, has finally arrived. miller's pond
2002 is back from the printer and will be in your mailbox soon, if
you ordered a copy, that is.
There are a few typos, as always, and
I apologize for those, and will have corrections posted on the 2002 print
version web page (you can get there by clicking on The
Magazine link).
It seems no matter how many proof-readers
I have, including myself, and no matter how many times we each read the
issue before it goes to the printer, we are inevitably disappointed to
find errors we missed when we get the magazine back in our hands.
Is there a magazine or book publisher out there that has ever produced
a 100% perfect publication? If so, I'd like to know. On the
other hand, maybe I don't. Our only consolation on the matter of
typos is that other publishers share the same plight. We are, afterall,
only human (sad, but true).
Enough about our faults. For some
good news, new print editor David Cazden's info is on his page (check out
Editor's Log on the left column on your screen).
I will be working on the Loella Cady
Lamphier Prize for Poetry Contest, lining up the judge, etc. within the
next couple of weeks, and will be making periodic progress anouncements
right here as always.
And Web Editor Julie Damerell tells
me there is another issue of
miller's pond ready to post on the
web.
So stay tuned. Terrific things
are happening.
CJ
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4/19/02
| The changes have begun! I'm nearly
done with reading all the poetry that had been submitted for mp 2002, and
am looking forward to finalizing the magazine for the printer.
To that end, miller's pond is
pleased to announce David Cazden is the new poetry editor for the hard
copy of miller's pond magazine. His poetry has been published
on this web site, as well as many other places. A web page with his
bio is forthcoming.
David will be accepting submissions
for the magazine via our special web form. There is also a special
web form for submissions to the web version of miller's pond. I'm
pleased to say Julie Damerell remains the editor of miller's pond on the
web. If you go to Guidelines, you will be able to submit to David
or Julie using the appropriate form. You can also submit via the
traditional U.S. Mail to me.
In reading the vast amount of submissions
mp has received in the past year, I've found it pertinent that a "Tips"
page be included here. Far too many writers are submitting inappropriate
material to mp. This slows down the process of reading (and accepting/rejecting)
poems for miller's pond and does not make me happy. If you
are submitting to miller's pond, believe me, you WANT to do all
you can to make me happy with your submissions. Otherwise, you are
just wasting your time and money on stamps, paper, ink, and envelopes and
you really ought to think about taking up a different hobby, like fishing.
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4/1/02
Yes, it's me again. It's 6 a.m. and
I'm sitting at the desk in my office that has finally been thrown back
together after being disassembled since Memorial Weekend of 2001.
We moved - not more than a mile from our former residence, but the move
had caused me to pack up my books, your submissions, and of course all
my "tools" necessary to run miller's pond and my other writing endeavors.
(I know I promised last month not to make excuses, and you just got one....get
over it.)
Progress has been made, slow but sure.
I now have electricity - adequate enough for my computer, etc. - where
there was none before. And heat. Now that I'm only weeks away
from not needing it.
My office is still a jumbled mess, with
boxes strewn here and there with god-knows-what in them. Of the boxes
I've been able to unpack, I've been pleased to find some important office
paraphernalia essential for miller's pond and H&H Press.
But with each passing weekend I'm getting closer to my goal of becoming
organized and efficient once more.
And the real news is, I have whittled
down the stack of submissions. If you haven't received a rejection,
that's because I'm still mulling and choosing. This issue will mark
the 5th anniversary of miller's pond and I want it to be the best
yet.
And in the course of all this, I've
decided to make some important changes to the magazine. I'm still
going to print a hard copy, along with a separate and distinct web version
- new web issue will be going up on the site this week, as a matter of
fact. The changes, however, deal with submissions policies.
I'm bringing on board another editor, and will be accepting submissions
via the web for both magazines.
Plus I'm going to offer a second contest,
and strive to have two issues published a year instead of one starting
in 2003. The second contest will be a chapbook contest, and the winner
will get her/his chapbook published, and 25 free copies, plus a web page
under handhpress.com for promoting the chapbook.
So many changes. Now that you
know what's coming, I hope you are as excited as I am. Stay tuned
and Enjoy!
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3/02/02
| I don't know
about you, but it seems the older I get, the faster time flies by.
About now it's traveling at the speed of sound - at least in my life.
While some people are anticipating spring just around the corner, I'm scratching
my head and wondering what happened to Thanksgiving and Christmas?
What, we HAD those holidays already? I must have blinked, because
I don't remember. Well, okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration.
And what I'm trying to say in a very wordy way (to quote the White Rabbit)
is, "I'm Late, I'm Late!"
A lot of you are
wondering if the 2002 edition of miller's pond has been published
yet. A lot more of you are wondering if it is going to be published.
And even more of you are just plain angry that you've sent me poetry months
and months ago with narry a response.
Personally, I
don't blame you one bit for being angry. I absolutely hate to send
my poems to some magazine for consideration and wait for months for a response.
I have become the editor I vowed when I started this magazine I would NOT
become. I have plenty of excuses, but that doesn't help your situation
any, so I'm not going to go there.
You have my sincere
apologies for making you wait.
And you have my
promise.
miller's pond
will be coming out...I'm going to say by April. Hopefully sooner,
but I had aspirations of having it out by Jan. and you know what happened
to that!
Well, I have poems
to read. Lots and lots of poems. So I'd better get at it.
C.J.
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12/06/01
With the year 2002
upon us, miller's pond celebrates its 5th anniversary with an interview
with Judith Sornberger and a dazzling array of poets, including our top
three winners in the Loella Cady Lamphier Prize for Poetry Contest.
Throughout these
past five years, I have had the privilege to meet many fine poets and enjoy
their works. I have also had the opportunity to make several observations
concerning the publishing world of poetry, which I would like to share
with you dear readers at this time.
While miller's
pond has consistently received larger numbers of submissions with each
passing year, enabling us to consistently publish larger volumes of quality
poetry each year, the number of our sales has proportionally diminished.
In talking with editors of other poetry magazines, I find this is becoming
the norm, and that saddens me.
Small, independent
presses like H&H Press can only continue to publish magazines if it
has adequate support from its readers and contributors. We do not
have the financial backing of an educational institution to keep us afloat.
Nor are we non-profit organizations that can request grants for publication
purposes. Our income comes from subscribers. And it is only
that income, plus our own personal "donations" which enables us to continue
publishing.
If you are a poet,
and submit your work to magazines, please be aware that those magazines
are as dependent on your support financially, as you are dependent on those
magazines to provide you with a place to send your work for publication.
It is a coexistence in which neither can exist for very long without the
other. Granted, there are many markets out there to submit to, and
if one magazine folds, there are always others to take its place.
But what happens in the long run is that as the market base shrinks, so
to does the chances of a poet finding a magazine that can/will accept his/her
work because the competition consequently grows to fierce proportions.
There are many more poets than there are markets.
Whether you are
simply a reader or a poet who submits to miller's pond or Two
Rivers Review, or Ploughshares is not the point here.
The point is, if you find a magazine you like, help keep it around by buying
a copy. If you haven't bought any poetry magazines at all this year,
yet have submitted your poetry with expectations of receiving an acceptance,
ask yourself why would you want to submit to a magazine you don't even
read.
If you are one
of the lucky poets who has received an acceptance from a poetry magazine,
show your thanks for the magazine that supported you and your work by returning
that support with a subscription, or at least the purchase of 1 or more
contributor's copies. This way you are helping to ensure the future
of the magazine, as well as helping keep a poetry market available for
your future submissions.
Enjoy!
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