relaunch poetenladen

keine neuigkeit mehr, optisch aber dennoch interessant: der poetenladen vor und nach dem relaunch. leider habe ich keinen screenshot mehr von der startseite, aber man kann es sich hoffentlich in etwa vorstellen. alt oben, neu unten.

happy 4th birthday, WOAW

WOAW turns four today. that makes me happy, even though i haven't been spending much time here lately. a lot of my attention has been devoted to girls can blog, probably because it's less of a niche product and more of an allround good cause.

obviously, the downside of occupying myself mostly with gcb is that the better part of my creative energy is dedicated to "digital social work" as opposed to poetry. it's a typical dilemma known to writers: i love doing x [i.e. painting], but if i do too much of it, there'll be no juices left for writing. most of us choose less x and more writing.

with gcb, most of the work to be done, though, is writing: posts, emails, comments. proper blogging also involves a fair bit of reading. i love it. yet while i have received great support and appreciation of what i have accomplished with gcb, i also get frequent questions regarding the lack of new material of both prose and poetry. i have been asked why my novella hasn't been published in spite of good reviews, nor a poetry collection with any of the usual publishers, and why i haven't devoted more time and effort to get either.

first easy answer: because i can't have my finger in every pie. i like where i'm at right now with gcb. second, more difficult answer: because i would rather keep my poetry to myself than be on the knocker and beg people to print it!

i have undertaken one sole attempt when a friend of mine alerted me to the fact that her publisher was looking for female poets especially. i emailed the person in charge and asked whether that was true. needless to say, i never received an answer and have thus decided that that was that.

with WOAW around for four years now, i am fairly positive that plenty of people in positions to publish a poet's work are aware of what i do. by now, many of them know my writing. event organizers and editors alike. if they decide to ignore me, so be it. i am over mailing in poems to magazines that publish only work of people their editors have slept with (and trust me, turnover is high!). but i do accept that these are the rules of the game; maybe not so much the sex, but the ass-kissing for sure. i am sorry to say that i have lost interest in what used to be the soul of this blog: my curiosity about up and coming german poets, especially those of berlin. in my opinion, most current poetry has become interchangeable and obsolete, save a few glorious exceptions, so i have stopped working for that crowd's acceptance. i have stopped reading their work. i have stopped going to readings.

you might think i'm jealous. well, i have never been the jealous type. naturally, i, too, would like to see my novella in print or have my own poetry collection, which poet wouldn't? but not at the price of dignity and boredom. 

throughout this recent development, WOAW has remained to be my loyal, patient companion. as have my readers. like last year, the year before, and the year before that, i'd like to thank each and every single one of you for stopping by or following my RSS feed.*

to your loyalty and our next years together!
thanks. annina

* if you wonder what an RSS feed might be, try this explanation.

DESCANT is calling for submissions

attention writers: the deadline for two upcoming themed issues — BOSNIA, BETWEEN LOSS AND RECOVERY and RENOVATIONS — is 15 march 2011. they are requesting submissions of unpublished fiction, poetry, essays and photography. for submission guidelines, visit: descant.ca/submit.html 

no more anonymous comments

i'm sorry to announce that as of now, anonymous comments are no longer possible on WOAW. this is long common on other blogs and down to all the spam i've been receiving lately. please keep participating though. thanks for sharing your thoughts.

johann reißer was added to lyrikwelt.de

view his profile - including some work samples - here.

the red big bag vs. the big red bag - how to order adjectives in english

even the teacher himself gets confused when he gives the example of 'the old boring physics teacher'. according to his own rules written on the board behind him, it would have to be 'the boring old physics teacher' - at least that proves his claim that this clip might of interest for native speakers, too!

Andosina

remember the novella i was editing last summer? well, after sixteen edits altogether, it's finally finished [UPDATE: and available here].

it's in german and prose-y, and it's called Andosina.

with forty-eight norm pages, however, the manuscript's length (or brevity, rather) just won't make it an ordinary novel...

so my question is: does anyone know anyone who could be interested in publishing the story in spite of its unusual format? i'd be super grateful for ideas (!) and would love to send out excerpts...

anyone? please?

twitter preview on WOAW

as you might have already noticed, i've added a twitter widget to the blog's sidebar. if WOAW loads a little slower on your browser now, that's the reason. the idea was to keep you up to date with thoughts and news that never become blog posts even if you aren't on twitter yourselves. if you are on twitter already, but too lazy to check back on my page every day, this feature might be of use to you, too. i also plan to update the sidebar altogether some time later this year, sort through the link list, add blogs like ron winkler's, that kind of stuff. don't worry if WOAW looks a little different from time to time, i'll be sure to let you know when i'm done...

heute neu: lyrikkritik-radio

heute, 02.03.10, 22.00 uhr, über lyrikkritik.de:
Gespräch mit dem Lyriker Steffen Popp über die lange Kunst der Vorbereitung – Gedanken zu den Zielen von Yoga und Lyrik

Programmvorschau:
09.03.10, 22.00 uhr, – Christian Filips über Paolo Pasolini und die Kunst des Mittelhochdeutschen in neuzeitlichen Übersetzungen

16.03.10, 22.00 uhr–Rosemarie Tietze über die Neuübersetzung von Anna Karenina und Lew Tolstojs Beziehung zu Gedichten
(text via lyrikkritik.de)

fixpoetry.com

no idea why i hadn't heard of it earlier, but i hadn't: http://fixpoetry.com/

new link

i only came across Lyrikzeitung & Poetry News today... interesting!

call for submissions

the Literaturautomat is calling for submissions for next year's shafts. you should apply, this is a cool project - and i'm not just saying that because i was featured last year. there are five topics to chose from and deadline is 15 december 2009.

die letzte avantgarde

DER FREITAG hat einen artikel darüber, warum man als autor im netz kein geld verdient. leider schon eine woche alt, habe ihn aber erst heute gefunden.

not on the list

just like in the past couple of years, i am not among the finalists of this year's open mike. but alexander gumz is. he's nice and writes good poetry, so that's ok. (i translated his poem wo diese ränder enden a year ago.) congratulations!

DIE ZEIT über Lyrik im Netz.

...and, quite possibly, the even more informative link: matthias kehles lyrik-blog.

a friend of mine introduced me to poemhunter.com - fabulous! you even get to download e-books and all, go check it out. (thanks for the hint, maciek!)

frank mccourt died

two obituaries: one in german, one in english.

it's this time of the year again

ingeborg bachmann preis - tage der deutschsprachigen literatur, klagenfurt, austria, 25 - 28 june.

live-stream online and live on 3sat (16 hours!).

translations of all selected submissions will be made available here.

personally, i won't be around this time, but i'll read in the supporting programme again next year.

edit no. 4, hot off the printer

ok, so i am done with edit number 4 of my little novella now. although still only at 27 norm pages (50.899 characters with spaces), i'm quite content with it. so far, i have only given it to stefan beuse to read, who gave me very encouraging feedback and who is the only one to know the working title of the manuscript still. i am planning on doing more editing and maybe even on adding more pages to it during my time on the road next week - the Arcotel Hotels have been so kind to sponsor a literary journey that will take me to Linz (AU), Klagenfurt (AU), and Zagreb (HR). as yet, i haven't made my mind up whether i'll bring my computer or not, as i am hoping that a macless journey would force me into writing more (less distraction). i will definitely bring my camera, though, and will take some pictures. speaking of pictures, here's a small selection of the ones i took on my most recent trip to the US:

zehn seiten

i've been wanting to post this link for a long while now. my personal favorites are rafik shami, gernot wolfgruber and stefan beuse. it's also interesting to note how benjamin lebert's voice changes once he starts reading. michael stavaric and thomas meinecke are featured as well.