Blue Light Press has some great publishing opportunities for poets coming up, as well as plenty of announcements regarding workshops and upcoming events.
The Blue Light Poetry Prize for Chapbook publication is open for submissions from February 1 through June 30. For guidelines, send an E-mail to bluelightpress@aol.com.
The Blue Light Book Award for publication of a full-length book of poems is open for submissions from Sept. 1 through February 1. For guidelines, send an E-mail to bluelightpress@aol.com.
It’s published! NYC FROM THE INSIDE: NYC through the Eyes, of the Poets Who Live Here. Edited by George Wallace. NYC FROM THE INSIDE is the inner voice of America’s greatest city spoken aloud – the poets’ State of the Union Address to NYC in 2022, the spirit and mind of 8.8 million people looking themselves square in the eye and telling it like it is. The poets slice the Big Apple into a montage of essential moments, across cultural clusters and neighborhood nooks. Poems by Andrei Codrescu, Martin Espada, Marie Howe, Hettie Jones, Yusef Komunyakaa, Quincy Troupe, Anne Waldman, Robert Bly, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Hirschman. Available at your favorite bookstore or https://www.amazon.com/Inside-through-Eyes-Poets-Live/dp/142183717X/.
Congratulations to Gary Young, Red Cedar, Red Pine,winner of the 2021 Blue Light Poetry Prize and Chapbook Contest. Congratulations to Emilie Lygren, What We Were Born For, and Jennifer Grant, Dangerous Women, winners of the 2021 Blue Light Book Award. Our books are available on Amazon.com and can be ordered at your favorite bookstore. For a list of all contest winners: http://bluelightpress.com/contestWinners.php.
Fog and Light: San Francisco through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here. Edited by Diane Frank. In this collection of poems, we show you the city that most tourists miss, with poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hirschman, Alejandro Murguía, Barbara Quick, Thomas Centolella, Kathy Evans, Alison Luterman, Robert Scotellaro and many other celebrated poets. It’s our love letter to San Francisco! Fog and Light is available in bookstores all over the SF Bay Area and Oregon. #1 best seller! On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fog-Light-Francisco-through-Poets/dp/1421836890/.
Pandemic Puzzle Poems, selected by Diane Frank and Prartho Sereno. This book is a gathering of community. It chronicles our Pandemic Times through the eyes, hearts, and minds of poets. On these pages, you will find poems by Jane Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, Dorianne Laux, Stephen Dunn, Naomi Shihab Nye, Thomas Centolella, Marsha de la O, Terry Lucas, Barbara Quick, Melissa Studdard, Loretta Diane Walker, Marge Piercy, and many more poets who will delight and amaze you – some well known and others who also deserve to be read. Every poem in this book has a gift for you. #1 best seller! Available at your favorite bookstore or https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Puzzle-Poems-Diane-Frank/dp/1421837080/.
To learn more about Blue Light Press, your best resource is River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-First Century. This anthology features more than 100 poets, mixing the best voices of our generation with the grass roots – poets who have won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, along with lesser known poets who also deserve to be read. #2 bestseller for poetry anthologies! #3 bestseller for all American Poetry! It’s a box of chocolate for poets.
http://www.amazon.com/River-Earth-Sky-Poems-Century/dp/1421837404/
Diane Frank’s New and Selected Poems, While Listening to the Enigma Variations, was published in July by Glass Lyre Press. “These poems of love returning to love, and light returning to light, are a heart gone supernova. Page by page Frank burns a path to her readers’ hearts. The alignments are profound, the connections electric – from heart to bone, from marrow to star. These are radiant poems, where we earthbound creatures may find simultaneous escape and renewal.” ~ George Wallace, Walt Whitman Birthplace Writer in Residence. To order from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/While-Listening-Enigma-Variations-Selected/dp/1941783740/ To order from your favorite bookstore: ISBN: 978-1941783740.To order a signed copy, send an email & I’ll send you the info.
Workshops… The next Blue Light Press On-Line Poetry Workshop starts in September. For Information, send an email to bluelightpress@aol.com. We have a wonderful group of writers here! More about the workshop: http://bluelightpress.com/workshops.php
Blue Light at the Gallery… Diane Frank, Chief Editor of Blue Light Press, hosts a Words and Music Series at the Marin Society of Artists Gallery, in San Rafael (now on Zoom). Let us know if you want to be notified about our events, and we’ll put you on the email list.
Facebook… Blue Light Press has a Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/BlueLightPress. If you go to our page and “like” it, you can check in for news about guidelines, publications and workshops.
If you’ve just published a book… you will find a crash course in shameless book promotion on our website: http://bluelightpress.com/promo.php