By Sandra Tyler, Editor-in-Chief
With so much activity on WTP, I thought I’d start a monthly roundup “column” of sorts. And as the original lone voice behind The Woven Tale Press, I am looking to sustain my initial personal connection with our readers and contributors. So will see how it takes shape!
Since I started WTP, what began as a magazine has expanded into a full-fledged enterprise, with rolling updates on the latest creative—thrice weekly postings on our site have swelled to almost daily. WTP has now aggregated a dedicated and prolific staff, not to mention our supportive contributing editors, willing souls who believe in our mission and do indeed generously contribute their time, terrific talents, and expertise.
With this growth have come changes. We continue to post our customary arts and writing features, interviews now most adroitly conducted by WTP Feature Editor Emily Jaeger – you really don’t want to miss her thought-provoking exchanges with artists and writers alike: this month, with Patty Solmo on the art of memoir writing; and artist Teresa Stanley on “The dance between the scientific inquiry and the artistic one.” Among others!
Particularly new to WTP are our reviews, which you will find on our blog:
Book Reviews: Second Tuesday of every month, look for “Eye on the Indies” by our WTP staff book reviewer Lanie Tankard. Unique to this focus on Indie writers is Tankard’s insight into their actual publishers – writers just breaking into this market will want to keep their own eye on these reviews.
As well, periodically we offer “Latest Reads,” most recently, book reviews by contributing editors Joyce Peseroff, of poetry collection Versed by Rae Armantrout, and Richard Gilbert, of “serial memoirist” Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing.
Exhibition reviews: Realistically, most WTP readers are not actually going to be able to attend these exhibitions, so our intent is to bring our own experience into the realm of our readers. We are interested perhaps more in offering insight than actual critique, and we work with curators to obtain detailed press images, ones that do true justice to the actual artworks, as in my review of Agnus Martin at the Guggenheim. We welcome your own reviews, as long as you obtain permission from the gallery. You can forward those directly to me.
Website Reviews: This is brand new unchartered territory for us, but certainly relevant to what we are about. Twice monthly we will be alternating between art and literary “Bookmarks,” edited by Donald Kolberg and DeWitt Henry respectively. These posts are meant to be brief but discerning mentions of websites our editors have culled from the Web, ones you may want to bookmark yourself.
Then there are our more in-depth reviews, of websites we deem fresh and engaging interest for our readers: resourceful and even strategic sites such as Poetry Conversation and Draft No.4; truly creative gems such as Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour; and of real quirky intrigue, thebaumer.com.
If you have a site you would like to see reviewed, visit our website submit page. And you too can write for us!
Well, that all seems like quite a round up, you think? Long gone are the days of my merely plastering the cover of the latest issue on our home page and calling it a day. Speaking of, please note! Beginning 2017 the magazine will remain free, but subscriptions will be required. Yes, our overall traffic and Google analytics will always count for a lot going forward. But growing our actual subscription base is equally important to securing the future of The Woven Tale Press. So before you leave, please take two seconds to subscribe!