News

The April issue will be out on April 1, 2013. It will be an issue of eight or nine pieces including fiction, poetry and a couple of non-fiction pieces. This is continuing in line with our smaller issues policy from the start of this year.

Writers will be hearing in the next few days if their work is in or out.

Writing Process and Editing

We hope to be making an announcement on something new to help new and aspiring writers very soon. As soon as we have things confirmed, we will make it public. This fits with our aim of trying to help new writers and non-native writers. We remain fully committed to encouraging and supporting non-native writers.

Writers’ Group

The International Writers Group, which will be independent of Eastlit, has been set up. It is on Facebook as a Facebook page. Google stopped supporting Google Communities. Please take a look if interested. It is open to anyone writing in English. It is also open to those interested in writing and readers. Using Facebook means that writers can take advantage of easy ways to share, edit, co-write or seek opinions. This can also be done in a private way with only chosen people or publicly. That is up to the writer. Using Facebook does though mean you will need a Facebook account. But who doesn’t have one these days!

Right now the group is very new and small. We are actively seeking new members, so if you have friends who may be interested please let them know. The aim is to make this a group for the members and not have it dominated by a few.

Most of all we would love to hear your ideas. You can contact us in the community, through the usual channels here or via our g mail account.

Future Eastlit Issues

We are now taking submissions for our May and June issues. We are accepting fiction, poetry, non-fiction, relevant essays, novel extracts and photographs. If you have not submitted before, please take a look at our submission guidelines before sending work in.

We actively encourage non-native writers to send work in. See our commitment to supporting new writers.

Finally

If you do support our aims or even just enjoy the work, please do like or share us from the links at the bottom.

Cheers.

Graham.

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The group would be there for writers and others to support each other, offer advice on work, read and maybe edit. However, away from that it could also be a place to discuss literature, books, poems and even become a place for like minded people to discuss what they wanted. From my perspective, I would also love it to be a place that warmly welcomes non-native writers, and provides the support and assistance to help them write or say what they want.

At the moment it is early days, but there is discussion of what platform to use. At the moment using Google+ seems favourite. This is because Google documents is an excellent platform for sharing and commenting. The only downside, is that members need a g-mail account. Other possible options are a WordPress.com or similar blog platform. Yahoo and Facebook seem to not be popular as they offer less.

I guess at this stage, though, it would be great to hear from you our readers and writers. I think it should be open to both readers and writers. Are you interested? If so, please let us know. What would you like to see in a group? What would you like to bring to bring to a group if anything?

Please contact us if interested, so we can get an idea of initial numbers. You can also find us on Facebook or Google+ (no more!) and leave messages on these. And if you have any questions, please ask!

Cheers.

Graham.

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In spite of being a smaller issue, the Eastlit February issue is getting a lot of views. The number of readers is increasing every month right now. Thank you to our readers. Thank you also to the contributors for the poetry and prose that is attracting people.

After three issues, it feels like things are settling down a little. The crazy rushed feeling of November through January has now gone. It is now a time when we can consider new developments. While we do this, we will stick to the current format. Hopefully we can keep a nice mix of poetry and prose and writers new and experienced while adding something new as we go.

March and April Issues.

These will continue in the slimmer format for now. We are taking submissions for both of these issues now, so send them in! Please read the submission guidelines before submitting. We encourage non-native writers to submit work and will give assistance where needed.

Photographs

If you have photos, pictures or artwork from or connected to the region, we are very interested in using it on our front covers. As usual you retain all rights, and just grant us a license to publish it by submitting to us. We would also consider publishing artwork or pictures linked to a story if authors want this.

Previously Published Writers

If you had work published by Eastlit in the December or January issue, you are clear to submit more for the March issue. Writers and poets published in the February issue can submit work for the April issue. You can send it in at any time as we mark it for the next issue you can appear in, so don’t delay!

Chinese New Year

We at Eastlit would like to wish everyone who celebrates it, a Great Chinese New Year, and a wonderful year of the snake.

Other February 2013 News

We are still working on getting more involvement from the few places that are yet to feature in Eastlit. Indonesia remains top of that list, and we may have a development for one of the next issues. Fingers crossed.

There are a few things we at Eastlit will now put more energy into. The first is the writers’ group. The others are the Eastlit app and the possible greater involvement of some of our more regular contributors. More news on these as they arise. If anyone wants to volunteer for anything from writers’ groups to editing assistance, let us know.

You can also get all this news from our newsletter. Sign up now to have the news sent to you.

Finally

I would like to say a personal thank you to all of you who have had contact. After three or four months and looking back, it has been a great experience from my perpsective.

Cheers.

Graham.

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Information for Writers Published in Eastlit

Any writer published in an issue of Eastlit will not be published in the next issue. For example, if you were published in issue one, the next one you can be considered for will be issue three. Of course you can submit work at any time. We will just decide what issue to consider it for. Please keep those submissions coming in!

Eastlit Newsletter

We now have an Eastlit newsletter ready to launch soon. If you want news sent direct to you, Sign up for our free newsletter! Of course, if you prefer to follow us on social networks or by checking the site, that is great. From time to time the newsletter may contain unique information.

February Issue

This issue will see the launch of book reviews. We are accepting submissions of these now.

Writers Group

We are looking to launch a writers group around February or March 2013. This will be associated with Eastlit. However, we do not want it to be an Eastlit exclusive. The group will be open to anyone. We want this group to be an active group. We also want this group to be a place where writers can feel free to express themselves, and where everyone will be regarded as an equal. We also encourage non-native writers to join. More on this as we get nearer the time. However, if you are interested contact us and we will keep you informed.

Other News

We would like to add another editor to read submissions. If you are interested contact admin. We would ideally like to have a non-native editor from within our region. However, we realize this may not be possible. We are also open to the idea of guest editors who cover only one month each.

I am still working on the app. Finding time is not easy.

We hope to start sharing news and updates from our contributors, too. This will be in these news segments or in our newsletter.

Contributors for the January issue will start to hear if they will be published in the next seven to ten days.

And that is enough for this one.

Cheers.

Graham.

The post News appeared first on Eastlit.

News on Issues 1 and 2:

It is only a week until the first issue is out. For this issue we were aiming at a maximum of 12 pages. It looks like the December 2012 issue will come in at either 10 or 11. We are still waiting on a change to one piece. It is a pretty exciting time for us.

We are now taking submissions for the January issue. We already have a number and so far they are all from within the region! In issue two we will have completely different writers and poets. In this January Issue we also hope to have more pages. We have more time and less distractions for this one. So keep those pieces coming in!

News on Submissions:

The submission guidelines have been changed. We have learnt we need to tighten things up to avoid having to reject too much from outside the region. Most changes affect writers outside East and South East Asia. We want writers to explain how their work connects now. We still encourage writers outside especially those from regional ethnic roots living abroad, or those writing about the region. However, there can be many ways of seeing connection to East our region, and we encourage writers to explain how. We are pretty open minded.

Other News:

I am still working on the mobile app. The plan is to trial it after the first issue. This will be for Android. If it successful, we will move to iOS and Windows.

We are planning an Eastlit writers group. This will be announced fairly soon.

We are not planning a forum. We are also not planning open comments at this point.

These news posts will be weekly.

Cheers.

Graham.

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