Hey dude. Are you going to do this "ABOUT" page in the style of an imaginary conversation, like you so often do?
I don't see why not.

Okay then. So what IS Monkey Kettle, when all's said and done?
It started out, waaaaay back in 1999 as "just" a poetry magazine, a scheme to be part of bringing a bit of yer actual Literature and Cultcha to the fast-developing arts scene of Milton Keynes. As the years went by though, it became a convenient peg on which to hang other Arts projects - so NOW what Monkey Kettle IS is a Milton Keynes Arts Collective who engage in arts exhibitions, theatre productions, the local music scene, film nights, and whatever else takes their fancy. They even have a Pub Quiz team. And of course twice a year they STILL take the time to produce an absolute corker of a poetry magazine.

Well, it's the magazine I'm interested in. Tell me more about that. Uh-huh. THE MAGAZINE It comes out twice a year, it's a 52-page A5 black and white pamphlety thing, pretty low production values, but that seems to kind of fit our DIY old skool nature. And as it's still only £2 we like to think it offers insanely reasonable value for money. What's the deal with submitting stuff to the mag? Feel free!  Our email address is monkeykettle@hotmail.com - usual turn around for replying is four to six weeks, with occasional periods where it's even longer. Sorry - that's the downside of all the other Arts activities mentioned above!  ;-) Seems fair enough - you clearly work very hard and ARE handsome and clever, after all. Any particular submission guidelines you'd like us to stick to? Nah, not as such. Maybe keep the poems to 5-10 at a time, short stories not much longer than the 1,500 word mark (it's not that big a mag!). We like all sorts of stuff: dark, surreal, comic, poignant, political. Depends what side of the bed we got out of. We also don't mind if you've sent stuff elsewhere, i.e. "simultaneous submissions". Indeed we also don't care if it's been published already. We're not very fussy. Is there any geographical bias when accepting submissions? Well, this whole thing is about developing the Arts and Litchritcher in Milton Keynes, after all. But even at it's most MKey, I'd say no more than two-thirds of the content is made up of local writers. We've published almost a thousand writers over the ten years we've been going so far, from every corner of the UK and from every continent except Antarctica. Buck up you penguins!  Due to costs we can no longer afford to send our even-better-value-for-money Free Contributor Copy to contributors overseas, but surely the kudos of appearing in Monkey Kettle must outweigh actually being able to SEE a copy!  ;-) Okeydoke. Last question on the magazine - where the flip do I get a copy? Ever since the takeover of Ottakars by Waterstones we've been a little bit homeless. As of the summer of 2009 we DO have a small presence in the Discover MK centre (in the City Centre, near Burger King!), but you can always email us and we'll let you know how to get us to post you a copy (currently £2 + 50p P&P). It's well worth it! Also we regularly appear in the corner of other Poetry & Arts nights in MK with a table full of our wares - look out for us there!