A WWS Publication Roundup for January

The year in publications has gotten off to a great start for Women Who Submit! Congratulations to everyone who had work published in January.

From Soleil David‘s “Seoul in October” at Cleaver:

If I could be anywhere
………..in the Fall
it would be Korea

walking rubberized pavement
………..to the top of Namsan Tower
surprised by snow in October

From Melissa Chadburn‘s “The Wounded Parts of People” at Shondaland:

Nobody needs to warn me about the wounded parts of people. There was that time I worked at a Level 12 residential treatment center for adolescent boys. It was called Mid-Valley Youth Center — a home for boys who stopped smelling like children. Some of us were fooled by this change in scent, by the wild sprites of hair off their face. Some days, we thought they were men. Their crude gestures, or refusals to eat, or to follow direction — we thought we were in a power struggle with them. Some judges even forgot they were boys, and gave them sterner sentences in places for men. The deal was, they could do more time at the treatment center with less restrictions, or less time at juvenile hall.

From “Never” by Li Yun Alvarado at Black Rabbit Review:

On the subway, three perfect
poofs frame flushed cheeks.
Lips pucker, sweet as stolen
fruit snacks. I make the rules

printed on purple sleeves.

From “Skin in the Game: An Open Letter to the Mostly White Parents in My Hometown on How to ‘Be the Change’ in 2018” by Hazel Kight Witham at Integrated Schools:

Many “What school are you sending your child to?” conversations start when the kids are just babies, or even before, in prenatal yoga classes or over dinner with friends. I imagine that by the time all those parents tour their local schools and glance at test scores they may have already made up their minds based on what someone else said. When or if they visit classrooms they may secretly they feel there are not enough kids that “look like my kid” attending the local traditional public school.

From “Spaghetti Western” by Lisbeth Coiman at Rabid Oak:

I never saw Henry Fonda kissing Claudia Cardinale in those dubbed spaghetti westerns of our Sunday afternoons, when the constant rotation of the fan made my father sleep with his eyes partially open and one of us always accidentally tripped on his foot and woke him up. Startled, he would reprimand in a loud voice: “Dejen de joder que estoy viendo la película.”

From Anita Gill‘s “Remaking the Rules: What a Nonfiction Writer Can Learn from a Novel” at The Woven Tale Press:

As a memoir writer, I’m embarking on a form more nascent than poetry and fiction. I cling dearly to the scant rules in this ever-growing genre, absorbing them as immutable commandments. Phillip Lopate, Vivian Gornick, Sven Birkerts, and others have established craft books on the memoir form. But here’s the challenge about relying on these writers and memoirs with literary acclaim: these craft books on writing originate from a homogenous Western group. We hold these craft rules to be self-evident, but what if they’re not? How do writers who do not hail solely from Western nations negotiate craft rules while still staying loyal to their voice?

From “Why I Read Books by Women of Color” by Noriko Nakada at My Lit Box:

These books by women of color showed me how to defy convention and call out to a world in a new voice. These are the books I want to read, and these are the books I want to write. In early morning hours, written my own stories of growing up multiracial in rural America with a trilogy of memoirs, and with my reading, I’ve settled on a more reasonable 24 books per year. When I select titles, I consciously lean toward women of color.

From Kelly Shire‘s “The Great Unknown” at the Coachella Review:

Mostly, I’m excited by these hours alone with my dad, by this weekday break from the routines of eighth grade. I call myself a daddy’s girl, feel a lick of pleasure whenever I annoy my mom by taking his side when she or my grandparents mentions his name. Besides the rock stars I dream of dating, he is my favorite person in the world, and he’s finally back after nearly a year of being gone, of being somewhere out in the great unknown. 

Last but not least, check out Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo reading her poem “Las Peregrinas” on the BWOMS podcast!