The Wax Paper + Lighten Up Online

I love submitting my work to new or unusual literary publications. Here are two I tried earlier.

The Wax Paper is an American broadsheet distributed in Chicago, Brooklyn, Mankato (I had to look that one up – it’s in Minnesota) and Los Angeles. I had two short dramas published there a few years ago, but would they take my poetry? The answer can be found in issue 11. Editor Hans Hetrick is hugely welcoming to all in ‘The Wax Paper family’ (it’s a forever family once your piece has appeared). And there’s a mouth-watering variety of work on show: flash, short stories, dramas, poetry, photography, artwork, essays, interviews, and hybrids (I love Ryan Drendel’s ‘Long Distance Relationship as Unsolved Sudoku’). The broadsheet is delivered to you wrapped and sealed with red wax – how neat is that?

As to be expected from an American lit mag, the writing is punchy, unpretentious and pulsing with life. The Wax Paper accepts simultaneous submissions and previously published items (but requests First North American Serial Rights for 30 days, after which all rights are returned). To submit, subscribe or find out more, visit: www.thewaxpaper.com

For sheer, unadulterated fun, Lighten Up On line (or LUPO to the cognoscenti) takes some beating.

It’s not for the faint-hearted, however. Be prepared for wit, satire, limericks, verbal prat-falls and in-your-face puns. If it rhymes, all the better. Editor Jerome Betts makes no bones about it:

We believe that light verse is very far from being the poor relation of “proper” poetry. On this site you will find work by light verse specialists as well as by some of the many “proper” poets who enjoy it and write it and agree that light verse deserves a wider audience than it is normally given.

In this post-Christmas no-man’s land, why not indulge your funny-bone with work from Claire Booker, Orla Fay, DA Prince, Shikhandin, Tom Vaughan and many others. Perhaps even pick up your pen and craft some rib-ticklers yourself. Check it out at: https://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/index.php/issue-51-september-2020

Structo 20 – the lit mag with attitude

You may have seen Structo editor Euan Monaghan’s recent series of YouTube interviews with writers from issue 20. Relaxed and incisive don’t always go together, but Structo is all about surprising juxtapositions, be it poetry, short fiction, photography, translation or feature interview. As one of those interviewed, I can vouch that the experience was a cross between cosy, fireside chat and University entrance interview (I hadn’t read one of the writers mentioned, but I think I got away with it!)

You can watch how I fared (and contrast and compare with other writers interviewed!) by clicking on this link https://youtu.be/HI3zLgfCInQ

There’s plenty of poetry in issue 20 to enjoy from Luigi Coppola, Marie-Andree Auclair, Georgi Gill, Petra Hilgers, Joseph Hardy, Michael Bazzett, Stephanie Limb, Daisy G. Bassen, Daniel Bennett and Claire Booker, and you can also read the winning poem by Jen Stuart Fueston from Structo’s 2019 Lenten Psalm Contest. Psalms as theme? What a brilliant idea!

Plus, there’s a feature interview with Catalan poet, Joan Margarit, who is the first Catalan ever to receive the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes prize. “The safety of home is not so different from the safety of the spirit” he tells Anna Crowe, and discusses the difficulties still faced by Catalan culture. His advice to young poets? “Making a poem means looking inside yourself. Inside you there are millions of things. You have to find among them one thing that may interested someone whom you don’t know at all. You have to make it in such a way that he or she will be astonished, as though they looked into a mirror, and will say in a low voice: This is me . . .“

Also in issue 20, there’s a fascinating ‘workshop’ on the art of translation, where Faroe Island poet Kim Simonsen discusses the strength and weaknesses of Matthew Landrum’s translation of one of his poem. The interviewer? Matthew Landrum! No rights of wrongs, of course; just shades of opinion.

And don’t miss some truly strong short stories from writers including LP Lee, Tom Benn, Joe Bedford and Kate Feld, plus an impressionistic set of black and white landscape photos by Annie Spratt.

You can read back-copies of Structo on the link below, or order a copy of issue 20, https://structomagazine.co.uk/structo/current-issue/

Chroma Magazine – the Red Issue

The first issue of Chróma launched this winter and features an intoxicating fusion of contemporary poets, thinkers, artists and photographers with one uniting factor, the colour red.  Now, editor Emma Phillips is looking for work inspired by orange.

I was lucky enough to be invited to read at Chróma’s launch party in Brighton’s ONCA Gallery where a packed crowd enjoyed a stunning exhibition of photos and printed word material, then listened to poems and specially composed music. 

The sheer quality of this inaugural magazine is a ravishment to eyes and brain alike. It’s a visual wow as well as being elegantly rammed full of intellectual and emotional surprises.  

My fellow contributors to the first issue include: poets Lydia Bowden, Chiyuma Elliott, Katie Munnik and Constantin Preda; stunning artwork by Karl-Joel Larsson, Darby Milbrath and Coco Davez; and mind-altering photography by Tekla Evelina Severin, Keegan Grandbois, Laurence Philomene, Mary Chen and Sophie Harris-Taylor. There are also in-depth feature articles on subjects as diverse (though thematically linked) as the meat industry, menstrual taboo, self-harm; plus interviews with artists such as Cleon Peterson and film-maker Greta Bellamacina.  There’s even room in Chróma’s 124 generous sized pages for short-stories by Gwen Myers and Colette Coen.

“2017 was a year of blood, shooting, wild-fire and extreme politics,” says Emma Phillips. “Despite this, the magazine also explores the beauty of red through its relationship to love, landscape, lipsticks and gender. In the West, red may mean anger, but in the East, it is a sign of vitality and fertility. It is the colour of happiness, worn by brides at their wedding and hung vibrantly across their streets and temples.”

To order your copy of  the Red issue of Chróma, please visit the following link: Chroma To submit work inspired by the colour orange, email Emma at submission@chromamagazine.com 

The Wax Paper – an American Arts broadsheet

The internet occasionally throws up gems and The Wax Paper is one of them. I stumbled on its call for submissions through the highly useful (and free) online resource The Review Review  (99review@gmail.com)

Published as a quarterly broadsheet in Brooklyn and distributed in New York, Chicago and Mankato, The Wax Paper has all the bluff of newspapers before they shrank into tabloids. Eight arm-stretching pages is enough to keep you reading happily for more than an hour. 

So I’m delighted, they accepted two of my short plays for publication in Volume Two (Issue One) alongside some powerful short stories, arresting photography and excellent poems. 

Poets may have a hard time getting published, but playwrights are competing for even fewer print opportunities.

Double bravo therefore to The Wax Paper for giving over an entire page to my two dramas. Lost Property has been performed a number of times, most recently at The Lost Theatre’s Five Minute Play Festival (see photo to the right with actors David Bevan and Maria Askew). 

Bathroom Secrets is a 10 minute play, most recently performed at Unheard, a Festival run by Goblin Baby Theatre Co. at The Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham. 

On the left you can see actors Susan Hodgetts and Mark Lisseman in full flow as a married couple who can’t communicate.

Both plays are available to read on my website: www.bookerplays.co.uk

This issue of The Wax Paper contains poetry by the flamboyantly named Richard King Perkins II, Holly Wren Spaulding, Charles Rafferty, Robbie Gamble, Talal Alyan, Jennie Greensfelder and George Eklund.

Two of the short stories are absolutely knock out: The Gods by Melissa Knox is a fascinating critique of a life under Freudian analysis. The Second to Last Supper by Sabrina Harris, is a brilliantly satirical attack on capital punishment using the absurd (and I believe legally correct) premise that a United States prisoner cannot be executed unless they have been given their last meal request in full.

“The first priority of The Wax Paper is to expand our understanding of the people we share the world with,” says Editor Hans Hetrick. “Pieces will be selected on their ability to illuminate the humanity and significance of the subjects that inhabit the work – work that required patient observation, remained steadfast in its empathy and displayed genuine vitality.”

If you have poems, short stories, drama, collected conversations, photographs or artwork you think might belong within these lovely pages, please visit:  www.thewaxpaper.com/submissions or email Hans Hetrick at waxsubmissions@gmail.com

Ambit 221 – a fruit bowl of art, poetry and short fiction

Ambit is looking absolutely luscious this summer – a splash of fruit and veg on ethereal blue and inside some wonderful reading.

Poems in this issue include work by former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, Sarah Howe, Richard Scott, Declan Ryan, Claire Booker, Malene Engelund, Sally Festing and Robert Selby.

Artwork is on top form, with cover and a palate of work by South Korean artist Hyounsang Yoo, who gives insights into her journey as an artist and her working process. The Summer Salon of images is refreshingly diverse, including ‘Cherries’ by Kes Richardson and ‘Fatal Flower Garden’ by Melanie Bonajo. And as an added extra, Jenny Dunseath’s ‘An image, I’m pleased, I am sad’ is available to download from Ambit’s website as an animated .gif.

Plus short fiction lovers can enjoy stories by Dave Wakely, Marcella O’Connor, Tania Hershman and Jonny Keyworth – from insights into scientific nuns and gay parenthood to the melting pot of cultures that is New York.

To buy your copy of Ambit 221, or subscribe to the magazine, visit:

Home – Ambit magazine