Softblow's New Home, QLRS' Latest Edition

Singaporean poet Cyril Wong wrote to say that SOFTBLOW Poetry Journal is back at a new location :

This journal was located previously at softblow.com. Unfortunately, as some past readers might already know, we were undermined by our web hosting company which threatened to keep us from entering and editing the domain if we did not pay additional sums of money (more than previously agreed) for the official purpose of maintaining a stable site. As none of us had the money to sue, we let the first site and domain be taken away from us.

After softblow.com was down, we received a flood of emails from readers who offered to help with ways of fixing the problem. Then with the help and encouragement of Alvin Pang, a Singaporean poet whose work has been featured in the former version of this journal, we were able to retrieve the works of close to everyone who has ever been featured in SOFTBLOW.

SOFTBLOW has been an online home for contemporary poetry from all over the world since Sep. 2004, featuring writers such as Bernadette Mayer, Jenny Boully, Jordie Albiston, Boey Kim Cheng and Wong Phui Nam, among numerous others. From Nov. 2009, we will have a new selection/editorial team comprising of Eric Low, Gwee Li Sui, Jason Wee and Christopher Ujine Ong.

SOFTBLOW is ad free. Poets will not be remunerated for having their works featured here. This journal will be updated at the start of every month, (re)starting on 1 Nov. 2009. Featured poets will eventually be placed in our Archive to make room for the new poets. If you have been featured in SOFTBLOW but your work does not appear in our Archive, please let us know.

To submit, simply paste 4-6 poems with a short bio. in the body of an email and send it to the editor@softblow.org. Copyrights revert to the authors upon publication. All work published is with their expressed consent.

Thank you for your patience for the time in which SOFTBLOW has been offline and for your offers to help. We are happy to be back and glad for your continued support once more. And if you are on Facebook, you can also join this page for future updates on the journal.

best regards,
SOFTBLOW team

And while we're thinking about Singaporean Literary journals, do check out the latest edition of QLRS. I'm thrilled to bits because it has a piece by my friend Damyanti Ghosh. (Check out her excellent blog, with much of writing here.)

So, writers, these are places to send your own work.

Readers Wanted, Submissions Invited

Time to drop in some news about some literary journals with a local interest, which might also be good places for the writers among you to send your work.

Remember Damazine, the online literary magazine for the Muslim world which was calling for submissions last year? Well the first issue is now up for you to enjoy, and Shakeel Abedi has had one of his poems (entitled Together) selected. Congrats!

You can submit your work for future issues, and the guidelines are here.

Also accepting submissions is Cha: An Asian Literary Journal based in Hong Kong. This new online literary journal is dedicated to publishing quality poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, photography, graphic fiction and reviews from and about Asia, and submissions are welcomed. Guidelines here.

And then of course there is the Asian Literary Review, published quarterly in paperback form. This one is Nury Vittachi's baby, and publishes work of a very high standard. Information about submissions is here.

Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS) have their latest edition up with much good stuff in it, including an interview with Malaysian playwright, Huzir Sulaiman. The site, which hit major technical problems last year, as Toh Hsien Min explains, has now been upgraded. Submission guidelines are here.

And finally, there's Softblow, a Singapore-based poetry journal updated at the beginning of every month. More about it, and submission guidelines in the editorial.

Literary journals like these are the lifeblood of a writing community, and we should feel a great debt of gratitude to all those who put time, effort and money to get such projects off the ground.