Hello readers
The editors and I (Wendy Pratt) are currently working at putting Spelt 09 together, we should be going to print soon. If you’re on social media you may have seen this excellent article from Tim Relf (You might remember Tim, we published him in an earlier issue and he also ran a brilliant workshop for us) about the troubles that lots of UK lit. mags are facing right now.
Spelt is a magazine that is also struggling. In part this is because we are unfunded and reliant on sales, subscriptions, competition entries etc to stay afloat and of late, everyone’s money has been a little tight. Unfortunately I am on minimum wage myself and cannot afford to fund the magazine out of my own pocket, this is not an option. We genuinely believe that Spelt offers excellent value for money, and we work hard to provide a platform for writers not only in the magazine, but through accessible, affordable courses and workshops aimed at getting people to find their own way into nature writing. We aren’t out of the game, but we are making some adjustments to get through this rocky patch. These are:
- We are publishing when we can. We want to go back to four seasonal issue a year, and while we won’t be far off that, we are no longer putting pressure on ourselves to make those deadlines. If you have a subscription, don’t worry, you’ll still be getting four issues, but there might be a slightly longer gap between them.
- Putting the writing school on hiatus. I organise and run the writing school myself but am currently tied up with writing a book to a deadline, and unfortunately I need to prioritise paid work, which the writing school is not, so I have decided to take a short break from organising it until my book is finished.
- Because we cannot afford to pay columnists (we feel columnists should be paid as they are asked to work to deadlines and prepare work in advance) we won’t be taking on new columnists for the time being.
That’s it, for now. We hope to be back running a full, glorious service, soon. we have some really exciting plans in the offing and I can’t wait to share those with you.
In the meantime, here’s how you can support us:
- Buy a Pdf of the magazine. We make the most profit on Pdf.
- Enter our competition! Our competition needs to cover the costs of judges and prizes, but there is usually enough profit to cover printing costs for one issue of the magazine as well.
- Share our social media posts.
- Share this blog!
- Tell your friends about us.
- Tell your friends about the competition.
- Mention us at poetry nights, on tea breaks, at the pub, over the garden fence. Support us. Spread the word.
Finally
It was with a sad heart that I heard of the passing of John Foggin recently. A stalwart of the poetry community, John had written a wonderful poetry prompt for us in an earlier issue. He’ll be missed.
Spelt Magazine 