A coupla calls for submissions here for those of you yearning to put pen to paper for a purpose.

First, Bravado, the lit-mag in The Bay (Tauranga) has had a few changes in staff and a big step forward – it’s now going to be coming out three times a year, in March, July and November. We’ve kind of missed the March deadline for you, but the next is May 31st for the July issue, then September 30th for November. There's also a new website.

The increased output means they need lots more incoming writing, so time to get busy. Send your fiction to Karalyn Joyce bravado.fiction@xtra.co.nz, your poetry to Tim Upperton bravado.poetry@xtra.co.nz, and your prose to Christine Cloughley bravado.prose@xtra.co.nz.

Second, there’s a new online journal for anything to do with Antarctica: Icetongue. It was founded by a group of participants in the US Antarctic programme. They say, and I quote:

We're interested in literary work in English from anyone who has a connection to Antarctica. We have an unabashed bias for writers who have travelled below the Antarctic Circle, but that doesn't mean we won't consider any poems or works of fiction that have an evident Antarctic theme. We'll be considering work immediately for publication in the Feb and March season, and we anticipate a winter solstice issue in June as well. For more information, please visit us online.

There you go. Should keep you busy – because we’ve all been to Antarctica in our minds, haven’t we?