A WWS Publication Roundup for August

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

As the summer wraps up, we are pleased to share good news from Women Who Submit members who had work published in August.

From Mia Nakaji Monnier‘s “Keiko Agena On Life After ‘Gilmore Girls,’ Her New Book, and How She Copes with Anxiety” at The Lily:

For anxious artists held back by perfectionism, “No Mistakes” provides 150 pages’ worth of interactive pep talks inspired by Agena’s experience doing improv, where there’s no such thing as a mistake, only creative choices for team members to build on collaboratively.

From Jay O’Shea‘s “Beyond Protection: Perceived Threat, Criminalization, and Self-Defense” at IMPACT Chicago:

As I approached the cash machine, another person walked up from the opposite side, a few paces before us. A slim, white woman whose expensive casual wear and designer sunglasses marked her as one of our Westside neighborhood’s more affluent residents, she turned and looked at me instead of giving her attention to the ATM. I offered a smile, acknowledging that she had reached the cash machine first and had dibs on it. When she returned my smile with a scowl, I expected the snappish disdain that well-off women in West LA so commonly project toward other women, but not the question she asked.

“Can you come back?” she said.

From Ava Homa‘s “Graduation” at apt:

I am counting the cracks on the ceiling. My lawyer is presenting some documents to the judge. It is hard to breathe here. This room stinks as if the walls were made of corpses. The judge leaves his seat and is walking to the door that convicts cannot use. It is only for him. The attached light-brown desks divide His Honor’s space from that of the non-honored ones.

Congratulations to Ava who also had her piece, “Nameless Stones,” published in Room!

From Melissa Chadburn‘s “This Wanting Business: On the Cost and Labor of Writing” at LitHub:

I often say that whenever I feel the urge to complain about the work of writing, I think about a woman who has to take five buses to work. The truth is I’m likely thinking of my younger self. She’s always at my heels. In college, I sold Herbalife, called people to refinance the mortgage on their homes, worked as a data entry clerk on campus, and telemarketed selling timeshares. Struggling to get by at school, I eventually dropped out, moved back to Los Angeles, and worked the switchboard at a large law firm in Century City.

From Tanya Ko Hong‘s “Mother Tongue” at First Literary Review-East:

Sophistication isn’t damn good to drink
So why don’t you untie my tongue
like you undress me in the dark, don’t
let my ego ruin our night, don’t scan betrayal
in your mind—life’s not so bad if you don’t pay attention.

Congratulations to Tanya who was the first winner of Run Doon-ju Korean American Literature Award and was interviewed in The Korea Daily!

From Marnie Goodfriend‘s “Finding My Unsolvable Mother in Her Left-Behind Crossword Puzzles” at Ravishly:

As a child, I remember Mom’s stack of crossword books with Velveeta-orange Bic pens holding her place on the current one she was trying to solve. A flimsy card table stood awkwardly in the middle of our living room where she sat in a folding chair carefully separating the edges from the middles of a “Mastermind Impossible to Solve” 1,000 piece puzzle. We often visited a stationery store on Main Street where I ran up and down the sticker aisle inhaling pizza and popcorn scratch and sniffs while she fingered large boxes with display photos of crayons, confetti, stars, and circles. Even at my age, I knew that she didn’t choose a puzzle for its pretty or interesting design but by which sequence of objects was more difficult to finish.

From Li Yun Alvarado‘s “Literatura, Música, y (Huracán) María: Reflections from the Diaspora” at VIDA:

My parents separated when I was twelve years old, and divorced when I was in college.

By some telenovela magic they reconciled two decades later, the summer before Hurricane María roared through their hometown, Salinas, Puerto Rico.

My one comfort during that week of silence was that they were together: through worrying about reaching my brother in New York and me in California; through negotiating with siblings and caring for their elderly parents with whom they each lived; through negotiating this post-Hurricane María world.

Li Yun also saw her poems “Momentos de Maria“and “Zika” published in Hinchas de Poesia and Acentos Review, respectively, and an essay, “Retro Row Helps New Yorker Adapt to Long Beach” published in L.A. Parent!

Congratulations to all!

Getting into the Top Tier

Illustration of a woman sitting in an orange floating tub in an overflowing bathtub.

by Désirée Zamorano

First off, you can’t get into a top-tier magazine unless you submit. You can’t submit unless you’ve got work, and you won’t have the work unless you sit down to write. Let’s talk about this.

My bookshelves are filled with texts, some popular, some academic, on how to be a better person, partner, parent, educator, writer. To help you close the gap, I’m not going to talk about all those writerly texts, as marvelous as they all can be. (Personal favorites: Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See, and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass). I’m going to go old school here, and talk about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Yes, I realize Stephen Covey turned into an industry himself. But I’m going to talk about the two habits that I have carried forward once I read this classic. The first habit involves a Venn diagram with one circle labeled “Area of concern” and the other circle labeled “Area of influence.”

Concerned about your writing? (You should be)

Do you have influence over your writing? (You are the only one).

Where those two circles overlap is where you have your most powerful impact. Continue reading “Getting into the Top Tier”