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I very much agree with Tony about Forward. Some years back there was a court case brought by Forward against a man (can't remember his name) who campaigned ceaselessly against the vanity publishers. He accused them of being a vanity press in disguise. I don't know what happened in the end - I think Forward must have won. I wrote an article about Forward for Terrible Work but I never put it in the magazine in the end because basically I was saying something similar to the man they took to court, and I got cold feet - a good job I did. The essence of my article was that they were purely a business who had very cleverly seen a gap in the market and were milking it for all it was worth, and that they had no interest in the actual poetry. They were part of a wider phenomenon though - that populist and patronizing wave that plagued the small press through the 90's, turning the scene into a muddy slosh that was just as much its downfall as the arrival of the web-zines. I can at least forgive, to a degree, those populists who did this out of some sort of political conviction - 'poetry for and of the people' etc, but I think Forward used those sentiments for plain old marketing reasons. They were very successful at it for quite a while. Tim A. On 27 Nov 2010, at 19:13, Tony Frazer wrote: > Well, I don't know about that, Alec. They flew pretty close to the > vanity-publishing flame -- in fact to within an inch. And Poetry Now > might just be the most dire publication I've ever seen. On the other > hand it made some people happy, and I've no problem with that, > especially if it means they stayed there and didn't submit here.... > > I would like to know what went wrong there though, as they seemed to > have a solid little business (£5 million p.a. turnover, quite a bit > of which may have come from the printing business). The only news is > that they were insolvent and were going through a "creditors > voluntary liquidation", which I believe means that someone to whom > they owed money made a final demand which Forward couldn't meet and > has then been put into receivership. > > I do wonder what will happen to the Forward Prize, though. If it > goes, there'll be a big hole. > > > Tony > > > > On 26 Nov 2010, at 11:23, Alec Newman wrote: > >> this is a major loss. they had an excellent set up. i thought >> they were in a good position to ride out the storm too. looks grim >> for the rest of us. >> >> alec. >> >> > Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:37:12 +0000 >> > From: [log in to unmask] >> > Subject: Poetry publisher Forward Press ceases to trade with 100 >> staff redundant >> > To: [log in to unmask] >> > >> > http://www.printweek.com/printbuying/news/1042509/Forward-Press-ceases-trade-100-staff-redundant/ > > =