Volume 07, Chapter 08 | June 2020

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Image from Getty Open Content Program

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Dear writers, readers and friends,

For most of us, life remains under some kind of lockdown and things feel pretty overwhelming. So, this month we have decided to focus on three good news items close to home.

Firstly, earlier this year our Deputy Editor, Lucie Stevens (http://www.luciestevens.com/) , won a residency at Varuna National Writer’s House (https://www.varuna.com.au/) in Australia. She was able to participate just before the lockdown came into force and now that she is back in Europe, Lucie has co-curated this month’s issue to highlight some of the finest voices of this prestigious residency programme. We are celebrating not just three great writers, but also Lucie who is a truly stellar writer (and VV editor) in her own right.

Our June writers are responding to a collage by an unknown artist, circa 1880, courtesy of Getty’s open content programme. This image was discovered by Judy Moore (https://twitter.com/ignatzhoch) , co-curator of our Daily Visual writing challenge on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/) . So our second good news item is that Judy has been releasing a brilliant weekly web-comic, Everything is Somewhat Repaired, which is a trans non-binary memoir. This has been the best thing in our inbox during the pandemic. You can get a pre-release of the comic by subscribing to their Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tomorjudy) page.

And finally, our state-side Editorial Assistant Luke Smith has accepted a place in the University of Montana’s Fiction MFA program and has been awarded a Truman Capote Scholarship. Luke has been an incredible asset to Visual Verse, volunteering several hours each month to publish your pieces. He will no doubt be a great asset to the MFA programme too and we can’t wait to read a book with his name on the cover.

Lucie, Judy and Luke, this issue is dedicated to you.

And now to our Veruna writers. On page one we feature Audrey Molloy (http://audreymolloy.com/) , an Irish poet based in Sydney. Her debut pamphlet, Satyress, was published in 2020 by Southword Editions. Her work has appeared in international publications including The North, Magma, Mslexia, The Moth and Meanjin. In 2019 she received the Hennessy Award for Emerging Poetry, the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and the An Post Irish Book Award for Irish Poem of the Year.

Vanessa O’Neill (https://www.bundanon.com.au/residents/vanessa-oneill/) is a playwright, performer and arts educator. She received a Fellowship from the University of Melbourne to write a play based upon the Germaine Greer Archive at the University. The play, The Greer Effect, has just been completed. It was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award and received the Eric Dark Fellowship for an outstanding work of non-fiction from Varuna National Writer’s House.

Lyn Yeowart (https://twitter.com/yeowartlyn?lang=en) is a Melbourne-based freelance writer, editor, manuscript assessor and mentor. Her debut novel, The Silent Listener, will be published by Penguin Random House Australia in February 2021. Set in the gothic heart of Australia, it explores themes of family secrets, revenge and the long-term ramifications of violence.

So, as June sees the midpoint of the year, what messages do you fancy sending us? You know the rules: write 50-500 words in response to our image and in the space of an hour, and send it to us by 15th June. We publish up to 100 of the best. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you…

Lucie, Preti, Kristen and Luke

Connect with us
@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/visual_verse?lang=en)
@VarunaWriters (https://twitter.com/VarunaWriters)
@Audrey_Molloy (https://twitter.com/Audrey_Molloy)
@YeowartLyn (https://twitter.com/YeowartLyn)
@ONeillVanessa (https://twitter.com/ONeillVanessa)

Start Timer (https://vclock.com/timer/#countdown=01:00:00&enabled=0&seconds=3600&title=Visual+Verse%3A+One+image.+One+Hour.+50-500+Words.+)
Submit (https://visualverse.org/submit/)

** #DailyVisual
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Don’t forget you can join us every day on Instagram for a 15-minute, 5-50 word writing challenge.
Visit Visual Verse Anthology on Instagram now… (https://www.instagram.com/visualverseanthology/)

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Volume 05, Chapter 04 | February 2018

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Image by Daniel Frost

Dear writers, readers and friends,

Here ye: we are shakin’ things up and making some changes to how we accept and publish submissions. These changes are intended to improve the process for you, our beloved writers, and help us to manage the growth of Visual Verse (something that continues to amaze us).
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New Submission Guidelines:

Henceforth we will release a new image on the 1st of each calendar month (as we do now) and accept submissions up until the 15th of the month. We will publish up to 100 submissions over the course of the month, no more. The other rules remain the same: 50-500 words, written within an hour, in response to the image. The writing must be new and original. Read more about our publishing policy (https://visualverse.org/about-visual-verse/) on the website.

We are excited to see how these changes pan out over the coming months. Both the deadline and the cap on submissions mean that we can focus on publishing the best of what comes in and ensure that these pieces are showcased on the site while the issue is still live. Please let us know if you have any feedback, either now or in the future when the new rules are underway. Email us at visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com (mailto:mailto: visualverse@thecurvedhouse.com) anytime.
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And now, without further ado, we present this wonderful, whimsical painting by Daniel Frost, an artist and illustrator whose work we have admired for so many years. Do your eyes a favour and follow his Instagram: @danielfrostillustration (https://www.instagram.com/danielfrostillustration) .

Our lead response comes from Megan Hunter, a hugely talented writer who is fast building an impressive body of work. Megan was born in Manchester in 1984, and studied English Literature at Sussex and Cambridge. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and she was a finalist for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. Her first book, The End We Start From, was published in 2017 in the UK, US, and Canada, and has been translated into seven languages. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the 2017 Books Are My Bag Readers Awards and is longlisted for the Aspen Words Prize.

Megan has a long-standing relationship with Visual Verse. She says:

I started writing pieces for Visual Verse a few years ago, before I’d had anything published. I was working in an office and the visual prompts were an ideal creative stimulus during my lunch hour! I found the process of responding to an image, particularly within a one hour time frame, gave a freedom to my work that was so important when figuring out what I wanted to write, and is still so useful now. I think Visual Verse was probably the first time I’d ever seen my name ‘in print’ online, and it’s a real honour to now be writing the lead piece.

We’re pretty chuffed about that.

On page 2 we feature Maisie Chan, a published writer from Birmingham who now lives in Glasgow. She was recently commissioned to write stories for the Human Values Foundation and has also been published in the Penguin decibel Anthology The Map of Me. Maisie won the BBC Writersroom Competition BBC Bites and was a finalist in the 2015 Creative Futures Literary Awards. During 2016-2017, she was chosen for the Megaphone – an Arts Council/Publisher’s Association project to mentor and develop BAME writers writing their first novel for children or teens. Maisie has taught creative writing to children and adults and was an Arvon tutor in 2009. She is working on her first novel for teens about a fifteen-year-old British Chinese girl whose grandfather has early-onset Alzheimers.

Our next writer, Melissa Fu, grew up in Northern New Mexico and currently lives in Cambridgeshire, UK. Her work appears in many journals including The Lonely Crowd, International Literature Showcase, Skin Deep, and The Nottingham Review. In 2017, she was the regional winner of Words and Women’s Prose Competition and one of four Apprentices with the London-based Word Factory.

And on page 4 we have Yen Ooi, one of our favourite publishing people and a regular Visual Verse contributor. Dirty diapers, science fiction, and CreateThinkDo (http://createthinkdo.com/) is about all Yen has time for nowadays, but she did manage to pen this little piece and connect our February issue to another dimension…
There it is, writers. Submit before 15th February and as always, enjoy the challenge. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.

Kristen, Preti and Lucie

Find us on Twitter

@visual_verse (https://twitter.com/@visual_verse)
@meganfnhunter (https://twitter.com/meganfnhunter)
@MaisieWrites (https://twitter.com/@MaisieWrites)
@WritingCircles (https://twitter.com/WritingCircles)
@yenooi (https://twitter.com/@yenooi)

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