Editor Interview: San Diego Poetry Annual

the best work we can find

Paterson Literary Review

Philip Roth, Mark Twain, Italo Calvino, Diane Wakoski, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Penny Perry, Rae Rose, Barry Lopez, Marge Piercy.

We celebrate the diversity of talent throughout our region, bringing together in a single volume all the discordant voices, including a bilingual section for poets writing in Spanish, with English translations. That bilingual section is also published as a separate volume for distribution throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
We also follow a different business model -- rather than pay contributors in complimentary copies, we donate those copies in the name of the contributing poets to public and university libraries throughout our region and beyond. As a result, we have attained permanence for the San Diego Poetry Annual, which is now part of the permanent collections of every college and university library in San Diego County, the city and county library systems and the public libraries of every independent city in our region.
We offer contributors the ability to buy unlimited copies of the annual at cost -- the publisher makes no profit on these sales. Copies at this special discount must be ordered and prepaid during a 30-day period (usually mid-February through mid-March) and must be picked up at one of our schedule readings. These copies cannot be mailed.

There are no taboos, no restrictions of any sort. In a brief bio, state your connection to the San Diego region -- that can be anything from living/working here to having a relative here or having only visited the area. The poem(s) need not be about the region.

Something unlike anything else -- unique.

Submitters often send in a whole batch of poems -- we will read only the first 3. We prefer shorter poems, so that more contributors can be included, but we have no length limit.

A brief 25-word bio is sufficient. If a longer one is sent, it will be trimmed.

Our 6 Regional Editors read every word of every submission.

Regional Editors may suggest or request edits and that process remains between the contributing poet and her/his Regional Editor.

I read every poem that is sent directly to our general e-mail address -- [email protected] -- to determine which Regional Editor might be best suited to consider that work. Our Regional Editors are as different from each other as are the poems we publish. I also read every poem that is accepted for publication and run the typesetting/layout and design of the annual. From late November through early February, there are long days and very little else I have time for. The final list of poets and poems is posted on our website -- sandiegopoetryannual.com -- in mid-January.