Ink Sweat & Tears - the poetry & prose webzine

There is only one rule - and that is there are no rules

Charles Christian — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:29:03 +0100

With Ink Sweat & Tears hitting 19 months old this month (we should have done something after 18 months but were too busy – hey, ho) we've been making some minor housekeeping and changes to the zine's interface.

In particular, we've rationalised the sub-categories after complaints they were confusing. So, concrete poetry, e-poetry, podcasts and multimedia are all now to be found in the Mixed & Multimedia section. And – rather more importantly – we have abolished the distinction between (verse) poetry, prose poetry and prose + flash fiction. Why? Because the distinction was becoming increasingly artificial and arbitrary. Instead, we take the view that there is only one rule in poetry – and that is: there are no rules in poetry – and you will now find all prose, poetry and flash in our 'New Writings' sub-section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Charles Christian — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:08:38 +0000

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

Submission Guidelines

Charles Christian — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:35:43 +0000

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.