A fond farewell

I received an email late last week carrying the sad news that the last issue of Umbrella has just been published.

Over the past six years it has been a consistently high-quality presence on the literary scene, and it's some compensation that the archive of its past issues will remain online for the foreseeable future.

Of course, running a literary magazine of any sort, let alone one as well presented and skilfully edited as Umbrella, is a time-consuming and often thankless task, so I'd like to say a heartfelt thank-you to editor Kate Benedict for many hours of enjoyable reading, as well as the honour of having appeared within its pages on a couple of occasions. Umbrella will be greatly missed.

Umbrella Issue 14

I have a poem - Coolidge - in the Fall/Winter 2010-11 issue of Umbrella. As always, it's a pleasure and an honour to be included in what's one of my favourite online poetry mags - editor Kate Bernadette Benedict does a consistently fine job, as you'll see if you trawl through a few back issues.

Incidentally, the poem appears in my new collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, which will be published by Nine Arches Press in a couple of weeks.

The Pushcart Prize

I was delighted and not a little surprised to be informed, earlier this week, that my poem Stanislav Petrov is one of Umbrella's six Pushcart Prize nominations for this year.

I'm not entirely sure what the process is from here on in - I assume the Pushcart editors narrow the field down to a final selection, but I'm over the moon just to have got a nomination.

Spring is sprung!

Well, OK, possibly it hasn't quite, but it is, thankfully, a lot warmer than a couple of weeks back, and the Spring issue of Umbrella has gone live - follow that link now to see it in all its tasteful glory. It includes the usual fine selection of poetry. One of my poems, Stanislav Petrov, is in there.

Oh, and of course, Happy St David's Day!

Umbrella Issue 6

Umbrella is one of the best-looking, and most readable online poetry mags around, IMHO, and the Spring 2008 issue is no exception. There's loads of great poetry and prose in there, and I'm delighted to have a poem - Show, Don't Tell - featured in the Milestones section.