Wet Grain in 2026: from hairst to tonic
Funding, subscriptions, contributor updates, submissions
Reader, stick with us in 2026 and you'll find Wet Grain to be a mash tub, the pieces that comprise our forthcoming three issues giving rise to a heady ferment of lyric, ideal, and criticism.
Land-use, ownership, provenance. With Creative Scotland funding secured for next year, these will form the magazine's focus. We welcome prospective contributors' poetic responses to Flamingoland, the effects of Canadian mining concessions in Mexico, & rent freezes, for example, and can now offer payment of £75 per poem on publication. Our funding also means we're able to accept essays and essay pitches on topics like neolithic rope making, solar storms, & the poetry that represents them. More on this soon. For now, suffice to say we’ve never seen Wet Grain as a magazine for eco-poetry, which has many homes already.
Thank you for signing up to the newsletter. This will be an informal communique to pass reading and writing news and opportunities on as much as anything else.
First, a few items worth mentioning:
Issue Six is available to purchase: guest-edited by Charles Lang, Eloise Birtwhistle & Nasim Luczaj and designed by Alina Karre, Issue Six includes poetry by John Glenday, Małgorzata Lebda, Yasmine Seale, Dan Power, and many more. You can order a copy for £15 by emailing diana@wetgrainpoetry.co.uk
Our new website is live: coded by hand (!) in .markdown for your reading pleasure, Issue Six can be found there in its entirety, along with selected work from previous issues: wetgrainpoetry.co.uk
You can now take out a subscription to the magazine: As well as receiving all three issues at a reduced price of £40, subscribers are entitled to;
a) a 300 critique of a single poem from the editors
b) 3 risograph sheaves of poetry and reflections, beautifully designed and printed by Typewronger Books
c) a complimentary space at one of our in-person workshops scheduled in 2026 (Glasgow, Edinburgh, & London)
Astra Papachristodoulou's incredible beeswax prints will grace the covers of our forthcoming three issues.
What our contributors have been up to...
Out of the twenty poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize, seven have featured in Wet Grain's last three issues. Many of the collections on the list include poems that first appeared in the magazine. Check them out:
✒️ Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection: Isabelle Baafi, Winner ('Watermelon' & 'Reader, I married him' featured in Issue 4). Desree ('On going to Anguilla to bury my Grandad' featured in Issue 3).
✒️ Best Single Poem, Written: Tom Branfoot ('demesne' featured in Issue 4) and Tim Tim Cheng ('My friend had this box' featured in issue 3).
✒️ Best collection: Juana Adcock ('Story of the Letter M' & 'One day a year' featured in Issue 5), Niall Campbell ('Learning to Drink Seawater, Ludaig' & 'The Return Home' featured in Issue 3), and Leo Boix (co-editor for Issue 5).
In case you missed this
We've been posting videos of some of our contributors reading their poems on our Instagram. You can check out Dan Power reading of 'dogworld' and Ingrid Bringas reading 'Flor Silvestre'.
More news for you
📌 Un Nuevo Sol, an initiative set up to promote the work by UK-based Latinx writers, has launched a new website ahead of the publication of the Latinx issue of Wasafiri.
📌 The Poetry Translation Centre is running an end-of-year sale on their books, with 25% off site-wide, and selected collections now available as ebooks.
📌 Merch featuring Clara-Læïla Laudette’s poem ‘For Palestine’ can be purchased from Readers and Writers Against Genocide.
📌 Maria Sledmere’s novella in verse, The Indigo Hours, is just out with Broken Sleep Books.
📌 Małgorzata Lebda’s collection Mer de Glace is forthcoming with Fitzcarraldo in May 2026, featuring poems that appear in Issue 6. Stay tuned for more on this.
📌 Colin Bramwell's first collection of poems, Fetch, has just been announced and will launch in later 2026. Keep updated by checking out his website and other books.
Last but not least
Submissions for Issue Seven are now open from 1 December to 15 January. We welcome poems, essays, or essay pitches that bear the focus of the magazine in mind. We love work in translation and you can read more about our submission guidelines for more details.
We'd like to extend a thank you to the Creative Scotland literature team for providing what was necessary to sharpen the magazine's senses. It's a huge honour to join the list of publications they support.
Til soon,
Patrick & Nasim
