Mea Culpa

Crying Statue, by Vassil (France), 2008.

Mea Culpa

It has been on my list of things to do for months, and yet I have failed, and missed the deadline for Pushcart nominations.  I feel absolutely sick about this.      

While I don't give up hope in a miracle donor, grant, or lottery in the future, it is probably a pipe dream to think I can ever pay you wonderful writers. So far Ekphrastic has been given a total of $10 in the year and a half run. For this reason, I am committed instead to doing what I can to encourage  writers, promote creativity, and most importantly, creative recognition. 

This year is my first ever nominating for prizes; I was able to do so for Best of the Net but somehow messed up the dates and thought the deadline for Pushcarts was the end of the year.

I am usually on the other side of the fence, not this one- I am the same as you, the writer, and know too well how much goes into writing, submitting, organizing submissions, reading, corresponding, waiting, promoting, and never getting paid. We all understand that poetry is not commercial, and even though we wish it was, it never has been, for the most part, and so we write for love. This fact makes it all the more important to me to mark creative achievement and to promote the reading of our writers.

I am sorry I missed this chance to reward at least some of our many, many incredible writers with recognition, readers, and a nomination nod on their C.V. 

Please forgive me as we carry on and move forward. I am grateful to all of you for making The Ekphrastic Review into such a remarkable talent pool, and for all of the support and friendship and networking that comes out of it for all of us. I believe we have a great thing going, and it's just the beginning.

Lorette