April showers bring May flowers…and WWS publications! Congratulations to all the Women Who Submit who had work published in May.
From Anita Gill‘s review of Debra Gwartney’s I’m a Stranger Here Myself at Brevity:
Gwartney’s second book veers from the traditional structure of memoir, using a lesser-known historical event as a springboard for her own personal narrative. In I Am a Stranger Here Myself, Gwartney juxtaposes her memories with the story of Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white women settlers to journey westward. This genre-bending manuscript won the 2018 River Teeth Nonfiction Prize and publication this past March.
From “Marvels of Representation” by Ryane Nicole Granados at LA Parent:
While they are 5 1/2 years apart in age and are opposites in many ways, one thing my sons have in common is that they have struggled to find toys – in particular, superheroes – that look like them.
From “The Quiet on the Other Side” by Hazel Kight Witham at Mutha Magazine:
The quiet stops when they call my name from the waiting room at Labor and Delivery. I open my eyes, balance my six-month baby belly in my arms as I shift to standing. I need a quick check in, a blood pressure reading, some reassurance. I am not here to labor or deliver.
From Mia Nakaji Monnier‘s “Kokoro Yasume” at Longreads:
I inherited the porcelain ghosts from my neighbor Amy, whose parents’ house was filled to capacity with everything from shrimp figurines to polished-wood Noh masks. After her mother died and before the estate sale crew swept through the house, I walked the rooms with Amy, cataloging the contents of cabinets, sorting documents from recyclables. “If something like that catches your eye, take it,” she said about the ghost dolls. “I don’t want to see them becoming someone’s Oriental tchotchkes.”
From Carla Sameth‘s “Mother’s Day Triptych” at Mutha Magazine:
The picture is of my son, Raphael, as a newborn. The bright royal blue color of the onesie complements his looks. Like now, his look is racially and culturally ambiguous, similar to the rest of our family. His eyes dark-dark almost black, his hair barely curly, brownish, which will get darker and thicker and curlier as he grows. At birth, there is a bit of blond. Like me. For a second. Family lore has it that my mom called out when I was born, “Oh my God, the Milkman, a blond” in a family of dark haired olive skinned people.
From Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo‘s “Invisible No More: How ‘Fade Into You’ Reflects the L.A. Chicanx Experience” at Los Angeles Review of Books:
In an interview with the popular feminist podcast Call Your Girlfriend, Darling said she named her character Nikki because “being in the interiority of a teenage girl is not something readers are always familiar with.” InFade Into You, Darling gives us more than an intimate view of a teenage girl; she gives us an intimate view of a young, mixed-race Chicana living in the suburbs of Los Angeles, the kind of portrait that is nearly nonexistent in L.A. letters.
Also from Xochitl, “Kenji Liu Is Using Frankenstein as a Metaphor for Toxic Masculinity” at bitch:
Much of the work in Monsters I Have Been is what Liu calls “Frankenpo,” a style of his own creation that chops and mixes multiple texts into one body. The poem “Stomach me, delicious world” is a Frankenpo, and according to Liu’s notes at the back of the book, combines “the screenplay of Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together (1997) + screenplay of Alice Wu’s Saving Face (2004) + article ‘Confucius on Gay Marriage’ in the Diplomat + New York Times article ‘Court in Hong Kong Invalidates Antisodomy Law from British Era.’”
From Désirée Zamorano‘s “Much More to Investigate” at Los Angeles Review of Books:
From the opening pages of Miracle Creek, Angie Kim creates an intense atmosphere of foreboding and suspense, building swiftly to the event that triggers the rest of her debut novel, unraveling so many lives and lies.
From Rachael Rifkin‘s “How to Honor a Loved One’s Memory” at nextavenue:
When my mom passed away, having established guidelines for my early grieving process was a relief, giving me concrete steps to take and tasks to do. Several years on, my grief is different — less sharp, but still punctuated with unexpected moments and feelings that catch me off guard. I’ve found myself wishing for more traditions and rituals for this stage, and more opportunities to remember and celebrate her life.
Also from Rachael, “29 Siblings and Counting” at 23andMe:
Shauna tested to learn more about her health history, and found herself instead in the middle of the plot of a movie (The Delivery Man, to be exact). Thoughts about potential susceptibilities to diseases receded as she discovered first one, then eight, and now at least 29 donor siblings.
As someone who grew up as an only child and really owned that identity, receiving an email that began “It looks like we are related” was pretty disorienting.
Congratulations to Minal Hajratwala whose poem, “new world literature, or, we’ll be together in the end,” was published in WSQ: Asian Diasporas! Minal also won residencies at Pond Farm and Clarion West workshops.
Congratulations to Tanya Ko Hong whose poems, “The Cost of Breath,” “Confronting My Father’s Mistress,” and “Journey” were published in Women’s Studies Quarterly! From “The Cost of Breath:”
Talk about the wood
stacked high in the living room
what it costs
to breathe in my home—
raw wood, oak
so long and thick—
a dead elephant stretched wall to wall
