Poetry Partners Hold Artwork Contest for Fifth Chapbook

It's been said (quite a few times!) that a picture is worth a thousand words. Even though Magdalena Ball and I are poets, we think the original author may have underestimated, and we'd like you--if you're a painter or a photographer--to prove us wrong.

We are the coauthors of the Celebration Series of chapbooks of poetry.

They include Cherished Pulse (for anyone you love)   , She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list), Imagining the Future (for Fathers)  , and Blooming Red, a Christmas chapbook  . Chapbooks have been a tradition in the poetry world since Elizabethan times. The Celebration Series goes beyond the cliched sentiments in most greeting cards - and does it for about the same price.

All four of our chapbooks are illustrated by artists making each a triple effort.

Cherished Pulse and Blooming Red feature artwork from California artist Vicki Thomas. She Wore Emerald Then features photographs by May Lattanzio (see the cover in the Amazon buy-link at the left)  and Imagining the Future a photo by celebrated composer Ricky Ian Gordon.

We are planning a fifth chapbook lauding women's issues and feminist themes. We are looking for submissions to be used on its cover. Yes, it's a contest.

The winner's work will be featured on Deeper Into the Pond: A Celebration of Femininity to be published later in 2011. There is no pay but since Ball runs respected review Web site The Compulsive Reader (http://www.thecompulsivereader.com/ ), and Howard-Johnson is the author of a multi award-winning series of books for writers including The Frugal Book Promoter, they can promise a wide distribution of the cover image, credit, and a biography of the cover artist in the book, and tons of marketing exposure.

See the other chapbooks' covers at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm.

Here is a poem from that chapbook to give you an idea of its contents:

Ariel
Memory's two voices,
the you-girl
suffering the moment
and the you-now
who interprets.
You promise yourself
you won't fear the secrets,
won't tell what happened
without the feelings.
You deny yourself that
and you become Ursula
stealing your own song,
leaving yourself gurgling
under the sea. You need
the music to tell your story,
to find it, to understand it
to know the truth,
to reach above the
ocean's surface
where
others
live.
If you have something you'd like us to see, please e-mail your creative work to Ball at maggie_ball@bigpond.com with SUBMISSION: DEEPER INTO THE POND in the subject line. We hope to have a decision by June 1, 2011 and we reserve the right to select no winner. If a winner is selected, we may also choose runners-up so those acknowledgments may be used by the winners for purposes of marketing. There is no fee for entering, and only the honor and publication of the artwork for being selected. Oh, yes. And two copies of the finished chapbook. We hope to hear from you.


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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: