hi, i'm christopher kuhl a poet originallyfrom the adirondacks of new york currently living in the mid-west i have published poetryin a variety of journals including lulang review, the alabama literary review, and prarieschooner i've also published 2 books and they have done very, very well writer's reliefis an advantage to me because they take care of all of the submission issues and that leavesme plenty of time to write it gives me a luxury that i don't otherwise have the other advantageof writer's relief is that they have access to a knowledge of more journals than you'regoing to find even in the poet's market i have also written a 3rd book splitting thetree freestyle haiku which was rejected by the publishers and instead of being depressedabout that i was kind of glad because as it
was a way for me at the publishers being reviewedi noticed that in my mind the book was seeming weaker and weaker in spots it was uneven andthat's what they said although they gave me a great deal of encouragement however it wasn'ta downer to be rejected for my book because i learned a lot writing about writing in thatbook and some of the things i learned are true not just for haiku but also for regularpoetry average-length poetry not haiku and some of those things we all know as writersyou ought to have a sharp focus sharp images concise language and precision now since thatbook as i said i learned a lot from writing it and now my poems are more wide-rangingnot only in content but in style and form the luxury of time that writer's relief gaveme gives me also has also let me write in
the last 8 months 40 poems roughly writer'sreview has not seen all of them i don't know if they will see all of them some i may wantto re-work and that's the other thing you can do you have enough time to write and reviseand revise and revise and that's the writer's nightmare actually i think revising is themost fun of all i know that i'm a writer now in a way i didn't know before when i had kneesurgery i got a new knee at the end of january and i've been having rehab physical therapyto rehab that knee and during the time i was so taken up with rehab that i didn't havetime to write and the longer i went without writing the crappier i got so finally thisweek as i'm speaking to you now and today it's february 26th, 2014 i finally have startedwriting again and i feel really good and that
hiatus of a month of not writing might havebeen a good thing i think sometimes writers need to take some time off even though wheni was taking time off i was still making notes in my little notebook of things that i wantedto turn into poems but having a break from the writing when you come back you're refreshedand so on and the writer's relief is very supportive they give you feedback on grammarand punctuation and things like that if you're messing something up or it's not clear andthat's been a big help too what i would like to say in closing is that writing is a passionand if you do it you need always to do it but you want to get it published and it'shard to do your submissions and write at the same time since writer's review takes careof all the publishing parts of the submission
part you don't have to worry about that andyou can devote your time to writing with the occasional every 2 months sending 2-5 poemsto writer's relief it would be the same for short fiction or whatever and finally justin closing i want to share this with you because i'm just so glad and so relieved and not crabbyanymore a new poem i wrote this is the first one i wrote since i've had my surgery so it'sbeen a month it's called "words" "stone against steel, words ring like that, posts hammeredinto the ground, echoes fenced in across the field, if i could i would turn morning totwilight, weeds to ash, words would fade like so many seasons, silence would let you hearthe earth move" and if you publish that anywhere i'm going after you i have rights to thatpoem so i hope you can find use in writer's
relief but they're really wonderful i feelreally good i feel like i'm writing really well now and it's just been a blessing soif you can get with them do it if you can't just chug along keep writing, keep writing,keep writing and revising thank you
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