An erasure is a poem that starts out with a piece of existing text, but instead of adding to it, you subtract. Some poets cut words or sentences out with a knife, most write over it with a sharpie. The text they are altering could be a newspaper article, or a page from a book. They turn the prose into a poem by subtracting words and by using only the words given to them.

You can see a good example of an erasure poem here.

The writing prompt this week is for you to create an erasure poem. You can use a page (or pages) from an old book you rescued from the sidewalk or you can use the newspaper. You could also find a book online that is in the public domain and print one of the pages off. Personally if I am going to do an erasure I actually like to do the same page more than once and compare the results.

I highly recommend that you do this exercise without reading the whole page or article first. I find the poems tend to be more creative if you experiment that way.

Feel free to erase as much or as little as you want. Some people cover up a few words, others remove hundreds of words per page, leaving just a few. When you are creating your erasure do whatever feels natural to you.

When you are making your first erasure it is best to do it with a black marker or a sharpie, but as you make more, you might want to be more creative with how you cover up the words you don’t want to use.

Even individuals who edit as they go need to do one final read through in order to know that the whole thing makes sense. No gaping plot holes, no strange tense shifts, no funny typos. But even then, how can you be sure that it is ready for publication, or as close as it can be? The following three steps should be taken before you submit it to an agent or self publish it.

1. The first step is to wait a week, or ideally a month. This might seem unnecessary, and hard to do at the time, but this week or month break from your manuscript should help you look at it with fresh eyes.  You will have more perspective for your own self editing.

2. The second step is to print it out and read it. This may seem really obvious, but there are a lot of mistakes that are harder to catch on the computer than on paper where it is easier to read. Also you can edit directly on paper and then plug it into the computer afterwards.

3. The third step is actually something you can do during the first step, because it does not involve you reading the manuscript. Instead you should find a friend whose taste you trust, and get them to read the book. If you don’t have any friend that stands out as particularly well read you can try to find someone through a writing group, or even through an online forum.

When you give your book to them, make sure that if you have any pressing questions for them that they are written down at the end of the book, otherwise this friend might not give you the feedback you really need.

After you have done these last two rounds of editing based on your reading of the manuscript in print and the editing round based on your friends feedback, you should feel ready to submit your manuscript anywhere, or self publish it.

Ilk is easy to read and well organized, they have published a lot of established and emerging authors. They are new but are making a reputation for themselves as a journal that publishes good writing.

They publish six issues online a year. They organize their issues by author and they also always include a bio of the author. They accept very few of the poems that are submitted, under 5%.

Ilk also tends to have a quick turns around. After you submit your work expect to hear back from them within a month, but more likely within two weeks. Because they publish an issue every other month you should be able to see your work within six months.

Their next issue is women authors only, so no men can submit during this period. If you are a woman, you have to submit before June 15th. After that they will be open to submissions from everyone, so that any one can submit.

Submitting to Ilk is easy, all you have to do is send them up to six poems through their easy to use submission manager.

Ilk is a good journal to submit to right now because they are quickly on their way to becoming more established. Their editors have good taste, they choose good work, and they present it in an easy to read manner. Their website is here: http://ilkjournal.com/

Moon City Review is established and has a good reputation. They are published once a year through the University of Arkansas Press, even though the Review itself is edited by creative writing faculty and students from Missouri State University.

They accept less then 5% of the work that is submitted to them. Their response time is not ideal. It generally takes them up to three months to respond to submissions. This response time is even slower in the summer months due to the academic nature of this journal. Slow response times are common among academic journals, so this is not unusual.

Moon City Review does not pay their authors generally, however they are currently running a fiction contest. The contest is open to submission until the 1st of October, 2013. The contest costs $25 to enter, but if you win the prize is$ 1,000, and publication in the Moon City Review, plus of course, bragging rights. Three additional finalists will be named and published. The short story should be between 35,000 and 65,000 words.

Moon City Review accepts regular submissions through Submittable. They do not charge a reading fee for any of the non contest based submissions. They expect a cover letter when you submit. All work accepted this year will be published in 2014.

In conclusion Moon City is a great journal with an exciting contest opportunity. You can submit at their website: http://mooncitypress.com/mcr/