Seeking Online Editors
Minarets and Compound Press are looking for help, lord knows we need it. Specifically, we are seeking editorial custodians to develop the two online segments of Minarets: the ANNEXE showcase for expansive poems that wouldn’t fit in our print journal, and the Apocrypha series of essays and book responses with a twist.
These opportunities are voluntary at this stage, but in both cases we’re after a very specific kind of text, so the work load should be modest, with total creative freedom to develop the direction of each segment. More details below about what each gig could involve.
ANNEXE
In general Minarets covets poetry that feels like it was done with intensity and commitment, regardless of style. The goal of ANNEXE is to take advantage of stretchy online space and provide a home for expansive and/or large-scale works that might not otherwise find a place in our modest print journal.
This could include but is not necessarily limited to long poems, sequences, poetic research projects, polemics, manifestos, or ars poeticæ. Works don’t necessarily have to be long, but they should fit the notion of expansive in some way, either in scale or spirit. Try these on for size:
- Autograph (The Little Green Glove) by Alison Glenny
- The Lamp by Amber Esau
- (pressure’s on) by Pam Brown
- Dreams by Josephine Frances K
- Macro Sequence by Shane Jessie Christmass
The editorial custodian of ANNEXE should have a taste for, perhaps even involvement with this kind of poetic experiment, and be interested in doing something like the following:
- Collect poems
You’ll monitor a submissions inbox that admittedly doesn’t get much action; truly developing this segment will likely involve keeping an eye out for poets with the right energy, and soliciting work at your own pace. As a stretch goal you might work on raising awareness of ANNEXE to encourage more submissions. - Publish poems
The Minarets website runs on the WordPress CMS, and ideally you will have some capability to create and lay out poems for publication. We’ll also show you the ropes if this is new. - Publicise poems
Once poems are up online you’ll do a bit of basic publicity such as posting on social media. Bonus points if you’re capable of making cool graphics to accompany posts.
Apocrypha
We’re looking for alternative approaches to book responses and essays that proceed with a sense of vitality, rather than fitting a traditional “review” mould. There should be a sense of excitement that comes from getting inside poetry and feeling what it is like, rather than just trying to explain it.
Exactly what this means in practice is up for grabs, but here are some examples from the series so far that we think are a bit different from usual book reviewing:
- Hana Pera Aoake responds to ransack by essa may ranapiri
- Emma Natasha responds to There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime by Erik Kennedy
- Craig Foltz responds to The L’s by Judy Annear
- Chris Holdaway responds to Toxicon And Arachne by Joyelle McSweeney
The editorial custodian of Apocrypha should be interested in developing a vision for how the series might promote innovative ways of looking at innovative poetry, through something like the following tasks:
- Collect responses
You’ll monitor a submissions inbox that admittedly doesn’t get much action; truly developing the series will likely involve publicising a list of contemporary books we’re keen to get responses for, as well as keeping an eye out for writers with the right energy, and soliciting work at your own pace. You could even go as far as collaborating with writers to develop their ideas for alternative response styles. - Publish responses
The Minarets website runs on the WordPress CMS, and ideally you will have some capability to create and lay out poems for publication. We’ll also show you the ropes if this is new. - Publicise responses
Once responses are up online you’ll do a bit of basic publicity such as posting on social media. Bonus points if you’re capable of making cool graphics to accompany posts.
If you’re interested in taking the helm for either the ANNEXE or Apocrypha segments to exercise your vision for wildly interesting poetry online, click below to send an informal application, and we’ll organise more of a conversation. Applications open until 1 March 2023.