Guidelines

Your submissions will be read by editor Kate Bernadette Benedict

Fall 2009

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.
• Send 1-6 single-spaced poems in the body of an email (no attachments) to the following address, updated December 2007 and no longer linkable in order to foil the spambots:  umbrellajournal at gmail dot com
  
  
   
• Deadline: August 10th
• Include the words Poetry Sub and your name in the email’s subject line.   
• Clearly include with your submission your name as you wish it to appear in the journal and 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 formal bio written in the third person.  The bio notes we publish limit journal credits to five.   (We love hearing about your publication history but it does not influence editorial decisions.)  Umbrella is happy to include news of any Pushcart Prize win but not Pushcart nominations.  
• Simultaneous submissions are not permitted; 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• We prefer previously unpublished work but occasionally we will consider it, provided it doesn’t appear in a book or online (with the exception of online workshopping forums) and provided it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 revert to you upon publication; however, Umbrella reserves the right to archive your work indefinitely.
• Do not submit more work if we are still considering your previous submission. This is one of those rules that professional writers automatically abide by; if you don’t honor this rule, neither your first nor your subsequent submissions will be considered; we will not respond at all to those who repeatedly break this obvious rule.  Do not submit more than once during a quarterly reading period unless invited to do so.  
• Formatting matters (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 in the email.)
  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 do when submitting hard copy to print journals.

Prose

The following features and columns are seeking contributors. Include the words Prose Sub 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, updated December 2007 and no longer linkable 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, 2008.  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; don’t send them.
• Deadline: August 10th

Art

Images featuring umbrellas, in digital format, whether photographs, photographic collages, or photos of artworks, are eagerly sought!  Include the words Art Sub and your name in the email’s subject line. Send your images to the following address, updated December 2007 and no longer linkable in order to foil the spambots: umbrellajournal at gmail dot com

        

Payment?

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