HEY THERE,
It’s that time again — time to send your most audacious art & writing for my inspection for The Octopus Review #5!!
Before i give you any sort of guidelines I just wanted to say a few things:
I know that when I submit my work to publications the editors will often specifically state that they need more work from women, people of color, and LGBT folks. I always wondered what this ‘submissions disparity’ looked like—
was it 70% male 30% female?
was it 69% white 31% other?
83% hetero 17% queer?
I ass-umed it would look something like the above when I started receiving work from people. But it’s actually even more disparate than I expected!
It looked more like —
95% male 5% female
98% white 2% other
90% het 10% queer (only because I know a lot of queers, though)
Now I feel like I must extend a plea for more submissions from ladies, people of color & queers. Do not read this as “I don’t want anymore submissions from white guys.”
White guys, I do not want you to stop submitting, I just want AS MANY submissions from ladies, etc…
I’m getting paranoid that I’ve been put on some iit bro list. (someone please tell me if I have so i can contest it).
Also, what will I do now that The Octopus Review is doing so well? Will I upgrade it somehow? Will I gentrify & beautify it & switch from Blogger to Wordpress, or put up a neon pink background w/ turquoise fonts?
Will I join the cult of Instagram?
The answer is no. (I do want to join instagram, but I can’t right at the moment. You don’t need to know why.)
I will not be changing anything about the OR anytime soon. I base this decision on how much I hate it when the blogs I love get fancy makeovers.
I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve loved & followed & looked forward to reading w/ my morning coffee & then hated after they got some notice and decided to “switch to a new format.”
I won’t do that to you yet, because I know how much you & your coffee depend on the current structure of the OR.
**************************
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Send me your most audacious poetry & art either by FB messenger or you can email me at vinwhitman@outlook.com
I’m still waiting for someone to send a poem in the style of e.e. cummings
Deadline is Jun 21, 2018 at 11:56 am
