Quietly Testing the Waters

It's been over five years since I gave up publishing books. Looking back, I have always felt good about those books and have been pleased to see everyone I published go on to subsequent successes. I feel like the time and money I put into that venture was time well spent.

It's a time consuming venture and not lucrative. No one became rich from it or even made a car payment out of it. But it was time well spent.

I miss presenting other people's work and have thought about starting up the press again. To that end, I thought I'd quietly put out a call for manuscripts.

What I'm Looking For: Poetry

That's all I'm looking for at the moment. Poetry. Full length collections, about 75-100 pages of poetry. 

What kind of poetry? 

Solid craft, probably nothing too experimental or difficult to format.

Themes that I'm most sympathetic to swirl around Christian imagery (note the two collections I published years ago: Jill Alexander Essbaum's Necropolis and Alan Berecka's The Comic Flaw).
Nothing sentimental, hopefully with some wit about it, revealing and understanding of the human condition with all the grief and hope that might imply. Easy stuff.


I would LOVE to find a worthy collection by a poet of Christian faith who is also LGBT. I'm not going to be so narrow as to say that's all I'll consider, but if you've ever had your work denied because it was too gay or too Christian because it's a little bit of both, I would like to see your work.

For non LGBT, non-Christian folk, don't let that discourage you. Some of the writers in the neoNuma catalog are neither. Just be aware that I'm not interested in anything that denigrates either LGBT folk or Christian faith (questioning is always allowed---again, see Essbaum's and Berecka's work).

What to send

This is fairly specific, so read carefully:

10 - 15 pages of poetry that would be representative of the full collection.

A list of publications, where you've published poetry. It doesn't have to be a long list, I just want to know that you're not just writing a book of poems without also sending out your poetry for publication. I need to know that if you haven't built a reputation, you're working on it. I say this because I've known far too many people who write poetry but are not submitting and getting published anywhere, but want to publish a full volume just because. That's not how this works.

That's all. If you want to include a brief bio, feel free, but I'm more interested in your work.

What you can expect, if selected for publication:
 
This is the tiniest of outfits---basically a one man publishing house. I'll do my best to create a good looking book for you (you'll be part of that process) but there is next to no budget for p.r. You'll have to do a lot of marketing yourself. Having been published a couple of times myself, I know this is pretty well how it is anywhere without a large corporation behind them. The books will be available for order on the main bookselling sites online and people will be able to special order the title at most brick and mortar stores, but it will not be found on bookstore shelves. That's the state of most literary small presses in this century and I apologize in advance.

I'll do my best to figure out the pricing so it has a competitive SRP and you'll be paid 10% rolalties on the cover prices.

Finally

I'm not publicizing this call for work. I'm hoping LGBT Christians will be googling for places to send their work, honestly. That also lets me know you're looking for opportunities and not just waiting around for the opps to come to you. If you know someone who fits what I'm looking for, of course please share this post.

Send the samples and publication list to neilellisorts at yahoo dot com. Arbitrarily, I'm going to say Deadline of December 15, 2016, but if you find this after that date, email me and see where I am with this test.

Thanks for reading. I hope I find something amazing to present to the world.

Regarding Art Stimulates Lit and the Psalms Project

I don't know how many people check this blog, but I thought I should at least put out there some information on two calls for work that I put out last fall.

First, the "psalms project," which is being edited by Jill Alexander Essbaum, Anne McCrady, and Alan Berecka. They have been going through the many submissions and are working on getting a final list of work to be included in the final book. There have been some delays due to everyone's full schedules (including, in one case, a trans-Atlantic move), but the project is moving ahead and I project we'll be sending out notifications regarding acceptance and rejection (what an ugly word, but there it is) in early fall. Maybe sooner.

The Art Stimulates Lit project is a little stickier. I'm trying to read through the submissions this summer and see if I have a book. I'm not sure that I do, yet. I'm hoping that in September, I can start emailing authors with firm status of their work. That's a long wait for some of you who submitted with the first call I put out. I've closed the call for now, but may reopen it if I don't have enough material. Stay tuned.

It's all rather embarrassing to admit, but I bit off more than I could chew this year. It seems everything has been delayed (remember when the just released Necropolis was announced for an April release?) and things snowball. I'm very sorry. Until I get some of the things I've committed to cleared off the plate, I won't be looking at any new projects, possibly for up to a year.

In the meantime, all of you who submitted stories for Art Stimulates Lit, I encourage you to continue to send your work around, if it's not previously published. Because this is an anthology, I don't mind using previously published work, and there's no need for you to wait around for me to play catch up with my schedule. Even if I find I have enough material for a book this fall, the very earliest it would be published is fall of 2009, and a more realistic time frame is early 2010. (yikes! That looks so very much like The Future, doesn't it?)

If you have any questions about either of these projects, please feel free to email me at neo (at) neonuma.com, but there's not much more to tell you than what's above. Again, very sorry for the delays. I'm still trying to figure out these entrepreneurial endeavors.

Submission Guidelines

Howdy, everyone. I know I said the next blog would be about what I'm reading, but this is what I'm hoping to be reading in the next few months. If you're not a writer, point out this blog to someone who is! Thanks!

(i'll be back soon enough with some blather about some books i've read recently.)

Art Stimulates Lit
a fiction anthology about art and artists

neoNuma Arts, publisher of Able to... and The Fatal Gift of Beauty and Other Plays, is soliciting short fiction on the theme of art and artists for an anthology to be published in 2008.

In each story, an artist or work of art must play an integral part. This may be a fictionalized biography, a story of one person’s relationship to an artist or work of art, or some combination or permutation of the same. The artwork may be from any realm of creative endeavor, not only visual art, but dance, theater, music, and other literary figures are equally fair game for stimulating the literary imagination. For models, consider Colum McCann’s Dancer (Rudolf Nureyev), or Michael Cunningham’s The Hours (Virginia Woolf) or Specimen Days (Walt Whitman). Do NOT consider Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

Length is open—shorter than a novella (although neoNuma would be interested in seeing novels and novellas along similar themes). Genre is open. Stories should be human, character driven explorations of art and artistry.

Submit stories to:

neoNuma Arts
P.O. Box 460248
Houston, TX 77056

Authors will be paid a royalty, based on sales. Previously published stories are acceptable, with proof of available anthology rights.

Questions to: neo@neonuma.com
Deadline: March 31


neoNuma Arts is looking for a few good psalms

Here, at the beginning of the 21st Century, life is much different from ancient Israel. The world of electronics and instant communication give us a different set of images to use in expressing our praise and worship, new cultural contexts within which to speak of and to God.

As such, neoNuma Arts is seeking out poets and other wordsmiths to create a modern psalter, one that uses imagery that might draw modern people into worship and praise in new and unexpected ways.

Form is open—free verse or any form known to poetry.

Content may be as broad as the Biblical psalms, which are:

songs of praise and worship to God (Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. –Psalm 41)

songs of despair and lament (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? –Psalm 22)

songs addressed to the faithful (Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. –Psalm 95)

even personal songs (O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. –Psalm 139)

but they are all songs that might be useful in personal devotion and corporate worship. While we don’t expect this book to become standard use in any church’s worship services, the intention is that any of these modern psalms could be used in such a way.

Is there poetry and praise in modern church architecture as the ancient psalmists found in the tabernacle and temple? Can SUVs and jets evoke imagery that draws us to God as chariots and horses once did? What in this 21st Century world brings us to joy and praise and awe? Conversely, what modern imagery might we borrow to express our despair and loneliness and brokenness?

The editors for this volume, Alan Berecka, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and Anne McCrady, will be looking for psalms of high craft and literary worth.

Submissions to: psalter2008@gmail.com
Deadline: February 29, 2008
Projected publication date: November, 2008