Submissions for the October Issue of The Shit Creek Review may be sent now.

The theme is The Horror!

He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:

"The horror! The horror!

—Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness

Like the proverbial dead parrot, Mr Kurtz may not be dead, but ‘only restin'’, waiting for an opportune moment to shake off his beautiful plumage and stun us with a full four million volts into reading his insightful take on the nature of what horror truly is.

It is the serial killer; the Sound of Music Christmas airing; the pith on chestnuts; wigs on aunts thick with chemotherapy; zombies; war-criminals, politicians and small children with lisps. It is pink shirts on a priest; the hairy wart on the nose of the beauty queen; it is the vampire, the ghoul, and the female goat on Mount Athos. It is the abandonment of good taste and its adoption; it is the very acerbity of what we know to be wrong—and right. Whatever it is, it lies at the very nature of what it is to be a true misanthrope. Viva Horror!

The Shit Creek Review #5 seeks poetry, prose and art on Horror—whatever that means to you. Submissions, please, to the usual address (see below). Coming in October to a hypertext near you. Be afraid, be very, very, afraid.

Poets who have already submitted items to The Shit Creek Review which were received after the last deadline but prior to the announcement of the Horror theme for issue #5 may rest assured that their work will still be considered for publication in SCR #5. If we like any of those non-Horror poems we will publish them anyway, and in any case will notify their authors of a result fairly soon. None of this precludes those poets from submitting again on the Horror theme.

Artists can send image submissions to the Art Editor Don Zirilli (details below).

Submissions for The Shit Creek Review October Edition must be received by September 1st^st, 2007.

Text Submissions:

Nigel Holt

Paul Stevens

shitcreekreview@yahoo.com

Visual arts Submissions:

Don Zirilli

shitcreekart@blackyak.com

General Submission Guidelines

1. The Shit Creek Review will publish quarterly in January, April, July, and October, and seeks to present high-quality original work in the fields of poetry and art.
   
   
2. Submission deadline dates and themes (if any) for the next issue will be specified in each current issue, but you may submit work at any time. If your submission is too late for the deadline date for one issue it will be placed in the batch for the next.
   
   
3. In poetry, we are biased towards formalism, but by no means dismissive of vers libre. We are looking for original work which deals with a wide variety of issues and imagery, including that which might test or challenge boundaries, or disturb sensibilities. But it must be well executed. Please do not send us work which has not been extensively drafted, crafted and polished.
   
   
4. Previous publication is not a problem as long as the previous publisher does not hold copyright. You must inform us of any previous publication when you submit. Posting to blogs or online workshops is not in our opinion publishing, so any such poems or other pieces are clearly eligible. We reserve the right to archive your work as part of this site, and with your specific consent to publish it in a print anthology later; but all other rights remain with the author.
   
   
5. The person who submits work must be the original author.
   
   
6. We accept simultaneous submissions, but please inform us immediately if the submission is accepted elsewhere.
   
   
7. Poets should submit 1 - 5 poems. Contributions should be sent in the body of an email, or as .doc or .rtf file attachments if necessary to preserve formatting: text contributions, whether poetry or prose, should be single-spaced.
   
   
8. If you sent your submission in a .doc or .rtf file attachment, please name the file according to the following formula:

   Surname Title of The Poem.doc (or .rtf)
   

   Example: McGonnagal The Tay Bridge Disaster.doc

   or, if more than one poem:

   Surname Poems

   
   Example: McGonnagal Poems.doc

   This procedure is not mandatory but will make the editors' work a litttle easier.



9. Please include your surname and the word “Submission” in the subject line of your email, thus:
   

   McGonnagal Submission
   

10. Visual arts contributions should be as .jpeg files and may be sent as attachments. Image submissions should be original work or cite relevant permissions from copyright owners.
    
    
11. All contributors should include brief third person biographical details of up to five lines.
    
    
12. We will attempt to acknowledge receipt of all submissions within three weeks of arrival.
    
    
13. Payment for publication in The Shit Creek Review is not possible in this life, but contributors will be rewarded in the next. On the other hand the editors are very receptive to offers (redeemable in this life) of cash bribes, vouchers, favours, and so forth.