As the summer winds down, we are happy to share the great news from Women Who Submit members who were published in July.
From Melissa Chadburn‘s “Who Is Anna March?” at the Los Angeles Times:
…Anna March first appeared around 2011, when she started publishing online. Before that, she was known by different names in different cities. In researching this story, The Times found four: Anna March, Delaney Anderson, Nancy Kruse and Nancy Lott.
In three places — Los Angeles, San Diego and Rehoboth Beach, Del. — March became a part of the literary community. She won over new friends, even accomplished authors but especially writers trying to find a way into that world, with her generosity, her enthusiasm and apparent literary success — only to leave town abruptly.
From Désirée Zamorano‘s “The Upholsterer” at the Kenyon Review:
Enrique looked at his cousin and at the sofa that had just landed in his workshop.
The couch was a sodden mess covered in food stuffs, and Enrique really didn’t want to know about it, nor did he have any expectations of what he would find underneath the fabric. Probably a factory-assembled piece of cheap teakwood with low-grade stuffing and springs.
Also from Désirée , “Therapy Saved Me as a Writer,” at Read Her Like an Open Book:
I think therapists hold a particularly profound attraction for writers. So much content, from petty to profound: the stories of grief, menace, abuse and mourning. So many ways to lie, to yourself, to your therapist. So much fun with being an unreliable narrator, as we recreate our biography for an audience of one. So much rapt attention and focus, on our words.
From “Hechizo Para Congelar” by Li Yun Alvarado at UnMargin:
Ingredients:
1. Names
2. Pencil
3. Paper Bag
4. Freezer
Spell:
Pencil names onto
pieces of brown
paper bag.
Let’s say:
donald john trump
From Noriko Nakada‘s “Late Night Phone Calls” at SFWP:
When the phone rang, I knew it was either Laura (Yukiko), or my boyfriend (soon to be the ex-boyfriend) and his calls usually resulted in him coming over to spend the night and me not minding, because I was alone and lonely in this new city.
But when it was Yukiko (Kiko), those conversations jolted me wide awake, There was a frantic, frenetic, frequency in my sisters’ phone calls.
Also from Noriko, “Marbles” at The Rising Phoenix Review:
My father turns eleven just before
he’s told “take only what you can carry.”
He chooses marbles, polished glass spheres, smooth
and cold in his jacket pocket. Six in
all: a shooter, a cats eye, two aggies,
two comets, in swirls of yellow and blue.
Also from Noriko, “Gaps,” at The Rising Phoenix Review:
Your baby teeth
and the baby teeth of all ten
of your siblings were not
included in what
you could carry
when stripped down
to two bags each.
From Natalie Warther‘s “Vinegar” at Drunk Monkeys:
The child had a birthday. People came. They ate the cake. People went home. And once again Dolly was alone, staring at a single slice of cake. Of course, the child was there, precious, soft, aloof, which is company, but it’s different. The windows needed washing.
From Arlene Schindler‘s “The Stuff that Dreams Are Made Of” at Purple Clover:
Shortly after I got married in 1982, I learned that my husband had lied about everything. He disappeared for hours on end after making large cash withdrawals from our joint account and deceived me about many other things, including how many times he’d been married. I grew to hate him and myself.
Congratulations to Flint who read her poem “I Call Queer” at ACE/121’s art show, “QUEER!”
In my eighth grade classroom, a distinct culture had developed. Students were challenging one another’s privilege and entitlement at every opportunity, which was important but exhausting, and I was begin to wonder if my students had learned anything in my class. My students were testing my nerves, and although we still had several weeks left, I was ready for the year to be over.
Noriko Nakada edits the Breathe and Push column for Women Who Submit. She also writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Publications include two book-length memoirs: Through Eyes Like Mine and Overdue Apologies, and excerpts, essays, and poetry in Catapult, Meridian, Compose, Kartika, Hippocampus, The Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere.
By Lisbeth Coiman