First book for Sydney-born poet.
Former Sydney resident has first poetry book published
SYDNEY — A bad experience in the past with a dubious poetry website left former Sydney resident Richard LeDue wary but it never stopped him from eventually achieving his goal of having a book of poetry published.
His first book, “The Loneliest Age,” has been just published by American publisher, Kelsey Books, based out of Utah and LeDue couldn't be more pleased.
“When I was in high school and university, it was always something I always dreamed about doing and now I'm realizing my dream,” said LeDue, taking a mid-day break from his teaching job in Norway House, Manitoba, where he lives with his wife Jennifer and their son Ramsey.
“It's something I've been chasing for a long time.”
LeDue began writing poetry in high school but didn't have much luck with it back then, partly due to some unfortunate incidents, including one of a publisher backing out of an agreement to publish one of his poems due to a loss in funding and a website that would publish your poems but only if you bought a certain number of books.
“There was a website called poetry.com - I don't think it exists anymore - and what they would do is you would submit your poems and then you would get a nice letter saying they want you to be in their anthology but you had to buy X number of copies of the anthology so it was just a scam to sell books,” said LeDue. “I didn't buy any but it always kind of stuck with me as a bad experience with writing - even when I started getting published in the online journals, the first couple of times I got published I always searched the journal or magazine on Google to make sure it was legitimate.”
Fortunately, LeDue eventually found legitimate publishers and is now published in print and online magazines and journals. He has manuscripts for two more chapbooks ready and under consideration at other publishers as well as a longer manuscript that he is currently awaiting word on.
For those thinking about becoming a published poet, LeDue recommends finding a group where you can workshop your poems to receive feedback.
“I'm on Twitter too and I find Twitter a really good resource for connecting with other writers and finding journals to submit to,” he says.
To get a copy of LeDue's book, go to www.amazon. ca or the publisher's website at https://kelsaybooks.com/ products/the-loneliest-age?_ pos=1&_sid=daf0fb212&_ss=r .