Month: October 2019

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A WWS Publication Roundup for October

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

October has shaped up to be one of the busiest months for WWS publications! Congratulations to all the women who were published in October.

From Ryane Nicole Granados‘ “Home-Schooling Away from Home” at LA Parent:

Picture a child working on lessons at the kitchen table and you’ve pictured just a tiny sliver of the home-schooling landscape in SoCal.

From “Mimesis” by Maylin Tu at Exposition Review:

I have decided to become my father, to put on his body like a second skin.

I practice rolling my head back and forth around on my neck, like a bobblehead. I put my hands on my hips and shake one finger up and down in front of me. My face tightens into an exaggerated grimace as my finger picks up speed.

From Laura Warrell‘s “I Gave Up on Love, and It Was One of the Best Decisions I Ever Made” at Huffington Post:

At the end of our date in August 2018, Justin escorted me to my car, where he nervously kissed me. When I kissed him back, he cheered, pumping his fists in the air like he’d won something. I walked from the curb to my car, and when I turned around, he was watching me, beaming.

From “documents of light” by Helena Lipstadt at About Place Journal:

when the knock comes on the door
what do we take with us?

do we carry everything in one thin suitcase?
are we walking are we running?

From “The Coyotes of India Street” by Whitney Easton at Animal:

I wake to the sound of yipping in the night. Yipping turns to howling and a chorus of coyote song ensues, echoing throughout the ravine below. My chihuahua perks his ears to stand guard. The pitch and frequency intensify as more join in.

From Mia Nakaji Monnier “What My Name Says about Who I Am” at Zora:

I became Mia Nakaji Monnier in college. I didn’t change my name so much as reveal more of it. While I’d always gone by Mia Monnier before then, the rest of my name appeared on all of my official documents: Mia Gabrielle Nakaji Monnier, a combination of Japanese and French, reflecting both of my parents. In college, I learned that my face alone rarely said enough about who I was.

From Lisbeth Coiman‘s “De Mujer a Mujer” at Lady/Liberty/Lit:

To Venezuela.

Mujer, I talk to you without hair on my tongue
As clear as this blue sky over our heads
Here is a mojito
Take a sip
I don’t have a drawer inside to hold unspoken truths

From “Prayer for a Sunday Morning” by Deborah Edler Brown at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Divine wisdom,
Please show me how

To breathe
When the smell of hatred
Is hot and dank against my cheek

From Lindsey Skillen‘s “Labor Day” at Cosmonauts Avenue:

I’m not the kind of woman who would participate in a threesome, which is exactly why I went. I’m lately trying to be a different sort of woman—one who can pull off an edgy haircut. A sort of Brooklyn-blonde pageboy kind of haircut. I’m Jean Seberg from Breathless in my mind.

From “We are our own Multitude: Los Angeles’ Black Panamanian Community” by Jenise Miller at Boom California:

On a Saturday morning in late October, public workers in downtown Los Angeles block off the stretch of Broadway from Olympic Boulevard to Hill Street. Around 10 am, a crowd gathers, donned in blue and red garments, shirts embroidered with mola, white polleras with bright-colored pom-poms, or Panama flags draped across their backs, to celebrate the Annual Panamanian Independence Day Parade. 

From “An Immigrant Mom’s Push for Understanding” by Tanya Ko Hong at LA Parent:

My children bring magic into my life. However, there is no map to navigate being a parent in a multicultural society, especially when you are an immigrant parent.

Congratulations to Diana Love for having two poems published at Kelp Journal! From “Thrown Back in the Surf:”

Before the sense of self
there must be some surroundings.
In my green blue days of youth
the Valley was a smog-wrapped bubble,
a satellite apart, a cushion-edged suburban haze

Congratulations to Peggy Dobreer for having her poetry published in Aeolian Harp Series, Vo. 5!

Congratulations to Désirée Zamorano whose story “Bobby’s Leave 1968” was published in ¡PA’QUE TU LO SEPAS! edited by Angel Luis Colón!

Congratulations to Liz Harmer whose story, “Decisive Action,” was published at PRISM International!

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Breathe and Push: Taking Attendance

The sky held smoke from a brush fire burning in the valley, even though our submission party was being held in a business park transformed into a college campus in Culver City. As hard as it was to show up on this Saturday morning, we were there.

Women Who Submit workshop with Rocio Carlos and Rachel McLeod.

It was hot, even for October in Southern California, so the title of Rocio Carlos and Rachel McLeod’s workshop, “Pay Attention: Attending and Collaborating at the End Slash Beginning of the World” pulsed with urgency.

We walked through glass doors, down carpeted hallways, and into an air conditioned classroom. We brought life with us. Writers breathed into the space, offered snacks, hauled metal water bottles, laptops, notebooks, and pens. Rocio and Rachel scattered pieces of greenery across tables. Cuttings of sage, lavender, rosemary, and citrus welcomed us. We pressed leaves between fingers, brought the outside in, and as more writers filtered in, the smoke of the weekend lifted.

Rocio and Rachel, the collaborative authors of Attendance, shared their process with us: their attending to the world; Rocio to flora, Rachel to fauna, and to all of the overlapping spaces. They paid attention. That Saturday morning, for a collection of moments, we collaborated with them. We shared their process, by attending together, paying attention, breathing in air, and taking care. It was not the kind of self-care Rachel described as being important so we can be more effective workers, but a mindfulness that connects us with one another, that helps us create connection even if the world is ending slash beginning.

We wrote together. We shared our names, and some flora and fauna. We wrote. We walked and breathed in one another’s work, and then we wrote again. We took attendance. Rocio and Rachel illuminated a bit of their process, and then sold all of their copies of Attendance.

Women Who Submit Leadership with Rocio and Rachel.
WWS Leadership with Rocio and Rachel: taking attendance.

As we stand at the end slash beginning of the world, it can be tempting to bury our heads in the ground, but this workshop reminded us to look, to lift our heads to the weather and take the pulse of everything around us: to take attendance and take care. It was exactly the way we all needed to spent a few moments on a hot fall day before getting to the business of submitting.

You can view this workshop stream on the WWS Facebook page. You can support Rocio and Rachel’s collaborative work by purchasing Attendance.

Noriko Nakada

Noriko Nakada is the editor of the Breathe and Push column. She writes, blogs, tweets, and parents in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

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Behind the Editor’s Desk: Erin Elizabeth Smith

This is a reprint from an interview we did three years ago with Sundress Publications editor in chief Erin Elizabeth Smith. Sundress Publications donated two book bundles to our current Indiegogo campaign!

For the past sixteen years, Sundress Publications has been publishing chapbooks and full-length collections (including WWS co-founder Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo’s debut collection Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge), as well as hosting online journals and the Best of the Net Anthology. Managing Editor Erin Elizabeth Smith answered a few WWS questions about being an editor, and what makes Sundress unique.

How did you get started with Sundress?

I founded Sundress in 2000 to serve as an umbrella site for a number of online journals, including Stirring, Samsara, and several others. We still maintain this sisterhood of lit journals by hosting or promoting journals including Stirring (under new management) Rogue Agent, Pretty Owl Poetry, Wicked Alice, and cahoodaloodaling. In 2006, we began the Best of the Net anthology in order to promote the work publishing in online venues.

We began publishing chapbooks in 2003, but after our first three, we realized that we weren’t ready to give the time and finances needed to properly publish and promote books. It wasn’t until 2011 that we really decided to jump into print publishing. We started slowly, understanding that it was going to be a learning process and also understanding that we needed to build our reputation as a consistent and engaged publisher. We now publish seven print books a year along with our e-chapbook series. We also have three imprints, our journals, the Best of the Net, the Gone Dark Archives, and much more! Continue reading “Behind the Editor’s Desk: Erin Elizabeth Smith”

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How is Women Who Submit Intentional About Intersectionality?

Multi-colored flyer with the words, Intentional Intersectionality

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

When I first received an invitation to speak on a panel at a Lambda Litfest event called “Intentional Intersectionality,” I passed the invitation on to the rest of the Women Who Submit leadership team. These type of invitations often pay, and they’re an opportunity to not only raise WWS’s visibility but also the visibility whomever is speaking on behalf of the org, so opening them to the whole team is our regular practice. Plus, we don’t ever want one person to appear as the sole voice of Women Who Submit.

With no one else available, I almost passed because as someone who identifies as a straight, cis woman I didn’t want to take up space meant for another, but the organizers felt strongly about having Women Who Submit represented as a space for change, so I said yes.

Before the event organizers Cody Sisco, Rachelle Yousuf, and Sakae Manning, invited the readers and panelists to a planning meeting where we saw the space, a presentation room at The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, and then walked to a cafe to discuss logistics, intentions, and possible panel questions. In this planning meeting, Sakae looked over at me and asked, “How does Women Who Submit create intersectional spaces?”

Group of 10 writers, organizers, and community advocates sitting on a stairwell.
Intentional Intersectionality: A Reading and Discussion Amplifying Queer Voices at Armory for the Arts From left-right, front Row: Roxana Preciado, Eugene Owens, Sakae Manning, BA Williams Middle row: Reuben Tihi Hayslett, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Cody Sisco Back row: Evan Kleekamp, Rachelle Yousuf, Dan Lopez

It was a question I should have been prepared for since intersectional was in the name, and I’d been invited to be on the panel as a creator of such spaces, but suddenly sitting with the other talented and passionate readers and organizers, still figuring out how I could best serve this event, I was stumped.

It wasn’t until an hour later, on the walk back to my car, that I started to formulate a reply. I let Sakae know I now had an answer, and she let me know such was the purpose of the pre-panel meet up. I was relieved, but on the night of the event the question never came up. So now, I share it here with you.

Every Person is a Resource

At our bi-monthly meet ups, we invite local, professional writers to share their expertise with our community in one-hour workshops. We seek to curate speakers that reflect the marginalized communities we want to empower such as women of color, queer writers, non-binary and trans writers, disabled writers, mothers and caretakers, and working class writers. Speakers have presented on topics such as building an author website, finding an agent, and strategies for submitting to contests and tier one journals.

Six times a year, we invite a person to speak on a subject of their expertise, but at each of these workshops, we believe all people in the room are a resource. Often when someone asks a question at our workshops, the answer is group sourced. By honoring the worth of each writer’s knowledge and experience, we raise each other up.

Over the summer, I attended a week-long writers’ workshop where in one session a big, fancy east coast book editor asked a small group of us if we had questions for him. The way he conducted this Q&A made me feel like a child forced to listen to her adult teacher. But I wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t a teacher, but an editor with a capitalistic agenda.

When the discussion got to the difference between self-publishing, indie, and big business publishing, I didn’t agree with his response, and thought back to the writers I’d met in WWS who had found success in these varying spaces. I remembered our WWS workshops too and wished to speak, but instead I stood up and walked out on the conversation because it wasn’t a space that cared for my voice.

My hope is that since we’ve done away with this kind of elitism people will feel welcomed to stay and be apart of the conversation.

Accessibility

Some barriers we consider when planning our meetings are physical capacity, mental health, financial ability, and family obligations. To ensure that people facing such barriers can still reach our resources, we hold our public meet-ups at the Exposition Park Regional Public Library (when space allows). This location is central, close to the train and major bus lines, has handicapped and free parking, and is wheelchair accessible. We also Facebook Live our one-hour workshops for those who find themselves homebound, and all workshops and resources are FREE!

Failures are Accomplishments

Every month we have a “Rejection Brag,” a closed forum for our members, where writers can post the journals, contests, and other opportunities that chose to pass on their work. In this brag we celebrate each NO as a proof of the work each of writer is doing to advocate for her/their work. In a capitalist society, we’re taught that failure is shameful and a sign of not being able to cut it, but at WWS we’ve flipped that narrative, and use failure as a tool for advancement and community building.

Culture of Sharing

WWS shares everything: journals, spreadsheet templates, cover letter samples, snacks, submission calls, and even chisme (insider knowledge of literary markets, institutions, and orgs). Any resource we have is for the greater community. As I said at the beginning, even speaking engagements are shared. In a capitalistic society, it’s believed that only a few can succeed, but we reject this scarcity model. There are enough opportunities for all, and one person’s win is everyone’s win.

In the end, these are a few strategies we use for building spaces with intentionality, but we have areas for growth. And if you see a way WWS can be more intersectional, please share. We’re listening!

Our next free, public workshop is this Saturday, October 12th at Antioch University Los Angeles. “Pay attention: attending and collaborating at the end slash beginning of the world” with Rachel McLeod Kaminer and Rocío Carlos begins at 10am.