Thank you to Zvi A. Sesling for choosing me as one of the featured poets in the Spring 2022 issue of Muddy River Poetry Review!
My Poems – MRPR
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My Poem in Oyster River Pages
Snow! for My Birthday (Week)
Hello, sweet flakes. This snow-mad nomad missed you.
Tell-Tale Inklings #6 is Now Open for Submissions
Tell-Tale Chapbooks (TTC) seeks submissions for Tell-Tale Inklings #6, a journal of narratives.
The priority deadline is the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31st, 2021).
FOLLOW THE LINK TO READ GUIDELINES. NOTE THE NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS!
New England
USA
July 25, 2021
Why are so many of us “little house” literary publishers still using Amazon’s KDP exclusively (while many booklovers are boycotting Amazon)? Because it’s easier for low-tech bookmakers to put something together without tearing our hair out. Not one to take the easy way out, I’d cite the brain scrambling timesuck as the issue here…but Lulu won’t allow authors to revise a book once it’s been published, so my plugging away at figuring out Canva technology was for naught. Other options are simply too expensive. For now, it is what it is.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the solace of my own pad for the first time in nearly two years. I’ve finally got a new, adult-sized mattress reunited with my own pillows and the sole pair of sheets the burglars didn’t swipe from storage. [If you hadn’t heard via FB etc., FYI: thieves got my TV, a dish-barrel-sized box with miscellaneous everyday necessities such as my dishes, coffee maker, 3 clocks, every freakin’ lamp…. Grrr. Once per week or so, I start to do something then realize another small item is missing.
Though nothing of great value other than the TV was lost, replacing one’s home a teaspoon at a time adds up. But today I made cheesy mug Egg Beaters in a plastic tub. I can cope with nearly anything when I have eggs and coffee in the house. Back to the keyboard! As long as somebody is still reading the journals I publish, I’ll keep cutting and pasting away.
May 24, 2021
After a brief sublet in Boston, I will try not to jinx myself by stating how I’ll be hopefully, sorta, kinda, pretty sure, can’t be worse than 2020, moving on to purpler, bluer, goldenish, decent-shade-of-greener pastures. June cannot come soon enough. I did, however, live in good ol’ Boston for a month.
Back to the Presses:
Hidden Charm Press – Priority deadline of May 15th for the print publication Extra MoJo! #3 has passed. Still some room if you have something fabulous. Still needs a cover image if you have a rockin’ Black woman image that needs to be seen. mojo_hcp@outlook.com Also, donations over $5 will be gratefully accepted at Paypal via the e-mail address above. Thank you!
Tell-Tale Chapbooks – Submissions are closed until Autumn. The next Tell-Tale Inklings issue (#6) will be Winter, 2021 [Real winter. Like a New England blizzard winter. There ought to be snow on the ground and/or in air while you are reading it.] Note the shiny new e-ddress. tell-tale-editor@outlook.com
Also, the press does have books too! The publisher can’t complain about the popularity of the journal, yet there are publications by solo artists that could use some love. Chad’s poetry! Jason’s poetry! My microfictions! You didn’t know I write fiction? Now’s the time to line up your summer reading list, maybe sling us a short review if/when you love a TTC publication.
April 10: NaPoMo
In deep with poetry right now. Having written a poem every day since Thanksgiving, 2020, I am now writing with thousands of poets across the country (and in some other countries too). We can’t meet in person for hundreds of poetry events happening in Massachusetts, but there are plenty online to attend without having to slap on sunblock.
Also, since people have sent PMs and e-mails regarding my nomadic status, I feel the need to thank everyone for concern and/or practical help in pointing me toward normal people to live with or rent from since April, 2020. Fully vaxxed before I go, I’m wrapping up this situation and in search of a summer sublet again, but it’s just inconvenient at this point, not a devastating and huge risk to my physical or emotional well-being. I still have my mind and Poetry as well as a serious tribe. Happy Spring!
REMINDER: Hidden Charm Press is still open to submissions by Black women poets and writers of flash memoir and social commentary for its 3rd print anthology, celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the press. Send work (or sistahs you know) to mojo_hcp@outlook.com. Please look at the guidelines first on the Extra MoJo! #3 tab. If you’d like to make a donation to the press, the e-mail address is also the Paypal address, and anything over $5 would be appreciated (because there’s a charge for one of us). Thank you in advance for helping to keep HCP going.
February 21, 2021
I won’t be publishing any of my own books this year, which is a bit sad, but I will be spit-polishing individual poem drafts to submit to journals now that the world isn’t going to implode real soon. Hidden Charm Press (HCP) is in recovery mode after being banned from FB as “hate speech.” Yep, all the verbal garbage, everyday sexism and racism that one must scroll by on a regular basis, and my Black women’s press has been targeted?
They even censored my so-called “private messages” so I can’t share the link with potential contributors and went hunting and pecking through 12 years’ worth of photos to find a beautiful photo of nude Iman with Bowie resting his head on her hip. I’m grateful for anti-racism allies who walk the walk, spreading the call for submissions to the Extra MoJo! #3 print anthology via e-mail, etc. This is just to say, now that I’ve saved or deleted all my treasured photo albums, my FB personal presence will continue to dwindle though I will continue to interact in groups — until I get booted outđ¤Ł! Follow me here or on my two presses’ sites.
New year of new chapters. Hiding out from the plague until I can get vaccinated. A race against time? A waste of time? Who knows! All I know is, I’ve written a poem per day since Thanksgiving or so. I’m going down writing!
Direct Black women writers of poetry and memoir to submissions guidelines at HCP. Thank you. Have a Happy, Healthy New Year!
*Tell-Tale Chapbooks latest journal is Tell-Tale Inklings #5 (Autumn 2020). Submissions will re-open Septemberish for the Winter 2021 Issue, but you can buy a book anytime!
January 8, 2021
My first virtual poetry feature, at Stone Soup Poetry Series (on January 6th) went well, especially considering what-all was happening in the Capitol that day. Thank you to host Chad Parenteau and everyone who showed up to share his or her creations! Please support Hidden Charm Press in its 10th year by purchasing my latest poetry collection (via Amazon) or one of various other books, described on the HCP Home page. A Paypal donation of any amount over $5 to mojo_hcp@outlook.com would also be gratefully accepted. Thank you!
It would also be helpful to pass on the call for submissions to the Extra MoJo! #3 anthology. HCP is Black woman owned and operated (by me, the publisher, editor, book designer, proofreader, clerical staff, etc) and publishes Black women’s poetry, memoir, social commentary, and b+w visual art. I am also looking for a cover image for the anthology, preferably of a Black woman/women, depicted in a positive light.
— on my birthday!
December 31, 2020
What a year. You already know most of the bad news, so let’s begin with my latest poetry collection,
My Life As A Masque (Hidden Charm Press, 2020). I will be reading from it as a feature at Stone Soup Poetry, Wednesday, January 6, 2021, 7-9 p.m. My first feature since I could see my friends’ and the audience members’ faces. I’ve been sitting out on Zoom gatherings, only attending one remote reading — way more fun than expected! Time to get back into active poet mode. I am pleased that I published 2 other books in 2020 via Tell-Tale Chapbooks. Chad Parenteau’s chapbook, The Collapsed Bookshelf, and Tell-Tale Inklings #5.
Kindly bear with me as I reconstruct this site. It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, I’m having “issues” remembering the basics. But I’m so grateful to still be here, with most of my faculties, with all of my friends, without having lost any family members. Good riddance, freakin’ 2020! Happy New Year, World!!!
content and images ⸠2020 mignon ariel king
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