Middlemarch has been described by Martin Amis and others as the greatest English novel - The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner are not far behind. Eliot herself was a voracious reader, a penetrating thinker, a social reformer, agnostic, editor of a left-wing journal, anti-imperialist, supporter of women’s suffrage, and champion of serious women’s writing. She lived with a married man for much of her life, and was nearly disowned by her father for questioning her faith.

Such a vivid, radical figure deserves a tribute – and poetry is perhaps the most promising form for equally inquiring, reflective responses. Contributors will be invited to approach Eliot in any way they choose: they may use an epigraph from one of Eliot’s letters, novels, or short stories, or an incident from her life.

The anthology will be published by Yaffle Press in early 2020, and there will be launch readings and publicity. Contributors will receive a free copy and there will be the opportunity to purchase additional copies at a discounted price.

The anthology will have a preface by Revd Professor Jane de Gay, and will comprise anonymously selected submissions, and poems we receive from Yaffle Press and by approaching selected poets. We aim to have a 50% balance of solicited pieces and unsolicited pieces.

Guidelines:
• Submissions: in attached documents, one for each submission, with title but no name on the document(s) to georgeeliotanthology@gmail.com 
• Your name and poem title: in the body of your email only.
• Number of submissions: up to three poems.
• Font: Georgia 12 point.
• Line limit for poems: 40 lines.
• Word count for prose poems: up to 350 words.
• Do not send anything other than submissions to this email address.

The editors may suggest changes and we aim to be in touch with all submissions by January 2020.

Amina Alyal has published scholarly research and poetry, e.g. The Ordinariness of Parrots (Stairwell Books 2015) and Season of Myths (Indigo Dreams 2016), and numerous poems in journals. She lectures in creative writing and English at Leeds Trinity University, and has also published scholarly research. She is interested in working with the cross-overs, sometimes synaesthetic, between music, spoken and written word, and the visual image.  

Edwin Stockdale has an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from the University of Birmingham. Two of his pamphlets have been published by Red Squirrel Press: Aventurine (September 2014) and The Glower of the Sun (January 2019). Widely published in the UK, his poems have been published by Atrium, the Brontë Society,  Fire, the Gaskell Society, Ink sweat and tears, the London Magazine, Long Poem Magazine, Magma, Orbis, Poetry Salzburg Review, and more.  

Deadline: 30 November 2019