New issues of Illumen and Star*Line

The Winter 2019 issues of Illumen and Star*Line have hit the presses. (Illumen should be available for purchase soon.) Each include some stellar poems. Pick up a copy of either to support the small presses and consume good poetry at the same time.

Illumen's large type and generous use of white space make it an easy magazine to read. Standouts from this issue include Marge Simon's dark and rhythmic "A Sky of Blackbirds" and David C. Kopaska-Merkel's paradoxical "Do-Overs." There's also an interview with speculative poetry's dark princess Christina Sng and a scifaiku page.

Star*Line #42.1 is packed with poems of varying lengths, forms and subjects. Speculative haiku are scattered throughout like sprinkles on a cupcake. This issue includes noteworthy poems by Ayaz Daryl Nielson, Noel Sloboda, Carolyn M. Hinderliter, and more. If you've always wondered whether a sonnet about a human-eating troll could work, P M F Johnson proves that it can.

Apex Digest subscription drive

Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest is holding a subscription drive to keep the magazine afloat. It's a great magazine -- quality fiction, essays, interviews, and illustrations. They've got a catalog of back issues on the website if you want to pick up a sample copy, rather than dive into a subscription, and if you've never read an issue, check out my review of Apex #9 or Dan McNeil's review of issue #7.

In other horror mag news, the new issue of Illumen hit the newsstands last month. The issue is full of great poets (plus me) -- check out the table of contents if you don't believe me.

Also releasing a new issue is the now-online horror purveyor Black Petals, with stories by the likes of Kenneth James Crist and Barry J. House, and a whole slew of poems by talented poet Chris Forbes.

Some poem acceptances

Got a few poems accepted for upcoming issues of Space & Time, Niteblade (new issue up in December), Frogpond, Cemetery Moon, and Illumen.

Also, I have a poem in the current issue of Aberrant Dreams (which is a webzine now), and they've set up a forum so you can talk about whether or not you like any of the poems and stories.

If anyone is a fan of car poetry, here is a neat little contest sponsored by the Towe Auto Museum. The website lists the deadline as November 10th, but I heard it's been extended to December 1st. Any participants selected for inclusion in their contest anthology will receive a contributor's copy.