The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during April of 2026. Three of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve 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 some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
Congratulations to Jasmine Vallejo-Love for her publication of “I Was Taught To Be Afraid Of Men Who Look Like You” in Quibble Lit. She also had “My Response When the Instructor Prompted Us to Craft a Poem About Flowers at a Time Like This” picked up by The Pinch Journal. See excerpt of the former below:
Fierce-faced, tall, sturdy, white, bearded, in camo.
I was taught to be scared of men with profiles like yours.
Country-bred, trained in combat, knows the kill points.
But you defied every stereotype: warm not angry,
funny not sarcastic, hug-fueled not trigger happy,
with a deep bellowed laugh that shimmers with joy,
not the ominous cackles that make me want to Get Out.
Kudos to Christine Heriat whose fiction piece “Fluidity of Illusion” was featured in SPANK the CARP.
โA Hot Buttered Houdini,โ said the woman who stood opposite Matilda. โTikTok was right; this place is fire. Love the cash-only, retro vibe.โ
The woman mustโve been twenty-one, but she looked twelve, and like sheโd just rolled out of bed, with hair in open rebellion against hairbrush and conditioner. Matilda, onetime mistress of teased bangs, never imagined sheโd catch herself judging the young.
But a grand reopening for a fifty-year-old magic-themed bar was indulgent, gimmicky, like her new Potions, which were classic cocktails renamed, such as the whisky sour masquerading as a Sour Magician or a daiquiri as a Rummy Rabbit. If this reinvention spared The Magic Carpet from becoming yet another sanitized chain outlet, as so many other local institutions had, it would be worth repurposing tradition.
Matilda scanned the crowd. The only regular was Patrick, sitting far from his usual spot, the type of man who was overlooked until displaced.
โIโm too old to knock elbows with postmodern irony,โ Patrick explained. He angled his head towards the crowd, where hipster mustaches dominated.
โYouโre not old, just well salted.โ
Shoutout to Sharon Langley whose poem “Blue Bottles in the Window” has been published with Golden Foothills Press.
Kudos to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose craft chapbook An Interview With Fear was published with Sundress Publications’ Craft Chap Series.
In September 2017, I spoke to ghosts. Big, old ghosts. White supremacy ghosts. Confederate soldier ghosts. The ghosts of racism that haunt many of us on a daily basis while others say that weโre seeing things, or no such thing exists.
In September 2017, Colin Kaepernick was still playing for the 49ers and taking a knee each Sunday. Trump had so much to say about this. Trump always has plenty to say. Heโs also like a ghost that rattles the pipes in the night and never gives it a rest. Heโd make the walls bleed if it meant weโd pack our things and run out the violent house, exclaiming, โWeโre never coming back!โ
In September 2017, I was tasked with facing my fears. Big, old fears. White supremacy fears that looked like red caps and the words โMake America Great Again.โ
Shoutout to Ryane Nicole Granados whose creative nonfiction piece “Flammable” appeared in Torch Magazine.
I donโt believe in New Yearโs Resolutions, but I do like the feeling of being able to start again. A new calendar year counts by increments of one, similar to the box breathing method my therapist claims will help manage my anxiety. Four structured rhythmic counts, four seasons, four chances to get it right. Inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, and holding for four again.
Itโs winter and Iโm in the holding stage. Holding all the weight from a heavy year. The problem is, Iโm not a weightlifter. My strength has always been in my legs. Iโm a runner. I used to be exceptionally fast, but these last few years have caught up with me. I can no longer outrun the anxiety, so winter becomes my new favorite season. The season for rest and reflection. The time to pause and hold tight because at midnight, you get to burn it all down.
Shoutout to Michelle Smith who published three poems this month: “Awesome and Anew” in Spring Broken; “Flopping for the Fix” in Don Kingfisher Campbell’s Four Feathers Press; and “Calamity” in LA Arts News’ April Poets Place. Excerpt of the latter available below:
Hot weather Heat Wave High gas prices I don’t own a car but the cost is clear as in cutting onions slices Both bring a sting to my eyes and pocketbook
Happy spring! The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during March of 2026. One of our committed members heardabout their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve 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 some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
Congratulations to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose poem “In the Resting Place” appeared in CALYX Online.
โ For Octavia Butler
Thereโs a memory I keep of a woman cleaning a headstone. Her bird-bone hands grab at crabgrass and clear weeds.
She washes dates of debris with water and tears. So fevered her work, I grow shameful
for never realizing a tombstone needs tending. If no sister, or aunt, or mother exists to weed a grave, how long does earth wait
to swallow it whole? Reader, you might think, Why didnโt she write โdaughterโ or โchildโ? Maybe thatโs because, like Octavia,
I have neither.
Kudos to Marya Summers who published the poem “Shooting from the Lip” in Wayfarer Magazine.
It was the hour of showdown. The miraculous hour.โ โPatti Smith
You have never had a gun. But you have always stood your ground, mouth like an automatic weapon, ripping through the preposterous bodies of arguments, counterfeit claims, more holes than substance. No matter
what it cost, you were willing to pay it, loaded your mouth with another round while the enemy looked to cut you down: napalm the bank account, close the ranks so that everyone
told the same fiction, intimidation by exile, by hunger, by confiscating the last comfort that propped your spirit.
For anyone whoโs ever taken a course in Black studies, there are certain mainstays like the documentary Eyes on the Prize, an unflinching look at the Civil Rights Movement, and anything written by Frederick Douglass. Even if you havenโt taken a Black studies or Black history class, you no doubt encountered Black history celebrations during February, when folks who have made a difference in the struggle for equal rights receive their flowers.
Unfortunately, the study of Black history is not so easy anymore with the current administration dismantling avenues to celebrate the achievements of Black luminaries and recognize the Black communityโs contributions to the United States. Itโs unclear what future generations will understand about slavery, racism, and Black resilience when there is a concerted effort to erase it.
Congratulations to Lauren Eggert-Crowe who had three poems “While my father was dying, I kept having dreams about my exes,” “The algorithm thinks I’m pregnant,” and “Talking about attachment theory with young people in a lamplit room” published in the New England Review. See excerpt of the former below (the other two poems are available in print):
The hospital was in Taylor Swiftโs hometown
Two days before he died, I ate a bagel sandwich
in a coffee shop selling drinks named for her new songs I hadnโt heard
keychains for sale, tumblers with her face
The zeitgeist moves on without you
In each dream, I had urgent news to share
It was important that they knew my fault lines had ruptured
I was one kind of land and then boom I was another
โAutobiography of Cottonโ is the story of a consequential labor strike carried out in the early mid-20th century in the borderlands of northern Mexico. Rivera Garzaโs genre-bending work ultimately pays homage to the too-often invisible laborers who cultivate the land and build the cities on both sides of the border.
โMy hope is that readers might see how artificial borders are, how tangential they are in regard to greater, larger projects, both at the very personal level, but also at the institutional and the state level,โ Rivera Garza said in a recent Zoom interview from Paris. โAnd how organic migration is to our lives. Movement in search of better conditions โ that is the basis of what we do as humans.โ
Kudos to Emily Mohn-Slate whose two poems “Are all your poems about your kids?” and “Nobody Here Knows Pittsburgh is Beautiful” were featured in NELLE Issue 9.
Shoutout to Daria E. Topousis for her publication of fiction piece “Aurora Borealis” with CALYX Press.
Congratulations to Julie Pearson whose creative nonfiction piece “The Devil’s in the Details” appeared in Disco Kitchen.
I have this memory that nobody in my life can corroborate. Iโm a first grader, at a school assembly in the auditorium with the blue curtains on the proscenium stage. Iโm sitting on the floor listening to some visiting group of young adults tell us about the devil. Satan. Lucifer. Theyโre worked up, theyโre impassioned. As a younger kid, Iโm sitting toward the front of the crowd, and I can see their wide eyes flashing with trepidation like theyโre telling us a ghost story.
I havenโt really heard much about the devil before this moment, but he doesnโt sound great. The thing is, theyโre not being very clear about who or what the devil actually is. He sounds like a scary monster.
Until a fourth graderโan โolder kidโ and therefore an authority figureโraises his hand and says, โThe devil killed my dad.โ The speakers all go nuts over this, itโs the best thing theyโve ever heard. โYes he did,โ they say. โThe devil did kill your dad!โ
teach our girls how love can save from danger approaching when you and your father took shelter bolted as lightning struck illuminated path towards that concrete slab in La Paz rain screamed sideways he held you from winds wrath covered your fear with his taught you threat can teeter you tell how sky seemed to tremble how quick downpour came
Shoutout to Jasmine Vallejo-Love for their publication of five poems in Mud Season Review. See excerpt of “An Abecedarian for My Multiple Diagnoses” below:
Avoiding discussing mental health is a family value.
Black sheepโI dare to break tradition cautiously toe-dip in Al-Anon, see from a
different lens. Graduate to cognitive behavioral therapyโ explains so much. Being Bipolar, I dissociate,
feel held hostage on a plane Iโm supposed to pilot, get easily overwhelmed, stuck, catatonic when not manic.
Having tools at my disposal made all the difference, illuminates the rapid pendulum of emotions.
Congratulations to Jennifer Blackledge whose two poems “We watch a video of my daughter’s second birthday party” and “The Word of the Day is Sitzfleisch” appeared in The Summerset Review. See excerpt of the former below:
after dinner and cake for her twenty-second. Three dogs and two couches ago, the kitchen half-painted. On the little screen we light the candles over and over again, again and let her blow them out. She dances to a tiny electronic piano and spins until she canโt stand up to the applause of everyone who loves her.
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during February of 2026. Three of our committed members heardabout their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve 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 some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
The ocean is alive with themโ orcas break its shimmering surface, stretching snouts at a cerulean sky. Humpbacks and blue whales twist pleated bellies, thrust their ribs like dancers while I watch, laughing,from the tip of my own iceberg.
Somethingโs swimming beneath the precision of languageโ beautiful, dangerous, ready to tip yachts, straining, heaving, coming up for air and, for one gloriousREM cycle, consoling, pressing love into my skin through outstretched fins.
Kudos to Mahru Elahi whose creative nonfiction piece “Passing: A Softball Tale” appeared in Seventh Wave’s 2026 Community Anthology.
When I try to name where Ali and I fell along the racial spectrum, the word interstitial comes to mind. It was 1982 and we lived in the gaps, the only Iranians at our Southern California middle school. Iranians in Amrika were racializedย beforeย the 1978 Revolution, it was just that we were considered benign, exotic even, definitely not dangerous.
Aliโs skin was lighter than mine, with the blue-green cast of an abalone shellโs interior. His curly black hair, regal nose, and baby doll lashes might have made him attractive, but Aliโs mouth was a blunt weapon. He made the Science teacher cry. After that, I only saw him in PE.
Last year, as I began the query and submission process for my hybrid memoir, I knew I was going to submit directly to small publishers. Iโd heard from industry experts about the difficulties non-celebrities face trying to publish a memoir. As recently as January of this year, a Jane Friedman newsletterย referred to an articleย that notes non-celebrity memoir as the most difficult nonfiction genre in which to publish. Thus, I began my querying journey as a non-famous person knowing that agents are paid from a percentage of an advance, and the chances of securing a large advance from a big publisher were slim to nil.
I became familiar with the pitch-query-submission process after taking a series of courses from various creative writing and publishing providers. With Jane Friedman and Allison K Williams, Iโd taken a slew of courses on topics such as writing the proposal, publishing paths, and book marketing. And following Courtney Maumโs guidelines, I learned how to pitch hybrid memoir specifically. As a result of my coursework, I wrote a 26-page proposal that I submitted on occasion since not all publishers required it. Although I didnโt always use the entire proposal, it was an incredibly useful resource because I pulled out sections related to my comps, my audience, or other topics that I could use for individual submissions.ย
Shoutout to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose article “Writing a Dream Into Reality” appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The friend I invited to lunch declined, not for fear of ICE. She is not worried for herself, but for me. โCanโt make it, watch out for ICE,โ she said, fancying herself funny.
I go along with the joke as nothing will keep me from stopping by the restaurant thatโs easily overlooked with an empty dirt lot next to it, low ceiling. Thick roots give rise to spindly branches and a lush. top heavy Laurel Fig, an outstretched canopy over the world.
I tell my friend I have a strategy for defeating ICE. Say I will expose how much of a good citizen I am
Shiny sterling silver Sparkly and cool to the touch Inside soft red velvet A jewelry box reminds me of Nana’s Heart. No music, no jewelry, nor an empty find. Memories open of childhood past and love, For our matriarch, Beautiful teacher, disciplinarian, and kind.
Congratulations to Lili Lang whose fiction piece “Love and Blood” was picked up by Die Laughing Literary Magazine.
Shoutout to Joyce Loh whose fiction piece “Something Borrowed Something Blue” appeared in Pure Slush.
The WWS CERTIFIED list was first created for AWP-Los Angeles in 2025 by WWS Board member, Noriko Nakada. Of the list’s inception she said, โIn 2019, I walked into the book fair at AWP Portland and into complete overwhelm. The enormous convention space held presses big and large, writing programs both esteemed and unheard of and writers, agents, and publicists everywhere. The whole place was so big and white and male. I had no idea where I might feel welcomed, where my stories may find a home.โ The goal was to find the spaces that illustrated a clear appreciation for diverse voices. She combed through the Bookfair list of exhibitors looking for two criteria: an editorial board, board of directors, or masthead that was at least 50% women and 50% POC.
Using these same criteria, WWS Board member, Ashton Cynthia Clarke has curated a new list for AWP-Baltimore. Below are 32 (11 more than last year!) literary magazines, journals, organizations, and writing programs that have at least 50% women and 50% POC on their mastheads and/or Boards. Check them out. Chat them up, and then, after AWP, submit your words.
Each year Women Who Submit puts together a guide of all places you can find our writers, partners, and friends. See below for a list of panels, readings, and meetups where our writers are featured and use this list catch up with likeminded folks.
Features: Hosted by Kai Coggen and with readings by Ching-In Chen, Brenda Vaca, Dahlia Aguilar, Donna Spruijt-Metz, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and many others.
Location: United Methodist Church – 10 E Mount Vernon Place
Description: Start your AWP on Wednesday night at this historic former church with 32poems, Barrelhouse, and Smartish Pace a 5 min drive from AWP in beautiful Mt. Vernon. Part of the fun of this event is seeing inside an iconic historic space in Baltimore: a long-shuttered 19th-century church at the inception point of being reimagined and renovated for the future. Itโs really beautiful, but it means the venue is not ADA accessible and has quirky bathrooms. Admission is free.
Features: Amy Raasch, Emma De Lisle, Erin OโLuanaigh, Grace Gilbert, and many others.
Location: Room 323, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 9:00am – 10:15am
Description: The X in Xicana is the vital confluence of past with future marked by our present voices. Eighty contemporary Xicana writers make up Somos Xicanas, an anthology that connects those represented with future generations in a call to liberate all. โรchale tu canto al viento, paโ que llega mรกs lejos,โ writes editor Luz Schweig in the introduction. Join this panel with the anthologyโs editor, publisher, and contributors to discuss from where those songs derive and just how far they can go.
Features: Dahlia Aguilar, Brenda Vaca, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and Angela C Trudell Vasquez
Location: Room 329, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 9:00am – 10:15am
Description: Excavating the gritty literary landscape of sexual violence is scary. By sharing how we write our dark emotional terrains, this diverse panel of women will discuss how we create safe spaces to teach students ways to approach trauma such as rape, sexual harassment, and incest. What role do content warnings play? While acknowledging potential triggers and navigating Title IX requirements, how do we equip our students with the tools they need to overcome resistance, shame, and silence?
Features: Nicole Walker, Karen Michelle Otero, Brooke Champagne, Sue William Silverman, and Jill Christman
Location: Room 328, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 12:10pm – 1:25pm
Description: House of Amal is in its sixth year of community programming, teaching, mentorship, and publishing. Amid an uptick in global Islamophobia, it is vital to create spaces centered on both craft and community for aspiring Muslim writers who require a unique kind of mentorship. Bridging the overlap between the spiritual, literary, and artistic identities, House of Amal will share the lessons learned while crafting and recrafting our twelve-month Writing Residency curriculum and membership programming.
Features: Sara Bawany, Safiya Khan, Amal Kassir, and Salma Mohammad
Location: Room 301, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 1:45pm – 3:00pm
Description: Writing has remained an essential practice for Levantine peoples, even during times of war. Spoken word poets from Syria and Palestine will perform powerful political poems inspired by their personal and familial experiences with loss through war, genocide, and settler colonialism. They discuss the intersection of their Muslim and Levant identities and the impact of the diaspora on their poetry, and further, how this influences their teaching of both craft and writing identity at House of Amal.
Features: Sara Bawany, Salma Mohammad, Amal Kassir
Location: Angie’s Seafood, 1727 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21231
Time: 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Description: Butterflies Over Land is an anthology co-edited by Jen Cheng and Camille Hernandez. Readers will be reading from the book and other work.
Come enjoy the world premiere and book launch party of a new immigrant rights anthology BUTTERFLIES OVER LAND: Voices and Visions Resisting Anti-Immigrant Terror. This book includes a mix of genres, from poetry to nonfiction personal essays and short fiction. This off-site event offers a conversation about immigrant rights from Southern California and nationwide.
Location: Angeli’s Pizzeria, 413 S High Street, Baltimore
Time: 5:30PM – 7:30PM
Description: We are really excited to introduce you all to our new poets and Joel Longโs essay collection! Please join us in Baltimore for our #AWP26 offsite reading. Angeliโs is a short walk from the convention center and a chance to relax and enjoy great food in Baltimoreโs Little Italy. We have reserved this great area all to ourselves, which is fully accessible.
Features: Krissy Kludt, Holly Johnsen, Natalya Sukhonos, VA Smith, and Joel Long
Location: Chesapeake Wine Company – 2400 Boston Street, suite 112
Time: 6:00pm – 7:45pm
Description: Join Alice James and Persea for a fabu offsite reading at the lovely Chesapeake Wine Company on Thursday March 5th, beginning at 6pm. Free appetizers, cash bar, and many memorable poems from new/recent books from both presses!
Features: Michelle Peรฑaloza, Carey Salerno, Cecily Parks, Elizabeth Bradfield, and others.
Location: Room 315, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 9:00am – 10:15am
Description: As cultural touchstones, fairy tales and myths provide fertile creative ground. Leveraging their known settings, characters, and story arcs, writers can slip into ekphrasis, persona, narrative, and more. This panel will offer examples and prompts from poets and prose writers of diverse cultural backgrounds who have used tales and myths to process grief; explore emigration and culture; and question gender, power, and neurodivergence, while using the familiar as a palimpsest to write something new.
Features: Emily Perez, Oliver de la Paz, Kate Bernheimer, and Jessica Q. Stark, and Elline Lipkin
Location: Ballroom II, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 400
Time: 10:35am – 11:50am
Description: When you are active in your local literary community, how do you carve out time to maintain a writing practice? After reading from their work, the poet laureate of Wisconsin, the cofounder of a vibrant reading series in Philadelphia, and the executive director of a community-based literary organization in California will share insights on the challenges of balancing their artistic practice while also serving their local communities.
Features: Raina Leon, Brenda Cardenas, Karla Cordero, and Cloud Delfina Cardona
Location: Room 318-319, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 10:35am – 11:50am
Description: Moving off the page and through the body, five multigenre writers activate possibilities for witness, solidarity, and transformation through performance. The panel celebrates performance as a vital leap from the public literary reading, a meeting of form and content that builds community through practices of ritual, generative discomfort, and care. Panelists within and outside the academy will share and discuss their work to provoke writers toward expansive, liberatory creative practices.
Features: Crystal Odelle, Ching-In Chen, Gabrielle Civil, Joss Barton, and Ali Gali
Location: Room 315, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 12:10pm – 1:25pm
Description: It is imperative that our social justice novels live anew on stage. This panel explores the stage adaptation of Keenan Norrisโs award-winning novel The Confession of Copeland Cane, examining social realism as an enduring genre and the systemic inequities limiting such works by Black authors. Featuring authors, playwrights, and educators and casting audience members as โspect-actors,โ this panel will model the transformative power of collective performance in bringing social justice narratives from page to stage.
Features: Tommy Mouton, Deborah Mouton, Toni Ann Johnson, Keenan Norris, and Timmia DeRoy
Location: Baltimore Brewhouse 511 W Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21201
Time: 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Description: There are moments when stories are not just read but truly shared. Where Our Voices Meet is one of those moments. Each poet carries their own rhythm and lived experience, and each voice reflects a different way of seeing the world. When they come together in the same space, something meaningful happens.
Features: Stella the Poet, Peter Lechuga, Hope Cerna, Jefferey Martin, Cherice Cameron, Donato Martinez, and Erica Castro
Location: Baltimore Convention Center – Room: 308, Level 300
Time: 10:15am – 11:30am
Description: Writerโs block is a perpetual problem. Confronted with an ominous blank page, what is a writer to do? This craft panel explores the ways in which creative practices outside of writingโfilm, painting, dance, and performanceโcan bring us deeper into writing. Books are not born from vacuum. The panel seeks to uncover how engagement with media outside of text can, in fact, be a powerful gateway into writing books and beyond. A presentation of each writerโs work concludes the craft panel.
Features: Cathy Linh Che, Elisabeth Houston, Serena Chopra, Jackie Wang, and Gabrielle Civil
Location: Bookfair Stage, Hall A-D, Level 100, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 12:10 PM – 1:25 PM EST
Description: โItโs Not Okayโ is a poetry event featuring powerful voices speaking out against injustice. These poets will share work about the impact of immigration policies on families, the violence in Gaza, and the pain and frustration so many are feeling. Poets will read about the injustices of our current administration in order to bring light and connect with the audience regarding these issues. Published poets: Cherice Cameron, Peter Lechuga, Clara Roque-Wagner, Erica Castro, and Jeffery Martin.
Features: Peter Lechuga, Jeffrey Martin, Cherice Cameron, and Erica Lopez
Location: Wet City Brewing, 223 W Chase Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Description: A reading celebrating FlowerSong Press authors.
Features: John Compton, Tatian Figueroa Ramirez, Eddie Vega, Michelle Otero, Luivette Resto, Sarah Browning, Natalia Treviรฑo, Genevieve Betts, and Joseph Ross
Description: Hosted by the WWS-DMV chapter, come and meet up with other Women Who Submit members throughout the nation and the world. Say hello, debrief with other writers on your conference experience, and share publication goals!
Description: Join Daxson Publishing for an essential after hours reading exploring liberation in a changing landscape. Featuring a diverse lineup of West Coast voices, this event explores the intersection of identity, geography, and the navigation of a rapidly changing world.
Features: Cherice Cameron, Donator Martinez, Erica Castro, Jeffery Martin, Hope Cerna, Peter Lechuga, and Stella the Poet
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during January of 2026. Two of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve 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 some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
From Covid to the current elections, information literacy is often the thin line between our well-being and our endangerment. In 2022, NATO declared the lack of media literacy education a global threat and partnered with the Center for Media Literacy (CML) to host a series of webinars addressing the global crisis of media literacy (Media and Learning Association). Tessa Jolls, president of the Center for Media Literacy, chronicles the history of media literacy and the new urgency for common frameworks and pedagogy to better prepare people in an increasingly decentralized, globalized media landscape. Rather than seeking to rely on social media companiesโ accountability, Jolls recommends building media literacy frameworks to guide interventions through educationโboth formal and informalโof the public in the process-skills needed to understand the content and context of media messages.
Shoutout to Joyce Loh whose poems “Uh-oh” and “Kembangan – a pantoum” (among others) were featured in poems on the mrt. She also published another poem “Lotus Buds – a Sestina” with Frazzled Lit’s fourth issue (excerpt available below).
The tropical heat glows upon the roof. In the morning light the mother busies herself before waking the child. Tiptoeing across the floorboards of wood, gathering the embers of yesterdayโs fire, adding new coal, noting her beating heart.
The Promised Land, she tells her heart where they would have a roof over their head, a kitchen with fire. She touches her jade bangle, the mother; arranges the kettle on the wood. The floor creaks, here comes the child.
Kudos to Audrey Shipp whose memoir piece “How to Eat Grits” appeared in A Gathering Together: Literary Journal.
Life demanded that my sister and I eat weekday breakfasts of cold cereal before school, but we often enjoyed traditional weekend meals that stretched out time ensuring family experience remain in our memory.
On a Saturday morning that didnโt require weekday rushing, Grandmom wore her thin, pale pink house robe with a pajama dress underneath. Her brown legs displayed a sprinkled patchwork of dark moles beneath the robe. Her hair was tied in a rust-colored scarf, darker than her brown skin.
I sat on the kitchen stool and watched as she stood in front of the stove pouring dry grits into a small pot with boiling water. At six years old, my legs didnโt reach the floor. My ten-year-old sister stood nearby in the home we lived in with just Grandmom and our step-grandfather, Hayden.
Until recently, Althea had been a girl who lived by the sea. Her life had been simple, and quite happy. Her father and brother would go fishing every morning in the reef by the village, looking for eels or other delicious fish. Althea would go to the villageโs school, and in the afternoon, she and her mother would work in a small shack by the beach, taking the catch and turning it into nilarang. Their nilarang was made with the freshest fish possible and it made their shop one of the most popular on the beach. Locals, after a hard day’s work, would come to the beach to relax and spend time with their family. They would always finish off their day with Altheaโs nilarang and praised the family for the tasty dish. American tourists, in their flashy clothes, would giggle over the strange fish in the soup, yet devour it all the same. But when the typhoon came, the tourists went away. They were unable to fly into the island because the flood waters had risen over the landing strip of the airport. Altheaโs father and brother had to stay home and board up the shop as best they could, but the corrugated tin was no match for the howling wind and pounding waves. Their little shop was swept away. The family was disappointed, but it was not the first time that a typhoon had taken from them, and their house further inland had survived better. The family helped their neighbors and began to rebuild the shop, even though the beach had been mostly swept away, and was now seven feet more inland than before.
One morning I decided to ask about the straws Iโd seen them around before On top of bookshelves, tucked deep into drawers Straws cut into smaller pieces
She stumbled through the apartment half awake Starting her clean of the night before Counters covered in empty beer bottles, ashtrays overflowing A couple passed out on our living room floor
When I first proposedThis Makes up the Sky: A Year of Looking Upward, I couldn’t have anticipated how much I would need the sky myself. How much I would need to remember to look up.
For me, this year brought losses that felt like gravity reversing. I lost two sisters within months of each other, everything felt unreliable. There were mornings when looking up felt impossible, when the sky seemed too fragile to hold what I was carrying, to hold what the world was carrying. On top of my own losses, communities around me lost so much. And the country continued to fight a war with itself. Of course, there were also many positives, growths, celebrationsโso much joy intermingled between holding breaths. Through all of this, the themes we explored together through this blog series became unexpected companions through the grief and through the joy. Dreams reminded me that even in darkness, we carry possibility. Cheesy but truth. Birds was a reminder that migration is survival, that leaving one place for another is sometimes the bravest form of remaining. And here we are, some of us still needing that reminder. Weather taught me that storms pass, that precipitation nourishes even as it floods, that chaos and calm exist in the same system.
Collectively, we felt the world crash down in ways both personal and political, intimate and global. We witnessed systems fail and certainties dissolve. And still, we kept writing. We kept looking up.
Over the course of this series, we received 233 submissions from writers across the world. Ketchikan to Bangalore, Brooklyn to Singapore, Alabama to Montreal, Mumbai to South Africa, Pennsylvania to Malaysia. Each submission was a testament to our shared sky, proof that no matter where we stand, we’re all witnessing the same endlessness above us, interpreting it through our own lived experiences, our own lenses, our own moments of _(fill in the blank)_.
What struck me most while curating this series was how each piece, regardless of theme, carried its own form of light. We see that when water becomes destroyer, there’s light in the witnessing, of documenting, of refusing to let suffering go unnamed. And we learn the ways in which light arrives “regardless,” that it “doesn’t ask for permission,” that even when we hide from it, it finds us. This fact will save us. The work in the series maps a year of collective resilience.
This year transformed me in ways that I hadnโt known were possible, and I know Iโm not the only one who can say this about 2025. Grief can literally rewrite definitions of permanence and belonging. But I hope that this series, in some ways, became a practice in being honest with the weight we carry. Practice in honesty is what we all do as writers anyway, right? The writing, the submitting work, the accepting of rejection and acceptanceโฆsometimes simultaneously. The honesty is in the doing. Iโm so grateful for Women Who Submit for always challenging us to continue doing the thing that is most honest. Writing and letting it go and writing and continuing.
To every writer who submittedโwhether your work was published or notโthank you for trusting us with your sky. Thank you for mapping your corner of the world. You remind us that we’re never looking up alone. And thank you to Ashton Cynthia Clarke for all of your remarkable work on the socials. And to Xotchil-Julisa Bermejo and the rest of the Women Who Submit team, thank you for being a catalyst .
Keep looking up.
Jessica Ceballos y Campbell jessica@alternativefield.com
We at WWS know that many of you are feeling scared, drained, and at a loss on how to help. In response to the murders of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026, Keith Porter by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles on December 31, 2025, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez by an ICE agent in Chicago on September 12, 2025, and the more than 20 people killed in ICE detention in 2025 alone, WWS has put together a short list of resources on how to get involved.
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jrโs memory and message, we encourage you to take a few minutes today to look over our list and find a couple of places to donate to, volunteer with, or follow.
Women Who Submit, our members, authors, and affiliates, support and uplift diversity and equity in our storytelling, programming, and actions. Our organization was founded with the intention to promote women and non-binary people to tell their truths in writing. In a society that too often amplifies white Christian heteronormative stories to promote a homogenous American lie, WWS especially aims to uplift underrepresented voices to promote complex and compassionate visions of humanity.
We do not agree with the LA Public Libraryโs decision to cancel the Read Palestine Week event featuring Jenan Matari, author of Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden and Nora Lester Murad, author of Ida in the Middle. The silencing of these Palestinian authors, especially when the Palestinian people are actively experiencing a genocide by the Israeli government is wrong. From “Women Who Submit joins the Palestinian-led Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israelโpublished in June 2025:ย โFor over 600 days, the Israeli Occupation Forces have decimated Gazaโs schools, universities, and libraries, attacking the nerve centers of Palestinian knowledge and culture. They have assassinated over 200 journalists, 115 civil defense workers, and over 1,200 healthcare workersโฆAlong with the crime of genocide, the IOF have committed domicide (the destruction of homes), scholasticide (the destruction of schools) and epistemicide (the destruction of archives, libraries and other sites of knowledge production).โย
In a world where the Palestinian people are actively being murdered in their homeland, we consider this an act of racism, anti-Palestinian sentiment, and censorship.
In Los Angeles, we demand the freedom of libraries to remain public spaces where individuals may access institutional resources, knowledge hubs, and programs from a variety of sources, including those that contend with and center the voices and perspectives of communities the Trump Administration continues to target. As Supreme Court of the United States attacks libraries and creates an uncertain environment for federal funding sources for libraries as centers of knowledge, it becomes all the more important for public institutions not to concede to ostentatious displays of power.
As the Los Angeles Central Library celebrates its centennial in 2026, “Dedicated in July 1926, the Los Angeles Central Library became an instant architectural icon and guiding light of learning for the city,” we remind the Central Library that to remove this event is not only contradictory to its mission to be a “guiding light of learning,” but is an act of cowardice.
Women Who Submit stands by those who need assistance in uplifting their narrative. We do not tolerate censorship of any kind. We stand by the Palestinian and Jewish authors who were denied the opportunity to tell their narratives at the Los Angeles Library as literary advocates and as a literary organization whose members encompass women and nonbinary people of the global majority. We will not allow for these voices to be silenced.
Happy New Year! The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during December of 2025. One of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve 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 some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments, especially with so many writers published this month. Thank you and happy submitting!
Huge congratulations to Amy Raasch whose poem “My Sister Donates Her Eyes to the State of Minnesota” won the Beullah Rose Poetry Prize.
Kudos to Christine Heriat whose fiction piece “The Ledger” was published in Shotgun Honey.
You carry a heavy case.
His narrowed eyes, his tight mouth, tell you it wouldโ a been smarter to carry whatโs inside the case in your waistband, or hand. But you worried too much over drawinโ the attention of other gang members, a stray cop, that sorta thing. Really, your big case makes you feel big, even though you left your colors at home. Gotta find a way to look strong when you take this kinda risk. Make a move to improve your circumstance, scratch your way up with one fingernail, one job, one bullet.
Please join me in congratulating Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl who published a new poetry collection MeXicana: poemas y mas poemas with Riot of Roses Publishing House.
Kudos to Viktoria Valenzuela whose poem “Top & Tail Loverโs Knot” appeared in Zรณcalo Public Square.
Shoutout to Michelle Smith whose poem “Heart of Simon” appeared in LA Art News‘ December Poet’s Place series (excerpt available below). She also published the poem “Look Out Below” and the book Do SoCal Palms have Branches? with Four Feathers Press.
Simon Rodia visionary Italian artist
33 years climbing The Watts Tower
1990 historic California landmark
At 70 years old
a.k.a El Nuestro Pueblos
Is mightier than gold
Globally admired
Symmetrical
Intricate
Magnificent
Ornate
Nuance
Renowned
Original
Daring
Intriguing
Artist
Lastly, huge congratulations to Julia C Gaytan who published a new book Imported Sand with Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social.
They descend like a pandemonium of parrots, fluffed and squawking: Leo dumped his girlfriend at Taco Bell, left her standing with a bean burrito and mascara running. Cockatoo says, Who does that? They all nod, Yeah, who does that?
Cockatoo, in green crop top and last monthโs Yeezyโs, is all plumage and puff. Says, Oh my god! I would hate to be dumped at Taco Bell! So low-rent. No one deserves that. They agree, No one deserves that.
They huddle around cockatooโs phone like survivors trying to keep warm, Can you believe how hot Jason is? Heโs like Charlie Puth but hotter. Macaw preens, No way! No one is hotter than Charlie. Lovebird molts, Charlie, fuck, heโs the hottest.Of. Them. All. Itโs a fact.
At 4 oโclock, they rise, shake off pizza crumbs, and walk out, foragers let loose and circling. Cockatoo says, Text me the answers to the math homework. Macaw and Lovebird admire her floral tights, bare belly, the tiny blonde hairs on her arms, Yes, they say. See ya! and break formation.
Dr. Alene Terzian-Zeitounianย isย the Humanities Department Chair at College of the Canyons where she teaches creative writing. She is also the faculty advisor forย cul-de-sac, COCโs Literary and Arts Magazine. Her works have appeared in theย Bellevue Literary Review, Colorado Review, Mizna, andย Rise Up Reviewย among others.
