Dave Clapper, founding editor of SmokeLong, which accepts personal-blog-posted poems for publication, comments on a post below.
Dave writes:
While it’s true that we don’t accept previously published work at SmokeLong(except in special cases, like Almond and Dybek for an anniversary issue a while back), we don’t consider works posted on blogs or personal websites to be previously published. I know other publications differ on this. My reasoning is this–our rule isn’t in place so much for prestige reasons as it is to give as many authors as possible the shot to get that groovy feeling that comes with having their work accepted for publication. That feeling just isn’t so great (or hasn’t been for me in my writing anyway) the second time a piece is published as the first. We put the rule in place when we were complete newbies at this whole publishing thang, and that was our logic then. It still seems reasonable now.
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Many thanks for commenting, Dave. Given the ambiguity surrounding the definition of “published” where personal blogs are concerned, would you consider editing your submissions guidelines to reflect your thinking on the topic?
More on the blog-posted poems issue here.
Yeah, I’ll take a look at our guidelines. I have a stack of work that I need to do for our upcoming issue, so I’ll add this to the list. Will probably be a few days yet, but I’ll definitely take a look at it.
Thanks again, Dave.