Got a rejection from Copper Nickel a few days ago; turned around and sent in submissions to JUKED and Fifth Wednesday, and then finished a complete draft of a poem I’d been stuck on for four and a half years. So far, so good.

Of course, now I just got a rejection from Ninth Letter, so I suppose it’s back to the grind. But not tonight, because I’m falling asleep at the keyboard.

Much to the dismay of her accountant, a friend of mine is starting up her own print journal. Constellations will print poetry and fiction, and is intended to have a loose focus on writers with a connection to the Boston and Cambridge area, but she’s taking work from anyone and everyone. I’ve been told that something of mine will appear in the first issue, though I don’t know what just yet.

If you’re a writer and you don’t mind submitting work to a fledgling journal, please consider sending something in for Nina to read. Since this is a new project, she’s not very clear on what exactly she wants just yet, so I can’t offer much guidance on the tone or style of what you should send, but from what I gather she’s not a big fan of overly dark or gritty themes, and doesn’t much like poetry of the rhymey-dimey type. This is very much in the “I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it” phase.

Submissions are technically postal-only, but since I see Nina at least twice a week, if you’d like to email me a file, I’m happy to print it out and hand it in for you. The submissions deadline for the inaugural issue is June 20th, and the goal is to have the issue done and out sometime late this summer.

I’m almost sure I’m going to be the one laying out the whole thing, so if you get something in, I promise I’ll make it look pretty.