Poetry submissions at The Canberra Times
July 21, 2022
Poetry submissions are open at The Canberra Times from today until 8th August. Read the information below before submitting. Unfortunately, due to difficulties with payment, submissions can only be accepted from poets in Australia.
Canberra Times Submission Guidelines July 2022
ALL CORRESPONDENCE REGARDING THE CANBERRA TIMES/PANORAMA POETRY SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO THE CANBERRA TIMES POETRY EMAIL ADDRESS:
poetrycanbt@gmail.com
POETRY SUBMISSION: Do not submit until there is a call-out. The dates will vary depending on the number of accepted poems awaiting publication. The Poetry Editor Penelope Cottier will be making selections. If you are not sure if there is a current call-out, please send her a query rather than sending poems.
• Poems suitable for a general audience in most styles and on most subject matters are welcome.
• Please send up to 3 UNpublished (includes blogs, social media etc.) poems of up to 24 lines. Shorter poems are much preferred.
• The 24 line maximum includes quotes/notes/references (but not title and stanza breaks).
• Attach all poems in one Word file — include your name in the document title. (You are welcome to also attach a PDF if you are concerned that formatting might slip in the Word doc. But do not send only a PDF. Pasting into an email, if you have to, is fine too.)
• Please submit poems during submission periods only.
• Poems should not be on offer to other print or online publications.
• You will be notified by email either way, 6-8 weeks after close of submissions.
• If selected, your poem should generally be published in the Panorama arts section during the following several months.
• Poets selected for publication are asked not to submit during the next submission period.
NB While everything possible is done to reduce the risk of a selected poem not appearing
The Canberra Times cannot guarantee publication. Poets who submit poems
should understand there is a chance their poem may not appear, even if selected.
Hints
• Send your stand-out poem(s). Don’t feel you have to send in three!
• Send a variety.
• Be strategic — remember that poems are selected months in advance of publication.
• Sometimes poems are published in a smaller font due to space limitations — if you have an issue with this you might prefer to submit shorter poems. Space limitations may also mean that slight layout changes must be made.
• For the same reason it is better not to send poems with very long lines or elaborate formatting.
Bio
A biographical note is not necessary but is of interest — just one or two sentences will do.
PLEASE KEEP READING:
The Canberra Times publishes one poem per week in its Saturday Panorama arts section, pending space availability. Payment is $60 per poem after publication.
The aims are to ensure a diversity of voices, and to publish poems on a wide variety of subjects.
Poets selected for publication are asked to skip the next submission window.
The Canberra Times receives hundreds of poems and has space for just a fraction of those. Many quality submissions have to be declined each time.
If you can access The Canberra Times where you live, please buy it every Saturday. Or you can subscribe to the on-line paper, to support fellow poets and a major newspaper that still publishes poetry.
Penelope (PS) Cottier
The Canberra Times Poetry Editor
Poetry at The Canberra Times
November 15, 2021
From today until 3rd December, I will be accepting submissions of poems for The Canberra Times, one of the very few newspapers that still publishes poetry. Please read the details below the poetic budgie. Note that at the current time, submissions can only be taken from those living in Australia.
Canberra Times Submission Guidelines November 2021
ALL CORRESPONDENCE REGARDING THE CANBERRA TIMES/PANORAMA POETRY SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO THE CANBERRA TIMES POETRY EMAIL ADDRESS:
poetrycanbt@gmail.com
POETRY SUBMISSION: Do not submit until there is a call-out. The dates will vary depending on the number of accepted poems awaiting publication. The Poetry Editor Penelope Cottier will be making selections. If you are not sure if there is a current call-out, please send her a query rather than sending poems.
· • Poems suitable for a general audience in most styles and on most subject matters are welcome.
· • Please send up to 3 UNpublished (includes blogs etc) poems of up to 24 lines.
• The 24 line maximum includes quotes/notes/references (but not title and stanza breaks).
· • Attach all poems in one Word file — please include your name in the document title. (You are welcome to also attach a PDF if you are concerned that formatting might slip in the Word doc. But do not send only a PDF. Pasting into an email, if you have to, is fine too.)
· • Please submit poems during submission periods only.
• Poems should not be on offer to other print or online publications.
· • You will be notified by email either way, 6-8 weeks after close of submissions.
· • If selected, your poem should generally be published in the Panorama arts section during the following several months.
While everything possible is done to reduce the risk of a selected poem not appearing The Canberra Times cannot guarantee publication. Poets who submit poems should understand there is a chance their poem may not appear, even if selected.
• Poets selected for publication are asked not to submit during the next submission period.
Hints
• Send your stand-out poem(s). Don’t feel you have to send in three!
• Send a variety.
• Be strategic — remember that poems are selected months in advance of publication.
• Sometimes poems are published in a smaller font due to space limitations — if you have an issue with this you might prefer to submit shorter poems.
• For the same reason it is better not to send poems with very long lines or elaborate formatting.
Bio
A biographical note is not necessary but is of interest — just one or two sentences will do.
PLEASE KEEP READING:
The Canberra Times publishes one poem per week in its Saturday Panorama arts section, pending space availability. Payment is $60 per poem.
The aims are to ensure a diversity of voices, and to publish poems on a wide variety of subjects.
Poets selected for publication are asked to skip the next submission window.
Please note The Canberra Times receives hundreds of poems and has space for just a fraction of those. Many quality submissions have to be declined each time.
If you can access The Canberra Times where you live, please buy it every Saturday. Or you can subscribe to the on-line paper, to support fellow poets and a major newspaper that still publishes poetry.
Penelope (PS) Cottier
The Canberra Times Poetry Editor
Review: Peter Doherty on the virus
August 29, 2021
I thought that some readers might be interested in a review I wrote of Peter Doherty’s book An Insider’s Plague Year. And just in case I am right, here’s the link! The following illustration has nothing to do with the review, except that mice feature there, too. I just had to use this, so why not now?
My reviewing is picking up a lot after I made my first swag of selections for poetry at The Canberra Times, which took a great deal of thought. The straight ‘no’ is easy, as are the obvious yes poems. It’s the maybes that kill you.
Reviewing
May 17, 2021
I have recently had my fortieth review published at The Canberra Times. The book was a challenging and at times disturbing analysis of psychosomatic illnesses, entitled The Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O’Sullivan. You can read the review here.
Writing so many reviews has given me a lot of time to reflect on the process. I see a review as a kind of bridge between the book and reader. The reader can cross over the bridge, and then make the decision as to whether they will jump off the other side, to buy or borrow the book.
Questions such as whether the book is a good example of its genre, and how it fits into an author’s previous publications can be addressed. New authors’ strengths can be celebrated, and what they add to a genre examined. There’s no point reviewing a thriller and complaining about it being action driven, or a horror novel for trading in darkness, for example; that would be a misuse of space.
I will of course point out what I see as faults in a strong book, but if there’s a book I really can’t stand, I won’t review it. People want to be referred to books worth the reading, and have an indication as to why, rather than observe the reviewer’s vocabulary of negative words being taken out for a walk (or flaunt). I don’t want to dwell on something that I find annoying or repellent, either.
The wide variety of books available has taken me to places I wouldn’t necessarily have gone without having the ability to read for review (which entails free books, and being paid something for the effort). Would I have sought out a book about psychosomatic illness before I began reviewing regularly? Possibly not. So a reviewer puts herself over a kind of bridge each time she picks up a new type of book, sometimes checking out surprising views on the way to the book’s end, before going back and asking the reader to accompany her.
I think I’ve flogged the bridge metaphor to death, and must now blow it up in a River Kwai type action. I try and avoid that sort of exhausting overuse of metaphor in reviews. Honestly.
News from the bike path of life
August 13, 2015
That’s a link to a very nice appreciation of my chapbook Paths Into Inner Canberra, written by Ian Warden. He is kind enough to write that:
‘She writes poetically, deftly and quirkily. The needle on my highly sensitive cliche-detector didn’t flicker once during my reading.’
Lovely stuff! I write hoping that I may surprise a few readers with an image or a reflection, and it is gratifying to read that this was the case with Ian Warden. Here is the cover, with a photograph by Geoffrey Dunn:
The book can be purchased from me (for those who ride bikes/drink too much coffee at cafes), from Book Lore, Lyneham, in Canberra, or from the publisher, Ginninderra Press. It is $4 (plus postage, if you order online). It is a prose essay with two poems.
It snowed yesterday in Canberra, so I was not on my bike. Snow is an occasional surprise here, and everyone was armed with their smartphones to record the phenomenon of cold dandruff. It has never settled on the collar of the pavement, though, that I can remember.
PS Cottier 