Well, at least if you're me and are a big dork they are exciting.
We
have a domain name and a regular website will be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, you can send submissions to: submissions@deadmadorpoet.com
Since
this has come up in a couple of cases, we generally prefer work that is
previously unpublished. This includes posting it on the Internet in a
publicly accessible way....that is, if you posted it under a
friends-lock to get feedback or on a writer's forum that is
password-protected, that doesn't count, but if any Internet passerby
could see it, that does count.
There will be some cases where we
will print previously published work. In those cases, the solicitation
to reprint will come from us. In addition, since what we will be
acquiring are first North American serial rights, previous publications
outside of North America are fine as long as you let us know.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Featured dead poet: John Keats.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
“I love thee true.”
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
A word about money...
I am currently getting estimates for a small print run, just to have a
measuring stick. I intend to keep submissions open until April 1 and
release the inaugural issue on Beltane, 2010.
My goal is to have Dead, Mad, or a Poet: A Journal to Faerie become a pro market. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but what they boil down to is: Shakespeare got to get paid, son. That is...if we want to have the kind of cultural relevance we dream of, we need to support our artists and writers and musicians and dancers and thinkers. They are the way we will reach the rest of the world, and the Otherworld. I believe artists are shamans. I'll save a more lengthy explanation of that remark for an article but...let's just say it's important.
However, there is where we run into a problem.
There are, generally speaking, three ways that magazines make money (for some value of "making money" that involves staying afloat). The first, which is obvious, is the cover price. However, if the cover price included not only the printing costs but all of the other expenses...layout, editing (that's a cost, even if I'm doing it for free because I love you), paying contributors, and so on...the price would be prohibitive. If you all want to pay $50 for a sixty-page magazine just so I can pay all my contributors pro rates and be compensated for my time, you just let me know.
Yeah, I thought so.
The second way is advertising. I am going to offer ad space, but the reality is that this is such a small and focused niche publication with such a small print run that advertising is just not viable as our sole source of cash flow. It will never be more than a way tokeep the editorial staff in beer money slightly offset production costs.
There is a third way. "And see ye not that bonny road..." Most literary magazines (and this is a literary magazine, for all its daft witchy tendencies) are housed in institutions of higher learning or are supported by grants. Now, I am not under the impression that there is a college or university out there that is anxious to support such a weird changeling creature as my little magazine; if you know of one, do tell me. I even have academic credentials, and I teach a mean Freshman Comp. I am equally unsure of the willingness of arts foundations to foster my doings. See, here's the thing: Most of those organizations support secular art, and rightly so. Dead, Mad or a Poet is not really religious exactly, but also not, strictly speaking, secular. However, most religious magazines are supported by religious organizations, and we don't particularly have any of those. Those that we do have run their own newsletters. But ultimately, all of those foundations and organizations and even institutions of higher learning are ultimately supported either by taxes or by donations. Mostly donations.
So that's where you come in. Cut out the middle-man, and support the arts directly. Like donating money to the ballet, only with Pagans.
Currently, I do not have 501(c) status. I don't even have a dba. I estimate (in the absence of hard numbers from printers) that to do a print run of 500 copies and to start this thing up as a going concern (domain name and other foofaraws) I will need around $2000. That might be overly optimistic, but that's the number I am going with. So, that's my fund-raising goal. If I don't meet it, the initial print run will have to be smaller...which may mean .pdfs all around, but we shall see.
Here's how this will work:
And, well, think of it as your good deed for the day.
My goal is to have Dead, Mad, or a Poet: A Journal to Faerie become a pro market. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but what they boil down to is: Shakespeare got to get paid, son. That is...if we want to have the kind of cultural relevance we dream of, we need to support our artists and writers and musicians and dancers and thinkers. They are the way we will reach the rest of the world, and the Otherworld. I believe artists are shamans. I'll save a more lengthy explanation of that remark for an article but...let's just say it's important.
However, there is where we run into a problem.
There are, generally speaking, three ways that magazines make money (for some value of "making money" that involves staying afloat). The first, which is obvious, is the cover price. However, if the cover price included not only the printing costs but all of the other expenses...layout, editing (that's a cost, even if I'm doing it for free because I love you), paying contributors, and so on...the price would be prohibitive. If you all want to pay $50 for a sixty-page magazine just so I can pay all my contributors pro rates and be compensated for my time, you just let me know.
Yeah, I thought so.
The second way is advertising. I am going to offer ad space, but the reality is that this is such a small and focused niche publication with such a small print run that advertising is just not viable as our sole source of cash flow. It will never be more than a way to
There is a third way. "And see ye not that bonny road..." Most literary magazines (and this is a literary magazine, for all its daft witchy tendencies) are housed in institutions of higher learning or are supported by grants. Now, I am not under the impression that there is a college or university out there that is anxious to support such a weird changeling creature as my little magazine; if you know of one, do tell me. I even have academic credentials, and I teach a mean Freshman Comp. I am equally unsure of the willingness of arts foundations to foster my doings. See, here's the thing: Most of those organizations support secular art, and rightly so. Dead, Mad or a Poet is not really religious exactly, but also not, strictly speaking, secular. However, most religious magazines are supported by religious organizations, and we don't particularly have any of those. Those that we do have run their own newsletters. But ultimately, all of those foundations and organizations and even institutions of higher learning are ultimately supported either by taxes or by donations. Mostly donations.
So that's where you come in. Cut out the middle-man, and support the arts directly. Like donating money to the ballet, only with Pagans.
Currently, I do not have 501(c) status. I don't even have a dba. I estimate (in the absence of hard numbers from printers) that to do a print run of 500 copies and to start this thing up as a going concern (domain name and other foofaraws) I will need around $2000. That might be overly optimistic, but that's the number I am going with. So, that's my fund-raising goal. If I don't meet it, the initial print run will have to be smaller...which may mean .pdfs all around, but we shall see.
Here's how this will work:
- Donate $5 and up and you will get one copy from the initial print run. The cover price is going to be $7 once they are out.
- Donate $10 and up and you will get a print copy signed by me and any of the other artists and authors I can easily reach. This will become a family heirloom and your descendants will be able to sell it at auction for ungodly amounts of money, because I am going to be that famous some day, so think of it as an investment for the future.
- Donate $25 and up and you will get all that, a year's subscription to the magazine, plus a copy of my home-made chapbook The Traveling Bobcat Poetry Show.
- Donate $50 and up and you will get all that PLUS a signed copy of the artist's book publication of my poem series The Sophia Leaves Text Messages from Papaveria Press. While supplies last, because those are a very limited run and I am not sure how many are left. If you donate that much and PP is out of them I will think up something fabulous.
- $5 for business card size. CHEAP
- $15 for a half page.
- $25 for a full page.
- $50 for the back cover (query in case it's taken).
And, well, think of it as your good deed for the day.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Is this thing on?
This blog will become the home and soapbox of a new witchy-poetical publication: Dead, Mad, or a Poet: A Journal to F(a)eri(e).
Are you divinely inspired? Are you mad? Are you a F(a)eri(e)? Do any of those sound like fun? Then this is the journal for you.
Articles are welcome, but this is not another Pagan mag about being Pagan, a witch, or even Feri. Scholarship, we love scholars, they are tasty, but this is not Pagan Studies. We are not trying to appeal to the Academy here, though we do love us some intellectual rigor at times. Send us art, send us poetry, send us moonshine, send us tales. Send us mythic reinventions and dream screeds. Send us strange treasures sent by bottle by your Muse and washed up on the beach of your soul. Send us shamanic ravings and maps into Faerie. Send us spells and rituals only if they have aesthetic merit, or are guaranteed to work.
Submissions
You don't have to be a Feri initiate or student to write for us; nor do you have to be crazy. But it helps.
Poetry: 3-5 poems, any length. We prefer image-rich and evocative, loving attention to language...all of the things that make poetry good. We aren't attached to certain styles, but we know what we like.
Fiction: Any length up to 10,000 words. Microfiction or flash fiction welcome.
Non-fiction: Creative non-fiction on the general theme. Query for articles.
Art: Please. Specific details about format forthcoming.
Strange unclassifiable hybrid genre work: Yes.
If you are dead, and successfully submit work, we will certainly publish it, as long as it is in the public domain.
Format
For the nonce, Dead, Mad, or a Poet will be available as a PDF file. We will explore other options as they become necessary or feasible. We would love to be able to provide it as an iPhone app, but lack the necessary technical skill. For now.
Payment
We perpetuate the age-old punk rock pulp tradition of paying our authors and artists in fame, glory, contributor copies, and the promise of cheese sandwiches. We promise to pay you in cheese sandwiches some time before you die, and you promise not to die. If you break your promise, we will visit your grave with a cheese sandwich, and weep a small tear.
We hope to some day pay our contributors in real money. To that end, this outfit needs to become a viable concern. To that end, we need you, the glorious reader, to contribute. More about that later.
Send submissions, queries, and PayPal contributions to deadmadpoet@gmail.com
Are you divinely inspired? Are you mad? Are you a F(a)eri(e)? Do any of those sound like fun? Then this is the journal for you.
Articles are welcome, but this is not another Pagan mag about being Pagan, a witch, or even Feri. Scholarship, we love scholars, they are tasty, but this is not Pagan Studies. We are not trying to appeal to the Academy here, though we do love us some intellectual rigor at times. Send us art, send us poetry, send us moonshine, send us tales. Send us mythic reinventions and dream screeds. Send us strange treasures sent by bottle by your Muse and washed up on the beach of your soul. Send us shamanic ravings and maps into Faerie. Send us spells and rituals only if they have aesthetic merit, or are guaranteed to work.
Submissions
You don't have to be a Feri initiate or student to write for us; nor do you have to be crazy. But it helps.
Poetry: 3-5 poems, any length. We prefer image-rich and evocative, loving attention to language...all of the things that make poetry good. We aren't attached to certain styles, but we know what we like.
Fiction: Any length up to 10,000 words. Microfiction or flash fiction welcome.
Non-fiction: Creative non-fiction on the general theme. Query for articles.
Art: Please. Specific details about format forthcoming.
Strange unclassifiable hybrid genre work: Yes.
If you are dead, and successfully submit work, we will certainly publish it, as long as it is in the public domain.
Format
For the nonce, Dead, Mad, or a Poet will be available as a PDF file. We will explore other options as they become necessary or feasible. We would love to be able to provide it as an iPhone app, but lack the necessary technical skill. For now.
Payment
We perpetuate the age-old punk rock pulp tradition of paying our authors and artists in fame, glory, contributor copies, and the promise of cheese sandwiches. We promise to pay you in cheese sandwiches some time before you die, and you promise not to die. If you break your promise, we will visit your grave with a cheese sandwich, and weep a small tear.
We hope to some day pay our contributors in real money. To that end, this outfit needs to become a viable concern. To that end, we need you, the glorious reader, to contribute. More about that later.
Send submissions, queries, and PayPal contributions to deadmadpoet@gmail.com
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