Click on the video above to hear about Sam’s experience with Writer’s Relief!

From delivering singing telegrams to working in nonprofit theater, Sam Ambler’s life was busy—too busy to spend hours researching where to submit his poetry! But now, thanks to teaming up with Writer’s Relief, Sam Ambler has targeted, effective research right at his fingertips. In just one year, Sam has published seven poems in journals such as Christopher Street, City Lights Review Number 2, Evening Street Review, and others, and will appear in two upcoming anthologies—and that’s always music to our ears!

Read on and watch the video to hear how Writer’s Relief helps Sam target the best markets and get his poetry published!

In Sam’s Own Words

Prior to the widespread use of the Internet, the burdens of finding a publisher of poetry were onerous. The costs of photocopying and postage (with SASE for the return of your manuscript) were prohibitive, and finding the names and addresses meant combing through poetry magazines at the local Barnes & Noble—time-consuming and often futile. And the time it took on top of the time I spent at my day job just trying to survive resulted in exhaustion. Oh, how I longed for a literary agent! Although I had had some success in getting my poems published, about twenty-five years ago I decided to stop trying to find publishers and just concentrate on my writing, which I continued to do on a regular basis. Every year for World AIDS Day, I would present a public poetry reading. I had a small but dedicated following.

Then, just before the pandemic hit, I retired from my job and decided I would focus on getting published now that I had the time. But I still felt like I needed help. A friend of mine who is a novelist suggested I contact Writer’s Relief, which I did. One year ago they accepted me, and in that year, I have had tremendous success with the publication of my work. Seven of my poems have been published through my Writer’s Relief contacts, and being encouraged by that success, I ventured into finding contacts on my own. Four of my poems were published in the anthology called Voices of the Grieving Heart (April 2021), and five of my poems have been accepted for publication in Hearth & Coffin’s Volume 1, Issue 2 (Pride) (June 2021).

I find the services provided by Writer’s Relief to be of tremendous value, saving me time and energy and frustration. And it’s spurred me to branch out on my own, where I have found additional success.

More About Sam

Sam Ambler lives in California with his husband, visual artist Edward L. Rubin, and has a BA in Creative Writing of Poetry from Stanford University. He has self-published two books: After the Howl and Other Poems (1990) and Marsupials of the Mind (1973). He has also been published in The James White Review, Nixes Mate Review, The Phoenix, and Visitant, among others. Sam contributed to the Theatre Rhinoceros production of Jumping the Broom and was a winner in the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s 6th Annual Poetry Contest. He spent a great deal of his younger years acting, designing sets and posters, and collectively managing the Bureau of Western Mythology in Palo Alto and Bay Theatre Collective in Berkeley. He danced for three years with the Creative Dance Workshop (Judith Komoroske, Artistic Director) in Palo Alto and delivered singing telegrams for three years for Western Onion from San Jose to San Francisco. Sam sang baritone with the Temescal Gay Men’s Chorus in Berkeley and the Pacific Chamber Singers in San Francisco. He is currently retired, but spent his adult life working in nonprofit theater, including fifteen years at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, eight years at Actors’ Equity Association, six years at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and three-year stints at the Geffen Playhouse and the S. Mark Taper Foundation.