A paying market is a rare place. I understand the economic realities of publishing poetry; supply/demand comes to mind. But it is art, and it's hand-made, so to speak, and we folk who work on writing it give a lot of time and devotion to bringing it forth. And not only is poetry art, we write it essentially for the love of it, for free. How dreadfully hard can it be to send out an individual email to the rejected writer? or the accepted one, for that matter? Just two months ago, I nearly missed an acceptance from B O D Y, a very cool venue that is open to some of my weirder productions. And these editors are extraordinarily gracious and supportive. They paid me the compliment of rejecting an earlier submission by telling me that the work wasn't as good as my best work, so they weren't going to take it. And they were right!
So OK. I've incorporated checking my Submittable account into my daily routine. But I do miss the one-to-one notifications, and I do not find the new efficiency an improvement.
An update: I just received an email announcing the winner and runners-up of Sow's Ear 2019 Poetry contest. I like Sow's Ear; they've published work of mine for years, and I thought I had a shot at being included in the issue containing the winner and other well-regarded entries. I have looked over their website scrupulously, and only the winner and first runner-up are mentioned. (She happens to be a friend who I told about the contest, so...bittersweet on that one.) Nowhere to look at the TOC of the contest issue itself. And no notification to me, presumably a non-starter, releasing my hopes and my work. All this for a $30 entry fee. I do understand that the judge needs to be paid; it's steep but as I said, I thought I had a chance. If they can send out a mass email notifying us of the winner, they could also send another email, a boilerplate email, informing us others that we did not make the cut. I will not feel inclined to join in again.
ReplyDelete