qarrtsiluni news blog

Gender balance

A post at Gender Across Borders, “Sexism in English Language Poetry,” in which reference is made to journals that “publish significantly more men than women,” got us wondering how qarrtsiluni measured up. We did a tally, and it turned out that of the 380 authors and artists we’ve published so far, 218 — 57 percent — are female. (You have to trust us on this a little, because a few use pseudonyms, go by initials, or have gender-ambiguous names.) That’s about what we would’ve expected based on who submits to the magazine: somewhat more women than men.

Women fill the issue-editor positions at qarrtsiluni a little over 60 percent of the time: 26 of 43 total stints in our three and a half years of operation. It makes sense that this percentage would be fairly close to the percentage of contributors who are women, since one of our requirements for guest editors is that they must have had work published in the magazine.

The qarrtsiluni model?

Poet, playwright, and qarrtsiluni contributor Nicolette Bethel is the editor of tongues of the ocean, an online poetry journal based in the Bahamas that concentrates on poetry from the Caribbean and its diasporas. In an interview with the Caribbean Review of Books blog, Bethel says she’s a big fan of qarrtsiluni, and that she “stole a bunch of ideas” about internet poetry publishing from us, most notably the unfolding, blog-like publishing pattern.

She says “Part of the fun of qarrtsiluni is the almost chaotic nature of the journal, the edginess, the not-knowing what to expect (from the themes, from the guest editors, from the managing editors) — you’re always surprised.”

Thanks, Nicolette, and best wishes from us for tongues of the ocean!

Economy issue gets underway

The Economy issue launched today with some photos and a snippet of audio from Newfoundland. Guest editors Anna Dickie and Pamela Hart have selected a wide range of exciting material, and we expect the issue to unfold at the rate of 5-6 posts per week through August.

Submissions are open for a new qarrtsiluni issue: Economy. The guest editors this time are Anna Dickie and Pamela Hart, and the deadline is May 31. Please visit the site for the complete details.

Silk Road has a good interview with Dinty Moore (who will be judging qarrtsiluni’s chapbook contest, still ongoing). We particularly like what he says about the growing acceptance of online journals:

The credibility battle is being won in many ways, by pioneer online journals that have remained very selective in the work they publish, by somewhat newer ventures like McSweeney’s and Narrative and Blackbird that have the funding and staffing to act like “real” magazines and draw in the star power, and by conventional print magazines that are opening up more and more online content. I suppose there are some tenure committees that still turn up their collective egghead noses at online publications, but most writers I know, and especially if they are younger, don’t carry that prejudice any more.

Kudos to Brent Goodman for not letting a little thing like a heart-attack dissuade him from his poem-a-day NaPoWriMo schedule. (We were still very alarmed to learn about this, and extend our best wishes for a speedy recovery.)

The Opposite of Cabbage

Rob Mackenzie’s first full-length collection of poetry, The Opposite of Cabbage, was published earlier this month by UK-based Salt Publishing.

Messiahs parachute themselves to disused northern fairgrounds, a woman diets until practically invisible, trained apes teach a colony of drunks how to dance, a bingo night fuels familial despair and love, and an airborne cabbage blasts a cyclist into orbit. With precision of language and a colourful, anarchic spirit, Mackenzie’s poems focus on their subjects with humanity and hard-won compassion. They have a light touch, but are never trivial. They are for readers who trust that questions are rarely simple and answers never final.

Rob served as co-editor for qarrtsiluni’s Making Sense issue, and we’ve published three of his poems, as well. Rob’s become an influential figure in the contemporary Scottish poetry scene, in part because of the popularity of his blog, which draws commenters from all over the UK and around the world.

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In other qarrtsiluni-issue-editor-first-book news, Brent Goodman’s The Brother Swimming Beneath Me — which you can order directly from the author, as we noted the other week — is now featured on his publisher’s front page as a “spotlight book,” with three glowing blurbs. Check it out.

Cassandra Pages turns six

Qarrtsiluni managing editor Beth Adams has now been blogging at the cassandra pages for six years. She commemorated the occasion with a post reflecting on some of the changes she’s observed in blogging and online publishing in recent years. Check it out.

Creating a body of work over time continues to be, I think, a critical goal of the artistic life whether or not one achieves “success” - it’s through the process of committing ourselves over years and decades that we finally begin to see ourselves and our work, and become able to put them into the context of our world and the time in which we’ve lived - and the reward for that is a life more richly lived than many. I find the regular disicipline of writing for the web - along with my online relationships - a great help in that goal because the biggest challenge in art is always, simply, keep at it.

Best of the Net anthology recognizes qarrtsiluni authors

We’re pleased to announce that a short story by Teju Cole first published in qarrtsiluni has been selected for the Sundress Best of the Net 2008 anthology. “Modern Girls” was selected by Carey Wallace and Dana Guthrie Martin for our Hidden Messages issue, and was selected for Best of the Net by fiction judge Andy Mozina.

Speaking of Dana and Carey, they’re both included among the additional three qarrtsiluni authors whose work made it onto the list of finalists for the 2008 anthology. Carey Wallace’s story “The Century Room” and two poems, Dana Guthrie Martin’s “And the Crickets Outside the Window” and Monica Raymond’s “Moth and Rat” all originally appeared in our Insecta issue, which was edited by Ivy Alvarez and Marly Youmans. Dorianne Laux was the poetry judge for Best of the Net this year.

Back in August, Dave and Beth submitted the maximum number of nominations permitted — two short stories and six poems — after a couple of days of back-and-forth and agonizing over lengthy lists of our favorite posts from the previous year. In addition to those already mentioned, we nominated: “What We Ate After Passing The Cape of Eleven Thousand Virgins,” by Luisa A. Igloria; “Hallowed and Behold,” by Allan Peterson; “Cyclamen,” by Katherine Durham Oldmixon; and “Self-Portrait as Dryad, No. 5,” by Marly Youmans.

Qarrtsiluni contributor and past editor Brent Goodman’s debut volume of poetry, The Brother Swimming Beneath Me, is now out. Brent has a Paypal button on the sidebar of his blog of the same title where you can order a signed copy. For a long-time reader of his blog such as your humble scribe, it’s been fascinating to follow the whole process involved in writing, submitting, editing, and finally publishing a book of poems.

If you’re within driving distance of Madison, Wisconsin, Brent will be celebrating the book launch with a reading at Avol’s Books on Saturday at 7:00 pm.