Doing away with the publishing schedule

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are gearing up for some fun new year celebrations.

There's going to be a slight change at Blinking Cursor, but hopefully you'll agree it's a good one. In short, I'm doing away with the publishing schedule. We started off with publishing two issues per year - a summer issue and a winter issue - and this year I stepped it up to four issues per year, adding in autumn and spring. However, when these reading periods roll around, it's a lot for me to do all at once. Which didn't matter last year as I was working part time. But now I'm working full time, I'm actually acting like some sort of semi-adult, and I don't have as much time as I used to have, to do everything all in one go. So we're going to try this out - BC will be permanently open for submissions, and an issue will be completed once there are enough poems/stories in it, which is usually around 30. This will be good for:

• me, as my workload will be spread out a bit
• the authors, as you will get quicker responses. The idea is that I'll get your email, read it, and send you a decision there and then
• the reader, as this means that there will potentially be more issues overall

Sound good to everyone? Let's see how it goes, and get those submissions in! Meanwhile, I'm going to be working on the eighth issue, so stay tuned for news on that, and if you're not already signed up to our newsletter, email me at blinkingcursor@ymail.com Don't forget the anthology is also still accepting submissons until new year, so January should be a good month for BC!

Even More Blinking Cursor!

There's a lot going on at Blinking Cursor at the moment. Or rather, there's a lot going on in my head. Hopefully my ideas will translate into reality!

Issue five of Blinking Cursor was released in May, and I got so many great submissions that I could make two issues out of them, so issue six is already almost complete and will be published in July. To follow from that, another issue will come out in September as usual, and then again in December. This will start the trend for four issues per year instead of two - autumn, winter, spring and summer. So by the end of next year, there will have been twelve issues of the magazine published.

If that goes well, I would like to transition to being open for submissions all year round. I would do this straight away but I'm afraid that not giving a deadline for submissions will result in a drop, and obviously that would be no good because the magazine relies on its writers for content.

Speaking of authors, issue five saw the addition of "featured writer", and this will make a reappearance in issue six. This is a feature I really like - it's a short interview with a contributing writer, and it gives an insight into who the writer is, what they write, what inspires them, and so on. Over the course of the next few magazines, I think it's going to be really interesting to see a wide range of differences between writers and their work.

I'd also like to continue including book reviews. Issue four saw a review of Bone Silence by Peycho Kanev, and I'm happy to accept requests to review any other books, chapbooks, etc. And I'm happy to consider any Blinking Cursor contributors for the featured writer spot too, so if you're available for interviews, just let me know when you submit.

And finally, I would like to publish a book. Yep, an anthology, or journal, or something with some such name to be released next year and feature even more poetry and short stories. I'll be announcing that on the website with more details soon but it will essentially have the same guidelines as submitting to the magazine. This is the biggie, so I'll be giving plenty of time to submit to it - probably close to a year, in fact. Stay tuned for more information!