April showers bring May flowers and lots of wonderful publications from Women Who Submit. Congratulations, all!
From Shawna Kenney‘s “The Best Vegan Skincare Products for Summer” at Paste:
We slathered and lathered in our home testing and came up with these winners. Bonus learning that each of these companies is eco-friendly and independently owned. And knowing no one was harmed in the making of these skincare products makes them feel even better going on.
From Lauren Eggert-Crowe‘s “Heaven Make Me a Warrior to Slay All the Bad Magic,” a runner-up for the 2016 poetry contest at Black Warrior Review:
your voice in me
and then the ghost
of your voice
in me
Spent my last nickels
on your pretty blues
Congratulations to Lauren whose chapbook, Bitches of the Drought, was released this month by Sundress Publications!
From “An Authentic Californio Experience: The Latin Wave Experience” by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo at KCET.org:
…if Hollywood films are meant for escapism, good theater is meant to shake us awake by calling on audiences to question their point of view and inviting them into dialogue. Or at least, this is a hope of About… Productions’ “They Shoot Mexicans, Don’t They?” co-written by Theresa Chavez and Rose Portillo and directed by Chavez.
From Alana Saltz‘s “Depression Is My Pre-existing Condition, and I Could Die Under the AHCA” at Elite Daily:
Under the AHCA, if a state takes away those protections, the average premium for people with depression would increase by $8,370. This cost could make treatment unaffordable for many people, including myself. Without treatment, I face a very real and serious risk of increased suicidal thoughts and ideation.
From Noriko Nakada‘s “Picture Day” at Compose:
It’s starting to feel like winter. The fall leaves have been raked from lawns leaving behind tree skeletons stretching bare branches toward an icy blue sky. It’s too cold for what I’m wearing: a thin silk blouse I ironed this morning, and grey slacks with black flats. I usually don’t dress up like this, but it’s picture day, the one day in each school year that is documented forever.
Also from Noriko, “Running from the Dark” at Catapult:
I’ve been running from the dark since I was a kid, since the summer my brother didn’t sleep, started hearing voices and talked too fast, landing him in the hospital. I’ve been running from the dark since the winter when my sister didn’t sleep, started hearing voices and talked too fast, landing her in the hospital.
From Désirée Zamorano‘s “Amarisa’s Cooking Pot” at Taste:
What was left in the pot was a perfect amount, as usual, for both their lunches the next day. If she could, she would kiss this essential kitchen tool all over. Instead, she satisfied herself by thanking it and scrupulously scrubbing it clean.
Their tiny guest home smelled of food. It smelled of joy.
Also from Désirée, “For the Love and Art of Language,” an interview with Erika Wurth at Origins:
Wurth: So much has been taken. So, when we talk about our tradition, our language, our literature, and the shame we were made to feel for our very bodies, our way of being, there is a struggle in connecting what we were to what we are. But there are so many of us still here, still speaking our languages, learning them, doing things that are a contemporary version of what our ancestors did even when America tried to kill off those things. We are not a thing to be preserved; we are human beings whose culture has been damaged—but we have survived that damage, and we are beginning to thrive.
Congratulations to Jay O’Shea for the publication of Teach. Organize. Resist., a collection of work produced from the #J18 day of collective action at the Institute of Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin!
Congratulations also go out to Romaine Washington whose poem “My Daughters” was published in Lengua Larga, Boca Abierta!