qarrtsiluni news blog

We’ve just learned about another way people can make audio recordings of their work for qarrtsiluni. A new contributor, Dustin Brookshire, made a very clear MP3 with his iPhone using a free application called iTalk. He said, “All I had to do was download the free version on my computer as well. It was soooooo easy that I was quite surprised and actually just recorded another poem for my blog.”

We’ve added this new option to the growing list of suggestions on How to Make an Audio Recording. Thanks, Dustin!

We congratulate poet and qarrtsiluni contributor Christina Pacosz for the selection of her chapbook, Notes from the Red Zone, as the inaugural volume in Seven Kitchens Press’s Rebound Series. Dave can vouch for the fact that Seven Kitchens — the baby of another qarrtsiluni contributor, Ron Mohring — does beautiful work, so we’re excited that Christina’s Notes will get what’s sure to be a spectacular makeover.

Notes from a Red Zone was nominated by David Chorlton, and the announcement post quotes from his letter:

The passage of twenty-five years has not diminished the relevance of [these] poems. As I have followed Christina Pacosz’s work, I have been impressed by her vision of the world, beset as it is by the problems she addresses. If poetry is to be returned to circulation after a time in the dark, let it be the poetry that exposes recurring concerns and shows determination to deal with them.

“Whoops!” That was our reaction when we started hearing from some of our friends overseas that they were being hit with exorbitant shipping fees when they tried to order the new print edition of qarrtsiluni from Lulu.com. Beth did a quick exploration of other options, and decided that the best and easiest solution would be to polish our abandoned CreateSpace version so people could buy it through Amazon.com. Links to both versions are now listed at the top of the print edition announcement in the Apocalypse issue archive. The two versions should be equal in quality now, though Lulu’s has a creamier paper, according to Beth.

Thanks to everyone who’s already ordered a copy, and our sincere apologies to anyone who may have already ordered the Lulu.com edition from overseas and has suffered sticker shock. We’re still feeling our way in this print business, obviously, and we beg your indulgence.