Guidelines

Spring 2010

Poetry

• Before deciding which poems to submit, thoughtfully read Umbrella’s Mission Statement.  There you’ll find outlined exactly the types of poems we relish and don’t relish.  Please pay special attention to the notes about the umbrella idea (which we want) and syntactical arrest (which we do not want). Many good poems come to our in box that one might describe as descriptive or autobiographical but which do not make the cut because the editor divines no strong central premise (umbrella idea).  Similarly, many good poems are marred by instances, sometimes just one instance, of the boilerplate sentence structure your editor has dubbed syntactical arrest.  We publish poems that employ standard English punctuation; no unpunctuated poems, please.  
• Send 1-6 single-spaced poems in the body of an email (no attachments) to the following address which is unlinked in order to foil the spambots:  umbrellajournal at gmail dot com
  
  
   
• Reading period:     January 10-April 10
  
• Please include the word Poetry and your name in the email’s subject line.   
• Do make sure your email specifies your name as you wish it to appear in the journal; we’d also appreciate your snail mail address.  
• You’re invited to speak freely, to include a cover letter telling us anything at all about you or your poems.   
• Include a bio written in the third person; for manageability, please limit journal credits to five.
• No simultaneous submissions, please; however, if you do not hear from us within 8 weeks, feel free to submit elsewhere.   We don’t want to tie up your work.
• Original English language poetry only; no translations.  
• We prefer previously unpublished work but occasionally we will consider it, provided it doesn’t appear in a book or online (with the exception of online workshopping forums) and provided it isn’t a recent publication (within five years) and provided the work did not appear in a major journal such as Poetry, Paris Review, etc.   For Umbrella special features only (our “extras”), we will consider poems previously published in a book (but not in a recent print journal and not online).   
• Rights remain with you, the author; just be aware that Umbrella archives its issues online.
• “How many times may I submit?” We go by the assumption that harmonious relations between authors and editors are paramount.  We will give your work careful consideration.  In return, please honor our preferences regarding multiple submissions:  don’t submit more work if we are still considering your previous submission and don’t submit more than once during a quarterly reading period unless invited to do so.  If your work appears in the current issue of Umbrella, as a general rule please hold off submitting again for 12 months.  We feel it is important for a journal’s credibility to keep the roster fresh.  We are more flexible about this rule for our “extras” and the Bumbershoot annual.   
• Formatting: We are tolerant and understand that not everyone is “up to speed”; however, these simple steps streamline the page creation process for Umbrella’s production staff of one (initials kbb):
  
  1. Single space your submission! (In Word it is easy to globally replace paragraph marks with manual line breaks; by doing this, you will ensure that poems appear single-spaced when you copy into the email.)  We wonder why submitters have such a terrible time with this one! 
  2. Please do not use “all caps” for the titles of your poems, and please do not use asterisks or slashes to denote italics.  Use italics; they show up in our emails just fine.  
  3. In the rare cases when Word attachments are solicited, please make sure the poems are typed flush left; don’t center them or indent them on the page the way you might when submitting hard copy to print journals.

Prose

We are always on the lookout for contributions to the following features and columns. Please include the words Prose and your name in the email’s subject line. You may query first, or simply send your prose in the body of an email to the following address which is unlinked in order to foil the spambots:  umbrellajournal at gmail dot com


         

• Close Reads:  Essays exploring/appreciating/explicating a single poem, contemporary or canonical. Camille Paglia’s essays in Break, Blow, Burn are the inspiration here.
• Musings:  Personal essays about your life as a poet ...  or, more rarely, something else that might fit the theme of an announced special feature.
• ContraVerse:  Take a stand about poetry, poetic trends, po-biz.
• This Old Book:  It’s an old title or even out of print. In the age of Alibris and browsable used bookstores, it may still be available for purchase. Give life to an old poetry or poetry-related book by writing a summation and appreciation.
• Cinemaphilia:  Essays exploring/appreciating/explicating a movie from a literary perspective.  
• The Umbrella Book Review:  We have changed our policy and are no longer accepting books for review.  However, we are still interested in publishing book reviews!  Writers may submit reviews of poetry books and poetry-related books published within the last few years.  Incisive reviews written in a literary style are what we are looking for.  Please do not review books by your friends, colleagues, teachers, or students.  Please do be bold and review the books of major poets.  Haven’t you always wanted to write for The New York Times Book Review or the TLS?  Well, when they say no, try here.
• The Umbrella Interview:  In issues that showcase a Featured Poet, there will be an opportunity to interview that person.  If you would like to join the interviewer pool, please send an email telling us about your interests and credentials.   More general interviews of poets or literary figures are also welcome.
• Bumbershoot, our annual ’zine-within-a-’zine, is open to light verse, seriously funny verse, parodies, etc.  The most recent annual went live June 1, 2009.  The next will be summer 2010 and we will not be reading for it until March 2010.      
• Formatting matters:  Follow style notes under Poetry, above.
• Please remember that these are the particular columns for which we read unsolicited work.  Other topics are not in our purview.
• Reading period:     January 10-April 10

Art

Images featuring umbrellas, in digital format, whether photographs, photographic collages, or photos of artworks, are eagerly sought!  Include the words Art and your name in the email’s subject line. Send your images to the following address which is unlinked in order to foil the spambots: umbrellajournal at gmail dot com

        

Tilt-a-Whirl

Payment?

We would rain riches on you if we could but, regrettably, Umbrella is unable to pay contributors at this time.