Useful links: Success After the MFA, Organizing a book manuscript, tips for submitting to journals
You know I have a special interest in how to organize poetry manuscripts (I’ve run a couple of workshops on it, do manuscript consultations, and pretty much always have a friend’s MS in hand (or my own) to think about how it could be organized. There weren’t a lot of helpful articles out there just a few years ago, but lately there has have been a few articles published. This latest is my Erika Meitner on her experiences reading the slush piles and the “mix-tape” versus “project” book manuscript organization strategies – read it here. I very much write on my obsessions, so I’ll write 100 poems on one subject, then another…for instance, I’ve been writing a series on Oak Ridge, Tennessee, another series on fairy tales, etc. If you look at my books, they’re really the result of sifting down the pile of poems I’ve written around a certain subject or set of subjects.
I’m also very interested in how MFA programs prepare their graduates for the post-graduation environment – especially these days, when teaching jobs (and jobs in general) are few and far between. How do we earn a living? How do we define “success” for post-MFA grads? This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses whether success means publishing a book, getting a tenure-track teaching job, winning grants or awards….read it here.
I know for me, I didn’t necessarily have “getting a teaching job” as a goal after my MFA, but I was definitely interested in publishing a book and in working somehow with literary magazines. Hmm, now that I’ve done those things, I notice my goals shift and change over time. Do you think that most MFA programs do a good job of preparing graduates for the realities of life after MFA? How do you define success as a writer?
And last, for any readers just starting out sending to literary magazines, Bob from Writer’s Market has a good bunch of tips here. My two best tips are: read the magazine and read the submission guidelines closely.
There has also been some controversy around reading fees and contest fees at literary magazines and publishers. Necessary evil or unacceptable? You can’t get it online, but the latest Poets & Writers has an article talking about the issue.
http://www.pw.org/content/novemberdecember_2011
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
