Hands Like Mirrors 2012

Last year about this time Stacey and I put together a little poetry anthology that we called "Hands Like Mirrors". At the time we wanted to support a lot of our Aus/NZ blogger poet friends and anybody else who was unsure about what they would call themselves or their writing, but knew they couldn't keep their words to themselves. 


We've been blogging here for nearly three years and for probably about half of that time have been reading poetry online that we adore. If you look at our blog you can see a giant list of the poetry sites, blogs and journals we love reading and honestly the list could be a lot longer. We felt there were some qualities we liked in the poetry we read online that was missing in local print poetry journals. These qualities we summarised in the blurb for last year's HLM:

The best things about the poetry that has flourished online are that it is honest, accessible, funny, unsure, changeable, sad, sexy, easy, lame, says everything, says nothing, says exactly what you want to say but can't work out how to, seems bleak, feels right, feels wrong, feels a bit rough, just makes you feel. 


I don't think anything has changed since we wrote that blurb. Over the last twelve months the "internet lit scene" has frankly boomed. An enormous boon. And understandably, we want to support those antipodean poets again with our lil ole journal. So we are really excited to tell you we've decided to make a second issue!


What you need to know:

First: You must be a resident of either Australia or New Zealand to submit (sorry! we do actually love everyone though)

Poetry submissions:
Please send up to 3 poems, with a maximum of 100 lines for each. Any kind of poem, any subject.

Fiction submissions:
Short fiction rather than long, think under 1000 words. No more than 2 stories. You can send poems as well, but be kind.

Drawings/illustrations:
We'd love to have drawings in this issue. If you do comics or graphic art or generally make strange shapes, we want it. Send us 2-3 things and potentially we may ask you to draw for a particular piece.

Everyone:
- Max 5 submissions per person please, we are only two people!
- Attach submissions in a word doc with 'Hands Like Mirrors' and your
name in the title
- In the document include a bio of no more than 50 words, in third person
- We will try to respond to you in the month after the submission deadline
- Email to hlmpoetry@gmail.com
- Deadline Sunday 2nd September 2012


If you are an Australian/NZer and you write things you should send us a lil something. If you know anyone who would be interested you should tell them about it too. Excerpts, videos, pictures and other 2011 HLM stuff is available here. You can probably buy one still if you like. 

Finally, if you've got any questions, send an email or leave us a comment. And if you know anyone whose writing sounds like something we would like, leave a comment with a link or an example.


Be yourself. Be brave. Submit.