Local writers and photographers who have trouble getting published should fear no more. John Gaps has felt their pain.

Gaps, an accomplished photographer for the Associated Press and a former Iowa State student, has decided to help out all those in need by releasing his new, literary-based periodical, Stand Alone.

Being a poet himself, Gaps understands the difficulty in getting works put out.

“In the past few years I kept running into writers and people who were having trouble getting published,” Gaps said. “I felt I could create a vessel for these people, but not just a periodical. I wanted something that would create a lot of momentum for the writers, not for the publication.

“It’s almost like a rocket that takes off then it turns the booster off and the booster goes off somewhere.”

“Stand Alone is the booster rocket that will get people off and then they’ll find they’re own,” Gaps added.

“It’s a wonderful periodical for Iowa,” said Barry Benson, a literature instructor at Dowling High School in West Des Moines and an editor for Stand Alone.

“We don’t really see our state as a place where artists blossom and bloom. I don’t think people in Iowa realize the wealth of talent we have here,” Benson said.

What makes Stand Alone so unique, Benson said, is that it features not only poets who have made thousands of dollars on one piece but also those that have made only $10 for their entire writing careers.

“We don’t have these periodicals in our country anymore and that’s the beauty of it,” Benson said. “It is a return to the literary journal that no longer exists.”

Gaps makes sure every submission he gets will get a fair shake, and he hasn’t rejected anything.

By personally overseeing every aspect of the publication, Gaps feels that he really is helping “writers who are trying to get published and trying to get heard.”

Gaps even goes so far as to drive around to bookstores across the state to personally get Stand Alone on the shelves.

Stand Alone is also very unique for the fact that it is not saturated with any type of advertising.

“I don’t feel the need to sell ads,” Gaps said. “Clean through there is nothing in here but what it says it is. We don’t need another [periodical] that is 60 percent ads and40 percent content.”

Gaps compared reading an issue of Stand Alone to watching a movie.

The publication starts off with a little poetry, has a photographic intermission, then a longer piece and finally the in-depth critique, Critical Mass, which is conducted by Benson and Grandview College writing instructor Jody Spears, Gaps said.

Benson and Spears have been dubbed the “Siskel and Ebert” of poetry for their professional review differentiating views, Gaps said.

Gaps and Benson also encourage people who are going to submit pieces to do it soon since it may be harder to submit work a year from now.

“Every author who has come in gets a chance,” Gaps said. “This is an opportunity. We know there’s something here and we know that it’s growing.”

Stand Alone is published every month by Center Press and is available at Border’s Bookstore and Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Des Moines and at Campus Bookstore in Ames. The cost is $2.95.

Submissions to Stand Alone are preferred as text files on a 3.5″ floppy disc or as photographic prints, copy negatives or slides.

A self-addressed stamped envelope for return should also be included. Send all submissions to: Center Press, 2643 Beaver Ave. #308, Des Moines, Iowa 50310.