Epicentre Magazine has moved to Raw Light

A few weeks back, I got all excited on social media, and decided to reanimate Raw Light as a poetry and writing-related blog.

My first thought, as a vastly busy person, was to solicit a few poems from other people, which would keep the blog going but not take up too much time writing endless new material for it myself. Canny, huh?

Random picture of me.

But then I remembered Epicentre Magazine.

I launched Epicentre Magazine two years ago almost exactly. I wanted an online magazine which would not be too taxing for me to run, and for a while it worked fine. But then I lost track of submissions, and frankly submissions were not brilliant anyway, so I just stopped posting work there.

But now, in a flash of inspiration, I have decided to move that idea of an occasional online magazine - updated at my whim, really - to Raw Light. This blog is a veteran of online poetry, after all, having been started back in the misty depths of 2005 and still ticking over today in 2014. It gets many thousands of hits every month, regardless of whether or not I post updates, and it seems like a great platform from which to 'relaunch' my idea of an online poetry magazine.

Unfortunately for those now rubbing their hands with glee and sorting out their best poems, I do not intend to load myself down with extra work by accepting unsolicited submissions for Raw Light. Instead I shall be inviting people on the (mainly British) poetry scene to submit poems, reviews or articles, and hope they are generous enough to say yes.

Relaunching Raw Light as a quasi-magazine ...

I shall also continue to post my own updates on Raw Light. So things will not change particularly, except that you may receive more frequent emails from me if you have subscribed to the blog. You can change this by clicking Unsubscribe at the bottom of any emails that arrive from Raw Light.

Meanwhile, I am not very good at asking people for things, having the memory of a flea, and there's every chance that if you're reading this blog AND writing the kind of things I enjoy reading, I may be happy to see your work here too.

So see Submissions for details anyway. Just be aware that I have a madly busy life these days and don't expect an instant response.

New Poems at Epicentre Magazine

Random poetic image: Aldeburgh

For those of you who are interested in poetry and the like, there are three new poetry entries at Epicentre Magazine this week.

I have two poems in the online magazine myself this time, though they cannot technically be termed 'new'. They are part of a tentative poem sequence I wrote in about 1999, set on the Isle of Man during the last throes of the English Civil War. The poems are written in the narrative voice of Illiam Dhone, who is believed to have surrendered the Island to Cromwell's forces - most probably to avoid major bloodshed among his native Manxmen.

Old they may be - and indeed they were 'lost' for many years, and only regained when Neil Astley at Bloodaxe very kindly emailed them back to me after a decade in a filing cabinet (the poems were in a filing cabinet, not Neil Astley) - but they are still - as far as I know - unpublished. I suppose it's possible one or two of them were published in one of the UK's poetry magazines twelve years ago. But if so, I have no memory of it. And I'm pretty certain no one else will have, either.

Anyway, a few things for those interested in poetry. A moment snatched in the middle of prose to look back at the lyric impulse.

Here's the page at Epicentre.

Interview on The Camarillo Review

Epicentre

It feels odd to step back into the world of poetry, my time is so constantly wrapped up in prose fiction. But I was interviewed recently by Sean Colletti for The Camarillo Review.

This interview was largely in connection with my recent work as editor of Epicentre. (The poetry magazine is on summer break, by the way, so please don't send me work for it!)

Anyway, the interview is here on The Camarillo Review. Here's an extract:

"The main time to listen to advice is if you feel uncertain yourself, and what an editor or fellow poet says seems to make sense. Sometimes you can be too close to your work to see the flaws or their solutions. But at the same time, I’m not a big fan of listening to other people (as my husband would tell you). If you want to write what everyone else is writing, go ahead and take classes, join groups, seek advice from fellow practitioners. Because in general the advice you get will push you in the direction of homogenising your work. And that kills originality.

Yes, I know that seems to be giving a carte blanche to every crackpot who thinks their work is wonderful when it isn’t. But so what? As long as they don’t send their work to me, I’m fine with it."

Epicentre Magazine launches!

No, I haven't died, I've just been very busy recently. After much procrastination, not to mention a few tasty Easter eggs, my new literary-poetry venture "Epicentre Magazine" is finally live online.

Edited by me, with Ian Chung as my fearless assistant editor, the first issue features work by fourteen poets, one reviewer and a fiction writer. So Epicentre is starting off as a small but perfectly formed ezine.

Please do go and read some of the contributions, and hopefully leave a few comments. I'd love to hear your opinions. More work will follow in the next few weeks, so do please keep checking for fresh content.

You can find Epicentre's first ever issue HERE.

Epicentre - a new literary ezine

Jane in editorial mode

I am now editing Epicentre, a brand-new literary ezine - based geographically in the English Midlands but publishing internationally - with an emphasis on new poetry.

I intend to launch the first issue in April, and afterwards focus on rolling content rather than publishing new issues at set intervals. This seems to work well for literary ezines, such as the excellent Stride, which is updated according to the editor's whim. It also means I won't feel bound to any particular schedule but can edit the magazine and monitor the inbox when I have the time.

So if you've emailed work or a query, and not yet heard back, don't panic. I'll get round to everyone in the end. Though once it's more than 4-6 weeks, feel free to nudge me, in case your email went astray.

If you wish to send a contribution, please read and follow the submission guidelines, if only to avoid annoying me before I even open your email. Seriously. It's amazing how few people take the time to follow magazine submission guidelines, yet still expect the editor to read their work at the other end in a generous and professional spirit.

Though of course I always do.  Because I'm such a liar nice person.

By the way, there is another Epicentre magazine. Though being American they are EpicentER whereas we are EpicentRE. A small distinction but an important one. Not least because you'll be sending your work to the wrong place if you don't check you're at the right site.