Editor Interview: Earthshine

thoughtful poetry

Terrain.org, Plant-Human Quarterly, The New Yorker, Georgia Review, Fourth River. The many independent journals, both print and online, which enrich our poetic landscape.

Poets: William Stafford, Jim Harrison, Coral Bracho, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Kay Ryan, Ted Kooser, Jane Hirshfield, Mark Doty, Robert Haas, and of course all of our Earthshine poets.

Just as each poet has a voice, we believe each journal has a voice. The voice of Earthshine is one of illumination, compassion, humanity, and reason. Earthshine publishes poems of high literary quality which we believe will generate their own light for our readers. We believe that "illumination of what is hidden can only come from our own reflection;" Earthshine is a reflection of our own light. The poems published in Earthshine take the reader into deep interiors or out into the vast exteriors to reflect on something we have missed, or to present it in a beautiful, thought-provoking way.

It is our pleasure to read your work. We try to be courteous, professional and understanding, and hope it is returned. Please follow the submission guidelines, really, it means a lot, and have a look at our journal to get a sense of its nature. You may either order a print copy from our web site, or simply review the content which is posted and archived on the site.

We like poems which shine a new light on something, which take us into the heart of a matter, pulls us right into your experience, or brings a new view of something we thought we already understood. We like words used well, with pleasing flow. We like a self-contained, succinct poem with something alive in it. The poems we like best make us gasp. We hope that our published poems will change our readers' lives for the better for having read them.
From a practical standpoint, the ideal e-submission has a few lines of intro and a brief bio, and has the poem(s) pasted in. The ideal mail submission is legible, has a short cover letter and brief bio, and contains a SASE.

Submissions in excess of requested number.

Earthshine has two editors. One of us reads the letters first, and the other one reads the poems first. We both know that the poems speak for themselves, but we appreciate a greeting, and whatever brief information a poet feels we should know. We include a bio with accepted poems, so it's convenient to get the bio with the submission, and the bio might include highlights of previous publications. We appreciate the courtesy of a few lines, and we do appreciate knowing how the poet found out about Earthshine.

We read most submissions thoroughly. We don't finish every poem, though, if content is inappropriate or if we pass a threshold beyond which the poem would need extensive revision. We never assume that just because we didn't like the first three poems, we won't like the fourth. We once took one verse of a page-long poem, because we couldn't let it go.

We categorize our submissions into three groups. The first is not to accept, and those poets get a letter (or email) to that effect, often with comments, for example, we may mention which of the poems we liked the most. The second is not to accept, but we'd like to read more from that poet, in which case we send a note encouraging the poet to send again. The third, of course, is that we wish to accept. If both editors agree that a poem should be accepted, either as is or with some edits, we re-scrutinize every line, every word, to understand purpose and placement. Sometimes we tell the poet we'd take it as is, but have a few suggestions, which he or she can take or leave. Other times we take poems if the poet is willing to make certain changes.

The journal is small, and our submission rate doesn't require daily readings. Earthshine resides in a big file drawer, an online and paper log book, two laptops, and an external hard drive. On the days that we read, we read individually, and then meet every week or two with our pile (or computer file) of submissions, and compare our evaluations. Each editor ranks the submission in our little system--if we don't agree on the category, we discuss why. If one wants to accept a poem and the other doesn't, we take it apart, both the vision and the words, each argue our points, and then decide. This is actually a great deal of fun for us.

We only make edits that are acceptable to the poet. If we want to take the poem contingent on certain edits, we ask the poet if the edits are acceptable. Sometimes the poet doesn't want to make the edits, and sometimes we take the poem anyway, depending on the poem and the importance of the suggested edits.

Best of the Net
we hope to nominate work for other awards in the future.

Out of our own pockets, to date. Sales of the printed journal provide a little. We are working on trying to find a way to make Earthshine self-sufficient.

the web site
social media
we are working on an email mailing list, and working on creating an Earthshine Substack
spreading the word within a fairly extensive writing/poetry community