Ambit magazine

The Ambit Gift Bundle makes a really great Christmas present.

the-ambit-team — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:18:42 +0000

Not sure what to get for your literary loved ones? How about five back issues in a handsome Ambit bag.

For £25 (including postage) we will send you five assorted Ambits from across our illustrious 50 year history in a beautiful Ambit bag. The perfect gift for anyone who can read, or likes pictures.

Use the link below to pay by Paypal, or you can send us a cheque, or phone us to pay by card.

AMBIT SPECIAL OFFER – subscribe this week and we’ll send a free issue to your friend!

the-ambit-team — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:39:59 +0000

Subscribe this week and we’ll send a free issue to one of your friends!

Simply write your friend’s name and address in the ‘NOTES’ section of the Paypal ordering screen, and we will send them a randomly-chosen back issue from our collection of 210 editions! Amazing!

Let us know if you want us to include a slip crediting you in their package, or whether you’d like it to be an anonymous surprise! How fun!

Literary magazine abuses exclamation mark! It’s November madness!

Subscribe Now!

What we’re looking for in a cover letter

the-ambit-team — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:16:57 +0000

So you’ve bought a copy of the magazine and you think that you are ready to submit your stories or poems. You’ve read our submission guidelines and are pretty sure you know on which side of the envelope the address goes. The only thing that stands between your work and our editorial team is the cover letter; the first thing we will see when opening and filing your submission.

So what should go into that letter?

We’ve received a few rum letters recently: some with pages of author biography and press clippings, others with wildly self-congratulatory descriptions of the attached material, and perhaps even a few containing veiled threats. Editorial paranoia there, probably. Here’s a quick reminder of what we’re looking for…

Vital components

27 October 2012
Ms Duncania Poetryface
duncania.poetryface@yahoo.com

Honestly, just having those three details on a piece of A4 paper is close to perfect. With this cover letter we can get in touch with you, and if we somehow manage to misfile it then we’ll know how profuse our apologies ought to be when we find it.

Your home address would be great too. We prefer email for correspondence as it’s faster, but if you’d rather communicate by post that’s fine.

We’d like it to be the same size (ie A4) as the rest of the submission. We sort the submissions pile into individual monthly bundles, and smaller attached leaves are more likely to fall away from their manuscripts.

Oh, and make the email address legible. This is something that doesn’t always happen.

Things that help

Please find enclosed three stories I am submitting for publication in Ambit:

‘Horses I have loved’ (3000 words)
‘The day I ate a clock’ (1400 words)
‘Aha the turnip’ (600 words)

This helps us make sure we haven’t lost one of your stories. The word count isn’t vital and doesn’t have to be exact – to the nearest hundred is fine. If the manuscript is single sided and double-or-1.5 spaced we can usually tell how long it is.

Things that make no difference one way or the other

Duncania has won the pistachio prize for hidden poetics and has a phd in literature at somewhere brutally prestigious.

Ambit is put together entirely from unsolicited submissions, and we pride ourselves that we read every manuscript carefully. You don’t need to dazzle us with awards. The exception to this would be if your bio is either legitimately fascinating or has a strong bearing on the piece. A story set in Tunisia during the uprising written by a participant of the actual event whets the editorial appetite more than a similar story written by an MA student in Cardiff. The story from Cardiff could very well be brilliant too. Don’t shy away from writing about Tunisia, Welsh friends.

Duncania has had work previously published in The New Yorker, and has a book forthcoming from Faber & Faber.

Again, this doesn’t hurt, but we try to go into every submission without fear of favour.

Things that might get us off on the wrong foot

As we’ve stated, we read every submission carefully and once the submission is filed we try to ignore what is written on the cover letter. Certain things can irk an editor a little, and are probably best avoided.

‘Aha the turnip’ is a picaresque story with a dark heart that subtly evokes a post-Mamet world.

We will decide what you’re subtly evoking, thanks. If the process by which your work is created is an important part of the piece (a cutup or found poetry, for example, or if you’ve machine-translated a Shakespeare sonnet into ancient Venetian then back into English) then by all means mention it. But if you find yourself adding complimentary adjectives then you might be overstepping the boundaries of good cover letter etiquette.

Conclusion

Let us know when you sent it, and how to get in touch with you. And include some brilliant stories or poetry. Simple.

What Editors Want; A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines

the-ambit-team — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 12:00:58 +0000

We just stumbled across a piece called ‘What Editors Want; A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines’ in The Review Review. We think that anyone who is in the process of submitting should read it.

We found it while looking at the Structo Magazine website. Structo looks pretty darned great too.

Influx Press launches LIFE IN TRANSIT

the-ambit-team — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:46:30 +0000

Celebrating the launch of Sam Berkson’s debut poetry collection, Life in Transit, Influx Press (co-run by ex-Ambit staffer Gary Budden) is hosting an amazing poetry and spoken word showcase.

Featuring:

Dizraeli - 2 x UK Slam champion and MC with The Small Gods

Zena Edwards - “Brings to the modern stage the ancient qualities of the West African griots” (British Council Literature)

Salena Godden - “The General” of The Book Club Boutique and a legend on the live poetry scene

Jonny Fluffypunk - Author of The Sustainable Nihilist’s Handbook (Burning Eye Books)

and Sam himself – “A poet in the truest sense of the word” (Kate Tempest)

Hosted by poet Curious.

As spoken word poetry continues to rise in popularity, Life in Transit is the perfect place to see some of the best performers in the scene come together in a unique and exciting space.

(Sam’s book, Life in Transit will also be available to buy at a discounted price on the night).

Ticket Information and Times

Start Time: 7:45pm

Tickets: £10

Read about the launch of ‘Life In Transit’

Ambit 210 is here!

the-ambit-team — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:23:02 +0000

Buy it now!

Ambit 210 is out in the wild like an introvert made of horses. This issue features art from the amazing Samuel Brookes, Tim Vyner and Michael Foreman. Prose from word-magicians Paul Binding, Regi Clare, Matt Messana and Julien Campredon/Rosemary Canavan. Poetry from Eisner, Allen, Wisker, Thompson, Powell, Pickford Cole, Fryd and many more!

That contents list in full:

Catherine Eisner The House that looks like Hitler
Joseph Allen / Orly Orbach Seasons
Tim Vyner Drawing London 2012
Gina Wisker / Michael Foreman Whales and Crises
Julien Campredon, trans. by Rosemary Canavan / Mireille Fauchon Burning Punks for the Love of Elves
Douglas Thompson / Michael Foreman Icarus
Jenny Powell / Ken Cox Normandy
Paul Binding / Charles Shearer Extract from After Brock
Stuart Pickford Ana Mladic Remembers her Father
Robert Cole / Astrid Chesney Nero and his Mother
Matt Messana / Michael Foreman Gravity
Dorothy Fryd Mare Crisium
Jehane Markham / Charles Shearer The Appointment
Douglas Basford Piss-Poor Extempore
Rachel Burns Run
Michael Foreman Tidbits from the Bawdy Bard
Regi Claire / Ken Cox The Tasting
Miles Salter Birds
Deborah Sellers / Michael Foreman In What Was Shade
Reviews of Griffiths, Foley, O’Donoghue, Schneider, Crocker, Dunmore, Moore, Riviere, Pusteria, Murphy
N S Thompson After Experience
Samuel Brookes Mutations
Thomas Land / Chris Pig Peace Conference
David Gaffney / Mike Foreman New Ultra Short Fiction
Alistair Heys Within Wood
Linda Rose Parkes The Girl Who Wants to Kiss Him Again
Ron Sandford Portrait of Alistair Heys

This is our new leaflet.

the-ambit-team — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:39:40 +0000

Hey – we have a new subscription leaflet! It features artwork from the very talented Jennifer-Kate McIntyre. It has quotations about how great the magazine is. Which are mostly accurate. Of course you can just buy the magazine online.

Download the PDF version of the subscription leaflet (3Mb)

First look at Ambit 209!

the-ambit-team — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:20:23 +0000

Check out the cover to the new issue, featuring a fantastic image by Tim Vyner. On sale soon!

Ambit’s price increase

the-ambit-team — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:04:18 +0000

Bad news I’m afraid. Due to the increase in postage costs and the loss of an Arts Council grant, we are having to increase the cost of the magazine. Ambit is not a profit-making enterprise, and we’re sad to say that we simply don’t have any kind of margin with which to absorb these additional expenses.

From issue 209 onwards, individual copies will be increased from £8 to £10.

Subscriptions will be £30 annually, so by subscribing you will still be saving 25% over buying four issues individually.

This increase will appear on the website from Thursday next week. All current subscriptions will be honoured, obviously. So (as sharp-minded readers will no doubt have noticed) you still have a week to purchase a subscription at the price of £28. Subscribe here: Subscribe to Ambit

Thanks to everyone who subscribes, submits, comes to the events, or supports our work in any other capacity.
The Ambit Team

Thanks to everyone who came to our reading last night

the-ambit-team — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:14:16 +0000

Thanks to the amazing Kevin Crossley-Holland, Eley Williams, Jim Burns and Alan Brownjohn for reading for us, and everyone who read from the floor, applauded, or, uh, bought a copy of Ambit. Well done all of us.

Standing room only. (Click me for full screen).