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Postcards to the Future: A Protest in Place
To support black civil rights activism in the summer of 2020, feminist literary publisher Kore Press is offering an online thematic presentation/installation of work from their 2018 anthology Letters to the Future: Black Women/Radical Writing, edited by Dawn Lundy Martin and Erica Hunt. New selections will be posted from July through November 2020, in various media (print-based text, audio clips, and visual art). The first theme is Legacy, which lays the ground for the arc of the series, followed by Horror, Activism, Joy, and Future. Contributors include Harryette Mullen, Sonia Sanchez, and Yona Harvey.
Pouring Shade
if you had the power to pour shade
what color would you use
the color of honey because you like sweet things
or the oil of menthol because it invigorates the nose
my shade would change with the time
rose red rendering incandescent mornings
pink daffodils rising into a noon shower
an afternoon with an orange mist hanging in the air
at night I would announce the moon's etchings
semi-circles surrounded by colored sunbeads
cast on the flowers of heaven
if I had the power to pour shade
I would add laughter
to see how water looks when it smiles
Copyright 2009 by Hzal (Anthony Fudge)
Critique by Jendi Reiter
This month's critique poem comes to us from "Hzal" (the pen name of the poet Anthony Fudge). In "Pouring Shade", he mingles different modes of sensory perception to create a unique experience of an exuberant life force.
Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which real information from one of the five senses is accompanied by a perception in another sense. For instance, a person may see a certain color when hearing a particular sound, or perceive letters and numbers to be associated with different colors. Researchers have noted the similarity between this condition and an artist's creative process, in that both involve unexpected associative leaps and fresh ways of perceiving our common reality.
Perhaps the most famous synesthetic poem is 19th-century symbolist Arthur Rimbaud's "Voyelles" (Vowels): "A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,/I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:/A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies/which buzz around cruel smells..." More links concerning art and synesthesia can be found on Belgian researcher Dr. Hugo Heyman's website.
In contrast to Rimbaud's extremes of decayed sensuality and spiritual purity, Hzal's synesthetic poem creates a sunnier mood, using the technique of sensory cross-pollination to express a joy and perhaps an affection that exceeds normal descriptive measures. Having a mind that works differently from the rest of humankind can be both thrilling and terrifying. Whereas Rimbaud's "Voyelles" seems to linger in that solitary place where genius and madness meet, Hzal begins with connection to others, and does not seem afraid that this new mode of perception will be a barrier to communicating his essential feelings.
"Pouring Shade" could be read as a love poem, whether or not that love is romantic. "if you had the power to pour shade/what color would you use", the poet asks, like a genie offering three wishes, or a young man promising his lover the moon. His desire to please her is so extravagant that it is unbound by physical laws. We all know that shade is not a liquid, nor does it have a color, let alone a smell or a taste, as the next two lines suggest. But perhaps we can also remember being this enraptured with a person or a project, almost to the point of believing we could do magic with a mere wave of the hand.
After making this fanciful offer, the speaker invites us to view his own ideal landscape, a pleasantly hallucinatory wash of colors that reminded me of the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" ("Picture yourself in a boat on a river,/With tangerine trees and marmalade skies/Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,/A girl with kaleidoscope eyes..."). The recurring water imagery in this poem enhances its misty, blurred, dream-like quality.
I wouldn't change much about "Pouring Shade", being hesitant to break the flow of its stream-of-consciousness narrative voice. I might opt for a more original and descriptive phrase than "because you like sweet things" in the third line. If "sunbeads" is a typo for "sunbeams", it's a felicitous one; I loved the notion of bead-like water drops, turned to prisms by the sun's rays, such as one sees on flowers after rain.
For publication suggestions, below, I've emphasized smaller contests run by and for talented amateurs and emerging writers, as opposed to the university-run journals. While I relished the creative and sensual imagery of "Pouring Shade", I suspect that academically-minded judges would prefer poems with a greater variety of light and dark emotions. The diversity of aesthetics within the poetry world is a good thing, in my opinion. Support your favorite literary journals to keep that diversity alive.
Where could a poem like "Pouring Shade" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
League of Minnesota Poets Annual Contest
Postmark Deadline: July 31
Local poetry society offers top prize of $125 plus 17 other contest categories with top prizes ranging from $20 to $70; publication not included
Poetry Society of Texas Annual Contests
Postmark Deadline: August 15
Prizes up to $450 for unpublished poems in 100 different categories (some are members-only); no simultaneous submissions
Penumbra Poetry & Haiku Contest
Postmark Deadline: October 1
The Tallahassee Writers' Association offers prizes up to $200 and publication in winners' chapbook; no simultaneous submissions
This poem and critique appeared in the June 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Powell’s Books: Children’s Poetry
Portland's famous bookseller offers over 1,500 books of poetry for children and young adults. Recommendations and reviews help you choose. Free North American shipping on qualified orders over $50.
Pratt MFA in Writing Program
The Pratt MFA in Writing is a new and unique two-year program specifically designed to support and encourage intellectually rigorous and inspired writing practices that are philosophically, culturally and politically informed. The premise of the program is that writing can be transformative at all scales, from the personal to the social, and we aim to incubate such radically cosmopolitan, resolutely local, pleasure-filled, and potentially revolutionary poetic practices. Pratt is located in the historic Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
Prayers & Run-On Sentences
By Stuart Kestenbaum. This affable, Buddhist-inflected poetry collection invites gratitude for the daily rhythms of life. As if through the imaginative, unbiased eyes of a child, Kestenbaum's poems find wonder in ordinary things like clotheslines, oil slicks, and even a plastic trash bag left in the woods.
Pre-Screener’s Suite, 2022
By Anne Mydla
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family left their name on a document bound for an anonymously judged poetry contest in their own way." —[Author name removed]
I. This is just to say
I have removed
my name
from the document
It is a truth universally acknowledged
that a single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in the habit of taking his name off the document
You ain't nothing but a hound dog
leaving your name on the document
The owl and the pussycat went to sea
in a beautiful state of assurance that they'd taken their names off the document
Never gonna give you up
never gonna let you see my name on the document
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
being the only man living who remembered to take his name off the document
Luke
I am your father
and yet even I, a Sith Lord, never, ever neglected to take my name off the document
In the beginning
was the Word
and the Word was with God
and It was not on the Document
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
speaking words of wisdom
"Take your name off the document"
I came
I saw
I conquered my urge to leave the name on the document
Yes, I—
I set a phone alarm
a pre-scheduled email
and several booby traps
to remind myself to take my name off the document
and that
has made
me take my name off the document.
II. Haikus for the Unredacted
Or: Did You Know?
You pay my bills in
Poland—You! who left your name
on the document.
Poet, your carefree,
hedonistic formatting
pays a tidy rent
on an apartment
in a post-Soviet block,
stuccoed in pastels,
wherein I read name
after name after name and
eat my pierogies.
Pretty Machine
By Mara Adamitz Scrupe
You had her longer, rode her
harder, she let you down at least
as often, threw a rod, staggered up mountains
and off again, pushed through deserts,
loaded up now, strapped for the drive
to Annandale, for the man with a bleeding
ulcer which is better than a heart attack,
he wants her, though if his wife were around—
but she's gone, a couple years now, he's adjusted
pretty well but the ulcer didn't come
out of nowhere, a peck and a quick goodbye—
that's how we do it, it's already afternoon,
you'll grab a sandwich on your way
back, I'll eat leftovers tonight you'll tell me
the new owner's turned his wife's house
into a shop moved in bikes in various stages
of tear-down and rebuild, Triumph triage
everywhere, work stands at eye level in the guest
room watching TV he scoots on a stool as he
works, Amal carbs line up neatly on the dining room
table, he never sits anyway but stands slouched paper
plate in one hand folded slice in the other, components
freshly painted dry on clotheslines
strung across the living room, guests sit
on the three-cushion sofa parts skimming past,
yours is the one he'll ride if all goes well
in Emergency, he's waited forty years
while you tore up gravel on the ALKAN,
while you camped the outskirts of Vegas circus,
circus! he dreamed a first kick engine, she dreamed
new floral davenports, matching brocade
drapes, you promised groceries on your way
home, your tread on the stairs pulls me
awake, you sit at the edge of the bed
beside me in the dark, your lips brush
my forehead, you reach for my hand your fingers
spreading mine apart to fit
Reprinted from Beast (NFSPS Press, 2015)
Pretty Tilt
This debut poetry collection effervesces with teen-girl sexuality, its narrator unapologetic in her desire to inhabit this body, this stage of life, this cultural moment, without weighing it down with analysis. Feminism makes a token appearance as a source of self-criticism that she's thrown aside like a bikini top at the beach. Her self may be socially constructed out of crusty panties and My Little Pony hair, but unlike the Gurlesque poets to whom she's been compared, Murphy doesn't seem angry or anxious about the impossibility of some Modernist "authenticity"; for her characters, girlhood holds thrills but no serious dangers. Read it for her fantastic language and perceptiveness about the emotions of this time of life.
Preventing Plagiarism: A Guide for Students and Educators
Software company Adobe's blog offers this useful overview of plagiarism: how to detect it, and how to avoid it. Questionable practices include not only verbatim copying, but summarizing or closely paraphrasing others' work without attribution.
Pride Book Tours
Sasha Zatz's Pride Book Tours connects LGBTQ authors with social media outlets that will feature their new books. Many of these bloggers also write thoughtful reviews of the book on Goodreads. As of 2024, the fee was 105 pounds to be featured on over a dozen Instagram book review sites, which is a fraction of the cost of an advertisement in most trade journals.
Prima Facie
By Trish Hopkinson
Huddled in the corner
where only a creak of light
cast a thin line 'cross his back.
Belief's blackness pressed into his sympathy
like a fire-heated symbol meant for permanence,
meant for slavery.
Ears marked with indoctrination
and freedom castrated by abstinence,
his hands ached for resolution, for reason,
for something to clean the char
from beneath his fingernails.
His voice strained with the rasp
of each unanswered question
and his teeth bent with the burden
as his tongue tore away at vision.
He saw the brand waiting in the flame.
He saw the labels that it made.
It took him years to leave his religion.
Prime: Poetry & Conversation
Edited by Jericho Brown, this essential anthology brings together a new generation of black gay poets: Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Saeed Jones, Rickey Laurentiis, Phillip B. Williams, and L. Lamar Wilson. The book begins with a selection of poems from each author, after which they interview one another about poetic mentoring, influences, and identities. Publisher Sibling Rivalry Press is known for supporting LGBT literature.
Printed Matter
Founded in 1976, NYC-based Printed Matter is the leading nonprofit dedicated to promoting artists' books and zines. Their website includes a state-by-state list of book and zine fairs, news of upcoming exhibitions, and the opportunity to have your book sold in their bookstore and website.
Prism Comics
Prism Comics is a nonprofit organization that supports the creators and readers of LGBT and LGBT-friendly comics and graphic novels. Prism provides networking opportunities for writers, artists, and small publishers to collaborate on new comics and reach a wider fan base. The website includes an online store where indie comics creators can sell their work. They also sponsor the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant to help indie and self-published authors publicize their work.
Prism Comics
Prism Comics is the leading nonprofit, all-volunteer organization supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual and LGBTQIA-friendly comic books, comics professionals, readers and educators. Prism awards an annual Queer Press Grant to help an independent comics creator publish their work of interest to an LGBTQIA audience. Prism also publishes anthologies and hosts panel discussions at comics conventions around the United States.
Prison Writers
Co-founded by journalists from USA Today and CBS News, Prison Writers is a nonprofit organization that advocates for prison reform through sharing true stories by incarcerated writers. The group's goals are to encourage prisoners in learning marketable skills and to educate the public about life on the inside. Volunteer screeners give feedback, edit, and publish work by prisoners on the website. All contributors receive $10. There is often a large backlog of submissions, so more volunteers are always needed.
Prisoner Express
A project of the Durland Alternatives Library, Prisoner Express promotes rehabilitation by connecting prisoners to a community through literature. Prisoner Express began as a program for sending donated books to inmates. In addition to this service, they also coordinate pen-pal and distance-learning programs, and publish prisoners' writing on their website and in an anthology.
Prisons Foundation
The Prisons Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that promotes the arts and education in prison and alternatives to incarceration. Visit the gallery page of their website to view and purchase original work by incarcerated artists.
Priya’s Shakti
This graphic novel is a collaboration between poet and playwright Vikas K. Menon, artist Dan Goldman, and filmmaker Ram Devineni. The provocative story portrays an Indian female super-hero who fights against sexual violence in a Hindu-inspired mythic reality. The comic's creation was prompted by the December 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi. The story can be downloaded for free from the website, which also features videos and information about supporting anti-rape activism.
Professor Roy’s Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal
Satirist "Professor Roy" searches Poetry.com for the worst possible poems, and explains just why they're so bad. Visit his User Info page for warnings about poetry scams.
ProofreadingServices.com
Author services at ProofreadingServices.com include manuscript critiques, developmental edits, line edits and proofreading, e-book formatting, and book cover design. Pricing is transparent and affordable. Affiliated with QueryLetter.com.
Pub Rants at Nelson Literary Agency
Pub Rants is a blog where agents from Nelson Literary Agency offer advice on improving your manuscript and query letter, finding and evaluating an agent, and marketing various genres.
Public Books
Founded in 2012, Public Books is an online journal that aims to "unite the best of the university with the openness of the internet." Featuring accessible articles by scholars in a variety of disciplines, from anthropology and history to literature and television, the journal brings academic research to a general audience. They have an extensive book review archive.
Public Domain Image Archive
The Public Domain Review launched this online database in 2025. It features over 10,000 vintage illustrations and photographs that are in the public domain, from medieval times to the early 20th century. Search by artist, century, style, theme, or keyword. This is a great resource for book designers and collage artists
Public Domain Poetry
Public Domain Poetry is an online archive of over 35,000 poems from classic and lesser-known authors, searchable by title, author name, or first line. Though the site design is old-fashioned and sometimes distracting with commercial pop-ups, the content is useful for researching favorite writers and discovering new ones. You can also ask it to generate 50 random poems for your browsing enjoyment.
Publications That Pay Freelancers for Book Reviews and Interviews
This 2022 blog post from writer and editor Adam Morgan lists 74 journals and websites that pay freelance writers for book reviews and author interviews, with links to their instructions (if available) for how to pitch an article. (Hat tip to Erika Dreifus at The Practicing Writer for this resource.)
PublishDrive Free E-book Converter
PublishDrive's free converter tool will change your MS Word documents into ePub or Kindle mobi files (two of the most popular e-book formats). Note that conversion of complicated publications is not guaranteed (magazines, textbooks, books with many pictures or too long and wide tables). Files must use Latin characters only, no foreign-language alphabets.
Published to Death
Erica Verrillo is the author of the middle-grade fantasy series Phoenix Rising and has published short fiction in numerous literary journals. Her blog, Published to Death, offers a variety of writing resources, including submission calls, links to magazines that pay writers, free contests, and resources for finding an agent and getting reviews.
Publishers & Vendors of Deaf-Related Materials
The website of Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf, features this list of English-language publishers who specialize in or otherwise publish a relatively large number of deaf-related books and/or videos. The list was last updated several years ago, but it is a good place to start your research into this market.
Publishers Marketplace
Publishers Marketplace is an industry news website that can help authors connect with agents and editors. Their newsfeed tracks publishing deals, agents, editors, submission calls and more. Full membership is $25/month. If this is out of your price range, there is also a free, shorter daily email newsletter called Publishers Lunch.
Publishers Weekly
Daily bulletins from the world of book publishing. Good attention to sectors poorly covered elsewhere, such as religion. Browse ads for jobs at publishers and libraries.
Publishing and Marketing Scams List at Writer Beware
Writer Beware, a project of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, is a leading industry watchdog for literary scams. In this August 2019 blog post, Victoria Strauss calls out over 50 publishing and marketing companies (many of them affiliated with the same publishing group in the Philippines) that aggressively target writers with false promises and charge exorbitant fees.
Publishing Resources Links at BookBub
Diana Urban, industry marketing manager at the self-publishing company BookBub, compiled this list of 48+ reputable vendors for every stage of book creation and marketing. Categories include developmental and copy editing, graphic design, distribution for self-published books, marketing, publishing industry news, authors' associations, and website building tools. Links are current as of 2019.
Publishing Trends
The website of Publishing Trends offers a weekly roundup of top stories from the publishing world, plus monthly updates on agents' and editors' job changes.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab
This resource portal from Purdue University in Indiana features basic exercises to learn grammar, punctuation, spelling, APA and MLA citation styles, and composing resumes and business letters.
Purity and Nonsense
This two-part essay by award-winning poet Brian Brodeur discusses the prosody of nonsense verse and compares it to other types of avant-garde art. Is it aesthetically significant, as a kind of distillation of poetry to its abstract elements of sound and rhythm, purified of "meaning"? Or is it just a sophomoric prank? Read Part 1 and Part 2 on The Best American Poetry blog.
Purple Planet Music
Purple Planet Music is an online collection of background music clips in various styles, written and performed by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey. The site is easy to search for the musical mood that you need for your book trailer. There are free and paid tiers, depending on the audio quality you need and how widely you plan to broadcast the music.
Q Avenue Press
Launched in 2004 by award-winning poet Curtis Bauer, Q Avenue Press publishes hand-bound chapbooks. Editors say, "We are devoted to publishing new writing, whether prose, poetry, or some combination of the two, new translations, and books that incorporate visual art with writing." Titles include 'I take back the sponge cake' by Loren Erdrich and Sierra Nelson, an illustrated poetry chapbook modeled on choose-your-own-adventure novels.
Q&A With Amy King from VIDA, Feminist Watchdog
The Riveter is a magazine of narratives and longform journalism by women. In this August 2017 piece, magazine co-founder Joanna Demkiewicz interviews poet Amy King about her work with VIDA, an organization launched in 2009 to track gender disparities in the top literary publications and book reviews. VIDA has since expanded its surveys to break down the data by race, ethnicity, sexuality/gender, disability, and neurodiversity.
Quarantine Public Library
In response to the closure of public libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, artists Katie Garth and Tracy Honn created Quarantine Public Library, a free digital collection of mini-books by illustrators and writers. Books can be printed on one sheet of paper and folded into 8-page folios, similar to 'zines.
Quartet Journal
Launched in 2021, Quartet Journal is an online poetry journal for women writers aged 50+. See their submissions page for their reading schedule.
Queen Mob’s Tea House
Queen Mob's Tea House, affiliated with the respected cultural journal Berfrois, is an international online literary magazine for "weird, serious, gorgeous, cross genre, spell conjuring, rant inducing work." The many genres they accept include poetry, fiction, satire, sex columns, music journalism, queer translations and more.
Queer Comics Database
The Queer Comics Database is an online guide to contemporary graphic narratives with LGBTQ content or creators. It is searchable by author name, genre, ethnicity, queer identity, art style, and tone (from "action-packed" to "tranquil"). Find your next good read here.
Queer in Color
Queer in Color is a site to showcase fiction books featuring LGBTQ characters of color. The founders are romance writers but the site is open to all genres. They will add books to the website for free, and charge a small fee to promote them on social media.
Queer Indigenous Women Poets at LitHub
Award-winning Mojave poet Natalie Diaz curates this bimonthly feature of selected poems by contemporary queer indigenous women. The first installment includes work by No'u Revilla, Janet McAdams, Lehua M. Taitano, Deborah A. Miranda, and Arianne True.
Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP)
The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities. Browse alphabetically or search for people, places, time periods, and themes.
Queer-Owned Bookstores to Love and Support
This 2024 list from Electric Literature features queer-owned independent bookstores to consider for your book tours and purchases, from lesbian-owned Bookends in Florence, MA to outposts in Midwestern and Southern conservative states.
Querencia,
By Diana Anhalt
a word that inhabits my Spanish-speaking mouth,
lies under my tongue and smells of evergreens,
and rainy Mondays, smoke. From the word querer—
to want, desire, wish. It refers to bulls
who seek their place of solace in the ring.
For the waif in every living creature. I think
of the neighbor's dachshund hunkered under the porch,
the sparrow haunting a fallen tree, the child
afraid to stray too far from his mother's side.
We took to driving the Cuernavaca highway
and parked in the clearing with that Mexico City view.
As the air turned hazy with cigarette smoke,
we'd drink wine from the bottle, talk and listen to danzones
on the radio. We drove away soon after, took
our memories with us, haven't returned.
After years away, our key no longer fits
the lock. And our home, grown used to strangers' feet,
is home no more.
QueryLetter.com
The publishing industry professionals at QueryLetter.com will write a query letter, synopsis, and outline to pitch your novel manuscript to agents and publishers. Fees are on a sliding scale based on the length of the book, e.g. $379 for a manuscript of 80-120K words (as of 2020). You can also pay to have them generate a list of agents and publishers to target, but we at Winning Writers recommend doing your own research instead.
QueryTracker
Available in both free and paid premium versions, QueryTracker features a searchable database of 1,500 literary agents and a record-keeping system for organizing your queries.
