Poetics Serendipity

7:47 a.m. — Atlanta

listening to Blood, Sweat & Tears singing Spinning Wheel [that got the blood going]

Hello, everyone. All good? Or, as good as can be? Good. Let’s explore. I have some fun [as in interesting and possibly useful] sites for us. Some of you may have seen a couple, if you see the same Facebook people I do, or are following Khara House, but these are sites that are good to have in the arsenal so I want to be sure.

1] I get the WordPress newsletter and this week’s focuses on three writing communities within WordPress. The choices run the gamut from straightforward — Today’s Author is an open, flexible community of writers focused on helping each other kick-start their pens (or keyboards) — to a creative approach within a creative community at Tipsy Lit — a book club on the Internet where you promote reading REAL literature (no shopping, vampires or shopping vampires allowed) and promote the consumption of alcohol while discussing said literature online.  New reading friends?  Check. Glass of wine? Check. Still in my yoga pants? Check. We’re good to go. — I mean, really, you’re not going to check that out? Writing along with reading along with alcohol along with wearing your favourite comfy. I am so there. In between are the Friday Fictioneers which I would join just because of the blogger’s admonition: If you can disable CAPTCHA, please for the sake of our writerly nerves, disable it. It’s frustrating to have to leave a DNA sample, your blood type and your shoe size  just to leave a comment. Aside from that, she leaves a photo prompt every Wednesday, and you know you like those. Go explore. That alone is fun.

2] This next site is fascinating. Have you ever wondered about the many poetry anthologies and contests that are out there? Wondered how to tell the on the level ones from the scams? I have this site bookmarked for a number of reasons and that is the primary one: Winning Writers‘ featured content this week includes ‘Contests and Services to Avoid‘. Talk about eye-opening. [I just got caught by the title of another featured article, one on how to prepare a professional looking manuscript, with SAMPLES!] Again, go explore.

3] Many of you know Khara House, poet, teacher, blogger, editor and more! We follow her blog Our lost Jungle and her Submit-O-Rama Boot Camp Challenges with joy and mourn her occasional disappearances [it’s hard to remember bloggers have jobs and families and stuff, isn’t it?]. Her recent post ‘Behind Enemy Lines: Learning From the Editors,’ is short but chock-full of need to know advice on submitting.

That’s it. What’s that? Why didn’t I give you the URLs to the three writing communities? The post is WordPresses’ so I figured the courteous thing for me to do is to send you there. Besides, how many of you knew they had a newsletter?

I shall see you tomorrow for the roundup of prompts; Tuesday for our image prompt; and Thursday for the summer calendar [for real, this time].

Happy writing, all.