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.