Page 13 of 30

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Opportunity Knocks: Calls for Submissions and Competitions

The Sun Is In Love With Me

what a morning, good morning
burst of apricot, showering light
drizzling glee, a child’s laughter
if I had to live for just one day
it would be this one, morning-glory
nodding her bright-eyed blue head
and i know, there’s no such thing
no such thing as a death star
there’s only life, over hill and field
shining into windows, on warm grass
Look! the daisies are smiling
and the California poppies are
popping yellow like corn in a pot
the moon was muse last night
today the sun is in love with me

© 2013, Jamie Dedes 

Notes:

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

ARTEMISpoetry features poetry, reviews, and essays by women. Submissions for Issue 22 close on 31 August. Details HERE.

THE ACCOUNT publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is open for submissions begging May 1 and through September 1.  Details HERE.

ANIMAL: A BEAST OF A LITERARY MAGAZINE, “an online lit mag where artists of word and image explore the ephemeral between human and animal,” publishes nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and art.  Details HERE.

BREVITY publishes “extremely brief essay form” and craft essays and is open to submissions up to 750 words from established and emerging writers. Honorarium. Submission fee. Details HERE.

THE TIN HOUSE ONLINE featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry “and more” opened for submissions on March 6. Paying market. No submission fee. Details HERE.

THE WRITER, which is “dedicated to expanding and supporting the work of professional and aspiring writers with a straightforward presentation of industry information, writing instruction and professional and personal motivation. In the pages of our magazine, writers share experiences, expertise, struggles, advice, successes, and suggestions…,” welcomes queries. Details HERE.

TUPELO PRESS, fostering the literary arts since 1999, hosts and “Million-Line Poem,” a collective poetic process involving poets from around the world contributing couplets to create a unique organic art.  Details HERE.

COMPETITIONS

2019 BERKSHIRE PRIZE FOR A FIRST OR SECOND BOOK OF POETRY (Tupelo Press) is open for entries through April 30.  $30 entry fee. Cash award and publication. Details HERE.

2019 CAVE CANEM POETRY PRIZE is open through March 31, 2019. $1,000 cash ward, publication, fifteen copies and reading. Entry fee: $20. Details HERE.

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Pywacket and Gypsy circa 1999

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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“Lifting the Sky” … a poem from the latest collection of London’s Myra Schneider

English Poet Myra Schneider at her 80th Birthday celebration and the launch of her 12th collection

“I think that the poet can write forcefully, using a different approach from a journalist, about subjects such as climate change, violence, abuse and mental illness and that this is meaningful to others. I very much believe too that poetry is a way of celebrating life. I think it deserves a central place in our world.” Myra Schneider

Plant yourself in the quiet on a familiar floor
or on an uncut summer lawn

and, thinking of seabirds, stretch out your arms,
let them ascend through the unresisting air.

With palms facing upwards, travel your hands
till your fingertips almost meet,

then release your breath, begin to separate yourself
from the weight of all that lies on you.

Allow your mind to open to this moment and your arms
to rise as they lift the palpable blue

high above the crown of your head.
Your wings will fold away

but raise them slowly to the blue again, maybe
a lightness like liquid amber will flow through you.

excerpt with permission from Lifting the Sky (Ward Wood Publishing, 2018)

© 2018, Myra Schneider

Note: Lifting the Sky is an exercise in the Chinese meditation and breathing practice of Qigong

The poetry collection, Lifting the Sky, may be purchased directly from Myra or from Ward Wood Publishing.  Myra’s Amazon Page U.S. is HERE. Her Amazon Page U.K. is HERE. Some of Myra’s collections are available through Anne Stewart’s pf poetry.

Myra is a poet and writer, a poetry coach, a teacher at the Poetry School (London), and consultant to Second Light Network of Women Poets (SLN). Myra also teaches a remote (distance learning) class through SLN. Details HERE.

Myra’s poetry collection, Lifting The Sky “explores the theme of survival in many contexts: from the perils facing refugees and survivors of war to the detailed and tender mating ritual of endangered seahorses.

Threats to the environment are balanced by the preservation of delicate objects in ancient burial sites such as Sutton Hoo, which is also a meditation about death.

The narrative sequence Edge is a tour de force, presenting a diary of artistic and emotional breakdown due to depression followed by healing and restored creativity.” Ward Wood Publishing

Award Winning British Poet, Myra Schneider (b. 1936), Writer, Writing Coach, Consultant to Second Light Nework of Women Poets

Myra Schneider said in an interview HERE, that “I believe the role of the poet is to reflect on human experience and the world we live in and to articulate it for oneself and others. Many people who suffer a loss or go through a trauma feel a need for poetry to give voice to their grief and to support them through a difficult time. When an atrocity is committed poems are a potent way of expressing shock and anger, also of bearing witness. I think that the poet can write forcefully, using a different approach from a journalist, about subjects such as climate change, violence, abuse and mental illness and that this is meaningful to others. I very much believe too that poetry is a way of celebrating life. I think it deserves a central place in our world.”

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My (Jamie’s) SLN member page is HERE.

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Senior year of High School (1967)

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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Truth on the Ballot: Fraudulent News, the Midterm Elections, and Prospects for 2020, a report of PEN America

“…it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it … anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”  Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Warning about the risk of fraudulent news and online disinformation becoming a normalized part of U.S. political discourse, this week PEN America released Truth on the Ballot: Fraudulent News, the Midterm Elections, and Prospects for 2020. The report provides a robust analysis of efforts to counter fraudulent news in the 2018 midterm election cycle, and stresses the importance of social media platforms, candidates and political parties dramatically stepping up efforts to keep fraudulent news from badly polluting the 2020 election cycle.

The 50-page Truth on the Ballot catalogs and evaluates the steps taken by internet platforms, government agencies, and political parties to curb the influence of fraudulent news in the aftermath of the 2016 election cycle; examines current legislative proposals to regulate advertising transparency online; parses the role fraudulent news played in the 2018 midterm election cycle; and offers recommendations to stakeholders on vital steps to combat fraudulent news while protecting free expression rights ahead of the 2020 elections.

With fraudulent news and online disinformation distorting public discourse, eroding faith in journalism, and skewing voting decisions, Truth on the Ballot offers a stark warning about the normalization of fraudulent news and disinformation as campaign tactics, sounding an alarm that such unsavory methods are becoming part of the toolbox of hotly contested modern campaigns.  Micro-targeting capabilities have weaponized disinformation, so that what might once have passed muster as simply a hard-edged campaign message in the public arena can now move with stealthy, laser-like efficiency to reach sub-segments of voters while remaining invisible to the wider public or opposing campaigns.

“Fraudulent news has become an insidious virus infecting our democracy, feeding prejudices, fanning misperceptions, and shaping voting behavior in ways that can distort election outcomes. We see disturbing signals that domestic political actors are beginning to view disinformation as a necessary evil, believing that they have little choice but to fight fire with fire as opponents and outside actors bring disinformation tactics into our elections,” said Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer of PEN America.

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“To avoid a second presidential election cycle tainted by grave doubts over the role of fraudulent news and information in slanting the outcome we need online platforms to double down their investment in expert human intervention to augment the still-developing capabilities of algorithms and artificial intelligence to detect and address fraudulent news without impairing the free exchange of ideas. Political parties and campaigns need to commit unequivocally to reject the use of fraudulent information as a campaign tool. This report is an alarm bell: We cannot allow fraudulent news to make truth a casualty of our politics.”

Truth on the Ballot builds on PEN America’s October 2017 report, Faking News: Fraudulent News and the Fight for Truth, which examined how fraudulent news is eroding truth-based civic discourse and constitutes a threat to free expression. At the time, the majority of public concern over fraudulent news fixated on foreign actors, including Russian disinformation agents and Macedonian clickbait farms. While foreign-originated disinformation remains a serious concern, Truth on the Ballot warns that domestic actors are increasingly experimenting with fraudulent news and disinformation as a bare-knuckled political tactic.

Truth on the Ballot underscores the need for increased transparency regarding the funding of political ads, analyzing steps that technology companies have taken to address the problem and judging them often important, but insufficient. Additionally, the report reviews some of the most significant examples of fraudulent news during the 2018 election cycle and discusses how such disinformation shapes public discourse.

In addition to recommendations for technology companies, legislators, and political groups, Truth on the Ballot contains the first-of-its-kind Model Pledge Against Fraudulent News, a call to action for candidates and political parties to denounce fraudulent news and disinformation, and forswear its use. The Pledge also serves as a tool to empower citizens to take action and hold their elected officials and aspirants for public office accountable.

Highlights of Truth on the Ballot include:

  • Analysis of the nature, volume, and impact of domestic and foreign fraudulent news and disinformation campaigns during the 2018 midterm elections and major recent political moments, including the 2017 special election in Alabama and the nomination hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh
  • Critical examination of the steps taken by three major platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and Google, to blunt the impact of fraudulent news in the run-up to the midterm elections, including revisions to their algorithms; increased transparency around political advertising; account shutdowns; and collaboration with political campaigns and government agencies
  • Overview of the evolving landscape of online disinformation, from Russian propaganda campaigns to domestic hyper-partisan actors
  • Recommendations for technology companies, political groups, legislators, and citizens, based on the bedrock idea that the most effective proactive tactic against fraudulent news is a citizenry that is well-equipped to detect, and reject, fraudulent claims
  • Call to legislators to establish a federal commission to research and analyze ways to combat the spread of disinformation
  • Call to social media platforms to establish and sufficiently support substantial teams of lawyers, advertising experts, linguists, graphics experts and election experts to augment still-developing and experimental artificial intelligence and algorithmic approaches and bring a trained, expert human eye to content in the lead-up to the 2020 elections
  • A model pledge against fraudulent news for elected officials, aspirants for public office, and political parties to commit to refraining from utilizing fraudulent news and to denouncing its use, even when it benefits them politically

The report is available HERE.

This post is courtesy of PEN America; Presidential Seal is in the public domain.

*****

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. 

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Christmas, late ’80s, San Francisco, California

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton

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“Matador Review” & “Poetica Review” call for submissions; Erratum to 03/10/2019 announcement

“The Matador Review strives to be a cultural conservationist for the alternative world. In each issue, we offer a selection of work from both emerging and established artists, as well as exclusive interviews and reviews from creators who are, above all else, provocative.” The Editors

Alternative art and literature magazine The Matador Review is accepting submissions for the Summer 2019 publication. This review featured poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction, inviting all unpublished literature written in the English language (and translations that are accompanied by the original text) as well as many forms of visual art. Submissions are open through May 31, 2019 for the summer issue.

The Matador Review is an online literature and art quarterly based in Los Angeles and Chicago. Founded in January 2016, the purpose is to promote “alternative work” from both art and literature, and to encourage respect for online publications. In each issue, we offer a selection of work from both emerging and established artists, as well as exclusive interviews and book reviews from creators who are, above all else, provocative. Recent contributors include Damian Van Denburgh, Rachelle Cruz, Heidi Seaborn, Jeremy Radin, Marguerite L. Harrold, and others.

Submission information can be found HERE.

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POETiCA REViEW “exists to promote the work of new and older poets alike, the less fortunate, the dispossessed, those without a voice, but encourage the artistic talents of all, not just a privileged minority.” Submission guidelines HERE. Watch the site for upcoming competition announcement.

ERRATUM: Yesterday I announced that I set up The new Facebook The BeZine Arts and Humanities Group, a place to share all your arts activities and accomplishments, not just poetry, in the hope of inspiring one another and encouraging collaborations among the arts. Within this group you can announce publications, showings, events and so forth. You are encouraged to share your videos: music, poetry readings, photography, art, film and so forth. I also provided information on the long-established “The BeZine” 100TPC (and Friends) for Change group discussion page. I’ve corrected the email address provided in the post. And here today the correct email for submissions and communications for the Zine is bardogroup@gmail.com .

Note: Call for submissions to the March 15, 2019 issue of The BeZine is closed. We are currently reading for that issue and will respond to submissions shortly.  Calls for submissions will open again from April 15 through June 10 for the June issue, which is themed sustainability.  Thank you! 

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Jamie

Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton