Hello everyone and happy November! The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during October of 2024 (and three of our members heard about these wonderful opportunities either through WWS programming and/or another member, which is so great to see!).
I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take a moment to extend congratulations to our amazing members who had their work published this month, and happy submitting!
Please give a shoutout to Marya Summers for her poem “A Begrudging Nomad” being featured in Rise Up Review.
Every dawn is an invitation
to move on, every evening a surrender
to the rhythms that call to rest.
When I lived in foster homes, other
people decided when I moved,
who I lived with, whether I liked it
or not. The only thing truly fostered: a sense
of my own intrusion and impermanence,
a knack for packing light and quick.
Huge congratulations to Elizabeth Galoozis for her poem “Worn” being published in Thimble Literary Magazine!
When we buried you,
I didn’t know Jews don’t do
clothing after death,
or display bodies
without breath. You were buried
without your glasses.
Without shoes. Those clothes
are for the living, to guard
us from exposure.
Kudos to Michelle Otero for her publication of creative nonfiction piece “She Wants to Be a River” in the anthology collection Water Bodies: Love Letters to the Most Abundant Substance on Earth published by Torrey House Press. She published another creative nonfiction piece “In Search of Mexicans in Hollywood” in the anthology entitled Spark: Celebrities and our Decisive Moments with Chimera Projects.
Please join me in congratulating Laura Sturza for her latest publication of “90-Something Women Share the Secrets for a Long, Happy Life” in The Ethel.
Thelma introduced the film world’s first nonagenarian action hero. The movie’s star, June Squibb, age 94, brought an irrepressible character to life and captured the hearts of viewers of all ages, including this 63-year-old fan.
In the movie, Thelma is intent on reclaiming money she lost to a scam artist and takes her family, her friend and the audience on a low-speed chase through Los Angeles that has the thrills of a Mission Impossible film.
Thelma embodies the things I love most about my 98-year-old mom, Evelyn Sturza. Mom is adventurous, forthright, funny, optimistic, creative and has a never-give-up attitude. Like Thelma, my mom also believes she has no limits.
Big shoutout to Amanee Izhaq for her poem “The Stillness in September” appearing in The Markaz Review.
I remember the stillness in September
The whisper of a child on a swing
Back and forth
Back and forth
The North and South are one
Their shouts are eternal
The burial of a season
Ease is a long lost memory
The cemetery and majlis are one
Gone is the wind of laughter
The afterlife as cold as the dusk
What does the dove say to the cage after breaking its bones to escape?
Please join me in applauding Khamil Riley for participating in Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project where she published 30 poems over 30 days.
Congratulations to Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera for her fiction piece “Tough as Faith” being published in the Cowboy Up anthology with WolfSinger Publications.
Big kudos to Diosa Xochiquetzacoatl whose poems “Brown” and “To the Daughter I Never Birthed” were chosen as a feature by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs in the Latino Heritage Month 2024 Calendar and Cultural Guide (see excerpt of the former poem below). Her book Conversaciones con los Difuntos / Conversations with the Dead has also been published with Desierto Mayor Editores!
Brown is the color of my eyes. Brown is the color of my skin.
Brown is the ground which I call home. Brown is the color of my seraphim.
As coffee is sweetened with creamer,
so too my pupils are sweetened by the sun.
Shoutout to Flint for her publication of her creative nonfiction piece “The Great Chicken God” in Muleskinner Journal.
The baby chick is the only non-chocolate thing in Finn’s Easter basket, and it’s awful what we did, and we knew it, kind of, when we were doing it, but we did it anyway, even though we didn’t mean it to turn out the way it did.
But The Great Chicken God saw. And like any God, The Great Chicken God is a terrible God. A good and terrible God.
Please join me in congratulating Noriko Nakada for her poems “MONSTER MAKERS” and “Tarot Eclipse” being featured in The Rising Phoenix Review. See an excerpt of the former poem below:
we keep putting genocide together
as if these words could ever make sense
aid posing as trap
flour and blood
pour from trucks idling
near invisible borders
massacre disguised as justice
transforms humanitarian into terrorist
shatters peace
Congrats to Hazel Kight Witham whose poem “Father Light” appeared in Issue 47 of Bellevue Literary Review.
Kudos to Carla Sameth whose San Gabriel Valley Poetry Collage assembled from Nextdoor posts by residents of Altadena and Pasadena, CA was featured in the latest issue of American Poets Magazine.
Lastly, please join me in giving a shoutout to Joy Notoma for her fiction piece “Uncle Jimmy” being published in Ploughshares Fall ’24 Longform Issue.
*Feature image credit to Margaret Gallagher*