Hiya, heya, hola!
The fresh green tangerine that is Issue 14 of Home Planet News has sprung with spring & all, featuring poetry by Joel Best, Steve Brisentine, Michael Brockley, Jeff Hoffman, Mary Ann Honaker, Bruce McRae, Kushal Poddar, Pepper Trail, A.D. Winans, Gerald Yelle, & Elizabeth Zevlin; fiction by Vincent Barry, Joe Ducato, & Michael Tyler; songs by Tom Norman; & visual art by another multitalented Home Planet editor, John Martino. Many thanks to all!
In recent issues, I’ve posted several submission tips. Although at times my suggestions’ intent may seem more humorous than helpful, it’s my sincere hope that I can help you gain acceptance. The way I see it, your success is our success. A prime objective of Home Planet News, going back to its founding nearly 50 years ago, is to foster a sense of community among artists & writers. We view the magazine not as a competitive forum, but as a cooperative, a virtual artists’ colony, if you will. Since we are unable to compensate our contributors with gratuities, we hope to be generous with our gratitude. Thus, we strive to provide contributors a good home for their work as well as a public space to promote it.
Along those lines, ahem, I’m happy to announce the publication of my third full-length poetry collection, Reckoning Ball. It’s made of flesh, bone, blood, flower buds, meteors, metaphors, fatalistic philosophy, philanthropic philistines, dads, ads, gods, dogs, delusions, allusions, dysnomia, dystopias, among other things, but in a word, poems that appeared in a variety of magazines, including Home Planet News before I became editor. (See Issues 4, 6, & 7 if you’re interested.) Amazingly, Amazon reports Reckoning Ball has already sold over 2,000,000 copies! (Note: I’ve been informed the above number represents not total sales, but rather its position on its top sellers list, a detail I consider, however accurate, an egregious instance of malinformation.) Honestly, I believe Reckoning Ball is my best book yet (though please feel free to judge for yourself by comparing it to Nearing Narcoma, which former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo selected as the winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, or Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand, runner-up in the Knut House Poetry Prize). I mean, gee, they’re all really good, if you ask me.
Anyway, enough of my self-promotion. Let us now praise our readers & contributors for helping to keep Home Planet lit, in orbit, & alive.
Matt
P.S. I almost forgot—here’s a picture of Reckoning Ball’s cover:
