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Book Review: ‘No Walk in the Park’ by Jemma Chawla

On a rainy January morning, I came across Jemma’s writing prompts on Instagram, and we instantly connected by a shared love for poetry that is honest, emotional and tackles heavily controversial social issues like depression, grief, and motherhood in crisis. Because of her, I have written one of my most favourite poems which Rebecca has chosen for the 2022 Autumn anthology too (you can ask me later, and I’ll tell you about it, but that’s not the point of this introduction, the point is to show you just how much respect and appreciation I have for Jemma’s bright mind and spirit.)

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Book Review: Conversation with Love by Tetyana Denford

We talk a lot ABOUT love. There are songs, poems, t-shirts, postcards, films, art, books, even cakes can sometimes end up with something about love scrawled across the top. Yes, we talk about it. We think we know all there is to know about love. It has a shape and a colour; red hearts are perhaps one of the first things we all learn to recognize when we’re young. The feeling seems universally the same, and most of those poems, songs and films seem to tell us what we already know. They show us a picture drawn long ago and set in the stone of a popular culture that likes to sell us things.

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Sarah Herrin on ‘On Thousand Good Answers.’

Sarah (she/her) is a queer poet based in Colorado. She graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design with a BFA in Sequential Art, where she also studied Creative Writing in the South of France. She is the author of chapbooks The Oceanography of Her and Anti/Muse, and the digital zine I Can Make A Love Poem Out Of Anyone. As a survivor of sexual assault and PTSD, she runs Beyond The Veil Press, advocating for mental health awareness and art as therapy. She is also a long-distance runner, cat mom, and visual artist.

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How To Begin To Make Bad Art?

How do I begin? To put the brush to canvas, to mould the clay, to put the pen to ink, and to create.
The question you truly are asking is: How do I begin to trust myself?
As a writer, blockages are going to happen. You may be wondering how to get to a place of clarity.
Simply put, to get clear water, you must turn on the tap. Now, this may sound simplistic, but in practice, the only way to master your art, or even to make art at all, is to let go of the need to produce something good. Make bad art. Make the most atrocious art you can possibly fathom.

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The Myth of the Tortured Artist: how to create art whilst in recovery

We often relate sadness to talent, the suffering and starving artists are those with the ability to create rather than consume. In art and literature, that which is small and diminutive is thought of as beautiful, and the death of a beautiful woman is thought to be poetic. Ophelia of Shakespeare and Joan of Arc, these women are thought to be virtuous and beautiful because they suffered.

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How To Get Great Book Reviews

So you've published a book. It's a piece of true beauty. You've meticulously constructed your masterpiece in the snatched minutes around an unachievable schedule, poetry honed to perfection. You've authorized the most enticing of covers, hired an expert editor, and meticulously modified the internal layout to ensure the font combination is flawless. It's now or never; it is time to let the rest of the world see your work so that you can start receiving great reviews and positive comments from your adoring followers and the industry's best book reviewers.

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Book interview: Hindsight by (teen poet) Sofiya Ivanova

Sofiya Ivanova has known she wanted to be a “rhyme-writer” since she was three years old. Born in Moscow, Russia, she was eight years old when she moved to the U.S., where she learned English from scratch and had to adapt to an entirely new culture. Her poetry was published for the first time in the Sunday Mornings At The River Spring 2020 Anthology; she was fourteen years old. Sofiya’s work is heavily inspired by contemporary spoken word and 1950s Beat poetry, as well as feeling everything too deeply, teenage melodrama, and the gorgeous landscape of Colorado.

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3 Ways of Publishing that Marvellous Manuscript of Yours

For a poet, there are very few things that can measure up to the feeling of holding a finished manuscript in your hand. You put that final full stop to it. You can't even discern whether you are exhausted, thrilled with joy, or a little bit of both. It is normal to feel overwhelmed because you just poured all of your sweat and tears into your book-baby, and it was only the beginning. Next comes the daunting process of actually publishing the thing.

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Introducing Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos

Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos is a Content Editor of fiction from Greece. She chooses to see her writing as the kind Ophelia would write had she navigated a world of boundless horror. She writes to make sense of said world and shed light on the obscure places where reality meets the surreal. She hates the taste of fresh tomatoes, and she loves cheese. In her free time, she removes cat hair from her clothes. Sophia-Maria joined us as a book reviewer recently, and you can find her articles on our blog.

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Poet Interview: Sindhu Rajasekaran

Sindhu Rajasekaran is a literary nomad and transgressor of genres. She has published a novel titled Kaleidoscopic Reflections, which was nominated for the Crossword Book Award in India. Her collection of short stories, titled So I Let It Be, was published by Pegasus Publishers, UK. Her latest book of non-fiction, Smashing the Patriarchy – A Guide for the 21st Century Indian Woman, is to be published by the reputed Aleph Book Company. In her work, both fiction and non-fiction, Sindhu explores gender and sexuality, language and landscape, contemporary politics, and existential dilemmas.

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Poet Interview: Mariam

Michaela Dengg started writing poetry in 2015. In 2019, she started publishing poems on Instagram under the pseudonym ‘Mariam,’ a combination of her first and middle name. Her poetry frequently deals with the concept of ‘home’ and ‘home far away from home’. She usually writes short poems and aphorisms with powerful wordplays.

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Poet Interview: Anna K. Dalton

Anna K. Dalton is a mother, and teacher of all things atypical in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She spends her days helping others find their own inner voice on the yoga mat, or stretch their creative limbs at the pottery wheel, and in front of a sewing machine. Anna uses writing as a personal outlet; a small escape from the busyness of everyday life, and the inevitable chaos that comes from living with a six-year-old. This is her first published work.

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Poet Interview: Stephanie Johnson

Stephanie Johnson’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications including Witty Partition, Sink Hollow, Forum Literary Magazine, and others. She is an Associate Editor at Novel Slices, a new literary magazine based solely on novel excerpts, and has spent most of her adult life teaching English literature, ESL and Spanish in several countries around the world. Her writing often focuses on the slightly uncomfortable space of the expatriation/ repatriation experience. She is currently based in Sydney, Australia.

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Poet Interview: Ritwika Maity

Ritwika Maity (she/her) is from a crowded metropolitan city where you can barely see the stars at night. She writes to paint constellations on her night sky. She became a poet at the age of 8 when a teacher asked Ritwika to read a poem she wrote for an assignment in front of the class. The teacher said she really enjoyed it and encouraged Ritwika to keep writing. Her grandfather gifted me a notebook later that month, and she has never stopped writing poetry since. A few years later, when her grandfather passed away, writing poetry made Ritwika feel closer to him and helped her to deal with the grief.

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