Four Way Books Poetry Competition

THIS, my dear readers, is an opportunity and I gladly suggest that any poets out there take this moment to think about whether or not they have enough of a corp us to enter into this competition. It comes highly recommended and the judge is a great writer himself.  Read below for all the details you may desire. 2012 FOUR WAY BOOKS INTRO PRIZE IN POETRY  Judge: D. A. Powell Submission Dates: January 1 – March 31, 2012 (postmark or email deadline) by online submission manager or regular mail. Postmark deadline March 31 and email deadline (by 3 am EST April 1). Awarding publication of a book-length collection and $1000. Open to any poet writing in English who has not already published a book-length collection of poetry. Submissions accepted on-line (preferred) and by mail. Please read the following instructions carefully. Online submission: Submitting to us online is easy, saves you money, and saves trees. • Fill out our online entry form and follow the directions for online credit card payment on our secure site. • You will be assigned an online entry number. You will then submit your manuscript through our online submissions program. By mail: • Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript by regular mail (USPS only). • Please include a completed Entry Form. Click here to download the Entry Form (PDF format). (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the Entry Form.) • Include one cover page with the title of your work and all of your contact information, including your email address if you have one. Your name and contact information should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript. • You must include a second cover page with just the title of your work, no other contact info. • No more than one poem per page, please. More than one section of a poem can appear on a page, of course. • No page limit, but we recommend a length of between 48 and 80 pages of poetry. This page limit does not include your title page, notes, etc. • Do not include art work. • Please use a legible font of 12 point. • Include an entry fee of $28 with your submission, by check, made payable to Four Way Books. A stamped self-addressed postcard may be included to confirm receipt of manuscript. Multiple submissions may be mailed together. If you submit more than one manuscript, please supply contact info for both and an increased fee ($28 per submission). Mail submission and entry fee to: Four Way Books POB 535 Village Station New York NY 10014 GENERAL GUIDELINES (for all submitters) • Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. • Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished. • Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible. • There are no length requirements save that book-length collections of poetry usually run between 45 pages of text and 80 pages. NOTFICATION The winner will be notified by email or phone no later than Labor Day. Submitters will be notified by email only. The result will also be posted on our website by Labor Day. We do not return manuscripts. We do not offer editorial feedback to submitters. Our Reading Policy Each manuscript is delivered to our readers as a blind submission. That is, it is stripped of identifying material. Only the manuscript, inclusive of any text notes, is sent to the readers and, if chosen as a finalist, to the judge. We do not give a list of submitters to the judge. Please do not submit to this contest if you are close enough to D.A. Powell that his integrity, your integrity, and the integrity of Four Way Books would be called into question should you be selected as the winner. You may query us if you have questions regarding this matter. We will allow you to submit to us outside of the contest if you feel that you are treading deep water in this regard. Please query by email toeditors@fourwaybooks.com. Our preliminary readers for the contest are selected by the director of the press and are published poets, experienced editors, and/or poets who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We regularly rotate our readers. Our readers select approximately 50 manuscripts as finalist selections. They look for work that is beautifully crafted, manuscripts that feel whole and well shaped. They do not try to second guess a judge's preference. Rather, they look to present a wide range of excellent work to the judge. Finalists are notified in May that their work will be sent on to the judge. On occasion, a judge may ask to see more work and the judge is not allowed to ask for specific work by a specific writer, but may ask to see a wider sampling of strong work. If that is the case, the press reviews the submissions again and more manuscripts are sent to the judge as finalists. Therefore, we do not inform the public of finalist selections since that list may grow after May. The judge is instructed to notify the press of any indiscretions. If a submitter contacts the judge regarding the contest, that person will be disqualified. If the judge does not select a winner, the press's director and senior editors will select a finalist's manuscript to publish.

GOOD LUCK DEAR SCRIBBLERS - HAPPY WRITING!!

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 

SCRIBBLER

Of Learning and Love

Prompt of the Day #11

What does the future hold? Is it a scary place? Is it a Utopian, Golden Age? Where do you or your character want to end up? Do you miss the way things were? What do the older generations think about it? 

Write a poem or story about the future - whether its an idealistic or apocalyptic world. 

After a long couple of emails back and forth between myself and a writer in a funk, it was decided that this week will be dedicated to two things: 'Love', as it is Valentines Day tomorrow, and different ways of 'Learning' how to improve your own writing. These two themes will involve: 

• looking at some of the love poetry of Ovid, Catullus and some more modern writers; 
• thinking about relationships between characters and voices; 
• considering your relationship with your own work
• learning ways that you can make yourself a better writer. 

That's why I started today with a prompt about the future - you know what you want, you know your pen, it's up to you to achieve what you want, no one else. So I want to keep this very short today and let you think about these things. 

If you want to be taken seriously the only person who can force the world to take notice is you. 

Now I'm going to point you here: 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing. 

Think about it.

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER 

A Brief History of English

Love your Language

Language is exciting, here's a video you all can watch and feel as excited as I do! From the Anglo-Saxons and the influence of Latin to Shakespeare, the King James Bible and imperial additions to the language, this ten minute compilation offers an amusing look at the development of how we speak and write. 

Feel the wordy love. 

To Whom it May Concern

I chose to begin today with a welcome - because even though I know that every one who strays across this has much better things to be doing - it is quite rude not to begin by giving ones greetings to those who stumble upon the road less travelled by. 

This is The Daily Scribble - which in this case is very unlikely to be 'daily' but it sounds rather more like writing than 'The Scribble' and in any case, 'the scribble' I'm sure has already been taken by one or other Marvel villain - and it will be about Writing and Books and things of a sort. 

I will post up writing prompts (which you will also find on my tumblr) and reviews (which will really just be my opinion on the various books that I read). There will be references to obscure things such as NaNoWriMo, an auspicious writing challenge that sees thousands of aspiring scribblers bleeding from their fingers as they attempt to scrawl at least 50K in the month of November. There will be literary expeditions, also known as rambles off into the vagaries of poetry. There will be 

Now you can see why I said you almost certainly have something better to do. If this is the case, I would suggest that you hurry away before a prompt catches you eye or a writer rises to tempt you into keeping him immortal. If not, then welcome, peruse at your leisure and enjoy. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER