some market news & a haiku contest

Unfortunately, two great magazines have decided to close up shop recently. The Shantytown Anomaly will be taking a hiatus after issue #8, which should be in the mail now. Shantytown is a really cool speculative poetry journal, and hopefully it will be back sometime soon.

Small haiku journal Wisteria is also going on hiatus. The magazine's last issue for now will be the January issue.

All pending submissions for both journals are being released back to their respective owners.

Mark Crittenden, writer, poet, and artist, is guest-editing Lame Goat Press's new horror anthology, Howl: Dark Tales of the Feral and Infernal. The anthology is for stories "about the struggle between man and the animal-beasts of myth and legend." Submit scary stories between 1000 and 4000 words. There is no payment for selected stories, but it sounds like a cool anthology to be a part of. Deadline is March 15th, 2010.

The Pennsylvania Poetry Society's annual poetry contest is currently running. There are 16 different categories, and #9 is the "Haiku, Senryu, Tanka Award." Entry fees are $2 per poem, and the deadline is January 15th, 2010. There are two prizes for the category -- $30 and $20. For full guidelines, see the PDF file on the PPS's website.

As a side note, I had to add word verification to the comments page, in order to stop all the spam messages (which got to be over 200, and which I'm still in the process of deleting). I know it's a pain -- sorry.

New Shantytown, Higginson tribute

The new issue of The Shantytown Anomaly is out now and available for purchase. Click on the link for a list of contributors, or to buy your copy.

The Australian Haiku Society has set up a tribute page for William Higginson. You can email them your haiku in memory of Bill, and once all the poems are gathered, they will be sent to his family. All poems must be submitted by October 27th. (Thanks to Deborah P. Kolodji for the link.)