On letters from the editors
It's been a year since I finished writing my first full-length poetry manuscript Catechesis: a postpastoral . It's been a little less than that since I started sending it out to open reading periods and book contests. And it's been a fairly vulnerable process, more so than submitting individual poems to lit mags, to which I've mostly numbed myself after ten years. Every time I submit my manuscript to another press, I'm sending out four whole years of my writing life at once. It feels like I'm sending Everything That Means Anything To Me; this project that has been the center of my creative life for so long that I didn't know what to even try writing about when it was finally completed. And, of course, it's the first time I've ever done this. I've now submitted my manuscript to 24 book contests and open reading periods. I've spent $529 on submission fees. From these, I've received thirteen form rejections and there are nine places that ...