Copyright and book reviews...

I know I said I was closing up shop, but a new issue has come up in my life regarding copyright that I wanted to share.

I am scheduled to have a book review published in a major journal in December, and I couldn't be more excited! While this is not exactly creative writing being published, it still gets my words and my name into print. However, the journal will retain all the copyrights to this and any review I write for them in the future.

I had not realized that there may be a time when I would see my work published, but lose the rights to it. I think it's interesting, given the sense of security my earlier research had me lulled into regarding my work belonging to me, always, end of story. However, I am more eager to work with this journal than to retain the rights to my reviews...but if this were a creative writing publication, I would not be going ahead to print, because I want to retain the rights to my poetry and fiction, not sign it over just to see it in print once.

Such a complicated world of copyright!