And now for a quick catch-up on various stories that have landed in out in-box that don't quite fit into the normal publishing scheme of things...

• Poetry – it's grim out there... The organisers of the Ledbury Poetry Festival report that of the 972 poems entered for their annual competition, the largest single category was 'sadness' (incorporating death, decay, despair and disillusionment) which accounted for 33% of entries. We know how they feel, our hearts sink when we receive yet another piece about changing the sheets that still carry the smell of the narrator's recently departed lover, brother, mother, significant other. However in terms of high crimes and poetry misdemeanours, we think poems containing the words 'shards' and/or 'motes' should be banned.


• Reviews – it's taken a while but can we mention regular IS&T contributor Rachel Fox's new collection More about the song. Without doubt it is the most enjoyable new collection I've read this year. Reflecting her performance work at folk clubs around the country, it is also one of the few collections that name-checks Donny Osmond, Simon Cowell, Robert Plant, the Eels, Nina Simone, Bjork, Radiohead, George Bush, MySpace and PR consultants in one volume in a fashion that is totally natural, unforced and unpretentious. This is what she has to say about MySpace...

Spacing

When you die, what happens to your MySpace profile?
Does it jam, does it crash, do your friends get told?
Does a bulletin post all the funeral details?
Does 'about me' blur as your body goes cold?

The collection cost £7.00 for a generous 80 pages of poetry – and its printed on recycled paper and card. You can find full details on Rachel's website at www.crowd-pleasers.net – in the meantime, to quote the poem on the back cover of the collection...

Exposing

Does a blurb ever lie?
Can it tell what's inside?
Go on, open me up
I have nothing to hide


• Competitions – finally, news of two competitions...


Café Writers Open Poetry Competition 2008
Entry Fee: £4 per poem; or £10 for 3 poems and £2.00 per poem thereafter. Closing Date: 30th November 2008. Prizes: 1st £750 2nd £300 3rd £150 also £150 Book Vouchers awarded to best poem from a permanent Norfolk (UK) resident. Judge: Penelope Shuttle. Cafe Writers is a Norwich-based group that runs monthly readings and open mic sessions. Entry forms available from www.cafewriters.org.uk

First International Erotic Tanka Contest
Deadline Postmark:  Dec. 31st  2008 Eligibility:  Open to everyone  + MUST BE AT LEAST 21 YEARS OLD Subject matter: Erotic, sensual/physical tanka. Tanka that expresses love in all its manifestations. Please NO pornography!! Prizes:  First Place  $100  Second Place  $50 and Third Place  $25 (Prize monies maybe reduced if there are insufficient funds due to number of entries.) Entry Fee:  $1 per tanka  No limit on number of tanka submitted. Cheques, money orders, made payable to Pamela A. Babusci, or cash. Foreign entries CASH ONLY, US MONIES.
 
Rules:  Submit tanka on 3x5 index cards. One card with just the tanka on it and the second card with your tanka and your name, address, telephone number, and email address on the front upper left of the card. Entries MUST be typewritten or printed legibly. Entries that cannot be read be will destroyed.  Enclose an SASE, with sufficient postage (or 2 IRCs for international entries) if you desire contest results. ONLY unpublished tanka will be accepted. NO tanka  that is being considered for publication or entered into tanka contests elsewhere. NO tanka that has been published on-line or in on-line tanka workshops should be entered. TANKA IN ENGLISH ONLY.
 
The contest will be judged blindly. Karen Shiffler will receive all entries and send ONLY the blind entries to the judge. Send entries to:  First International Erotic Tanka Contest, Karen Shiffler, 1464 Lake Road Webster, NY 14580 USA. Questions: email moongate44@gmail.com – subject line: Questions: Erotic Tanka Contest.     

Regular IS&T contributor Geoff Stevens has a new collection out – see cover illustration. You can get copies direct from him (price £6-50 + 70p p&p) from 25 Griffiths Road, West Bromwich B71 2EH.

Here's some news about two of I&T's regular contributors – Padrika Tarrant and Gwilym Williams.

• Padrika Tarrant's collection of short fiction – Broken Things –  has been long-listed for the Frank O'Connor prize for short fiction.  There is dedicated blog at http://saltfrankoconnorprize.blogspot.com/ – and you can also find some of Padrika's material, including podcasts at http://saltfrankoconnorprize.blogspot.com/2008/05/play-coffinwood-7.html

• And Gwilym Williams (last heard of sitting on top of a mountain in the Alps to avoid the Euro 2008 soccer crowds) has his first collection out. Called Genteel Messages (approx 60 pages) you can buy it online via Paypal for £5.25 + £1.00 p&p from the Poetry Monthly press at www.poetrymonthly.com/page46.html – we've included a copy of the cover artwork, Gwilym's into to the collection, and one of the poems.





In the Park


On the grass someone is sleeping;
I think it’s a woman.
I think she’s asleep
under that green plastic sheet
directly in front of that bench
by the drinking fountain; supermarket
bags arranged on the seat.

But I don’t want to wake her and ask her.

No doubt they contain the usual things;
old magazines, broken biros, newspaper,
a curl of orange peel, two or three cans
of beer, a scattering of bent or broken
cigarettes, smelly clothes, tangled string;-
you know the sort of thing.

Nearby a man and some children play;
wrestling on a heap of bouncy blocks.

Another man is pushing a bike away.



• from Genteel Messages by Gwilym Williams

We don't often cover news stories but in the light of my recent departure from a creative writing course, I thought these comments made by the novelist, screenwriter and playwright Hanif Kureishi during an interview at the Hay (Book) Festival, which runs until Sunday...

Kureishi, a research associate on the creative writing course at Kingston University, said: "One of the things you notice is that when you switch on the television and a student has gone mad with a machine gun on a campus in America, it's always a writing student. The writing courses, particularly when they have the word 'creative' in them, are the new mental hospitals. But the people are very nice.

"When I teach them, they are always better at the end – and more unhappy." He added that creative writing courses set up false expectations that a literary career would inevitably follow. "The fantasy is that all the students will become successful writers - and no one will disabuse them of that. When you use the word creative and the word course there is something deceptive about it."

"I always give people the same mark – 71% – and then you write these reports. I always say they were well-behaved, well-dressed ... But how can you mark creative writing?"

I'm sad to report that I've become the oldest art school drop out on the planet ...probably. Actually I was doing a creative writing MA at an art school and I decided to sling my hook because I felt the classes were at best a distraction from the work I want to do – I still have a day job, so it's not as if I need to attend courses to occupy my time.

However once I mentioned my thinking, I heard similar comments from other people (including a couple of IS&T contributors) to the effect that they were despairing of their creative writing courses, feeling 'short-changed' in terms of what they were getting back in return for their fees etc etc. So has the creative writing bubble burst? Are there too many schools, colleges and universities running creative writing courses with not enough resources to go around. Three common complaints are:
• not enough tutorials
• not enough workshopping and/or not enough willing participants for workshopping
• and a depressing feeling of lack of resources – the one I've just left felt so underfunded as to be threadbare.

One final item of home news – our internet server has been down all day but we hope to resume normal postings from Monday.

Ink Sweat & Tears' readership for April hit a new all time high with 10,001 distinct hosts served and just over 17,000 page views recorded. Thank you.

• We are breaking with tradition today to carry an essay by Juliet England on the subject of creative writing. The text version appears below and we have also attached a PDF containing the full references and footnotes. Juliet England is a regular contributor to IS&T.


Writing Wrongs

Introduction: What is Creative Writing, and why are we all doing more of it?

Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, defines creative writing as:


Almost everyone I interviewed for this essay agreed that creative writing is more popular than ever. There was a lone voice of dissent, from Reading-based poet Ashley Harrold, who maintained that numbers for the groups in which he is involved – a workshop and a Poets’ Café – are steady but not rising.

But his view was not typical. The Writers’ Conference, at Winchester University, for example, has mushroomed tenfold since it began in 1980. Welsh writer Phil Carradice read nearly 700 entries while judging the last Rhys Davies Short Story Competition, and Barbara Large, Founder-Director of Winchester University’s annual writing conference, reports that the 2007 event’s accompanying competition attracted more than 800 entries in the category for young poets alone. Not to mention 700 short stories, and more than 350 first pages of a novel.

Writing is now widely taught, not only in universities and schools, but in prisons, as part of mental health care, and in adult education colleges, where it features in prospectuses alongside Italian and cake icing. There is a growing trend for large organisations, from Marks and Spencer to the British Antarctic Survey, to hire writers in residence.

And, with more magazines, web sites, and TV channels hungry for fresh scripts meaning more outlets for publication, the craft of writing has rarely been more visible. These days, you have to shout pretty loudly to be heard over the babble.
But why should more people feel inspired to put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, now? Some of the possible explanations swirl with contradiction. On one hand, all leisure pursuits seem to be on the rise – from salsa classes to sudoku. (This despite, the fact that we appear to be working longer hours than ever.)

Has a rise in literacy been a contributory factor? Yet the Skills for Life survey published by the Department for Education and Skills in October 2003 reports that one in six respondents (16 per cent, or 5.2 million adults) had lower level literacy skills. 

Could computing be the reason, with people happy to tap out on a screen what they wouldn’t have bothered to write on paper? As John Moat points out in his eloquent memoir about the creation of the Arvon Foundation, The Founding of Arvon  which runs residential creative writing courses, a student is ‘as likely these days to have a laptop as a toothbrush.’ Despite the depressing statistics from the DfES, we are more computer literate than ever, and the Internet has created a host of opportunities for writers to network and promote themselves, to receive feedback, and showcase their work – from blogging to online competitions and forums. 

Barbara Large points out that books are cheaper now, and more accessible. Book groups have taken off in recent years, in pubs, libraries, homes, prisons, through newspapers, web sites (even the social networking site Facebook has a ‘my favourite read’ feature) and on television thanks to Richard and Judy.

There are other considerations as well. We are, in theory at least, better educated, more affluent and aspirational. We live longer, and spend more years in retirement. Writing is no longer considered to be exclusively for an educated elite. Arguably, being assailed by information on all sides, we are more able to absorb and take things in. With more of us journeying more frequently and further afield than previous generations, it’s not difficult to see why travel writing, as a particular example, has never been more competitive.

High-profile millionaire authors such as JK Rowling have doubtlessly caused some to hanker after glamour and fortune along with literary immortality. It’s easy to understand what Russell Celyn Jones means when he reflects:  ‘Writers have become the product now.’

Even supermodel Naomi Campbell has done her best to get in on the act, with her novel, Swan, which she allegedly has not even read, let alone written.  (She is reported to have put said: ‘I just didn’t have time to sit down and write a book.’)

Dr Johnson famously asserted: ‘No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.’ Yet barely a handful of those who turn up diligently for their weekly writing class, or follow correspondence courses will make a penny or see their efforts or names in print. So why are they writing, and who for? For pleasure, stimulation, therapy? For the love of it? To be read, to be heard? Do they just want some company? Do they, as Rilke  urged, ask themselves’ in the most silent hour of their night’ whether they ‘must write’, and then ‘build their lives in accordance with this necessity?’ Or would they be just as happy going to macramé on Wednesday evenings?

No doubt people write for all these reasons, and more.


Does More Mean Less?

I wondered whether the standard of what is being produced has risen, along with the volume, or whether we are guilty of creating what William Jay Smith describes as:


Welsh poet, novelist, broadcaster and historian Phil Carradice argues: “While there is a lot of dross, the standard seems to be much higher than it was 10 or 20 years ago. There are some pretty good writers out there.”

Ashley Harrold agrees: “There is a lot of good material being produced. Rubbish doesn’t usually make it into the public forum. There is a large amount of adequate stuff …but the exceptional is rare.”


The Creative Writing Industry

A ‘creative writing industry’ has shot up alongside this growing army of largely unpublished and unpaid would-be wordsmiths. The last issue of 2007 of Mslexia, the magazine for women writers, carries seven adverts for graduate and undergraduate university courses, 11 advertisements for a variety of writing related services, from literary consultancies to mentoring, coaching and self-publishing. Also featured are five writing competitions, 10 non-university courses, two writers’ organisations and five books.

The December 2007 issue of Writer’s Forum has no fewer than 16 advertisements for a similar array of writing services, one for some software, five for non-university courses, two for university BA and MA creative writing degrees, and two for competitions. Not to mention its directory, which lists a vast array of classified adverts.

Poet Polly Clark emailed: “If you’ve done your homework, you’ll know who to work with, and what is a good course. Payment doesn’t guarantee publishing success, and it is a very naïve writer who believes it does, or gets angry when it doesn’t.”

Carradice commented that several of his students have reported “very bad experiences” with these kinds of organisations. That’s not to suggest that some don’t provide useful services, but, tellingly, those I tried to contact who earned money from the creative writing industry, who had a commercial interest – Mslexia, a writing coach, Writer’s Forum – declined to respond.

Such organisations exist purely to relieve aspiring writers of their money. But I also wonder whether any of these organisations are sometimes guilty of giving false hope, of making students believe they can write when maybe they can’t, at least not professionally, of helping to foster a culture in which everyone gets a prize.

I should probably declare an interest here. As the ‘graduate’ of three writing retreats, two Arvon Foundation courses, 18 months of adult education classes, one writing coach, countless workshops and as a current MA student,  I have not inconsiderable first-hand experience of the creative writing industry.

I found the writing coach a monumental waste of time, and she would have represented a waste of money, too, had I paid for her services. Arvon Foundation courses, on the other hand, are unfailingly helpful and inspiring, not least because they offer time and a space for writing. The adult education course was well-meaning but ultimately ineffectual, while the MA has helped me develop a voice and given me much some much-needed discipline in my writing, while also, I am sure, making me a better reader.

Barbara Large points out that creative writing industry, outside the university setting at least, is new and not officially evaluated - anyone can set themselves up in business, just as anyone can nail a plaque to their door and proclaim themselves to be a counsellor or psychotherapist.

But, admittedly the issue of how you would regulate this industry subjectively is fraught with difficulty.

It is not meaningful to assess organisations in terms of the volume of work its students produce, or on whether or not such work of ‘publishable’ quality.

In this I have to agree with Patricia Duncker, Professor of Modern Literature at Manchester University, who writes in the arts section of the British Council web site:


In any case, only 20 per cent of graduates from even Britain’s most prestigious creative writing MA programme, at the University of East Anglia, become published writers.

While some say true originality should be the deciding factor when it comes to assessing work, this is just as tricky to define, making regulation an almost impossibly complex issue to resolve. 


Can Writing Be Taught?

The argument over whether writers can be made, whether the craft of writing can be taught, and indeed learnt, is hardly new. 

As early as the eighteenth century, Mary Shelley wrote:


But what did more modern practitioners have to say?

For Barbara Large, although not everyone can turn out copy which will be published, everyone can improve and increase the enjoyment they derive from writing. In that sense, then, yes, writing can be taught.

Poet John Hegley told me: “You can nurture talent and teach tricks of the trade but you can’t teach someone the magic.”

For Ashley Harrold: ”A voice can’t be taught, a voice must be discovered.”

Even some of those who make their living from teaching creative writing are sceptical.

Jack Epps, of the University of Southern California writes in Graeme Harper’s book Teaching Creative Writing :      
               ‘What cannot be crafted is the talent, the soul of a writer.’

Another thing that cannot really be taught, the factor which for Phil Carradice is the single most important factor in writing success, is discipline.

Roger Scruton would agree. In the Sunday Times Review , in a reactionary rant slating artist Tracey Emin for not having had the same formal training as Mozart, he avers:


Graeme Harper, a teacher at Portsmouth University, states in Teaching Creative Wring that the subject can be described as ‘an elaborate educational hoax’, a ‘hopeful but doomed activity.’  He claims that writers are better off without formal education, that most of what needs to be learnt can be acquired through life experience, travelling and reading.

David Myers in The Elephants Teach , which traces the history of creative writing since the latter part of the nineteenth century, laments that:


Writing and teaching are surely distinct disciplines, with the best writers not necessarily making the best teachers. You can write without being able to teach, but I am not convinced the reverse is true. (Our teacher at the local adult education college was always evasive when asked what he wrote himself. It did not inspire confidence.)

Someone who would wholeheartedly agree is John Moat, who, in The Founding of Arvon , discusses his apprenticeship with the poet John Howland Beaumont:

‘….the only person who can teach the technique of writing is an experienced writer …teaching is proved by experience that is wholehearted and profoundly relevant. It is the authority that can relate the specifics of technique to the spirit of writing. Which means the authority … of one who has ‘been in it with all his or her heart.’

This is encapsulated in Arvon’s motto, The fire in the flint shows not till it be struck.


What can you teach?

If you cannot teach talent, genius or creativity, what can you teach? Certainly, there are aspects of the craft which can be passed on – Hegley’s ‘tricks of the trade’, for example.

As Lajos Egri puts it in The Art of Dramatic Writing :


Tuition can also give students the opportunity to develop and increase their own understanding of their craft.

Perhaps the greatest strength of all creative writing tuition is in its capacity for forcing people to write, for making them better editors of their own work, and for bringing them together with others who share their passion. For many, a creative writing class may be the first time they have shared their work, or received any kind of meaningful feedback. It may be the first time they realise they have any sort of ability.


Teaching Creative Writing in Universities

The place of creative writing in universities, specifically, has long been mired in controversy, particularly in Britain, with mutual mistrust between some academics and professional writers. Traditionally, the study of ‘English’ has been about the critical study of literary forms, rather than their creation. Possibly some academics see creative writing as a challenge to this tradition.

The first chair of English literature at Harvard was only appointed in 1876, and the English honours degree at Oxford was not established until less than 20 years later. Both factors have directly affected the construction of postgraduate creative writing programmes.

Such debate has not stopped the subject from becoming increasingly popular in the university setting, with dozens of undergraduate and postgraduate courses offering everything from novel writing to creative non-fiction. (At the last count there were more than 12 Masters programmes on offer in screenwriting alone.) Many traditional English Literature courses now also include creative writing modules. In the current higher education climate, students have become customers who expect a tangible result beyond simple education for their money, and, some of the time, they may be disappointed.

Creative writing as a university subject is much less controversial in the United States. As Russell Celyn Jones, writing states in the Richmond Review:


Phil Carradice’s main concern is that degree courses are not churning out more creative writers, but more teachers: “Who will go on to produce more courses for people to attend and churn out more. Sit down and write your book – that’s the best training.”

To what extent should these degree courses be preparing their students for life beyond university? Especially for undergraduate courses, should a job at the end be the ultimate goal? Are universities churning out graduates with paper qualifications but nothing to do at the end of their three years’ study? In that sense, creative writing is no guiltier than, say, Media Studies. And it’s probably not the prime reason most students sign up for university courses in the first place. There are no particular reports of long queues of Creative Writing graduates at unemployment offices.

Yet if students are not being prepared for definite jobs, then perhaps at least they should be introduced to the publishing industry. Barbara Large, at Winchester, is keen on forging connections, and encouraging student work placements.

In that sense, should teachers be urging their students to write stuff that stands a chance of seeing the light of day, work that the publishing industry is looking for?

Celyn Jones  is astonished that


In Teaching Creative Writing , radio drama teacher Steve May worries about the tension between teaching within the extremely narrow range of actually commissioned radio plays, and giving students freedom to write the stuff they want. He is always clear with his students about what the market really commissions.

This combination of free reign, mixed with a healthy dose of realism, must be the best compromise.


Conclusion

The last word goes to Warwick University’s Professor David Morley, who writes in his blog .  He sums up perfectly the value and pitfalls of creative writing teaching:


For some, he adds :


And here is the PDF with the full references                                                            

A few weeks ago we received the following message...

"I work for the Writers’ Workshop literary consultancy. We offer both free advice over the phone and fee-based editorial services. We mostly deal with fiction and non-fiction books but are hoping to develop our poetry service and I wondered whether you'd be interested in receiving a package of information which we're sending out to poetry magazine editors and small poetry presses. The pack contains information about us, details of the poetry pages on our website, links to our website plus some small flyers specifically designed to be included in any rejection material you might send out by post.

"As the editor of a poetry magazine I imagine there must have been many times that you have been asked to give critical feedback on someone’s poetry. And perhaps on rare occasions you have commented on work that seems genuinely interesting. You will have risked having an angry or emotional response … it is an area fraught with complications, which is why (apart from not having the time) most poetry editors don’t go there.

"So what are the options for a potentially good poet who is serious about his or her work? They may be lucky and find someone – a friend or acquaintance perhaps – to act as mentor to them, but the bottom line is that at some point they will need someone who will give them insightful, professional feedback. That is what we do. We have two excellent poetry editors: Sarah Law and Todd Swift - both contemporary published poets. We charge £99 for 7 poems and £150 for up to 25 poems. The client gets an in-depth written report (of between 1,000 and 2,5000 words depending on the number of poems submitted) and the chance to speak to their editor on the phone. Have a browse on our poetry pages at: www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Poetry.htm

"Do let me know if any of this sounds interesting. I’m happy to discuss how we might work together on this. Where magazines are helpful to us, we want to be helpful back again."

AS IT HAPPENS here on IS&T we do not offer a critical service however we have heard from contributors who say they've used 'commercial' critical services in the past and basically been ripped off. So, we said to the Writers Workshop people (and I have had Sarah Law as a tutor in the past on a writing course, so I know she is not a monkey) tell us why anyone should use your services. This is what they said – and feel free to post comments on this if you want to...


Working for the Writers’ Workshop: a Poetry Editor’s Perspective

Picking up a crisp white A4 envelope from the Writers’ Workshop is something of a pleasure for me, because I know I will have an in-depth engagement with an aspiring, and often emerging, poetic voice. I’d like to talk about my experiences as a poetry editor for a professional and legitimate writing consultancy: what it’s like to be on the other side of a process you may have considered initiating by sending your poems off for feedback, focused comment, and constructive criticism.

First of all, this isn’t my only job. I’m a lecturer in creative writing and currently divide my teaching time between London Metropolitan University and the Open University. I teach a range of genres – life writing, prose fiction, included – but my major interest is poetry. I write poetry myself, and I love to read and discover new poetic voices of all styles. And it’s always satisfying to witness a new voice experimenting with subject, phrasing and form.

With teaching comes marking, so I have a lot of experience of looking at both writing-in-progress and final drafts. Sometimes major revisions are in order; sometimes I offer fine tuning comments. This is a process which very much informs my reports for the Writers’ Workshop. The difference is that I can look at more work (25 poems gives a good overview of where you might be in your poetic journey) and in more detail – a Writers’ Workshop report can be 2,000 words or more. There’s also the assurance of complete objectivity: I don’t communicate with the writer of the submitted poetry until the optional follow up phone call. So I pay close attention to the poems themselves, usually setting aside a whole day to give them my full consideration. I often recommend further reading. If I think a particular collection, anthology, how-to book or even a teaching hand-out might be useful, I’ll include the bibliographical details in my report too.

In fact, another occasional job I have is reviewing poetry (usually for Orbis and Stride Magazines). This is another enjoyable task, as I receive collections from the poetry mainstream (if poetry can be said to have a mainstream, that is!) as well as from the more adventurous tributaries. So my approach isn’t academic to the exclusion of knowledge of the publishing world. If a selection of poems merits it, I’ll mention specific magazines, and book publishers too. The world of contemporary poetry is very various, and I certainly don’t claim to know it all. But if I can point someone in a potentially fruitful direction for reading and submitting, then I’m happy to do it.

The only occasions where I am not able to offer much constructive support are when a potential client claims to ‘dislike all contemporary poetry’ because his or her poetry is likely to suffer from unintentional, and often unintentionally comic, pastiche of centuries past: serious poetry has always been a forward looking discipline, and it still is today. However, lack of interest in contemporary writing is usually picked up on by Workshop headquarters, prior to any money or manuscripts changing hands: it’s also clearly flagged on the website.

I’ve had some great conversations with clients subsequent to emailing them my reports. I keep the print-out of poems I receive so I can revisit them while we speak. It’s not a compulsory part of the service, so if you don’t want to talk, I shan’t be offended! However, if you would like to go for any aspect of Writers’ Workshop service, then we editors look forward to hearing from you.

• Sarah Law, April, 2008.

Congratulations to Padrika Tarrant, whose collection of stories – Broken Things – received a rave review is Saturday's Guardian newspaper.* You can read IS&T's own review of Broken Things in the 11th March 2008 posting and read an extract – the story High – in the 16th March 2007 (yes 2007) posting. (You can locate the postings using either the search or archive facilities.)

* Who reads the Guardian newspaper on Saturday? Well it gets around – I read that review during a night flight out of Miami airport to Amsterdam on a Dutch airline early yesterday morning, but that's another story.

3LIGHTS is a new online gallery – well it's only just made it onto our radar – of haiku, senryu, tanka, haiga and related short-form poetry. Based in the North of England and run by Liam Wilkinson and Diane Sturch, 3LIGHTS presents poetry in the form of a visual art gallery, with exhibitions of submitted and invited work.

Every season, 3LIGHTS hosts an open-submission exhibition with a running theme, as well as a series of solo shows from more established writers of haiku, senryu and tanka etc. Currently playing is an exhibition by one of  IS&T's favourite haiga artists – Pamela Babusci – and a collection of haiku on the theme of the seaside. The site is definitely worth bookmarking and we are intrigued by the 'gallery' concept as an alternative approach to the digital publication of poetry and prose. Here is the URL and we've placed a permanent link in our favourites section.
www.threelightsgallery.com

Rachel Fox, a poet, performer and sometime contributor to Ink Sweat & Tears, also publishes a series of postcards containing some of her work. (And they are printed on recycled card!) You can find details about where to obtain copies at www.crowd-pleasers.net

For the 14th month in a row, Ink Sweat & Tears has seen its visitor traffic increase. During the month of March we served 5500 unique URLs (the webzine equivalent of subscribers) visit the site (this is up from 4450 in January and just under 5000 in February), whilst the number of page views hit an all time high of 15000, which is nearly 50% up on our January figures.

A big thank you to all our readers AND our contributors and their excellent submissions, without whom this would not be possible.

Congratulations to American poet (and IS&T haiga contributor) Alexis Rotella who has just won the Japanese 12th annual International Kusamakura prize for a haiku she actually penned 30 years ago in Italy. Judges chose Rotella’s haiku about a fishing boat arriving safely back to shore over some 700 other entries — from poets in Argentina to Serbia to New Zealand and beyond. The haiku reads...

near dusk –
sound of the last
fishing boat

Those eight simple words won Rotella some US$550 and a trip to Kumamoto City, Japan.

Starting this week we are increasing the postings to the Ink Sweat & Tears webzine from every other day to pretty much every day. We are doing this to help catch up on the huge number of submissions we are now receiving to ensure contributors do not have to wait so long to see their work published.

Regular IS&T contributor Gwilym Williams has made an e-book of 20 of his shorter poems from 2004/5 – it all prints to 22 sides of A4. Anyone wanting a free copy can find the simple 'how to...' instructions on his blog at http://poet-in-residence.blogspot.com

Latest web traffic stats show that visitor numbers to the Ink Sweat & Tears webzine have increased by 650 over the past three months to 31st January 2008, with last month (January) IS&T clocking up a record number of 4450 distinct hosts served and just over 10,500 page views.

• IS&T Sans Frontieres... We've also added a new Feedjit widget to the site – you can find it at the foot of the lefthand column – that provides a geographic representation of the locations of the last 100 visitors to the blog – and we are pleased to see we have such a large international readership.

Check out this new webzine (there will also be a conventional magazine later this year) called Modern Haiga – and featuring a number of IS&T's favourite haiga and taiga creators. The link is here – www.modernhaiga.com – however there will also be a permanent link in our 'favourites' links.

IS&T editor Charles Christian writes... Henry Wingate, a young and promising writer based in Norwich (England), died last night in a road accident. No further details are available but Wednesday (12th December) was a vile, icy and foggy night. Henry was on the same course as me at UEA and, by a cruel twist, only early this week two of Henry's poems were published in the Not Expecting Fish anthology. He will be missed.


Night Came In

Night came in so fast
accompanied by damp cuffs,
tight throats and fatigue.

But our breath was call and response.

Rebounding verse and chorus
from lung to lung.
In strained second hand
streetlight
i saw the pattern at the foot of our bed,
reassembled its components,
and made a threat
to outline our security.


• Henry Wingate

Not Expecting Fish

Not Expecting Fish is the title of a new anthology of poetry (see cover picture in side-bar) edited by Ink Sweat & Tears editor Charles Christian and published by the Gatehouse Press in association with IS&T. It is a collection of 46 poems by over 20 contributors (including Charles Christian) who last year attended the University of East Anglia's creative writing diploma courses. Reflecting the authors' wide range of experiences of love, loss and life, the net result is an eclectic but one hundred percent accessible collection of some of the best in modern writing.

The book (ISBN 978-0-9554770-3-4) is available both on Amazon and direct from Ink Sweat & Tears. The IS&T price is £5.00 (inc p&p) per copy for UK orders and £6.50 (inc p&p) per copy for international orders. You can order a copy by phone: +44 (0)1986 788666 - or fax: +44 (0)1986 788808 - or email:  orders@legaltechnology.com - or snail mail: Ink Sweat & Tears, Oak Lodge, Darrow Green Road, Denton, Harleston, Norfolk IP20 0AY, UK. You can pay by cheque (made payable to Legal Technology Insider) or by credit card (Visa, Mastercard or Amex).

The anthology takes its name from a line in this poem by contributor Debbie Arnander...


Fish

When you were eleven
you loved fishing.

When you were forty
you went out
and bought yourself the best
rods and lures
your hard-earned money could buy.
You even bought
a special fishing hat.
You sat on the bank
in your nylon chair
        waiting.
The trees dripped honeydew
onto thick water.
And there were dragonflies.
They made you think of your first kiss.

Then suddenly
a small vibration
singing on the line
and something tugging –
Quick!
Your fingers fumble at the reel
you bite your lip:
a little silver perch
with orange fins
rips twisting up into the air.

Your heart goes down
seesawing
plop.

You weren't expecting fish.

Regular IS&T contributor Gwilym Williams has just launched a new blog on poetry related topics. You can find it here... http://poet-in-residence.blogspot.com