I have a few success stories to crow about, so I’ll let them all go here.
First, I’m proud to have three poems in the anthology As the World Burns published by Indie Blue. I get a special thrill that my third entry is the poem that closes the collection. Yes, my desk is a mess but I can’t tidy it because of the ladybirds hibernating on it.
Second reason to be cheerful, a haibun of mine is one of the Ekphrastic Review’s five nominations for the Sonder Press’s Best Small Fictions anthology!
Third—my second collection of poems, birds and other feathers will be available in kindle version from November 27th (husband’s birthday) but the print version will have to wait until I’ve seen a proof copy, and that is in the hands of the postal service.
And last, but not least, I have finished another novel! I know, I do this often and nothing happens. One day though, I hope to be able to say, and somebody has picked it up.
Jane Dougherty Writes 
Nice! Congrats.
Thanks! I saw your haibun in the anthology and recognised it from an earlier version, a similar theme. Congrats to you too 🙂
Thanks. I’ll get my copy asap and brag about it too!
You can brag without the copy 🙂
Yeah? Perhaps I’ll do that.
Go ahead. Amazon has all the links and the cover photo.
Jane, you are, surely, a machine; unstoppable, it seems! Bravo!
I love the cover to ‘birds & other feathers’ – classic; class; cool.
Thank you! They gave me a pantechnicon engine instead of a cinquecento, I think 🙂
Glad you like the cover. I can only do simple as I can’t get any sense out of apps like photoshop. They look like hospital monitors to me.
Ah, that would explain the stamina. The cover, as I say, is ace. Eurgh, monitors!
Thanks! Hospital monitors for me will always be the awful fascination of watching the contractions going off the scale…
… the giddy confusion of numbers and lines!
And the contractions! 🙂
Better than listening for the beep beep beep and waiting for the baby’s heart to stop beating!
Wow! Such wonderful news! Congratulations!
(I’m a bit exclamation mark crazy with excitement.) 😀
Well, you’re in the anthology too! (another one) I’d have tweeted yours but I can’t get double page photos.
Aww–thanks. I saw you did yours, so I did one of mine–shrunk it onto a page and took a screen shot. 😏
Clever! It’s a good poem, very Merril and although it’s a poem about a broken world, it ends on such a hopeful note!
Thank you! Yes, typical me, I suppose. 😀
It’s good to have a recognisable style. A ‘good’ recognisable style that doesn’t make the reader groan and skip to the next poem 🙂 (your style is the opposite to that one)
Well, thank you for that!
Yes, there are some poets. . .
Your style is also recognizable and the opposite of that. (Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?) 😀
I think we both fall into the category of poets who write stuff that is reasonably easy to understand. I intend to keep it that way 🙂
😀. If I tried to be obscure, it would just be an affectation.
I know what you mean 🙂
Oh wow, Jane, what great news. Congrats!
Have you thought of self-publishing the novel too?
Thank you!
No, I’m not self-publishing novels. It’s too heart-breaking all the work that goes into writing, editing, formatting, for nobody to even read it. And they won’t, unless I were to spend a fortune on promotion. Which isn’t going to happen.
In that case, fingers crossed.
If God is looking for a good deed to do, a quick miracle…
That’s quite a lot to crow about, WOW — congratulations! I love the cover design on “birds and other feathers” — great vibe. What the new novel about?
Thank you! I like the effect too. I only do simple 🙂
The novel? The usual; sea monsters, rape, beheadings, magic, incest, shape-shifting. The kind of stuff nobody is interested in.
Sounds interesting to me!
🙂
Congratulations Jane.
Thank you 🙂
Woohoo, get you 💜
Good innit?
Yes indeed ☺️
Thanks, Willow 🙂
Congratulations Jane!!”👍💃🌸🎉🌈❤
Thank you, Suzette!
Pleasure indeed❤😊
🙂
🥳 Congrats😁
Thanks!
😁
Well done Jane!!
Thank you!
Congratulations all around! (K)
Thanks! Small achievements but a lot of hard work.
Big ticks all round Jane!
Thank you, Geoff!
Congratulations, Jane! It works best for you, and thats great! Michael
Getting snippets of good news is always a boost to morale!
Indeed! Well deserved Jane! Enjoy your evening! Michael
You too 🙂
Haha, very cool. Looks like a wonderful book. And that cover art… 😀
Thanks! The benefit of not being able to make any sense out of graphic design apps is that I have to use the ones for kids that only do simple things.
Nice post
Thank you!
Congratulations on your accomplishments! I remember when a poem of mine was selected for an anthology; it was very exciting. I too published a book of poetry on Amazon, and am working on my second novel. I understand the frustration of waiting for your book to be picked up! I’ve had over 70 rejections so far on my first one. But as the agents keep reminding me reach time they so kindly say NO (lol), the market is subjective! They have to push what is selling at the time. I try to use it as motivation for my current book, because who knows… maybe it will be what’s tending before the first one ever is🤷♀️
I’m going to follow your blog and your progress- you should come visit me and check out my work! Have a good one 🙂
Thank you 🙂 I’ll just keep on adding to the pile of unpublished manuscripts. As you say, one day fashion will change and maybe what I write will be considered ‘mainstream’ enough for a publisher to be interested in it.
I remember trying to access your blog weeks ago and couldn’t. There still isn’t a link to it. Your blog isn’t installed properly for some reason.
Shoot. I’ve acquired a few followers, so I don’t know what the issue would be. It’s southpawpoet.org on a Google search 🤷♀️
Anyway regarding getting published, it can definitely be disheartening. But I try to use each rejection as fuel to the fire rather than get discouraged. Good luck!
You need to get your blog linked up to all the other WP blogs so people can find you in their reader, and also so you leave a link to you blog with your comments otherwise nobody will be able to find you.
If you’re getting rejections that’s something. Most agents don’t even bother sending out form rejections.
Congrats on you things to crow about. I’d crow too.
Thank you! We need these little milestones to prove we’ve moved on.