Reflections

I was going to do this back in August when I had my one year anniversary of publishing Emerald Tales, but my brain wasn't working well enough, and the post would have ended up an incoherent mess.

This past year and a half from the idea "Hey, wouldn't it be great to start an ezine" to now, the publisher of a journal, poetry collections, short stories, and The Annals of Hypnosia, has been quite a journey. In particular order here are my thoughts about it:

Sending out rejection letters sucks. It really sucks when there isn't anything wrong with a story, but I'm limited by how much I can spend paying authors and poets. (And it is important to me that this be a paying market.) In many cases, it boiled down to how well the story or poem fit the theme.

The worst rejection letters that I had to write were to those who I had published before. It was like telling a best friend, "No, you don't look good in that dress." On the other hand, it would do them more harm than good for me to accept their story just because I had accepted a previous one.

The first line being the theme of the issue makes it really hard to decide which stories to include and which to pass on. If the first line is there, then there is nothing to base a decision on. Which is why the Bright and Sunny Day issue was so damn long... I'm not doing that again.

People who can write a story that is four thousand words are less are much more likely to write a compelling novel or story of longer length. They've figured out how to hook your attention quickly and hold it. I think those people who say, "they can't write a story that is less than 4000 words," should try working on it. It probably will increase their chance of finding an agent and selling their novel.

The British Commonwealth seems to have something going on in the ability to write short stories. Every issue of Emerald Tales has at least one and sometimes two or three or four authors from England, Canada, Australia, etc. They're represented in a higher proportion than one would expect based on population statistics. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Maybe it's an education thing. Maybe it's genetic. They do have a large number of authors in the must read classics department.

There were three or four poets that submitted to every issue and that I accepted their poetry every time for either Emerald Tales or Copper Wire. They are Guy Belleranti, John Hayes, Darrell Lindsey, and Lauren McBride. They are different in the form of poetry that they write, but they all have the same quality that I was looking for in a poem: you don't have to be a literature professor to understand their imagery.

I didn't know it at the time, but I also accepted poetry from two brothers, Josh and Matthew Byers. I wonder if there were any more blood relations.

Drum roll, please.

In alphabetic order the contributors to Scribblers and Ink Spillers:

Emerald Tales
Poetry
Guy Belleranti (5)
J. N. Bower
Matthew Byer
josh byer
Effie Collins
Amanda C. Davis
Lindsey Duncan
Grace Galton
Scott E. Green
Damien Walters Grintalis (2)
John Hayes (5)
D. L. Hegel
Wynne Huddleston (2)
Penn Kemp (2)
Patricia La Barbera
N. L. LeBlanc
Darrell Lindsey (4)
Lauren McBride (3)
Tracie McBride (2)
Michelle Mead
Catherine Moore
George Moore
Patricia Puckett
Roxanne Rhoads
Patty Saturn
Troy Seate
Marge Simon
Hal Sirowitz
Teresa Tunaley
Grady Yandell
Mercedes M. Yardley

Stories
Kevin Anderson
Jennifer Azantian
J. J. Beazley
Ben A. Bell
Guy Belleranti
Chip Bland
Faith Boughan (2)
Darla J. Bowen
Ragna Brent
Thomas Canfield
Arthur Carey
Peter Caunt (2)
Lisa Clark
Marie Croke (2)
Laurie Dalzell (3)
Amanda C. Davis
K. S. Dearsley (2)
Aubrie Dionne (2)
Lindsey Duncan
Jason Flum (4)
Catherine J. Gardner
Alice Godwin
Bruce Golden (3)
Denise Golinowski
Eliza Granville
Heather Gregson
Damien Walters Grintalis
James Hartley
Neil James Hudson (2)
E. Hull (2)
B. M. Kezar
Douglas Kolacki
Raymond Koonce
Kristina Lee (2)
Richard S. Levine
Brandi Mauldin
Lauren McBride
Michael McGlade
Mario Milosevic
Bill Moon
Jenny Morientes
Heather Parker
R. J. Payne
Christine Rains
Cherie Reich (2)
Stephen D. Rogers
Lisa Rusczyk (2)
Laura Jeanne Sanger
Jennifer schwabach
K. C. Shaw
Adam Slade
Abra Staffin-Wiebe
Paula R. Stiles
Lori T Strongin
Julie St. Thomas
G. W. Thomas
Erika Tracy
Justin Whitney
Hugh Wilson

Copper Wire
Poetry:
Guy Belleranti
Gary Bloom
Matthew Byer
John Hayes
Darrell Lindsey
Lauren McBride
Misty Posey
Changming Yuan


Short Stories:
Bryant Alexander
Karen Dent
Grace Galton
Bruce Golden
Heather Gregson
Damien Walters Grintalis
Stephanie Hamrick
Neil James Hudson
M. J. Jones
Raymond Koonce (2)
Jack Linus
B. Moon
Lisa Rusczyk
Jude Tulli
L. A. Witt
P. E. Zimmerman

Crystal Codices
Stories:
Sarah Ashwood
Nyki Blatchley
Savyn Carden
Jeremy Essex
Ken Goldman
Kristin Janz
Matthew Leukroth
Marilyn Luttrell

Poetry Collections:
Guy Belleranti
Lisa Rusczyk

And Mette Pesonen the author and illustrator of The Annals of Hypnosia.

Keep an eye out for these authors and poets, they're worth it.