We definitely appreciate the many submissions we receive for each issue of moonShine review.  We love your writings, and I am here as an independent publisher to give voice to independent writers who are trying to have their first (or third, or tenth) unpublished work out there for the world to read.  (Photographers, please note this post is about the writers submitting.)

But, sometimes, you make my job harder.

Perhaps it is my fault.  Perhaps I made the guidelines too lengthy, too descriptive.  I did that because, a few years ago, we found that about 50% of the writers who submitted did not follow our submission guidelines.  I thought that was a result of us not being clear enough, so I rewrote the guidelines to be more exact, more precise, more detailed.  It doesn’t seem to have helped.  We still receive about 50% that do not meet guidelines.

As I said, we receive a lot of submissions.  We really don’t have the time to wade through those that do not meet our guidelines, nor go back and forth with authors who do not provide what we need, in the way we require it.   But we do anyway.

That results in me spending 50% MORE time to ready your submission for the judges. So, a submission that comes in meeting all our guidelines takes me about 5 minutes to process, and a submission that does not meet all the guidelines takes at least 15 to 30 minutes to process (depending on how many guidelines it does not meet and how many communications go back to the author).

Multiply that by the number of submissions, and you know why we don’t meet the dates we commit to for response or publication.  (NOTE: The least number of submissions we ever received, during the first two years we were in publication, was 50.  That still took up many hours.)

Those that follow the guidelines—THANK YOU!  Those that don’t, please understand I really hate stressing this, but you cost me time and money.  It’s cliché to say, yet there really are only 24 hours in the day.  If I spend extra time on one thing, something else has to suffer.  (I have a full-time job beyond this publishing endeavor, just to note.)

So, ask yourself this: Would you like me to spend my time on the process of logging in your submission or would you like me to spend my time considering the writing itself, reading IT carefully and giving you my full attention and you full credit for your writing?

Depending on your answer, you may or may not want to revisit our submissions guidelines page:

http://moonshinereview.wordpress.com/main/.

If you really cannot click the mouse and read the guidelines, then please, at least, meet my top 3 requirements (and I’ll even tell you why):

(1) Do NOT put your name anywhere on the piece itself—we judge anonymously.  WHY is this important? Because you want to be judged on your writing’s merit, but from my perspective… it’s easy enough for me to revise a doc submitted via email in soft copy, but it still takes time.  If you submit in hard copy, imagine yourself cutting and pasting little white strips of paper across names and personal info on every page of a story (white out doesn’t work, folks) and then scanning that into a computer —and scanning into the computer is not a matter of placing all the sheets into the feeder, but placing each page individually on the scanner face, scanning, saving, printing, then the next… and the next… and the next…

(2) Include ALL your contact info and your bio (mailing address, email, phone) in the body of the email or on a cover sheet when you submit.  WHY is this important?  I log every entry the moment it comes in, give it a number, and have a spreadsheet with all your info so that we know, when your piece is chosen, who to contact and where to mail your complimentary copy!  In this, the hard copy submitters get it right 99% of the time, but email submitters don’t.  It takes time to email back and forth to ask you for information you should assume I need in the first place.

(NOTE: I wanted to make #3 about how to format your story/piece, but I’ve almost given up on that happening.)

(3) Your bio needs to be 50 words or less and written in the THIRD PERSON.  WHY is this important?  We have limited space.  I love your life stories, but I’m still going to edit them to 50 words (even when you do meet 50 words, if it’s in first person, I rewrite it in third person and have to adjust your sentences).  I have rewritten so many bios over the years, I am very likely to screw something up!  You don’t want me to be responsible for your bio not saying what you want it to say, but I have limited space and a printing budget.  The stories take precedence.  The bios are limited to 3-4 pages.  If yours is too long, I will revise it, but I hate to.  (And, almost as important, I suggest you make your bio creative, but I think I’ll change that to require.  Our journal is all about creativity.  You can list places you’ve been published, but give us something personal to share with the readers.  Read my bio, or Leslie’s, or Beth’s, or the featured photographer’s every time, or any past issue to gain a perspective.)

My #1 would have been, just read the “about page” on our website, but if you want to, you already have.  If you don’t, you never will.  Still, I get at least 20 writers a season ask me this: “What theme do you have this time?” or “What is your journal about?”  Among publishers, those are “Kill Questions.”  It’s on the website.

Which brings me to… I’m not asking anything special of you that any other publisher wouldn’t ask.  Read our guidelines.  I trust you are serious writers: be serious “submitters” too.  Respect me the way I respect you.

Thank you all for your continued support, and I really do value your input.  If the guidelines are, in any way, unclear, please email me directly and let me know: moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.  I am ALWAYS open to feedback and improvement of our journal and our website.

Thanks,

Anne M. Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

Before submitting, please review our submissions guidelines on the website and our ”About moonShine review” page. I also encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a wide variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.

Please feel free to email any questions you may have to mooneshinereview@carolina.rr.com, but always check the guidelines on the website FIRST, as many questions are readily answered.

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks

Executive Editor and Publisher

As the sun sets on this issue of moonShine review, I see a glorious richness of colors blending on the horizon—a typical and fitting November skyline, especially considering the content herein.

Initially, these stories appear to be painted in vivid diversity. Broad strokes mark the transitions from one piece to the next as we move from avant silhouettes of loneliness to abstract portraits of familial love. We are tinted by faith and shaded through desire, etched in fire and brushed with tragedy.

But, together, the authors have drawn one canvas of thought: how we are connected in life to one another and the importance of choice—whether we choose or someone else chooses for us. We all live in fear and hope, amidst adversity and love, and the characters portrayed here know this intimately.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:

Dede Norungolo, featured photographer

Authors: Terry Barr, Vicki Collins, Steve Cushman, Steve Fayer, Karen Luke Jackson, Sandra Redding, Carol Roan, Peg Steiner, Bob Strother, Richard Allen Taylor, Margo Williams, Tamra Wilson, Douglas Wyant

The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues.

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks, Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth A. Cagle, Senior Editor

Leslie M. Rupracht, Associate Editor

Before submitting, please review our submissions guidelines on the website and our ”About moonShine review” page. I also encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a wide variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.

Please feel free to email any questions you may have to mooneshinereview@carolina.rr.com, but always check the guidelines on the website FIRST, as many questions are readily answered.

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks

Executive Editor and Publisher

We have traveled near and far to bring together this issue of moonShine review. These stories present journeys, literally and metaphorically, as characters wander—through bleak, bland, or beautiful landscapes; via memory or imagination—toward new perspectives. They don’t necessarily reach better places, but they, and we, do achieve greater awareness and understanding.

Vagabonds and well-to-do’s merge to form the most coalesced issue we’ve ever published. More than ever, I encourage you to read this journal in order from first page to last. As always, our writers show us a common thread that becomes the theme, but rarely do the stories knit together as if they were just waiting to meet each other.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:

Eleanor Leonne Bennett, featured photographer

Authors: Terry Barr (Greenville, SC), Steve Fayer (Boston, MA), Maureen Ryan Griffin (Charlotte, NC), Jennifer Happensack (Charlotte, NC), Kimberlyn Blum-Hyclak (Lancaster, SC), Charles Israel, Jr. (Charlotte, NC), Kitty Liang (Davis, CA), Virginia M. Mohlere (Spring, TX), Gary V. Powell (Cornelius, NC), Katie M. Rupracht (Central Square, NY), Bob Strother (Greenville, SC), and Nancy Young (Fuquay-Varina, NC)

The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues.

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks, Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth A. Cagle, Senior Editor

Leslie M. Rupracht, Photography & Copy Editor

Though we still have a few “kinks” to work out in our process, updating our submissions to include email submissions has been a great decision—and brought out many NEW writers!  Since that’s what we’re all about, I’m so very pleased.

By the next time, hopefully, we should have a web submission process in place, but meanwhile, I think we’ve kept up with everything.  IF, however, you have NOT heard a response from me that I received your email submission, please let me know by emailing me at moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Otherwise, moonShine review submissions are officially closed for this Spring Issue, and anything we receive from here on out (not postmarked, via snail mail, March 1) will be considered for the fall issue (deadline – September 1).

On other news,

I have to inform all of our wonderful readership (and submitters) that our staff has changed somewhat.  Due to timing issues and commitments on all parts, Leslie M. Rupracht continues to be our photographer editor and proofeditor but will not be a prose judge for the upcoming issue.

Claire Armstrong, who has been a fabulous member of our team these past several issues, will no longer be on the staff (though I know she will continue to support us and help with events as needed).  To you, Claire, THANK YOU!  The good news is that we hope to see Claire as a submitter again in the near future!

Again, my sincere thanks to all of you who keep up with moonShine and support us so much—through your submissions, purchases, and words of encouragement.

We couldn’t do it without you!

Blessings to you and yours,

Anne M. Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher, moonShine review

Before submitting, please review our submissions guidelines on the website and our ”About moonShine review” page. I also encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a wide variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.

Please feel free to email any questions you may have to mooneshinereview@carolina.rr.com, but always check the guidelines on the website FIRST, as many questions are readily answered.

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks

Executive Editor and Publisher

MOONSHINE REVIEW

Family is a complicated word. And, I confess, the most conflicted topic I can conceive.  So, when the stories came together this time and coalesced into an issue about family, I wasn’t surprised. The other editors confirmed what I saw—this is one of the most honest collections of stories we’ve ever had.

Whether repugnant, tragic, or just plain quirky, these characters speak openly of what family means. Generally, it has little to do with unconditional love. Sometimes, they express kindness in the way it’s meant; sometimes, they show the worst side of life. Often, these protagonists are laugh-out-loud funny, even when dark.

Through these stories, we are pushed to look beyond birthright to see not only what our parents made us, but also that we are so much more.  If we’re lucky, we develop the wisdom to expand our definition of family to include friends and partners—siblings beyond blood, siblings of mutual experience and understanding.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:

Terry Barr
Doris Thomas Browder
Vicki Collins
Julie Ann Cook
Toye Eskridge
Owen Harper
Holly Raychelle Hughes
Kathryn Etters Lovatt
Steve Mitchell
Jendi Reiter
Bob Strother
Elizabeth B. Watson
Myra Yeatts
and Featured Photographer, Lu G. Collazo

The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues.

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth Cagle Burt
Senior Editor

Claire Armstrong
Fiction Editor and Marketing Agent

Leslie M. Rupracht
Fiction & Photography Editor

Please, before submitting, FIRST read the “About moonShine review” page on our website to gain some insight as to what our journal is all about, then carefully read our “Submissions Guidelines.”  And I encourage writers to read one of our issues, if you have not already done so.  Photographers, I encourage you to pick up a sample issue, too, and remember that we feature only ONE photographer per issue, so providing a wide variety of sample photographs when submitting is important.

Please feel free to email any questions you may have to mooneshinereview@carolina.rr.com, but always check the guidelines on this website FIRST, as many questions are readily answered here.

Thanks so much.

Anne M. Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

We all seek magic in life—those allusive yet elusive moments when a miracle takes place and the wisdom to recognize it hits us in a euphoric blast; in that moment, we recognize the miraculous and revel in it.

Whether the characters within these pages achieve such connections or merely brush past them, readers are given the option to fully view that which, in the everyday, so easily escapes us.

The stories in this issue provide a canvas of juxtaposition: perceptions run the gamut from jaded to innocent, from honest grief to petty blustering. Still, concurrent themes emerge to give us a difficult to digest yet simple message: that tragedy and death are inevitable—the choice lies in how we respond—and that, even at our worst, we are capable of defying the easy way out and making true change to ourselves.

Special Thanks to the following contributors:
Peter Tieryas Liu
David Jordan
Richard Allen Taylor
Maureen Ryan Griffin
Holly Raychelle Hughes
Bob Strother
Ed R. Green
Kimberlyn Blum-Hyclak
Lisa Rubenson
Gary V. Powell
Jason Newport
And Featured Photographer Jessie Carty

The cost is $8.00 plus shipping & handling.  Please click on the following link to order through Paypal:

OR, for single or multiple copies or to pay by check, please inquire directly to moonshinereview@carolina.rr.com.

Please visit our submission guidelines on this site before submitting for future issues.

Thank you all for making this publication a reality!

Anne Hicks
Executive Editor and Publisher

Beth Cagle Burt
Senior Editor

Leslie M. Rupracht
Fiction & Photography Editor

Claire Armstrong
Fiction Editor and Marketing Agent