Yesterday & Today: 24th June

A particularly quiet day yesterday saw me draft a little more of ‘Z’, plus do some admin work around both New Contexts: 5 and next week’s Contextual reading event.

With submissions for NC:5 closing next Friday, a week today will see me begin the process of beginning the process of selection for the anthology. That’s at least two weeks’ worth of activity, and here’s how I go about it…

Firstly, I never read a single submitted poem or piece of prose until the submission date is passed. I do not want to prejudice my judgement in any way.

All the pieces are held electronically in a folder called ‘Submissions’. One-by-one they are read and moved into one of three other folders until the ‘Submissions’ folder is empty: ‘Shortlist’ if I instantly know I want to include the piece; ‘Longlist’ if I am undecided; ‘Rejected’ for those pieces which are unlikely to make the cut. I then follow the same process for anything in ‘Longlist’. Eventually all material will either be in ‘Shortlist’ or ‘Rejected’.

At this point I then go through the process of pulling the physical book together. If I find it is a little too ‘thin’ once I have done so, or the balance of the book is not quite right somehow, then I may go back for one final review of the items not included. When I’m happy with how the draft of NC:5 looks I will contact the appropriate authors for final approval to publish. (There’s a further process after that, but maybe we’ll cover that later…)

It’s a process I take very seriously. People have entrusted their work to me; the least I can do is to take care and do each piece justice.

Today should be pretty light, much like yesterday. There may be a flurry of activity towards the end of next week with the NC:5 closing date, but until then it will just be admin on that front.

PS: my latest minor binge-watch has been Clint Eastwood’s three ground-breaking westerns from 1964-6. In my view the last – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – is the best; the first – Fistful of Dollars – the weakest (but only just!).

Links: (books for sale on Waterstones.com, Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble etc. Some e-books also available direct from Coverstory books.