During this ridiculously difficult year, Women Who Submit has offered hope. Our members have supported each other during accountability sessions and publication parties and virtual community readings. We have extended a warm, virtual hand to people when they receive rejections—“motivation letters” as our wonderful member, Hannah Sward, has encouraged us to dub them. And we cheer loud and hard when our members publish their work.
So three cheers for the following WWS members who published across all genres and venues during December, the final month of this long year!
Congratulations to Stephanie Yu, whose short story “Audiology” appeared in Compressed.
Welcome to your audiology exam. This exam is meant to test your hearing and evaluate your perceived hearing loss. The evaluation is automated and this is a recording. Countless other subjects have heard the same recording you are hearing now; many have gone on to obtain full hearing function. While hearing loss is subjective, it must be evaluated as objectively as possible by the taking of accurate measurements. You are in a soundproof box that has been padded to maximize acoustics and ensure precision. There is no need to be afraid.
Congratulations also to Arlene Schindler, who published three movie reviews in The Water Cooler. In the first, she reviewed “I’m Your Woman.”
An unconventional take on the film noir genre, I’m Your Woman is the story about the wife of a small-time crook who’s forced to go on the run with a baby and a bag of cash. The audience is not sure how she got either of them.
Arlene also reviewed “The Prom.”
First of all, just look at this list of stars: Meryl Streep. Nicole Kidman. Kerry Washington. Keegan Michael Key. James Corden. Andrew Rannels. Can you imagine what it took to wrangle them all into one film?
Finally, Arlene reviewed “Holiday Musicals in Your Living Room.”
Nothing can compare to live theater electrified by dancing, singing performers who can make music soar to the rafters. Theater productions are a holiday tradition that will be sorely missed by many this year. But there’s some good news: for the first time, several of the most in-demand holiday productions can be watched on a screen in your home – many of them for free – bringing new life to the spectaculars and nostalgia we’ve been relishing in since childhood. Below, a highlight of productions you can watch or stream
A shout out to Carla Sameth, whose poem “What is Left” appeared In Isolation: An Anthology published by Alternative Field Notes.
Congrats to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, whose poem “The Washing and the Wringing” also appeared in In Isolation: An Anthology.
And congrats to Lisbeth Coiman and Norika Nakada, whose poetry also appeared in In Isolation: An Anthology.
Kudos to Alisha Escobedo for publishing her poem “disclaimer to marie in the britney spears t-shirt” in The Acentos Review.
she asked for water
i gave her my mouth
then turned
her
body
around
Alisha also published her poem “After Demi Lovato’s 2020 GRAMMY’s Performance” in The Acentos Review.
A hundred million stories and a hundred million [poems];
I feel stupid when I [write];
Nobody’s listening.
The type of women I am drawn to, I find them drowning
on kitchen, bathroom, bedroom floors.
We drown together sometimes, and sometimes we swim.
Sometimes we feel our feet on the ground below or above,
small increments in between.
Congratulations to Romaine Washington, whose poem “Gargoyles and Goddesses” appeared in the Pandemic Summer Chapbook, published by Inlandia Writers At Home.
mom’s perm potion to magically take my hair from afro crown to rapunzel flow
was a smoldering disaster that summer. i shed from shoulder length to two tiny
perpendicular pigtails on either side of my toothless seven-year-old smiling brown
face. to not feel so alone, i cut the hair off all my dolls, not in some styled
pageboy coif, these perfect plastics were butchered in a blond don king heap of
who cares.
A shout out to Lisa Eve Cheby, whose poem “Buffy Achieves Invisibility” appeared in Issue 2 of Hags on Fire.
another young slayer comes to me to lament
her first heartbreak
who doesn’t want
the constant warmth of a living body,
to give up tragic romance
do normal stuff?
Kudos to Suhasini Yeeda, whose essay “Take a Pause” appeared in Redshift 5, published by Aroyo Seco Press.
Congrats are also due to Laura Sturza, whose personal essay “For years I’ve struggled to stick with meditation. It paid off in 2020” appeared in the Los Angeles Time.
I’ve spent enough time chasing peace to know a good percentage of us meditator types are habitually frazzled. We’re working every angle to eke out moments of reprieve. Before following stay-at-home orders, if I was late for yoga class heaven had to help other drivers when I was barreling along Ventura Boulevard to get my serenity on.
And to Lisbeth Coiman, kudos on publishing the personal essay “Grey Hair of Desire” in Issue 2 of Hags on Fire.
With his straight, black hair in a short faux hawk, wearing a black shirt, he sat at the bar with his left leg extended, half his body leaning on the stool. I brushed my small breast against his back while the bartender put a double whiskey in front of him. He turned and checked me out.
“Do you wanna dance?” he asked in a Latino accent.
Lisbeth also published the poem “In My Spanish Speaking Mouth” in The Coachella Review.
I love you in Spanish
because in my mouth your name sounds thick like honey
A slow drip down my thighs
Each vowel open accented
marking the syllables like a poem in Braille