Butterfly Away is the title chosen for Magnapoets' third installment in the anthology series. Butterfly Away was chosen from a phrase in one of Sanford Goldstein's tanka, and as a result, he'll receive a complimentary copy of the book. I chose the title because this anthology is love-themed, and butterflies, like love, are ethereal, beautiful, and sometimes elusive. The book also explores the theme of love found, and love lost, and the phrase Butterfly Away seems to suggest both love that is soaring, and love that is fleeing.
Many Windows is the title chosen for Magnapoets' fourth installment in the anthology series. Many Windows is a line in one of M. Kei's poems, and as a result he, too, will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology. The title was selected because windows suggest glimpses into places otherwise hidden. Our anthology explores the themes of epiphanies in general, and epiphanies in a very individual light, thus offering window-like glimpses into each author's personal world. These glimpses are varied and as individual as each poet him/herself, which is why the title Many Windows is appropriate.
Butterfly Away should be available in Spring 2011, and Many Windows should be released in Summer 2011. To those who have inquired why it takes so long for the books to come to fruition, the answer is this: I had literally thousands of poems to read and selections were hard due to the high quality of work received, and limitations of space. That is only one step in the submisisons-to-print process. Books then have to be formatted, which is very time consuming when may different forms of poetry, with variations in structure and line length are present. After formatting comes proof-reading, which is where both books are now. From there, we work on cover design. The next step is for the book to go to the printer's. We don't use a print-on-demand business, because while POD books cost less for the publisher, they cost more for the reader. Our aim is to publish with integrity and quality, not to take the easy road, and our first and foremost concern is representing our poets well, and making a product that our readers will cherish.
The printer must send proofs for each stage of the production via postal mail, which takes approximately three weeks to reach my neck of the woods. If all goes smoothly, there will only be three stages. If there are glitches, there will four or more stages, each taking three or more weeks per step.
As soon as the books are ready for release, I'll post the information here and on the main www.magnapoets.com site.
More information is posted here, on our anthologies' pages.
