Guest-editing "qarrtsiluni" with poet Ivy Alvarez

Call for Submissions:
Insecta at qarrtsiluni.

We live in a kingdom of insects. Glancing from the infinitesimally small fairyfly to the giant stick insect, we find that this is a weird and various world. The catalogue of nocturnal moths, thrips, butterflies, caddisflies, angel insects, snow fleas, bristletails, mayflies, silverfish, and bugs is endless and the names evocative.

For this issue of qarrtsiluni, we are interested in art — poem, painting, story, nonfiction, photograph — inspired by insects. We are equally interested in writing about insects, being just as enamored by Thoreau’s ant battle in Walden as Frost’s butterflies, “Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above, / Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.”

We expect a wild variety of explorations on this subject, with work undergoing that mysterious metamorphosis of revision, to be finally shined up to a high beetle-like polish. In insects, the final step in transformations leads to the fully-formed imago — Latin plural, imagines.

Go to http://ivyalvarez.com/ for more information about my fellow editor. For more information about qarrtsiluni, jump to http://www.qarrtsiluni.com/. Dave Bonta and Beth Adams (editors and founders) have added some new general information about submissions.

For a little reminder of how wild, wacky, and wonderful the insect kingdom is, try hopping here. Here's a paragraph cut from the description above that suggests some of the insect world's variety: "Consider the form and nature of insects and how that might relate to the shape and colour of a poem, story, nonfiction sketch, or image: insectus, or 'cut into sections'; Goliath, a beetle; the framework of exoskeleton; coevolution with flowers; the grasshopper and the cricket; refined organs for perception; the mysteries of flight; the ability to walk on water; emission of light or sound or scents to communicate; compound eyes; a nymph; incomplete metamorphosis and complete metamorphosis and hyper-metamorphosis; egg; larva; pupa; cocoon."

If I know you, know that I will refrain from making the very final decision on anything you might send, though I'll vouch that you're a good egg! As I'm especially busy this month--the usual maniacal pace plus company, two of my children in "Beauty and the Beast," a husband going off to Montana for a jolly wilderness adventure, my birthday on Thanksgiving Day, etc.--I may not be quite as speedy as I would like. But please send, whether I know you in the web or in the world, or whether you are a stranger.

Photo credit: I'm usually scrupulous about attributions and using public domain work, but I couldn't resist posting the glasswings that I received in my email on November 2. Their arrival seemed all luck and serendipity, as I hadn't mentioned qarrtsiluni to the sender. If anybody knows how and to whom I can credit these pictures, please tell me.