Day Eleven and a snowy scene from @CaroleBromley1 . Carole Bromley’s most recent publication is The Peregrine Falcons of York Minster (@valleypress 2020)

Today’s Advent is from Sarah Dixon. Sarah l Dixon lives in a Huddersfield valley with her ten year old son. She loves being in and by the water:

Today’s advent calendar features Sue Butler:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTbTkwhpVbM

Thanks to the support of the backers who pledged their money to Spelt, we have made our funding target! This means we can now start the process of getting issue one created.

What We’re Up to Now:

The Spelt Poetry Prize

We have decided to leave the kickstarter open in case anyone else wants to pledge, and any extra money we raise will go towards a poetry competition for rural writing, in line with the Spelt message. I’ve already costed the competition out, and have made a list of potential judges to approach. As soon as we have raised the money for it, we can go ahead. This will be a competition with a monetary prize, and publication in Spelt, and there will be an awards ceremony too. But it may take a while to raise the cash to put the wheels in motion for this. Any extra help very gratefully received!

Logos

This week we started looking at logos. Brilliant Steve took a tiny doodle I’d done and brought back a range of ideas based on that doodle. We are nearly there with it, so watch this space. The logo will appear on the magazine itself, but will also be on the bespoke tote bags and pencil cases that form part of some of our backer’s rewards.

You Tube

We’re also looking at opening the Spelt You Tube chanel this week, we’re we’ll be running some live events, showcasing film poems and using it as a platform to show interviews. All this takes a little bit of time, but hopefully this part of the plan will be up and running by the end of November ready to launch the Spelt Electronic Christmas Calendar in December.

The Spelt Christmas Electronic Advent Calendar – Answering Some Questions

We are open to submissions of three line poems until the 22nd December. Submissions details here: https://speltpoetry.wordpress.com/contact/

FAQs

1. Do the poems need to be haiku? The poems need to be three lines (we have limited space in the calendar) but do not have to be a strict haiku.
2. Do the poems have to be about Christmas? They don’t have to be Christmas themed, or even winter themed.
3. What sort of themes are you looking for? We’re interested in capturing moments in nature and using the small space of the advent calendar to maximum effect. Wintry poems are welcomed, but anything that captures rural life or nature are welcome.
4. When will I find out if my submission is successful? I will be in contact with everyone by 29th November, and if you’ve been successful you’ll also know what day of advent your poem will appear.
5. Do the poems have to be unpublished? We prefer unpublished, but if you let us know where the poem/s first appeared, we can then credit that magazine too, we’re all about supporting other magazines at Spelt.

Have a read through and see what we’re about, what fabulous rewards are on offer and how you can help get this project off the ground!