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A Message from VoicesNet
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Hello
everyone!
Its Jeff
here again! I once had intentions of writing a regular column
here at the VoicesNet.com website. You can still see a few
of those articles around the site.
Well,
once poets from all around the world started to show up, it
became so busy here that my thoughts of writing those articles
kind of went the way of Limbo in Dante's Inferno (kind of
suspended in animation - not given up on, but also not happening
as the clock rolls by)! That's not to say that I didn't write.
Boy, do my fingers hurt.
But, don't
be alarmed. This is not the beginning of a regular column
from me. I wouldn't do that to you (not yet - lol - we are
trying to get our subscriber base increasing, aren't we?).
With so
much going on, though, I thought that it was imperative that
I give you an update on recent activities at the VoicesNet
website.
Poetry
Ambassador Program
Our new
international poetry outreach program is moving right along.
Just like writing books and distributing them is a distribution
channel for getting certain printed words to a certain audience,
so too will the Poetry Ambassador Program be a channel for
getting written words to an audience. The audience will be
changed, and smarter, and wiser about life, and better with
the English language, and pronunciation because of these efforts.
We have
signed up 23 International Poetry Ambassadors so far from
all around the world and some of them will be getting their
first assignments next week.
If you
are interested in participating in this program by becoming
an International Poetry Ambassador, then send an email to
jj@voicesnet.com.
I feel
it is important to let you know how this program is proceeding
because I am planning to really challenge my own creativity
with this program and where we go with it.
So far
I have had a chance to be in email contact with these great
people and it is really awesome to be able to be talking to
somebody from India, the U.K., Australia, Bangladesh, all
over the US (where I am), Canada, and elsewhere about this
program.
Also,
I'll let you in on a little secret goal of this program. Sure,
we are going to get the word out about poetry and our great
website and our contests and our great contributors to all
of our programs, but we are going to do more … we are
going to teach reading, writing, talking, and listening along
the way. To who, what, where, when, and why, you ask? Stay
tuned! We will do things that have never been accomplished
in our world before; guaranteed.
I especially
want to say thanks to the 23 International Poetry Ambassadors
for replying to our program and taking on the challenge. You
have all inspired me and I hope to inspire you, too!
VoicesNet
Anthology Poetry Contest Update
The VoicesNet
2 and 3 Books were created on Friday, June 27, 2003 and are
being mailed out now. We apologize for the shipping delays
to anyone who ordered these books and we will be glad to refund
anybody's money back if they are unhappy with the delay. We
want anybody who purchases the VoicesNet Anthology books to
be happy or we will gladly refund their money in full.
We have
also experienced some problems with responding in a timely
manner to some emails and I want to also personally apologize
for that. I am working hard to get these matters resolved
and working smoothly on a regular basis. Your patience is
appreciated with these matters.
The VoicesNet
4 Special Recognition Poems (previously called Finalists)
and Top 3 winners have been chosen and will be announced on
the website on July 4th, 2003. Good luck to all of you who
entered this poetry contest cycle, which is for poems submitted
between December 1, 2002 and February 28, 2003.
VoicesNet
5 poems have all been judged and all Selection letters have
been mailed out. This contest cycle is for poems submitted
between March 1, 2003 and May 31, 2003.
VoicesNet
6 poems submissions are now being acccepted. Click
here to enter.
Forum
Activities
Recently,
it was pointed out that someone had posted plagiarized poems
on our site.
"Plagiarized"
means that somebody posted some poems in our Poetry Forums
that they did not write and took credit for the poems.
Posting
plagiarized poems is against out guidelines and we will do
whatever we can in a reasonable amount of time to remove such
poems from being posted on our site.
Everything
is going great at the forums, stop
by and read some poetry. Its summer time, so we have some
lulls, but we believe that this is good, because we have plenty
of busy times and we want our members to be out enjoying the
earth and its beauties, not hunched over a computer keyboard
all of the time (now lets not be getting the wrong idea -
please come back often). Make sure you take your writing pads
and pens and pencils with you, though!
We will
likely see some new forums being opened up for the Poetry
Ambassador Program soon, and also, as previously discussed,
we will be adding some other new forums and shifting the order
of the forums around a little bit. Stay tuned! I don't really
think that we will need to be offline much to do these changes;
we will try to do our changes during hours when we have the
least amount of traffic to the site.
Visions
Literary Journal Progress
Hey, how
do you like the theme in this edition of writing poetry to
release pent up emotions? Have you tuned into that yet. Aren't
Melyssa and Ghosh interesting people?
We have
received many submitted articles. If you write an article
that you would like to see in the Journal, then send it to
jj@voicesnet.com.
We are
still getting things under control with our Literary Journal
staffs and expect to get better and better and better. As
soon as we get me out of the way, boy, we'll really be where
we want to be. Hey, I haven't guided any platoons of blindfolded
newsletter staff members off of any piers yet (lol).
Get this,
our current mailing list for VoicesNet Visions Literary Journal
is 8106.
Thanks
for being a subscriber!
Poets
in Residence Listener and Bonnie Ray Mahana
Please
check out the new web pages on our site for new Poets in Residence
"Listener"
and also "Bonnie
Ray Mahana".
Read their
profiles and a few of their favorite poems. We think that
you will enjoy them.
Advertising
Currently
we are getting better organized as we are rolling things out
from our Advertising and Marketing team here at VoicesNet.
One of
our goals is to sell advertising space to get the Journal
to earn advertising income. If you know of any organizations
that would be interested in advertising, please help us out
and let them know about us and/or let us know about them and
we can work out an advertising plan with them.
We are
also looking to exchange advertising space with other newsletters,
so if you are involved in a newsletter that is poetry and/or
writer related and would like to trade some advertising space,
then let us know.
Send us
an email at jj@voicesnet.com
to contact us about advertising rates.
Link
Exchanges
We are
looking for established and new poetry related websites to
exchange links with. If you have a site that is poetry and/or
writing related, then please add our link to your site and
then send us an email to jj@voicesnet.com.
Click
here to get our link exchange page where our HTML linkage
code can be found to cut and paste into your website!
VoicesNet
Bookstore has a New Look
Click
here to check it out! We are an official affiliate for
Amazon.com, one of the most trusted online merchants on the
web.
We get
a small commission if you buy Amazon books through our direct
feed from their site so if you are going to buy from Amazon
already, please consider getting to their checkout counter
through our site bookstore.
A
few other tidbits of information
In the
future, we are considering having a special forum just for
book reviews in our Poetry Forums, especially since our VoicesNet
Bookstore has been recently improved.
We are
also considering having a separate forum for Movie Reviews.
Lyrics could be on the horizon, too.
We do
have our hands full right now with all of our exciting current
programs that are in process, so stay tuned.
Conclusion
Well,
I plan on taking a break from this middle article slot in
our Visions Literary Journal when the next edition comes out
later this month. Hey, is that cheering I heard? Cut that
out.
I'll end
this update of activities by saying thank you to all of you
for making our site so great!
Sincerely,
Jeff "JJ"
Humphrey
Founder
and Editor in Chief
VoicesNet.com
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