Where Do The Dead Go?

I know. It’s been a while.

I’ve been thinking about how I publish my poetry and stories, and concluded that the simple way is the best way. I don’t wish to spend a lot of time and money submitting them to competitions and magazines, putting them to one side where they may end up forgotten or just unpublished while I decide to submit them ‘just one more time.’ I’m not interested in putting a lot of time and energy into chasing the best deal or the most prestigious publications.

The whole purpose of writing is firstly for myself, and secondly because (naturally) I’d like to be read. It doesn’t have to be a large audience, I’m quite chuffed when anyone let’s me know they’ve read something of mine and enjoyed it. In which case I might as well just write some more zines and publish work on this blog. It feels like far less pressure. And the novel I’ve finished (Long Shadows) and which is still being edited I might submit to an agent or two, but I’ve no intention of spending months and years trying. If I’ve no luck I will quite quickly just self-publish it.

Anyway, putting my writing where my mouth is, here’s a poem.

Vikings

Allow me to introduce a new joint venture, a magazine (or zine, as I’m informed we hip youngsters now say):

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The final poem in my recent collection, The Night Bus, is a poem called Vikings, and it is reproduced in this here zine with a series of super illustrations.

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This is a collaboration between myself and my talented friend Mark Prestage. As already indicated the poem is mine, while Mark designed, cut and printed the linocuts.

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Mark also did the hard work of putting the zine together, while I just sat around and drank beer. The zine is printed on 16 pages of high quality paper, in a preliminary edition of 40 numbered copies.

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In the UK the price is £4.50 including postage and packaging, and it can be ordered from my Etsy site: here, or directly from me (just email me) using Paypal. Unfortunately the cost of postage overseas makes it impractical to offer outside of the UK (typically doubling the cost of the zine, or even more).

If people make lots of approving noises, we have ideas for similar projects in the future.

Mark also blogs here: drifting in lower case and twits: twit and is well worth a visit.