Moved through a batch of poetry slush tonight.  I read and responded to about 30 poets and perhaps 70 poems.  I am considering at least three of them for inclusion in the magazine.

Some observations: people love writing poems about death, graves & graveyards, bodily decay of one form or another, and cold, emotionless brutality.  Or, at least, that’s what we’ve been receiving.  We also get a lot of poems that reflect, reiterate, or refer to Greek/Roman mythology.  Some have been quite good, but not what I’m looking for.  Others…

I wish I could describe exactly what type of poetry I like, but it’s difficult.  Instead, it’s like an “ah-ha,” a feeling I get from reading your poem that moves me in some way.  The more I think about it, it’s as if I’m not reading a description of a hypothetical feeling or experience, but the reiteration of an actual event or experienced emotion.  It’s as if I can feel what the poet felt when s/he wrote the poem.  So, yeah, I guess what I’m looking for is conveyance, if that makes any sense at all.

If you haven’t already figured out, I’m a little behind on reading slush.  I use the first person because the fault is entirely mine.  The readers have all been doing their part to keep our average response time down to 12 days.  It’s the indolent (or, more fair to say, inundated) me which is the cause for some submissions to pass the 30 day mark without a response.  But not to worry!  I am working hard to catch up.  Ditto for poetry.

Here are the fiction stats presently.  I don’t have current stats for poems at the moment.

275 stories received
173 total rejections
88 stories awaiting responses
14 stories under consideration (authors have been notified of this status)

From Think Coffee reading - November 5, 200

I had walked past the venue dozens of times and somehow had never walked inside.  Think Coffee is the type of place Starbucks wishes it could be: young, hip, and best of all, with alcohol for sale.  After host Sarah Riley gave a brief introduction of “genre/interstitial” fiction for those not quite familiar with it, I jumped up to the mike and gave a brief history of the magazine.  Then we heard a new story from Veronica Schanoes about a world devoid of color.  Next up was a personal memoir by Mercurio D. Rivera from his childhood playing paddleball.  Finally, we heard from Rick Bowes a story about employees in a library and some not-quite-natural events happening there.   Also in attendance was Barbara Krasnoff, also a Sybil’s contributor, and she blogged about the event and took some pictures too.

Here are pictures I took.  And here are much better picures taken by Ellen Wright.

How fitting it seems that I was reading a review of The Cure’s new album when CNN broke the news that Obama won. Let’s just hope that he can cure some of the ills of this country. I remember seeing him speak a few years ago in Hoboken to a crowd of about 300 people. He hadn’t announced he was running yet. I had a friend who thought he shouldn’t run, that he was too young, that it was Hillary’s day in the sun.  Well, what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Anyway, if you are in NY tonight, please come see us at Think Coffee for a Sybil’s Garage reading, with Rick Bowes, Veronica Schanoes, Mercurio D. Rivera. More details here.

Also, strangely, the red marks on the album cover resemble the letters “O” and “B” and the face, with its big ears, does have a passing resemblance to the next president of the US.

Come celebrate (or mourn) the election results at Think Coffee with Sybil’s Garage:

Wednesday, November 5th, THE CUP & PEN READING SERIES PRESENTS:

SYBIL’S GARAGE
with Richard Bowes, Veronica Schanoes, Mercurio Rivera, and Matthew Kressel

LOCATION:
Think Coffee
248 Mercer St (corner 3rd Street)
New York, NY 10012
(212) 228-6226

DATE AND TIME:
Wednesday, November 5th
8-10pm

WITH

Richard Bowes
Richard Bowes has written five novels, the most recent of which is the Nebula nominated FROM THE FILES OF THE TIME RANGERS. His second short fiction collection STREETCAR DREAMS AND OTHER MIDNIGHT FANCIES appeared from PS Publications in England. He has won the World Fantasy, Lambda, International Horror Guild and Million Writers Awards. Recent and upcoming stories appear in F&SF, ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE, SUBTERRANEAN, CLARKESWORLD and FANTASY magazines and in the DEL REY BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, YEAR’S BEST GAY STORIES 2008, NAKED CITY and BEASTLY BRIDE anthologies. Many of these stories are chapters in his novel in progress DUST DEVIL ON A QUIET STREET. His email is: rickbowes@earthlink.net His web page address is: http://rickbowes.com

Veronica Schanoes
Veronica Schanoes is an Assistant Professor of English at Queens College-CUNY. Her work has appeared in YEAR’S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR, LADY CHURCHILL’S ROSEBUD WRISTLET, INTERFICTIONS, and SYBIL’S GARAGE. She does not like cats.

Mercurio D. Rivera
Mercurio D. Rivera’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous print and online magazines and anthologies, including INTERZONE, ABYSS AND APEX, ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE, AOIFE’S KISS, SOUNDS OF THE NIGHT, THE OTHERWORLDS ANTHOLOGY, and NORTHWEST PASSAGES: A CASCADIAN ANTHOLOGY, published by Windstorm Creative Press. His story about unrequited alien love, “Longing for Langalana,” won the annual reader’s poll conducted by the acclaimed British SF magazine INTERZONE for favorite story of 2006 and can be heard at the new podcast website, TransmissionsFromBeyond.com. His SF/horror cross-genre tale “The Scent of Their Arrival,” which appeared earlier this year in INTERZONE #214 is also scheduled to be podcast at Transmissions from Beyond. And his third story with INTERZONE, “The Fifth Zhi” is forthcoming later this year. Mercurio’s first published story was with SYBIL’S GARAGE. His website is http://www.mercuriorivera.com/

Matthew Kressel
Matthew Kressel runs Senses Five Press, which publishes SYBIL’S GARAGE and this year’s highly acclaimed anthology PAPER CITIES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF URBAN FANTASY. His own fiction has appeared or will soon appear in ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE, ABYSS & APEX, ANDROMEDA SPACEWAYS INFLIGHT MAGAZINE, FARRAGO’S WAINSCOT, APEX DIGEST, and the Ellen Datlow-edited anthology NAKED CITY, as well as other markets. Senses Five Press can be found at http://www.sensesfive.com/ and Matthew’s personal site can be found at http://www.matthewkressel.net/ .

Please forward at your own discretion.