In case you were wondering why we offer OmnyStudio as a platform for our Weird Tales Radio Show podcasts... it is because it has a brilliant feature called Chapter Markers. These allow you to see each episode's contents at a glance and click straight through to the stories, interviews or music you want to hear first or listen to again, thereby giving you complete control of your listening experience. It's the difference between an audio cassette tape and a CD or a video VCR tape and a DvD. And it's free for you to use.

We've a treat for you now: two new poems by Beth Cato. The first – So Old – is an interesting take on a Mad Max-style dystopia, while the second – The Border Cowboy at the Border – is something I've never seen before: a Western meets the Fae mashup. And it works! Read them both HERE

"Make it new" wrote Ezra Pound in 1934. Or at least make it original!

One of the biggest complaints you hear from magazine editors and competition judges is that so much of the contributions they received are the same-old, same-old. They are just not original enough top stand out from the crowd.

Now the point is contributors are not being unoriginal in the sense of copying or plagiarising other writers' work. Rather the issue is their ideas are not original enough, they are writing stories and poetry covering topics that we've all read before.

For example, here on the Grievous Angel we receive a lot of flash fiction where the denouement – or punch line – is one we already know. In fact sometimes we can work out what the ending is going to be from the opening paragraph – because we've seen it before. 

Oh, what a surprise, the mystery lover turns out to be a vampire. Or, it's a version of The Sixth Sense movie "I can see dead people." Or, a rather old fashioned middle-aged white man saves the universe. (Yes, people are still writing science fiction stories that could have been written in the 1940s. Or earlier.)

Currently we are receiving a lot of stories where either Donald Trump or someone clearly based on President Trump starts an Armageddon-inducing nuclear war. Now I can understand why some people may think this but it is no longer an original story concept. Similarly stories dressed Wikipedia-style entries or Facebook postings have also been done to death.

And it's the same with poetry.

Too many vampire lovers and, as far as the Grievous Angel is concerned, too many poems written in the gothick style of Edgar Allan Poe. We haven't had many Trump poems yet but it is only a matter of time. I recall one UK poetry editor lamenting about 20 years ago, sometime after the death of Princess Diana, that magazines and competitions were being swamped with odes to the late "People's Princess". 

Yes, of course you have a right to express yourself about subjects close to your heart. By all means write poetry but just bear in mind you may not be alone and your work may be lost in the herd with a thousand similar entries.

Regardless of the genre. Regardless of the form, editors and judges want to read submissions that are novel, that they haven't seen before, that make them want to go "Wow!"