The Halfplanet Zine
Yes, it's finally here.
Anyone who knows me from my other life will know I am not just a publisher, comedian and science fiction author - I am also an accomplished poet.
I scored 1st class marks for every single poetry assignment at uni, on both my Bachelors and Masters, and I have done some pretty anxiety-inducing things with my poems: One of my side gigs is writing comedic poems for weddings! And I’ve read poems on stage in front of around a hundred people. Last week, I read an erotic comedy poem to a stranger and maintained eye contact throughout. He paid to be there, but I don’t think he expected that.
I wrote my first poem when I was five years old in an attempt to sooth my autistic brother. I would later recite it from memory in Wetherspoons Ormskirk, to my tutor Robert Sheppard, one of the finest poets I’ve met. I’ve written for musicians, weddings, magazines. I am the guy who sometimes helps Ciadish magazine have that smooth, silky language.
I don’t get anxious going on stage. I don’t mind being heckled. And I could not care less about people who told me I would not make it as a writer.
I’m confident. More confident than most writers.
But I didn’t start out that way. When I was in school, I threw up before every exam. So what changed?
I got good feedback from you and my reviewers and audience members.
And I got good at publishing. Really good.
I published my own stories first because I care about your stories. Though we didn’t know each other in 2019, my goal was to set up Halfplanet Press and make it high quality. To do that, I knew that like a scientist, I would need to make some mistakes, refine my experiment.
So I used WBTH as the experiment.
I taught myself everything I needed to know to put this book out. Cover design, formatting, marketing, editing, ISBN code stuff, legal stuff, proof reading; every single part of the process I taught myself.
I got a Masters Degree in Creative Writing, wrote essays and dissertations on publishing, met agents, socialised with the people I could look up to.
I formed my university’s only academic society, meaning it wasn’t just a social drinking event (though of course, that did happen after some poetry workshops).
I self-published an anthology at uni, putting together a team of eleven editors and collecting writers and artists from campus, placing professors alongside students, creating something that many told me would be impossible to manage alongside my studies. It was not impossible. Nothing is.
I even got two jobs in radio and a few live event hosting gigs so I had both the confidence and the network to make poems and stories find an audience.
I got the Masters Degree. I created and taught my own writing workshops.
Some of those are coming soon to the online world, so I can better serve my American pals.
All of that culminates here.
I am a one-man-band of publishing goodness. But I am not alone. I have friends and connections; decent, smart people who work with me to perfect my projects. Next month Halfplanet will be announcing a comedy anthology I have co-authored with some writers I spent years gathering (seriously, sci-fi comedy people are rare!).
And today, I announce a poetry thing.
The Halfplanet Zine is a good old-fashioned, nostalgic hit of weird poetry and storytelling. Right now it’s built into this Substack. In a few days I shall find and publish a poem I like, and you’ll see it here.
In the near future, it might become a book people can buy.
And nearer still, I will be relaunching my self-publishing service, for anyone who needs poetry editing, formatting, cover design, or other services.
It’s all picking up!
See you soon.