Tag Archives: submit

Something to look at

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The latest issue of Faraway is now available. thanks and congratulations to all the writers and artists.

These things always seem to take longer than anticipated. A word on the process: Our pet chimp Dimba solicits short stories, poems, and artwork from his cage at the company fortress in Montclair, California.  Accepted pieces are then shipped through a series of tubes to his brother’s underground log cabin in Montpelier, Vermont. His brother uses scotch tape and elbow grease in his spare time to assemble the faraway2various and sundry pieces into something marginally acceptable for mass digestion. Sometimes an ocean liner is hired to ship material to the chimp’s cousin, who lives in a big wooden shoe in Norway and has more and better digital skills.

The first two issues of this publication were profoundly and embarrassingly amateur hour (still, my favorite bit out of everything we’ve done is the first poem from the first issue). With Vol 1, Issue 3 we started working thematically with varying levels of success. E.g., Vol. 1 Iss. 3 featured birds and trees…um…for no particular reason. Volume 2 Issue 1 was broken up by the 4 seasons and had a cool cover. Volume 2 Issue 2 had a victorian theme, complete with fake ads that i think turned out pretty good.

Since Vol. 2 Iss. 2 took a bit of effort we tried to do something simpler with this one: i had always liked the title of the Nine Inch Nails song “The Line Begins to Blur”. what if we used kind of a Mondrian / straight lines theme that gradually became more blurred, curved, etc? It had a certain kind of symbolism and resemblance to daily experiences. Easy!

4 months later the current issue is on your screen.  I think we basically executed this concept, with Sean Wiebe’s last lines of the first half “…a new thought that has been slow in coming” leading to Jeff’s two explosive centerpieces and subsequently more abstract, natural images. This one might have been labored to death, but see what you think.

So, for next time, how about some suggestions for themes? Also- the next batch should plan on submitting their bios in 6 words or less.

Also, for best viewing: download and save, then view as “Two-up Continuous”.

Submission Tip: Use a Header

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It’s hard to believe, but a simple header can make your submission stand out from the crowd.  Headers can make your submission not only professional, but memorable.  I receive many submissions each week, some of which are simply labelled, “Faraway Submission.”  The body of the submission then does not include the author’s name, and there is no header.  To figure out who the work belongs to now, I have to go back through my emails, searching for the person who sent me the vague “Faraway Submission.”  In my own situation, this is not too terrible.  But for other editors who deal with hundreds of submissions and work on a tight deadline, not including a header can predispose them to reject your work.  Reader below to find out what you should include in your header, and how to use it.
 
What is a header?
A header is a simple headline that runs across the top of each page which lists basic information about the submission, such as the author’s last name and the title of the submission.
 
Why should I use a header?
A header will put your name and the title of the story easily at the editor’s disposal.  As an editor, I can’t tell you how much this simplifies my work.  Scrolling to the top of the story is not really a hassle, but oftentimes an author will not include their name in the file name or at the top of the file.  Using a header makes this information easily-available, and it makes your document look professional.
 
What should a header include?
There’s no one correct answer here.  At the bare minimum, a header should include your last name and the name of your story.  I often see them formatted: “Sawyer/Quid Pro Quo.”  You can also have “Sawyer” written in the upper left corner, and the title, in this example, “Quid Pro Quo,” in the right corner.  Some authors also include the word count, as this is important for many publishers.  In this case, you could put “Sawyer/Quid Pro Quo” in the left corner, and “2,000 words” in the right.  There are a lot of different possibilities, but you should be all right as long as your name and the title of your story are included in the header of each page.
 
How do you make a header?
There are right ways and wrong ways to do headers.  The simplest way is just to type in the information yourself across the top of each page.  But this is the wrong way to do it.  What happens after you’ve done that is that the person putting the magazine together now has to go back through and delete your manually-input headers because they throw off the formatting.  The right way to do it is to use the header feature in your word processor.  In Microsoft Word, there is very easy.
 
In Microsoft Word, go to “View” then “Headers and Footers.”  This will open a small frame at the top of the page, in which you can type your header.  The toolbox window that appears will also allow you to insert preset options.  To get out of the header, double-click on the main body of the page.  To edit the header, you can just double-click in the header frame.
 
Extra Reminder: Be sure to make the name of your file distinctive.  If I look in my submissions folder and see five files titled “Faraway Submission” or “Poetry Submission”, it makes it a hassle to find exactly what I’m looking for.  You should title your file something along these lines, using the example of my story above: “Quid Pro Quo by Daniel Sawyer.wpd.”  This will allow editors to quickly find your story, and your file will stand out from the crowd that just used some mundane file name.

Good Website For Writers

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Here’s a website all you aspiring writers out there ought to bookmark: http://www.duotrope.com/index.aspx.

Duotrope is basically a search engine listing thousands of publications, both in print and online, that accept submissions for free, with details about them.  You can see Faraway’s listing here: http://www.duotrope.com/market_3088.aspx.  This site can be very helpful when trying to find the right publication to submit to, as you can search by genre, length, payscales, and other options. 

Of course, you could just submit to Faraway, but if that no longer floats your boat . . .

Faraway Now Accepting Submissions

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As you might have seen yesterday, Faraway is gearing up to publish a new issue, and we’re now accepting submissions.  If you would like to become part of Faraway, you can do so now by submitting your poems, stories, novel excerpts, essays, reviews, photographs, drawings, paintings, etchings, music, or anything else that might be construed as artwork to FarawayJournal@gmail.com. 

Now is an exciting time to become a part of Faraway.  Our web traffic has exploded and will only continue to grow, so anything submitted to Faraway will be guaranteed a large and growing audience, in addition to the amazing look you’ve come to expect from past issues of the journal.

Don’t delay.  Submit today.

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