Saturday, May 28, 2011

On to the Next Whirlwind & Minding Our Deadline Manners

Since my last post, the Spring/Summer issue has been published and mailed; we've heard from many happy readers/contributors; we've attended the Massachusetts Poetry Festival with dozens of other small presses and journals (pictured: poetry, poetry, poetry from our table on down!); and…we're starting all over again.

Our reading period for the next issue (Fall/Winter 2011–2012) is in full swing. This finds us editors always thinking ahead (or trying to think ahead) to the next seasons on the calendar—the seasons we said our good-byes to just a few short weeks ago. The snow in our corner of Maine finished melting in April, and here we are in May reading poems about snow. Falling leaves. Dangling fall leaves. Frost.

This brings me to a reminder for poets who submit to virtually any journal: While it might be Memorial Day on the calendar, most editors are thinking ahead. To their next issue. So if you're finding yourself deeply inspired or particularly prolific because of anything spring/summery, please check guidelines to see when you should submit those warm-toned poems. In our case, if you have a poem about Flag Day (hypothetically), you don't want to submit it in June! You'll want to wait until at least August 16th, when, once again, we begin reading poems for the next spring/summer seasons. And you'll want to get that Flag Day poem into us by the day after Valentine's Day or—you guessed it, it'll have to wait another year.

Although seasonal work is a big focus of ours, we do accept work that isn't seasonal, nature-based or in haiku form. But writers get carried away with the wonder of the moment so that sometimes we forget where an editor's mind may be as to deadline-related needs. Perhaps this bit of advice from George Santayana will prove helpful: "To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring."

So now, the whirlwind of reviewing poems and creating a new Aurorean from scratch begins. Before we get too far into it, though, watch for a promotional video for the current Spring/Summer issue to be released soon (after all, we do want you to enjoy spring and summer no matter which seasons we have to be thinking about). If you have "Liked" the Aurorean's page on facebook, we'll post a link to it next week. If you haven't "Liked" the Aurorean's page on facebook, here you go: