Advice to Rejected Poets (and Storytellers)

 A poet posted on social media, asking if she should just give up trying to get published after a recent string of rejections.  

'Hang in there, keep trying,' said many in response. With which I do not disagree, but I added this:

Pardon me for sounding like an absolute barbarian, but –

When younger I used to get published often, even sometimes had editors of publications requesting submissions. Then I discovered blogging. I get many more readers this way! The circulation of even the most prestigious lit mags and anthologies cannot compare.

Maybe being selected for publication by someone else seems a sign that your work has merit? (Ignoring the fact that not all editors make perfect choices.) Well, you can do both, blog and submit – though many editors regard blogging as prior publication, so you have to be choosy about what you send where. But to me that just proves the point, that blogging = readers.

The cost is that you do need to interact with other bloggers in your genre, advertise your stuff on social media and so on – but that applies also to getting readers for other forms of publication, including your own books even if published by industry leaders.

International groups of blogging poets who post prompts and share work include dVerse, earthweal, Poetic Bloomings, Poets and Storytellers United (of which – full disclosure – I am currently Coordinator) and Poetic Asides. Google 'em. [But for anyone reading this here at my SnakyPoet blog, I've made links so you don't have to Google.]

I also like to post some things in poetry groups on facebook. Instant community, gentle feedback, and various opportunities for seeing latest journals to submit to or being selected for group anthologies.

Apologies for Any Confusion

I'm getting rid of my Dreamwidth journal (the successor to LiveJournal) because (a) I hardly used it anyway, (b) very few people read it [perhaps some cause and effect here!] and (c) I didn't find it all that user-friendly. A bit sad to leave behind the few people whose journals I still read there, and/or at LiveJournal, from which some had not crossed over. (Many others, though, have opted out of LJ or DW altogether, no longer available to be read.)

I originally went to LJ, back in 2008, to read a friend's journal. Then I found others I liked, and also realised I could use it as a convenient place to write the stuff that I didn't want to share widely but did want to express and have heard. LJ and DW allow users to be pseudonymous, excellent for that purpose.

Now that I've decided to leave, I'm gradually transferring years of entries to either my strictly private personal journal on Blogger or to this one: SnakyPoet. (And a few to my witchy blog, Cronewyze.)

SnakyPoet was my handle on LJ/DW too, and also on twitter, and at one time in a lot of places all over the net. (I no longer have twitter or various others either, and have changed to my actual name for purposes such as leaving book reviews on Amazon).

Now I wonder if I really need my Snaky Poet blog. It doesn't seem to be read or commented on even as often as the one I'm deleting.

However, I know I do have followers. I am thinking it must be disconcerting if you are getting notifications of new posts. Many of them are not new at all, just crossing over from Dreamwidth, and will post at their original dates, but that might not be immediately obvious.

So anyway, just thought I'd explain what's happening.

And if you care to weigh in with why I shouldn't delete this SnakyPoet blog too, please do!

[Edit, 14/10/29: I am now snakypoet on Instagram, too.]

Blog Posts and Literary Journals

A personal conversation which might be of wider interest

A friend messaged me with a question:

Noticing talk lately about poems posted on blogs or websites = publishing. Therefore holding back on posting new poems on my blog as hoping to submit to mags etc., many of which stipulate "not previously published". Not knowledgable about this, trying to find out more. What do you know?

I replied:

I know that it is a grey area. Whether or not blog posts are regarded as prior publication depends on the particular editor of the particular journal/anthology. Also your facebook posts could be ineligible, depending whether your profile is Public or Friends Only. Some editors/publications have a blanket policy of no prior online appearance. Others don't count posting on personal blogs or in closed online groups as prior publication. Check, but I think the groups you publish to on fb are not closed. (This is usually not specifically applicable to other online groups in the wider blogosphere, such as Poets United and others I use, because we don't publish our poems IN the groups, we supply a link to those posts at our own blogs.)

Some poets get around this by putting things on blogs very briefly, perhaps labelled as – and being – drafts, and removing them within a week or two before submitting elsewhere. Some don't put on their blogs anything they wish to submit elsewhere. They may perhaps post such poems to their blogs after publication, with appropriate accreditation of 'first publication' as one would if publishing one's own book.

Others, such as me, blog on regardless. There are enough journals and anthologies, many online and some offline, who will include pieces that have appeared on blogs and in social media. I don't bother much anyway unless I am invited, which still sometimes happens.

On the one hand, it could be said that I can afford to thumb my nose, as I was well published in decades past and made a name for myself. I think it was more like five minutes of fame, but it's true that I had and enjoyed it.

On the other hand, I look at my blog stats and know I get many more readers by publishing to a blog than I would by appearing in even the most prestigious Australian literary journals. (Some of my old colleagues seem offended if I say that! But it's not a denigration of the literary journals or their contents to note, from their own statistics, that they have a lesser reach. It's just the nature of things.)

There is also the fact that – for reasons of convenience, really – I don't do spoken word performance any more, so no longer have the grassroots community reach in that kind of way. I get it in a different way, in a different but sometimes overlapping community, via my blog.

Depends what you want: to be read, or to have some standing in literary circles. (Both, of course; but perhaps, as things are, one must predominate.) There is a widespread view that poetry on blogs is not of a very high standard; that people publish any old thing without it having been workshopped or edited, and readers who couldn't tell a poem from a Hallmark greeting card rush to praise it. (The same view is held about self-published ebooks.) There is some truth in that; I have seen some horrendous examples thereof.

However, the poets who publish in the online poetry groups I've found have a commitment to poetry, develop rapidly through communion with other poets (just as poets do in offline groups and events) and many of them are, in my opinion, as good as anyone publishing to more 'literary' acclaim. (Well, maybe not quite as good as Mary Oliver, but – you know – she's God. *Smiling.* Some aren't too bloody far off, all the same.) Many of them have a high reputation in online poetry circles. Does that count? Well yes, judgment of one's peers and all that.

I think my opinion of their excellence counts for something, having been a teacher of poetry writing at tertiary level, a reviewer in respected publications, and a publisher of prize-winning books of poetry.

As for my own esteem, it is indeed true that I received much validation when I was younger, and no longer need anyone to assure me I'm a competent poet. I think I am also pretty good by now at assessing fairly objectively which of my pieces are working well, and which could be improved or scrapped. Above all, people tell me when something moves them deeply, in comments which go beyond the politely encouraging.

So yes, I do feel I can afford to thumb my nose at more traditional avenues now. It comes at a price, though. While Australian poets (and readers) of my generation remember me well, newer ones coming up have probably never heard of me. I don't, I think, have a name that will last in Australian poetry. Once I longed for literary standing in the present and fame in posterity, while some of of my confreres said,'It's all ephemeral; let's be heard NOW.' Funnily enough, in age our positions have reversed!

For you (and others) who didn't seek and get that validation years ago, it may well be important to pursue traditional paths of publication at this point, pay your dues and earn the respect you deserve. After that you can choose where to go next. Perhaps in both directions at once; there are those who do that too.

You could put the blog on hold until later – either deleting it entirely, leaving it up as a record, or changing the setting to private so only you would see it.

Or you could keep it going and choose what to put on it, e.g. stuff ABOUT your writing, such as the chapbook publicity that's already there. And/or maybe poems you think good enough to share with the world, but don't particularly wish to submit to journals.

Basically you should do what YOU want. Life's too short not to! Hopefully this helps you make a more informed choice.

Why Blogging is Good for Poets

I just came across Personal blogging for writers: a manifesto, written in 2009 by Dave Bonta, who is fast becoming one of my favourite poets. His manifesto draws a number of conclusions I've also come to over the years, which have me prefer blogging my poems to seeking print publication (though I still submit to printed journals and anthologies when invited).

In practice Bonta takes things a lot further than I have done yet. For instance I'm only just flirting with the idea of some audio on my poetry blogs. Anyway, what he says makes a lot of sense to me — not only re the much larger readership for blogs than printed literary publications, but also how much more we can do with our poems online.

Have a read!

Coming Back

I haven't posted here very much over the last coupla years. First I was immersed in caring for my husband, who became less and less able to look after himself — losing mobility and also developing (thankfully mild) Alzheimer's. I created a special blog to record that journey, Shifting Fog. After he died (a year ago) I blogged about my new journey in The Widowhood Chronicles. And now, a year later, I have finalised that blog too.

I may well have more to say about being widowed, but it's no longer new to me and I think all the revelations have been covered. So I am bringing myself back here, to my first blog at this profile. The others can remain as archives, and I do plan to turn The Widowhood Chronicles into a book — perhaps not with that name.

My poetry blogs have continued during this period, and I have recently amalgamated most of them into the main one, The Passionate Crone. The only one that is still separate is Stones for the River, which is specifically for 'mindful writing', mostly but not necessarily in verse.

And there are a few others — a writer's journal, a memoir, Andrew's old blogs which I now manage and have plans for....  SnakyPoet, though, is my all-purpose personal blog, for the stuff that won't fit into a facebook status update or a tweet. I hope you're still interested, dear readers!

I'm thinking of merging my blogs

... some of them anyway ... of importing Shifting Fog and Cronewyze over here and just using tags to identify those posts. But would the comments get imported too or would I lose them? And what woud I do about my luvverly visuals which I love so much (particularly the Cronewyze one)? Maybe leave them there with a note and a link?

I dunno — I just have a notion that I'm too fragmented and I'd like to integrate my aspects into more of one whole. I'm speaking of my online personae: don't feel divided into separate parts in real life; they're all me. (But who knows, maybe the expression does creep into and affect the reality?)

Oddly enough I feel no such urge re the poetry blogs. They are all working fine as they are, and can stay that way.

But would it be too much trouble anyhow? Would I do better to make more visible links each to each on the respective home pages? As I have begun to do, starting here (look left).

I guess I really think I'd get more readers if the stuff was all in one place. Not so many people know about those other two blogs. I made them separate with some idea it would be helpful to potential readers. They are not just personal rambles like this blog; they share actual knowledge and experience which could, I thought, be useful to others. (I have even had people begging me to mentor them in the Cronewyze stuff.) Therefore I thought I'd make the material easier to find. Doesn't seem to be working.

Why Blog My Poetry?

My blog on MySpace had had 30957 views last time I looked. Those people have given me ‘kudos’ for my writing only 1386 times, and I have received only 2130 comments. Some have been from the same people returning over and over again. Even so, I think that’s a lot more people than would find and like my poetry in any in-print Australian literary magazine.

My MySpace blog includes prose and has been going for four years. On Blogger I have three blogs just for poetry: a haiku page, a page of ‘verse portraits’ and a page for poetry in general. The haiku page was started in January 2007 and has received 736 visitors. The verse portraits began in June 2008 and have had 752 visitors. I started The Passionate Crone, where I post all my other poetry, in May 2006 and it has had 6973 visitors to date (already 30 this month, so far). Again, some are the same people returning many times; some visitors don’t stay to read for very long; and many more visit than actually comment.

These figures are ridiculously small compared to the traffic some other kinds of blogs have, with thousands of hits a day. For poetry, however, it’s a high readership, and it comes from all over the world. I have readers in India, Africa, Argentina, China (to name just a few) and all over Europe, as well as thick concentrations in Australia, New Zealand, all the north American countries, and Britain. This exceeds my wildest pre-internet dreams.

But is it only that I can’t get published in reputable journals? Admittedly I don’t try very often, but when I do, I don’t have any trouble being accepted. (I do, however, prefer online journal publication too, these days.) In previous decades I was widely published in prestigious places; also the people who now comment favourably on my work include poets whose own work I love and admire. Yes, every poetaster can now get a blog and a host of enthusiastic readers to go with it; lovers of real poetry can still discriminate.

There are blogging poets with readerships and reputations far higher than mine. Some of them publish mostly in blogs nowadays; others use their blogs as adjuncts to their print publications. Some of us put our first drafts on our blogs and submit our revised work for publication in journals. Some go straight from blogs to chapbooks, and it seems that enough of their blog readers want to have the work in book form to make that worthwhile.

Somewhere in the mix is performance, for decades a good way of getting your work known and building up a following. It still is, and often the two things go together. Many of the blogging poets I know are also performers. I seldom do that any more, though I was a high-profile performer in the past. I moved to a small town where poetry performances are a few hours’ drive away in various directions. Although from time to time people have tried to get things going locally, so far they haven’t lasted. And I’m older now, and don’t much like driving for hours through the night for any reason. I rely more and more on the blogs.

However, you can surely do both, and submit to journals and publish books as well, and they will all enhance each other. Even I still do a little bit of performing, submit to journals occasionally, and am gradually creating some chapbooks. Blogging doesn’t have to be a substitute for other kinds of exposure, but along with performance it has become one of the first and easiest places to get your work ‘out there’.

It’s good from a reader’s point of view, too. I love being able to read the latest pieces by my favourite poets with just a couple of clicks.

ANOTHER Poetry Blog???

Well, yes.

I have succumbed to an enticing game called x365. People all over the world are doing it too! It's the ultimate writing prompt, just too good to resist.

Every day for a year you write about someone who has made an impression on you in the course of your life, a different person every day. It can be someone you've known well or only for a moment. And here's the thing – for each entry you write only the number of words equivalent to your age. (This limitation is one of the things that makes it interesting!)

For my own interpretation, go to the WORD PORTRAITS link in my sidebar, top right.

The rules don't say you have to write poems, and some people are doing wonderful versions in prose. But, me being me ...

Blogging Without Obligation

Clicking on the sweet logo at the top of the page, just under the Aussie Bloggers badge, will take you to this post on the blog down the rabbit hole, which I also reproduce here because I think it's SOOOO good (and the author gives permission). If you'd like to use the logo too, or one of the variants on offer, you'll need to go to the original post, so do click the logo. Otherwise, read on ...

*****************************************************************************************

After coming across what seemed to be the 4000th or so post on someone's blog starting with "I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile," I decided it is time to rethink what makes a good blog and the expectations that have come to be part of it. I am thinking that no one should utter those words again ... and with that thought I give you Blogging Without Obligation.

If you feel the same way feel free to grab the logo, make a logo or whatever you would like to do!

I release all the logos, thoughts and words mentioned here about this concept into the public domain. Take the idea and run with it ... or walk away. It is all good.

• Because you shouldn't have to look at your blog like it is a treadmill.

• Because its okay to just say what you have to say. If that makes for a long post, fine. Short post, fine. Frequent post, fine. Infrequent post, fine.

• Because its okay to not always be enthralled with the sound of your own typing.

• Because sometimes less is more.

• Because only blogging when you feel truly inspired keeps up the integrity of your blog.

• Because they are probably not going to inscribe your stat. link and comment numbers on your tombstone.

• Because for most of us blogging is just a hobby. A way to express yourself and connect with others. You should not have to apologize for lapses in posts. Just take a step back and enjoy life, not everything you do has to be "bloggable".

• Because if you blog without obligation you will naturally keep your blog around longer, because it won't be a chore. Plus, just think you will be doing your part to eradicate post pollution. One post at a time ...
  

- By Tiffini Elektra X

April Fool's Day

Aussie Bloggers Forum was the best fun this morning – all our posts turned into lolspeak. It was brilliant.

I think we all took a little while to realise it was an April Fool's Day joke. No new people joined today – maybe anyone who came to look fled screaming?

I am very chuffed that an old Crone like me only had to have one thing explained afterwards.

Walking the Wilds of Cyberspace

Oh the excitement, the intrigue!

I just – finally – installed StatCounter on this blog the other day, and all our other Blogger blogs too, including the ones that form the new website. Well you see, I only just found out about it.

I LOVE going to 'my projects' and finding out where the hits are coming from (the location of people's servers anyway). Not sure which is better – to recognise the source or not to.

Switzerland: obviously my darling foster-daughter-in-law, or even perhaps the busy foster-son. Austria: my wonderful MPRUE teacher (check the Healing pages on the Life Magic website, folks, for an explanation of that acronym). I know which friend lives in Santa Rosa, California, which one is in Hamilton, NZ and who is presently in the Seychelles. I can even work out which of the people I know in Brisbane spent a whole hour looking at the website, because she kindly sent me an email to say, 'I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it... The drawings, the fairy, the whole lot!'

But I know lots of people in Melbourne and Sydney and quite a few in Austin, Texas as well, not to mention the general location 'United Kingdom'. Would the New York visitors be poets I know on MySpace or strangers? And who the heck is looking in from Serbia? Lovely to know that friends are checking it all out. Also lovely to think that maybe some people I've never heard of are finding me!

And there's another puzzle. How come Books by Life Magic shows 40 hits already recorded on the site, yet when I log into my StatCounter 'projects' page it declares I've had none? (Even though I KNOW at least one other person besides me has recently been to it.) Most mysterious! Beats any fantasy novel, does cyberspace….

Life Magic: a Website in a Blog

It's been a little while since I did any blogging here. That's because I've been busy creating a website. After some abortive starts with longsuffering web designers, I realised what I wanted was something I could alter and update myself. So I began my research.

Yes, I could learn how to do it with Dreamweaver at the local TAFE, but I was told it was complex, and that I'd end up having to buy the software for about $1000. Hmmm, not on the Age Pension, thanks! Besides, I have the impression it needs a mathematical type of brain to do coding, and I don't happen to have one of them.

The guy at the local Tech Centre said I could do it with the greatest of ease in Google Pages. Er, no. When I had a play with that, it wasn't so easy for the likes of me. I guess people to whom it all comes naturally can't fathom how challenging it can be for some of us.

I heard a bit too late about Ozeclick, software which enables web owners to update their own sites once they've been created, and in which – like Google Pages – you can copy and paste any existing web pages you might have. By then I had created what I wanted. I went the blogging route.

My friend, the Atlanta poet Collin Kelley (see sidebar link), recently moved his website information on to a blog and put in a redirect from his domain name. He told me it was one of the best things he ever did. And my latest web designer (my Prodigal Son) was thinking about making something very static which he wouldn't need to keep going in and changing, but with links to blogs I could alter at will. So I started playing around with possible blog pages, and it quickly took shape – consisting entirely of a blog. Or rather, a nest of six blogs around one profile.

Andrew and I had just created a blog about fairies, to start telling the stories of psychic children we interviewed some years ago, and we had registered a new Blogger profile for it, listing us both as joint authors. Andrew's book, Jorell, one of the reasons he wanted a website, is a fairy story, so we always envisioned that blog tied into our website. And so I began, and it grew, and fell into place. Luckily I have taught myself a bit about constructing a blog by now, and Blogger does make it so easy!

The Prodigal is going to put in a redirect from our domain name to the new home page. Meanwhile the link in the sidebar to Life Magic will get you there. I am SO proud of it, so do go and have a look! You won't be able to comment, though, except on the one really bloggy section, The Truth About Fairies (see sidebar link). But you can come back here if you like, to tell me how splendiferous it is. (Please refrain from recording other opinions, lol.)

I did it as a present for Andrew on his birthday. He recently turned 79, and he has always wanted a blog that would showcase all our wares – our books, and all the services we can offer people. I thought he should have what he wanted!

I am glad to say the Prodigal loves it too.

Blogkeeping

I've decided to duplicate posts here and to my MySpace personal profile.

It's tricky, and a bit pointless, thinking up different topics – given that I have three other blogs for more specialised interests!

So, if you read either one of these two, no need to hunt up the other. Whatever's easiest!

There will also be some duplications from my DragonStar Rose blog on MySpace, which is for people interested in magick, healing and energy.

Being here

As I just said in response to a comment on yesterday's post, Loving MySpace, I think my reason for loving it could have something to do with being brought up in a small town. That town long ago grew into the City of Launceston and I haven't seen it in the last nine years, but I'm sure it will have kept some of the villagey atmosphere I remember.

I'm not fond of big cities, even though I lived in one – Melbourne – most of my adult life. I went to the University of Melbourne when I was 17, worked in various Melbourne libraries after I graduated, got married there (three times!) and raised my kids there. I lived there about 30 years and did get to love it for a long time. Cities are exciting places for teenagers, so I was disposed to embrace it from the start. But what was it I embraced? The city centre, the Uni and its surrounding suburb of Carlton, and later the Bayside suburbs where a kind fate led me to live and work. That's about it, really. With blithe disregard for such things as financial considerations, I used to ask rhetorically why anyone would live in Melbourne and NOT be by the sea. Put it down to my island heritage. Still a Taswegian at heart (which is what we Tasmanians jokingly call ourselves) I go for beautiful scenery, historic buildings, and a sense of community.

But I'm over Melbourne now. Andrew and I moved to northern New South Wales in 1994, and have no hankering to go back. We've lived since then in various locations around the town of Murwillumbah – with its hills, rivers and nearby mountains and ocean. No wonder I've always felt at home here! I like going into Coles and having six conversations with old acquaintances I bump into. I like walking down the street, encountering a friend unexpectedly and grabbing a coffee while we have a catch-up. I like it that the people in the shops have known me for years and say hello with a smile when I come in. I like the proprietary feeling I have about Mt Warning, the Tweed and Rous Rivers, certain cafes and the only bookshop.

We don't get into Murwillumbah so often any more, though those things still pertain when we do. In 2002 we moved out to Pottsville Beach, a small but fast-growing coastal resort with two tiny shopping areas and a thriving Neighbourhood Centre with hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers. Yes, there's a villagey feel and a strong sense of community, but the natural connections are with other places along the coast. When we want serious shopping, we go to urban centres like Tweed Heads (the start of the Gold Coast) or Byron Bay. And there are always lots of tourists here. One way and another, it feels less cocooned than dear old Murwillumbah, the town of which I used to say approvingly that it was 'cool to be daggy'. (For my non-Aussie readers, that's an oxymoron.) But we have the sea, and it's glorious!

It's a little like that, blogging here instead of on MySpace (not that I have stopped doing it there): considerably less cocooned, but with certain benefits. Now that I'm engaging with it, the wider blogosphere is rewarding too for a writer and lover of writing. Masters of the Verse on MySpace directed me to Writer's Resource Centre, one of my favourite places to play on the web, and there I found The Cerebral Mum, new friend and brilliant writer, without whom my life could no longer be complete. :) Also she's a generous promoter of other blogs including mine. It was she who directed me to David Coomler's blog on HOKKU, which I greatly treasure. Only yesterday, she helped me find PomGirl, a relative newcomer to Australia with a fresh eye for our foibles and a humorous take on her own, to whose delicious blog I instantly subscribed.

There's some cross-pollination goes on. I have told all my MySpace haiku friends about the HOKKU site, many of them now love it too, and one has started a thread on Haiku on Friday, based on a recent HOKKU post. Some of my favourite writers post on both Blogger and MySpace: e.g. Collin Kelley, an Atlanta poet whom I met in Texas at the Austin International Poetry Festival; Savvyology (B Y Penman) and Lance Strate, both of whom I met on MySpace. I see that one can duplicate content in both places, or have very different blogs at the different locations. Lance, for instance, who is a Professor of Communication, uses his blogspot for material related to his interest in that field, and his MySpace blog for his poetry. I'm opting for different posts in different places most of the time – though, regarding the recent Australian election, I waxed jubilant EVERYWHERE, including here.

I suspect, though, that this is really a MySpace blog. Does it truly belong out here, where there is so much concern for attracting traffic, writing winning headlines, and using blogs for business?

Loving MySpace

'MySpace is crap,' says my 38-year-old son, who is staying with me just now. 'Facebook is crap.' He had a quick look at both to see if they had any relevance to his business interests. I wasn't enamoured of Facebook either, after giving it a try for a few months, but I LOVE MySpace, where I have virtually (!) been living for the past 18 months or so and have three flourishing blogs with hundreds of viewers and dozens of subscribers. 

Out here in the wider world, I'm grateful for rssHugger, the proposed Directory of Australian women bloggers, and StumbleUpon. On MySpace I don't need to register on a special site to let people with like interests know I exist – the whole community is set up to function that way.

Why is it that this feels like being out in the world, and MySpace feels like a village? It's a pretty big village! Indeed, I sometimes think the whole world is on MySpace. Only this morning I added the Dalai Lama to my group of friends. And there are musicians like Tim Finn, Fiona Horne and Lisa Marie Presley, who actually write their own blogs and respond to their fans' comments and messages – although there are also plenty of others who only want to build up the numbers, and I don't bother with them. (Unless I REALLY like their stuff, e.g. Ute Lemper and Wendy Rule.) I didn't mind building up the numbers for our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the head of the Greens Party, Senator Bob Brown! There are fake sites for famous people, and other sites which are essentially fan clubs, but I make sure to connect with the official ones.

But I'm not there in order to collect famous strangers as 'friends'. I was first enticed there because that way I could listen to new work by a muso I actually know, a personal friend in real life, the lovely Clive Price. I soon found other friends there, old and new. Above all I love the terrific poets I've come across, whom I would never have known otherwise. To mention only my top favourites: George Wallace, Geraldine Green, Ed Churchouse, and a woman I know only as 'dawn', a nature-lover who paints wonderful pictures and writes non-literary poetry which has the power to move people profoundly. (4/3/08: I just deleted the wonderful Lori Williams from this list, as she has left MySpace. *Sob!*)

I have met passionate political activists – usually older women like myself, interestingly enough – warm-hearted witches who treat me as a mentor, young people who honour me by talking to me freely and frankly, and a whole mob of haiku poets who post new verses every week on my Haiku on Friday page.

I've had my work published in the online literary magazines rorschach failure and Unquiet Desperation (the latter also publishes a print edition), I've helped distribute free booklets of "poetry found", and The Smoking Poet reviewed my latest book of poetry, Secret Leopard along with my husband Andrew's environmental fairy story, Jorell. All these contacts were made on MySpace.

It's also a great place to keep in touch with people I know in real life, including friends overseas, and even those only a couple of hours away. My 16-year-old god-daughter Mikaela lives in another State, and I've seen little of her since she was small. She joined MySpace just because I said I enjoyed it, and we now know each other much better through our communications there. My relationship with her has become one of the great treasures of my life! I've also grown closer to my 40-year-old stepson Adam since he joined; we've had discussions that go much deeper than our conversations at family gatherings. In the context of MySpace we relate without our preconceived opinions and past history. And there he's made the acquaintance of one of my real-life best friends and now they're pals too. On my visit to Texas last year I formed warm friendships with poets and witches I met, then came back home with no certainty that we'd ever see each other again. Thanks to MySpace, we've at least been able to remain in close contact and many of those friendships have deepened.

Why wouldn't I love MySpace?

Hugging Myself!

... and perhaps you too, with



Thank you to The Cerebral Mum for letting her readers know about the brilliant new service at rssHugger. I am one of the more naive friends she mentions, only just starting to realise there are such things as blog ratings and ways to get more traffic. I'm not blogging as a business venture; I'm a writer in the literary, not the marketing sense.

But never mind customers – I do like making new friends with common interests. I love the idea of a community where we exchange hugs! And of course what all writers most need and want – after a blank page/screen – is readers.

The other thing I love to do, after writing, is reading. One of my great pleasures is finding new treasures online. Now, along comes rssHugger. Not only can it help people find me; it can also help me find them!

Best of all, it is generously offered free just now to people who review it in their blog. So if you would like to join in the blogging hugfest, click on the link above and check out the possibilities. The site is ridiculously easy to navigate, even for the technologically challenged such as myself, with clear instructions and see-at-a-glance layout. It looks good, and both colour scheme and language manage to be friendly and business-like at once. I can see me having fun there, exploring all the goodies on offer. And other explorers in my own areas of interest can find this listing.

For those who don't want to do a review, there's a one-off fee of only $20, so either way it's a very good deal.