Home Planet News 26, the sweet juice of the yellow fruit of firmament dripping from its lips, rises from the ashes, among  sundry other trees, its golden summer slumbers suddenly bearing poetry by Christopher Barnes, Michael Carter, John Grey, Edward Johnson, Erik Korhel, Max S. Ma, John Martino, Alison McCabe, Ken Poyner, Eva Skrande, Kevin Sweeney, Gabriel Welsch, Watt Worris, & Mark Young; fiction by Alaina Hammond & John Holman; nonfiction by Iwuagwu Ikechukwu; & artwork by Tamizh Ponni VP.  Many thanks to all!

Just so you know, we’re busy as bleepers-jeepers at this end of the worldwise netarama thingy. Not only are we reading the steady flow of literary submissions–our very life’s blood–for Home Planet, but we’re also reading book-length manuscripts for Half Inch Press. I say this not to complain, but to explain why we may be slower than before in responding to your submissions.

That said, we sincerely hope this doesn’t deter you from submitting work to either the magazine or the book press. We just want you to know what’s behind the delays & ask for your patience. Home Planet still tries to respond to all submissions in 3-4 months, sooner if possible, though sometimes, admittedly, it may be longer. Obviously, due to the nature of book-length submissions, Half Inch often takes longer than that. 

Nevertheless, rest assured (as rest we must) we respond to every submission. If you want to query about the status of your work, please feel free to do so. Of course, you know emails sometimes wind up inexplicably lost in a junk folder–alas, it happens with our responses too–so if you contact us, I hope you’ll be cordial. Think of it as stopping by the office with coffee & donuts for a chat. Well, doesn’t that sound just lovely?

Not only are we readers of literature, we’re also writers, & since there are not now nor have there ever been any hoity-toity Chef Boyardee anonymous nobility to pen poems for the likes of us, we need time as well as to write. You’ll find several of my poems scattered throughout various Home Planet issues. (Want more? Why not check out some recent work by yours truly in Unlikely Stories Six?)  Also, executive editor & all around good guy John Martino has a couple of new poems in HPN 26 from his forthcoming Half Inch Press collection, Enemy Lines. 

Speaking of new, Half Inch is set to release Alaina Hammond’s smart, quirky, fresh, & fun Tutor in Juvenile and Other Stories in a matter of weeks. You can find the title story in this very issue!  Since Half Inch Press began in 2024, we’ve published a dozen books, with many more titles already in the works for release in the coming months. You can find all Half Inch books at our site or via its page in Home Planet. 

In the meantime & in between time, enjoy HPN 26.

Many thanks!

Matt