Ink Sweat & Tears - the poetry & prose webzine

Here are the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about Ink Sweat & Tears...

Q. Does it cost anything to submit a poem or piece of prose to IS&T?
A. No, absolutely free, no catches - and contributors retain full copyright. All we insist on is that submissions are sent via email. Check out our Submissions Guidelines for full details.

Q. Do contributors receive any payment?
A. Fraid not - there again we're not making any money out of this site either at the moment, so we're all in the same boat. Our business model (which we also used with another newsletter we publish) is to first go with a gut reaction and to get the content right. We worry about the money later. The key is to enjoy the experience - everything else is just potatoes.

Q. Who is the editor?
A. Please allow me to introduce myself... My name is Charles Christian and I'm a long time writer and journalist - and more recently newsletter/magazine editor and publisher. But you won't have heard of me unless you are involved in the arcane world of legal technology (hence my email address) and the black art of helping lawyers to earn even more money through the use of computers. More recently I've been attending creative writing courses at UEA and had a number of poems and short stories published. The purpose of Ink Sweat & Tears is to fill what I believe is a gap in the market, namely the border-zone between poetry and prose - call it prose poetry and poetic prose if you like - in the digital age - and that means we are also interested in e-poetry.

Q. Is there any way of providing feedback on the pieces published on IS&T?
A. Yes, because the site is based on blog technology, we can accept comments - just click on the link appearing below each item posted on the site. Comments can be accredited or anonymous BUT because of the problem of spam and junk mail we do moderate such comments. We don't mind criticism but we don't want to waste anyone's time with postings plugging dubious shares and penis extensions.

Q. What else can blog technology offer?
A. Another advantage of a blog is that you can subscribe to a live feed - this means that instead of visiting the site to see if there are any new postings, you can just subscribe to the RSS feed and receive the updates directly to your web browser. And it doesn't cost anything.

If you have any further questions, just email them to charles@legaltechnology.com

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Sunday, December 31

Submission Guidelines

by Charles Christian on Sun 31 Dec 2006 08:35 PM GMT

We are interested in considering all your poetry, prose and e-poetry contributions - and would aim to provide a very quick response (even if it is to say 'no') however we can all save each other a lot of time and effort if you observe the following submission guidelines...

1. We ONLY accept submissions by email - strewth, this is the 21st century - and anything sent by snail-mail will go straight into the shredder.

2. Send your submissions to charles@legaltechnology.com and include the words IS&T SUBMISSION in the subject line.

3. Please ensure your return email address is clearly indicated.

4. Please include a short biographical note - 15-to-20 words max - about yourself (and yes you can be flippant and include a web URL if you want).

5. Your submissions can be within the body of the email or as a Word or RTF file attachment - but no macros or .EXE files as they will not get thru our anti-virus firewall.

6. Because we use a relatively simple page design, it would help if you could submit your contributions as plain text without too much adornment. HOWEVER if the typographical layout really is an essential part of your submission (because it is concrete poetry or a calligram) please send a PDF (your WP application should include a print to PDF option) or JPEG of the work rather than risk the formatting being lost because our Microsoft Word defaults are not the same as yours.

7. Please note the maximum word length we will publish is 750 words - there again Einstein did write one of his theses in less words than that so there really is no need to be prolix.

8. If you are submitting e-poetry and have any concerns about technical issues, please contact us first. Possible options here include you continuing to host the work on your own webspace and we hyperlink back to it.

9. Contributors must accept full responsibility for the accuracy of their spelling as (a) we can't spell and (b) you may be using terms of art or unusual spelling deliberately.

10. Please DO NOT submit work that includes copyright material (such as pictures) belonging to other people/third parties unless you can supply us with written authorisation by that person/third party.

11. As the author you retain full copyright in your work. By submitting a piece of prose or poetry to us, you are merely granting IS&T a non-exclusive right to reproduce your work.

12. We can only accept contributions in English although there are no geographical constraints on where the contributions come from.

13. We do not offer a critical review service - you'll have to get that from your local writers group or creative writing tutor. On the otherhand if we do reject a piece we will not make any snitty, rude comments about it.

14. While nothing is sacred - and we will consider 'political/current affairs' contributions - we do reserve the right to reject any submission we feel is deliberately offensive or actionable.

15. We do not pay for submissions - we have no money - and, just for the record, we are NOT funded by Arts Council etc grants or any other public funding - we don't believe in having a bureaucratic tail wagging the creative dog.

16. Editor's decision is final and no further correspondence will be entered into.

17. That's it.

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Ink Sweat & Tears Manifesto

by Charles Christian on Sun 31 Dec 2006 07:17 PM GMT

Ink Sweat & Tears is a new webzine that explores the borderline between poetry and prose in the digital age. In otherwords that point in creative writing where prose poetry (or free verse) meets poetic prose.

Good examples include the works of Anne Michaels, Jim Crace, Michael Ondaatje and Ian Marchant (see his 2006 book The Longest Crawl). However IS&T's brief also includes modern haibun (and haiku sequences) - and by this we mean the American influenced approach to semi-autobiographical haibun pioneered by Gary Snyder and even nontraditional fiction, such as Jack Kerouac's Trip Trap. We are also interested in reportage and vignettes - gonzo journalism if you prefer - altho given the limitations of the medium (large slabs of text are difficicult to read online) we do need prose contributions to be relatively short - 750 words max, which is flash fiction/faction length. And we will also consider 'traditional' poetry formats (the apostrophes are meant to be ironic) however it had better be something more exciting than doggerel about macaroons, typhoons and balloons.

And there's more. Because this is the digital age, we also want to publish more experimental poetry that exploits the technology - so if you are working in multimedia, hypertext, Flash or other forms of e-poetry, we want to hear from you.

Finally, we are going to break with tradition and try to give both readers and contributors a better deal than they get from many poetry magazines today. For readers this means not taking up your valuable reading time by subjecting you to self-indulgent whinges from the editor or 'learned' articles that are only of interest to the author and his mother. Instead we hope to be able to publish new prose and poetry content at least once a week. As for contributors, we aim to provide a prompt reply to your submissions - even if it is "thanks but no thanks" - and to publish material accepted for publication equally promptly. And yes we do appreciate this may come as a bit of shock to those of you who are used to waiting months for a reply and, in some instances, years to get into print. Enjoy.

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