The Quilled Ink Review
Quilled Ink Press is proud to present the inaugural edition of The Quilled Ink Review, the new international literary journal featuring poetry, essays, and short stories.
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Being a self-funded, pure labour of love, we could think of no better way to begin than on that note. So, the theme of volume one is: ‘Ode To Love’, which has been beautifully captured in our cover art by Adiela Akoo.
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Submission was open from 20 September – 20 November 2022 (now closed)
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Criteria and guidelines can be found here
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We look forward to receiving your submissions interpreting this formidable force
An insight into small press publishing:
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Man proposes but God disposes!
Such has it been with this project. Our initial plan was to launch in February 2023 - what better month to launch an Ode to Love? Well, so we thought. But Fate stepped in with one crisis after another (including the brutal murder of a close relative, which left us reeling in shock). And no matter how much effort we put in behind the scenes thereafter, there seemed to be a brake on the whole project - a baby refusing to be born prematurely. So we stepped back and allowed it to gestate...
What transpired over the following months was something completely unplanned yet presented as a fated 'nudging' that culminated in a wonderful new line of merchandise! But there was still no sign of any baby...
Until now! (3 Dec 2023)
The water has finally broken and this beautiful baby has been birthed, crying loudly at the top of its lungs that the world needs LOVE, now more than ever!
So without further ado, Quilled Ink Press is proud to officially announce the talented writers who made the shortlist for Ode to Love, the inaugural edition of the Quilled Ink Review literary journal. With well over 200 submissions to choose from, whittling it down to the shortlist was not easy. Then came the mammoth task of getting 69 poems to converse with each other so that if one reads the book from cover to cover, the poems tell a combined story as well, while traversing the different phases of love and concluding with two delightful short stories.
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The Quilled Ink Review Vol.1 Short List:
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Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, Alisa Gillenardo, Ananya Jay, Anne Mikusinski, Annie Kile, Ann Privateer, Bob McNeil, Brenda Gunn, Carl “Papa” Palmer, Carol Edwards, David Agyei-Yeboah, David McVey, E. Martin Pedersen, Heidi Kasa, Hiram Larew, James Evert Jones, Jay Rose Ana, Jennifer Elise Wang, Joseph A Farina, J R (Judy) Turek, Koshy AV, Lee Eric Freedman, Linda M. Crate, Lynn White, Marianne Tefft, Melissa Chappell, Naser AlShaikhAhmed, Ojo Olumide Emmanuel, Odediran Olamide Deborah, Raj M. Isaac, Sergei Gogin, Sreekanth Kopuri, T. A. Niles, Tony Dawson, Tumwesige Emmanuel, Victoria Elizabeth Ruwi, Vincent J Calone, Vyacheslav Konoval, Yanjanani L. Banda - meet them here
Founder, Director, and Editor-in-Chief: Adiela Akoo
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'Within these pages, you will find a wonderfully eclectic mix (including Poet Laureates) of accomplished writers from across the world, some of whom we have the honour and privilege to publish for the very first time. And yet, the language of Love, in all its shades, remains the same. It begs you to pause for a moment, reflect, and bathe in its beauty. It begs you to see that poetry in itself is an act of Love, an act of healing, and that the stories too urge you to dance despite the darkness.
Our breath and focus are best spent on Love for what is Love but tapping into the music of our souls.
Welcome to this Ode to Love. '
-Adiela Akoo
If you'd like to know what we look for, here is a sample from Ode to Love
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Memory
I hold water at your feet and stir three cups of remembrance
Hoping you will walk into this ocean I bring to your doorstep
We danced once under the light of brokenness
Until our feet bled, gushing fever picks
It was love, but you said I whittled it gracelessly
My ocean ignited
Scorching the world I raised with bandaged dreams
Memory
We will walk back into love with a little more heart
And jars full of ready to forgive
We will scrub at our past with tenderness
Arranging the pages where our lives unfolded
And spilled over into edges
We will hold paper-thin hearts, rubbing salt on their creases
We will love what we are from the potter's vantage
Serving our hearts on a platter of fire and roses
Memory
We have learnt to take one step after another
To breathe and occupy spaces
We were never meant for the thriving
But for dying in awkward places
-Yanjanani L. Banda
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A Burden
As a bubble bursts in silence
somewhere in my blood, the
veins of some dying violins
tighten to play their last voices
and my eyes softly wink back
the salt into its noontides
of melted clocks that wash
only some cracked shells
ashore on these sprawling
sands where the unseen
footprints of seasons ask
something the sky pours
down on the sea to burden
it with more stillness.
-Sreekanth Kopuri
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Desiderate
One warm night.
Desire unfurls out of
the deep earth
where memory curls,
and uncurls at a
spark, the way the
light falls, stolen
seconds, the fear of
stolen memory.
The serpent sky
coils around us,
lights incandescent
floating above
in their watery spheres.
A wakeful crow
watches from a nearby
gathering of trees.
Our breath,
tattered wind,
our hands,
old cartographers,
making maps that
burn skin,
touched only now,
after all this time.
No one sees,
but the voyeur crow.
He sees
inhibitions
crumbling,
falling to the
dirty concrete
where we hide
in a store front,
abandoned
to us.
I cling to you
in this meadow
of asphalt,
rusted chrome,
and broken stone.
The sullied air
around us sleeps.
-Melissa Chappell
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'Pledged'
Long, long ago
you pledged your heart
etched your eternal love
causing you to constantly
keep washing up at my feet
like a half-forgotten
mystical message
in a bottle, cast into the sea
of souls, centuries ago!
Our paths constantly, curiously crossing
in a predetermined puzzle of perplexities
leaving us pondering, on the part played
by Providence - and the most loving hand
on a heart, etched with initials
carved into an ancient, magical tree
that still stands somewhere, bearing witness
long after the bodies, bearing initials
became fodder for its roots!
Lifetime after lifetime
we're magically, momentarily
drawn together, to decipher
soul memories, we vaguely recall...
-Adiela Akoo
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