Welcome to New Members!, get out while you still can, you fools!

[Jane Holland]

A big Easter weekend (almost) welcome to Peter Richards also.

I'm PSR on Gazebo and Peter Richards on Eratosphere, I think. I sort of prefer PSR, but the name is fine (what with being my name).

The Worm, Snakeskin, erm - here and there are online publications ... Peter Stewart Richards on New Formalist and Earl Haig on the Shit Creek Review are also me - I've never published a book or anything.

I do hope some of these new members will actually post. We have so many members now, and only about 10 people who actually post. Never been able to understand that ratio myself.

[Michelle McGrane]

Hi Peter!

[Peter Richards]

Ooh, a welcome committee, hello.

I think the ratio you're looking for, Jane, is one of many to about ten. The numbers are instead of understanding.

[Michelle McGrane]

Welcome to Roy Woolley!

Roy divides his time between London and Derby. His work appears in Initiate: An Oxford Anthology of New Writing. He was one of the winners of the Parallel Universe Competition.

[Jane Holland]

Hi Roy. Welcome!

I hope Roy is planning to put a link to his identity/full name in his signature, as we're trying to avoid people signing up without being utterly transparent about who they are. I'd prefer new members not to use only initials, on the whole.

After all, what is the point of signing up as a set of initials when every member has to be upfront about their name? It just puts a barrier between members and makes it harder for people to respond.

Way back when, it was common for people to sign up using initials, so we do have members with 'names' consisting of nicknames or initials. But new members are encouraged to use a full name or commonly used nickname (based on their real name) wherever possible.

This is a networking site as much as a discussion site, after all. And it's hard to network with a set of initials.

[Michelle McGrane]

My bad, Jane. I didn't realise we no longer had the option of initials. It's sorted.

[Jane Holland]

That was a good old moan, wasn't it? I enjoyed that.

[Michelle McGrane]

A moan par excellence, Jane.

[Julia Webb]

hi everyone

[Jane Holland]

Lookey here >>>> a NEW member!

Rosemary Badcoe says she's an editor of:

'on-line poetry magazine, Antiphon, www.antiphon.org.uk

This is a new on-line poetry magazine with the emphasis on promoting UK poets and small presses, though we will publish excellent poetry from whereever it comes. Our first issue has been out for a couple of weeks and we've been pleased with the response, and we have a call out now for submissions for issue two.

I am currently undertaking the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam University; I'm a moderator at www.poetsgraves.co.uk/forum and have been published in Orbis, Other Poetry, 14 Magazine, Matter, amongst others.

I'd like to be able to discuss ways of promoting our magazine and helping those poets just bubbling under publication in the major journals.'

Welcome to POF, Rosemary! (Hope people start talking again soon.)

[Antiphon]

Thanks, Jane!

We'd very much appreciate anyone spreading the word about Antiphon. We have A Most Excellent first issue, featuring poets such as Mario Petrucci, Martyn Crucefix, Pippa Little and Jan Fortune and others equally as good.

We're accepting submissions internationally, but our original aim was to help promote those UK poets just beginning to be published in the more major journals and also to give small presses and their poets some publicity. We believe there is a wide readership for poetry, but that it's fairly scattered, so an on-line magazine seemed the way to go.

Our first issue had a readership of several hundred, which is excellent, but we're not sure we're reaching our target audience for submissions yet. Any advice or help would be gratefully received.

Rosemary