Featured Magazines #2
A couple of online zines for you this time!
The Beat
Website: http://www.the-beat.co.uk
Editor: Sean McGahey
Submit via email: sean@the-beat.co.uk
This sprawling online zine is a great place to start if you haven’t sent your work to too many places yet. Seemingly run by just one hard-working guy, this website features hundreds of great pieces, all by unknown or lesser-known writers. The site is clean, crisp and easy to navigate, with a very searchable archive. It’s different to a lot of other online magazines in that you can comment on any pieces you find particularly inspiring, and of course if your work makes it up there, you too can receive praise and critique from others in the Beat fold. Hats off to Mr Sean, who not only maintains this hive of creativity - he also replies very promptly to submissions and queries. Even if you don’t submit, The Beat is a great place to spend an afternoon, just reading and getting inspired.
About The Beat snippet: “The aim of the site is to provide a showcase for new and exciting writers and artists.”
Submission guidelines snippet: We cannot [run The Beat] without your help, so if you would like to contribute, please get in touch with us. We endeavour to ensure that we respect copyright on all works, written, visual or otherwise.”
Pomegranate
Website: http://www.pomegranate.me.uk
Editors: Charlottle Runcie, Emily Tesh
Submit via email: pomegranate.editors@gmail.com
I might be just a little biased towards Pomegranate, but I’m going to talk them up anyway! This magazine is run partly from my fair home city, beautiful Edinburgh, and at the helm is talented-poetess-of-my-sometime-acquaintance, Charlotte Runcie. What makes this zine different is the fact that all of the Pomegranate team are in their late teens and early twenties, and they’re so keen to hear from young, lesser-known writers that they’ve gone so far as to impose an age limit! So sorry folks - if you’re over 30, you won’t be accepted.
Pomegranate are super-lovely and approachable. They have every back-issue available online for easy reading, and they also run their own forum - so you can ask them any questions you might have, or give praise and feedback to the featured poets. They’re a relatively new zine but they’re already getting heard of, so I’d really recommend sending them some stuff!
About Pomegranate snippet: “What’s fresh? Well, usually it’s an adjective referring to fruit, but here we’re talking about poetry – young poets, new poetry. Pomegranate poets, bloggers and writers are mostly students in secondary school or at uni, and all under 30… We’re trying to establish a country-wide community of young writers – and we know they’re out there somewhere, because we’re all kids ourselves.”
Submission guidelines snippet: “We receive A LOT of submissions, and we need time to eat and sleep, so we’ll stop reading after the fourth [poem, if you send more than the requested 4]. Try to send your poems in the body of the email, but if you have special formatting that you want to preserve then send them all in one Microsoft Word attachment. Oh, and a nice covering email (it need only be “Hi, thanks for reading!”) will endear you to us immensely.”
Know of a great creative writing magazine that you’d like to see featured here? Get in touch - give me a link to their site, and tell me in a few lines why you reckon they’re so awesome. Maybe you’re the editor, or maybe you’ve had your stuff published by them. Maybe they’ve given you some great feedback on a piece they’ve rejected. Let me know about them!
September 8th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I can recommend both The Recusant (http://www.therecusant.org.uk) and Ink Sweat & Tears (http://ink-sweat-and-tears.blogharbor.com) both of which have exquisite taste, and incidentally have published my poetry too…..
Very approachable and professional editors, too.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Thanks Simon, I’ll take a look!
November 26th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
A very belated thank you for the Pomegranate plug, Claire! :)
November 26th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Pomegranate is the only zine I have heard of who actually have an age limit on their submissions, and it is excluding everyone over thirty years old. I am over thirty, and I was rejected by them on this basis. I would, however, find this unprofessional regardless.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Char — No worries!
Amy S — I can understand your frustration. I’ve had a couple of submissions turned down by US magazines because they only accept the work of US residents, stuff like that. However, I don’t think the way Pom operates is unprofessional - there are reasons for their age limit.
1: they want to give young writers an exclusive platform to display their work… is that so bad? Mslexia is a very big professional magazine and they don’t accept submissions from male writers - and there are plenty of magazines out there which are solely for black writers, British writers, etc. It’s not about excluding over-30s, its about providing an opportunity to under-30s, who don’t often get such breaks… after all as you say, Pom is the only zine you’ve come across that operates solely on the behalf of youngsters.
2: they’re all youngsters themselves. I don’t think a single person on the editorial team is over 21 - therefore, they maybe don’t feel qualified to judge and comment on the work of older and more experienced writers.
3: they’re just creating a niche for themselves. In the poetry world there are millions of publications jostling for position, and you have to find a way to make yours unique in order to stand out.
As you must know, there are many, many more magazines out there that you can submit to. We’ve all been rejected because of factors outwith our poetry before - I know I’ve been rejected because of my age before, too. It happens. I think Pom is a great project and deserves to be supported. It’s sad if you don’t feel that way, but I’d like to think you can see why they choose to operate the way they do. I hope their rejection of your stuff didn’t stop you submitting elsewhere!