NEW PUB | Just a quickie post today to let you know that I am honoured to have a new poem out in Qwerty 51, the magazine’s 30th Anniversary issue.

It was at a local open mic that the inspiration to submit to Qwerty struck. I supporting some pals when I overheard Jamie Kitts mentioning what she had planned for this issue, and specifically using the word “pseudoarchaeology”. My ears pricked up because I’d already been toying with something that seemed perfect.

Actually, no. The truth is I’d already written a poem with exactly that title. I wondered if it might be a fit?

At home that night, I looked up the official call:

“We’ve lain the cornerstone, mixed the mortar, and now we are raising the frame. Submissions are now open for Qwerty’s 51st issue: Post & Beam! This special architecture issue takes us back to the foundations of our form as a literary magazine to mark our 30th anniversary. Send us your poetry, prose, and visual art that explores structural, historical, and eerie interpretations of building design.”

There was a submission cap and in the current clime, I wouldn’t usually try for something like this. These calls fill fast. Earlier this year, I watched a press open and close its submission window in fewer than eight hours. That’s all it took to reach the cap. So usually, I wouldn’t waste my time, but for once, I had something ready-to-go and serendipitously thematic. I sent in that piece, as well as two others that I thought might also work, and then propmpty forgot all about it.