This week, through the tireless efforts of the editor of Unstamatic, my poem ‘Control faltered/work deleted’ was published. You can find it by following this link here. This edition of Unstamatic was an experiment and thus, it is worth reading the introduction titled The Unconditional Acceptance Call. This writing submission call out ran for two lots of 10 minutes a few weeks ago. Some 400 writers responded and submitted work in that 20 minutes, including me, in the middle of the Australian night. It was very exciting, and a positive use for social media. Just saying.

But just to square the karmic ledger I had an apologetic rejection for some poems I submitted a couple of months ago. I’m a little disappointed as one poem I felt sure had a great shot at being accepted for this particular themed call out. However, just because I felt it could fit, doesn’t mean others must agree. It’s how it goes sometimes, and I don’t take this personally. Submission rejections are just one of the things writers should accept (pun intended). So, I’ll keep sending my work out and some will be published and some will be rejected to be tweaked some more, and the cycle will continue. The one thing I’ve yet to contemplate is putting together a some kind of poetry chapbook, but after recently listening to a helpful streamed presentation by US poet Kim Addonizio, I think it’s something I can tackle. Perhaps over summer.

Steady as she goes: the 2022 writing up date:

• Rejections: 161
• Pending: 12
• Acceptances by publisher: 29
• Acceptances by work: 40
• Published: 39