Urban Myths and Legends - The Emma Press - Deadline 31st December 2014 #seanocarolan.com #writing #contest #competitions #

1. Urban Myths and Legends

We are looking for poems which tell new stories and includesome kind of transformation, for the latest in our ‘Emma Press Ovid‘ series. This anthology will take its inspiration from the Roman poet Ovid’s masterpiece the Metamorphoses, an epic-length collection of myths which starts at the creation of the universe and ends in Ovid’s lifetime with the rule of the emperor Augustus. ForUrban Myths and Legends, we want to collect poems which tell new stories, inspired by real events and recent history (but not necessarily true or wholly factual!). The stories must also include a change of state.

We’re interested in the way ancient current affairs and storytelling have survived in nursery rhymes and classic myths and legends, and we’re hoping to collect poems from modern raconteurs which reference modern life. We’re also interested in people’s stories about life in their communities: rumours about neighbours, strange occurrences in the next village, and those stories which circulate in the playground and office.

This anthology will be edited by Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright. Rachel Piercey is currently an editor at Cadaverine magazine and her new pamphlet, Rivers Wanted, has just been published by the Emma Press. Emma Wright runs the Emma Press.

In order to submit, please do the following:
You must be a member of the Emma Press Club, which means you must either have bought a book from the Emma Press website this calendar year, or already be in an Emma Press book. Read more about the Emma Press Club here.

Place a maximum of THREE POEMS (each no longer than 120 lines) in a single Word document as well as in the body of an email. There is limited space in my inbox, so please do send the text in a Word document, and not a PDF or Rich Text Format or a Word document with pictures in it.
Write a covering letter in this email addressed to Rachel and Emma (just in the body of your email – no need to attach it as a separate document), quoting the order number of your purchase from my website, and send it to met [at] theemmapress [dot] com. You should receive a receipt to confirm we have received your email, so if you don’t get one within an hour then check your spam folder and also check that you sent your email to the correct address.

The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 31st December 2014, 00.00 GMT. We will aim to reply to all submissions by the end of June 2015, but this may change according to the number of submissions we receive, so sign up to our newsletter for updates about our progress. Please scroll down to read our general submissions guidelines.