June 2021 – Women Who Submit

June 30, 2021

Beyond the Boxes

By VK Lynne

I’ve been a musician all my adult life. Songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and front woman, I have toured with metal bands and recorded blues, rock, hard rock, and progressive and symphonic metal projects. And I’ve spent a good portion of my career tripping on, stepping over, and climbing atop boxes.

You may ask, “why not just get rid of them?,” but how could I, when they aren’t mine, they just simply- ARE. The boxes of genre, look, age, and gender, that litter the already loaded minefield of rock and roll.

When I started out in the LA scene, I was already too old, and that caused me to focus twice as hard on my appearance, as a way to “apologize” for my decrepit late-20’s condition. I got unsolicited advice from the wrong people, music managers, usually older, white men, who all had opinions on what I “needed” to do to get my songs out: Lose weight, sing pop, be blond, sing country, look more “polished,” change my name, etc., etc.

After a few years of despair and anorexia, I realized that all of them had their own agendas, and that my best shot lay in being true to myself.

That meant writing and singing in multiple genres, as my muse dictated, cultivating a look that truly felt like me, even if it was polarizing, and understanding that I was most likely cutting myself off from mainstream commercial success and being at peace with that.

To some degree, that has been a lonely pursuit. I never neatly fit anywhere, so I feel a bit like an artistic pilgrim, joining one group of nomads after another on their journeys and sharing their campfires for a few evenings of stories and camaraderie, only to reach that place in the dust where our paths diverge and once again, waving farewell – see you on down the road.

Why have I chosen this?

I could have picked a box, climbed in, and nested in it, but instead, I navigated around the edges of each. Perhaps it’s because, subconsciously, I knew that my destination lie beyond them.

Along the way, I have learned so much. I’ve spent time in the singer-songwriter community, the blues world, the hard rock and metal scenes. I’ve dabbled in musical theater and burlesque. And I’ve absorbed so much beauty from the people who lived there, understood so much more about humanity through the sound of their songs and stories. And I’ve woven that knowledge into my webs, my lyrics and poems that strive to grasp what this life holds and what it means.

For me, it has taken years to become an artist with something genuinely important to say. That’s been my calling. You see, I believe everyone has something unique to offer, something that only they can contribute to the human tapestry. My part simply took time to ripen.

Cher tells a story about how a man approached her and said, “Don’t you think you’re too old to be running around onstage, singing rock and roll?” To which she replied, “I don’t know, ask Mick.”

This year, at 45 years old, I saw myself on the cover of a music and modeling magazine for the first time. Confident, bold, and colorful, the woman I saw was the artist that took 20 years to build, and THAT story, THAT reality, is what I bring to the world.

There is no “too late,” there is no ONE WAY to do anything. In fact, when each of us creates their own way, we show the next generation what is possible, we give them wings and dreams and hope… hope that we can all grab a box and clear that path. For there is much ground to cover.

Woman with pink hair and wearing a black skirt and checkered top is crouched down in front of a teal background.

VK Lynne is a writer and musician from Los Angeles. She is a 2016 recipient of the Jentel Foundation Artist Residency Program Award for writing. She penned the award-winning web series “Trading on 15,” and she has authored the period novella “Even Solomon,” along with two poetry volumes, “Crisis” and “Revelation,” which make up the audiobook “The Release and Reclamation of Victoria Kerygma.“

Her writing has been published in Image Curve, The Elephant Journal, GEM Magazine, and Guitar Girls Magazine.

June 30, 2021

June Publication Roundup

We’re headed into the sweltering heat of summer, which sometimes can wilt the resolve to do anything. Not our members. They’re still sending out their work and getting it published in wonderful outlets.

This month we’re celebrating the WWS members whose work was published during June 2021. I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.

Congratulations to our members who published in June!

June 23, 2021June 23, 2021

Breathe and Push: How a Hawk Lured Me Out of a Dark Holler into the Creative Light

by Anne Pellicciotto

Writing my secrets has always been my secret.

I’ve scribbled away, diligently, in the margins of my life and, by now, in my fifties, I have a fully completed manuscript. Though it’s never done, is it?

To keep the creative spark alive, over the years, I’ve taken workshops, gone away to residencies, joined critique groups, attended conferences. With the support of a writing community, and because I’ve had no choice, I kept going. I’ve written and rewritten: the very first version was a novel. I deviated to other stories, essays, blogs. I’ve always come back.

I’ve mustered the courage to pitch to agents. I’ve gotten kind rejections. I’ve gotten silence. I’ve gotten a bite: Interesting, send it when it’s fully polished and ready to go.

It’s not ready to go; it will never be ready.

A misty October in a holler in West Virginia. — image of a West Virginia holler by Anne Pellicciotto

Then, one misty morning this past October, in a holler, in West Virginia, that hawk swooped down and caught me in the gaze of his beady yellow eye. I stopped in my tracks. Everything became still. My heart thumped in my chest as I watched him, expanse of brown and white striated wing, sail upward.

“Simplicity and freedom,” I whispered, as he hung above me like an untethered kite. Then a smile, the first in ages, spread across my face.

I’d escaped DC for a much-needed break from the pandemic and political mayhem, from the helicopters circling over my neighborhood, rattling the windows in their frames, from appalling events that had yet to unfold. Over the course of my week in the woods the panic attacks subsided, my racing heart calmed, the mind-numbing headaches waned. I slept through the night. I wrote through my days. I hiked through the fields, along the brook, taking in the scent of jasmine and decaying leaves.

Maskless, out in nature, I could breathe.

Back in Washington, I felt immediately trapped again. This suffocating feeling was not unfamiliar to me: trapped as a kid in a home with my drunken, enraged father; confined in a young marriage that was supposed to have saved me from my imploding family.

In middle-age, in this time of Covid, I felt a bubbling urgency, once again, to escape.

As a professional change consultant and coach, I’d spent the past six months guiding clients – business owners, artists, solopreneurs – through their pandemic pivots. In doing so, I’d navigated my own business pivot. I ported my services online and zoomed my days away like the rest of the white-collar world. My clients were inspiring: in the face of so much adversity, many made the shift from survive to thrive.

The problem was: I wasn’t thriving. I hadn’t been since way before the pandemic. The silver lining of Covid for me, one of the lucky ones who hadn’t been inflicted directly, was that I could see my own fragility – and its polarity – my vitality.

The encounter with the hawk had woken me up to a glimmering possibility. But what was I supposed to do? What did simplicity and freedom mean?

Initially, I took it to mean selling my house, divesting of my belongings, shuttering my business, and driving west across the country to seek out a new life. But that vision – along with a parade of real estate agents through my home of 22 years – only accentuated my fears. When I closed my eyes at night, the image of pulling away from Park Road, a car crammed with my earthly possessions, drifting around the wide-open west, untethered, ironically, did not feel like freedom. Instead, my chest felt constricted; the sleeplessness and anxiety returned.

My therapist told me, frankly, “Anne, you’re scaring the shit out of yourself.”

I chuckled nervously. I bit my thumb cuticle bloody. Did this mean I wasn’t ready? Ready for what?

I went back to my half-finished vision board for clues. The collage of pictures ripped from magazines and glued onto posterboard depicted serene scenes, isolated abodes with decks and Adirondack chairs facing vistas of water and mountains. A pink lotus flower bloomed out of the left upper corner with the word contemplate pasted above it.

When I really focused, I could see: the images were of me, very still, in quiet places. I had to close my eyes to access what was in the depths of my heart, a secret well-kept from even myself: I needed simplicity and freedom in my life to, shhhh, write.

Even typing these words, revealing this truth to the page, felt like a betrayal, like something I should backspace and erase. But that admission – that writing has always been my passion – was a door, and I stood on the threshold.

My manuscript sits, weighed down by secrets. When will it be ready? When will I?

It’s time to double down on Monday Night Writing Salon, I tell myself. I’ll sign-up for a memoir class at the Writers Center.

I blink my eyes shut and reopen them to my vision board, propped on the radiator. A calm river runs down the center, a kayak piercing the shady green water. A bluebird, not quite a hawk, drifts across a sunlit sky, song notes emanating from its beak.

I exhale a puff of exasperation, bend closer to the collage, brow crinkled. A woman in white dives into a tropical blue abyss. A hiker gazes across and open field toward the horizon with the message: Trails are merely suggestions.

The truth stares me in the face.

The truth speaks to me in my dreams. The hawk opens its hooked beak and says I can.

I don’t need another writing program, a swirl of busy work, a litany of applications, rejections, submissions, decisions.

I have but one decision to make.

I don’t need a grant; I need to grant myself permission to stop zooming and go.

Writing is a story burning inside me. Writing is a decision to feed the flames.

Writing is the hawk that has reminded me, has lured me, has eyed me.

I stand at the edge of the field feeling the nudge of the breeze against my back. I take my first step through the tall grass. The ground feels firm on this path; my heart feels light. I am in motion.

The next steps are practical; this is a self-funded sabbatical. I prepare my house for rental, post an ad, field the inquiries, draw-up a lease, begin to sort through my possessions. I take another step and reserve my cabin in the woods, in the mountains, by a river, with a good desk and chair and light and air. I make those symbolic pictures real.

I have already run up against Resistance – a very familiar voice that says things like: “Well, you’re not a real writer,” and “The world doesn’t need another book,” and “Isn’t it a little late for a career change?”

This time I reply sweetly, firmly: It’s never too late to become who you are. It’s never too late to be free.

Head shot of author Anne Pellicciotti standing in front of a wide expanse of water.

Anne Pellicciotto, life coach and owner of SeeChange, writes about the crossroads in life that break and make us. Heeding the hawk’s message, she’s hit the road for a year of simplicity and freedom. In the void, Anne plans to complete Strings Attached, a #metoo coming of age memoir in which she marries her music teacher lover to save herself and, eventually, must break free from him. Follow her midlife coming of age adventures at www.seechangeconsulting.com/blog or on Medium at https://anneseye.medium.com/.

June 16, 2021

Submissions: The Harsh Reality and How to Improve Your Odds

By Thea Pueschel

First published by Shut Up & Write June 3, 2021

A rejection letter leaves many writers devastated. For years, I would submit one to three pieces a year to literary magazines, and if the work received a rejection, it became dead to me. My nonfiction wellness articles had a 98% acceptance rate, leading me to believe I would have no problem getting my fiction and creative nonfiction published. I did not know about the incredibly low acceptance rates of literary magazines.

There are finite spaces to fill in the literary world, though the internet itself seems infinite. Writers hoping to be published in top-tier literary magazines are faced with startlingly low acceptance rates. According to Duotrope, The New Yorker magazine accepted only 0.14% of 1,447 unsolicited submissions received in a year. The lower-tier magazine Split Lip received 938 unsolicited submissions that same year, and only 0.11% were accepted.

Rejection feels personal, though it isn’t. It’s a numbers game, even with smaller publications. To prove this, I reached out to Viva Padilla, the editor-in-chief of the annual literary magazine Dryland, and asked her about the submission statistics for her publication. “The most submissions we have ever received [for a single issue] was over 1000,” she said. “Every issue has about 50-55 publishing spots available, with around 40 reserved for poetry.” I did the math. That equates to an acceptance rate of 1%-1.5% for a work of fiction. For poetry, the odds are slightly better at 5%. That’s a rejection rate of 95-99%. The acceptance rate is higher compared to Split Lip and The New Yorker, but even then most of the work is rejected due to space limitations, among other reasons.

The work Dryland publishes is primarily through open calls. Most literary magazines and journals solicit work from writers they know or those with name recognition, presenting an entry barrier to emerging or unrepresented writers. In her 2015 article for The Atlantic, acclaimed writer Joy Lanzendorfer made two interesting assertions. First, that the average published story is likely rejected 20 times before being published; second, that slush pile submissions only account for 1-2% of published work. Simply put, most of the work you see in the literary spaces is based on connection or writer recognition. Despite the rejection stats, and the reality of how many times it takes for a story to stick to a magazine’s pages, this emphasizes the importance of being an active member of the writing community. Editors solicit work from people they know. To be known you have to be an active member of the literary community.

A few years ago, I became a member of Women Who Submit (WWS), a nonprofit focused on elevating the voices of BIPOC, women, and nonbinary writers. This organization helped me see behind the literary curtain. Various members have taken time to offer me guidance and mentorship through both the submission and rejection process. WWS showcases the importance of relationships and elevating each other’s voices. The reality is that writers who know writers get published more, and all editors of literary magazines are writers themselves.

Since having my eyes opened by WWS, I have become a member of other writing communities, including Shut Up and Write. Outside of my WWS bubble, I have seen that other writers in various spaces struggle with the inevitability of rejection like I did. I hope this helps reduce the sting of rejection, and I would encourage you to submit again and again until your work finds its literary home.

Recently, I received a really nice standard rejection from Zyzzyva. The last paragraph said, “I would like to say something to make up for this ungraciousness, but the truth is we have so little space, we must return almost all the work that is submitted, including a great deal that interests us and even some pieces we admire. Inevitably, too, we make mistakes.”

I asked Christopher James, the editor-in-chief of the five-year-old Jellyfish Review, how often his magazine rejects stories they love because of lack of space. He responded, “We frequently say no to a lot of very strong stories, we would never say no to something we loved. We often accept imperfect pieces because we’ve fallen in love with them and hope our readers might fall in love with them too.” As the newer journal matures, they too may have to say no to work they admire. At the moment though, if they read your work and love it they’ll make space for it. Most journals have a limitation and only accept a certain amount of work—Jellyfish is the exception, not the rule.

Rejection is part of the process of getting your work out into the world. Should you default to younger journals? You can, but I believe that as a writer you should submit to the journals that speak to you, the magazines that you envision as a perfect fit. Familiarize yourself with the work they publish, follow their submission guidelines, and keep submitting work that aligns with their aesthetic. It will increase your chances of acceptance.

Even though stats are against them, many writers still manage to succeed, and you could be one of them. I reached out to the writers I know and asked if anyone had received multiple rejections only for a piece to be published later. Carla Sameth, author of “One Day on the Goldline: A Memoir in Essays” shared that her personal essay, “If This Is So, Why Am I?” was rejected 22 times before it was published in The Nervous Breakdown, only to be selected as notable for The Best American Essays of 2019. Just because something receives multiple rejections does not mean it isn’t worthy of recognition, accolades, or publishing. It left me wondering if those other 22 magazine editors felt they missed their window and had inevitably made a mistake.

I asked Kate Maruyama, the author of my favorite novella of 2020, “Family Solstice,” about her experience. Eighteen editors rejected her first novel “Harrowgate” before it was purchased. A short story of hers was rejected 35 times before being published. “For the short story, rejection number 10 was from Roxane Gay when she was reading for a journal,” Maruyama explained. “She said it wasn’t right for that journal but that it was a damn fine story.” Those words of encouragement along with her writing community kept Maruyama submitting.

To improve your odds and to keep a stiff upper lip when rejection inevitably finds its way to your inbox, here are some pointers to help ease the painful experience:

Take resubmission requests seriously. If a magazine rejects a written piece of yours but asks you to resubmit, they are not being nice. They don’t have time to be nice. They enjoy your work! Resubmit.

Familiarize yourself with the places you want to submit. If editors keep telling you that your work doesn’t fit their publication, read the publication. If you can’t access the publication because of monetary restrictions, look for copies in your local library or read the work of the writers who have recently been published by the magazine or journal. A Google search of the author will find other work of theirs that you can read for free. Compare their aesthetic to your own. Are you a fit? Then it’s a good place to submit!

Make sure your work is submission-ready. This is the number one sin of writers, according to Viva Padilla. Dryland doesn’t edit poetry; “…we expect poems to be ready to go,” she said. “When it comes to fiction and nonfiction that gets rejected, it’s mostly work that doesn’t seem to have a focus where we’re left wondering, what was that about?” Workshop your work with other writers and make sure to check your grammar before you submit.

Don’t expect an editor to provide feedback. If a magazine rejected you without giving a reason, pestering an editor for the “why” will quickly slam doors on future opportunities. Personalized rejections are rare. They are nice when they come in, but an editor doesn’t owe you a reason.

The reality is slush piles at literary magazines are immense, and many editors are volunteers or minimally compensated. These magazines are mostly labors of love for the written word. Rejection may seem personal, but it’s not. Even literary magazine editors get rejections from other publications. The more you submit, the greater the chance your work will find a literary home. The more time you take to prepare and research the best market for your work, the greater your odds for acceptance. Don’t be discouraged when you get a no. Look over your work and see if there are any structural or grammatical issues. If not, submit it again ASAP. If there are errors, fix them and send your piece out again.

Bottom line: it’s time to Shut Up & Submit!

Thea Pueschel is a writer, multi-media artist, and the winner of the TAEM 2020 Flash Fiction Summer Contest. Thea enjoys exploring the dark with light and the light with dark and a firm believer that without the shadow art and literature has less soul.

June 2, 2021June 1, 2021

Together We Thrive: Encouraging Women Through Writing and Workplace Communities

By Daria E. Topousis

In 2015, I felt like my whole world was coming apart. I had spent ten years writing a memoir that never came together and had finally made the hard decision to abandon it. I had returned to my first love, fiction, but all of the stories I sent out were being rejected. I was a failure as a writer. I started to wonder if I should give up on my life-long dream. And then I read an article in Poets & Writers Magazine about an organization called Women Who Submit. The story of how women stop submitting after a few rejections hit close to home, and I loved how the founders wanted to change that. I showed up to my first meeting about a year later and knew I wanted to be part of this community.

Around the same time, I was floundering at work. I had worked in software at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for twenty years. It was the lifeline that kept me financially and intellectually tethered, despite the vicissitudes of my writing life. A group of new managers were hired in my organization, and I was suddenly feeling unwelcome in the male-dominated technology world. I was starting to wonder if I should leave my software project management career altogether and find something else to do to earn a living. This struggle went on for a couple of years, and in the heart of it I went to a conference called the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC). I was blown away by how welcoming everyone was, despite the fact that it was an enormous conference (15,000 attendees that year). I went to tracks where women told stories similar to my own. By the end of the event, I decided I was not going to walk away from my career. No, I was going to stay and try to bring this spirit of support back with me. I wanted to have that encouragement and enthusiasm every day, not just once per year. So I organized a meeting of women who had attended GHC to see if they were interested in forming some kind of community at JPL.

Fifteen women showed up to our first meeting. We talked about the conference, and about how it had been a morale booster for all of us when we attended (all at different times). We decided we wanted to continue meeting, but what would we focus on? We scheduled a second meeting to figure that out. Women who had attended the first meeting started spreading the word so that by our second meeting forty people showed up. We talked about our struggles, our achievements, and suggestions for future meeting topics. I also asked if anyone would be willing to help manage the group, and several volunteered. And so Women in Tech began.

From the beginning, we wanted to be a peer-to-peer network that would foster each other’s careers, support each other at work, and learn from each other. In dialog with some of the early members, I realized how much women in science and technology have in common with writers. Like women who give up after their writing is rejected, women will not apply for a job if they don’t get it on the first attempt. An internal report at Hewlett Packard, which was widely publicized through books like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, showed that women wait until they’re 100 percent qualified for a position (men apply when they are 60 percent qualified) before they apply. I realized many of us were suffering from imposter syndrome and self-doubt. One of my favorite parts of Women Who Submit is the submission party: a coworking space where when someone sends a piece of writing off to a journal, everyone in the room cheers. It helps us associate positivity with the normally nerve-wracking process of sending our work into the world, and also gives us control of when and how we submit. I decided we needed something similar at JPL. I loved that submitting work had become something to brag about, as had rejections (the WWS monthly submission brag is a comment board where members can share their latest rejections for support). So, in one of our early Women in Tech meetings, we asked anyone who had taken a risk in their career to stand up. A risk could be applying for a new job, sending a paper in for a conference or peer-reviewed journal, or having a talk with your manager about your career. When the risk-takers stood up, we applauded. This was a huge success, and at our next meeting women wanted to share what kind of risk they took. After that we spent time hearing about what women were doing and celebrating their bravery. They can’t control whether they get a job or whether their paper gets accepted in a peer-reviewed journal, but they can control whether or not they try.

Soon women were approaching me at work to introduce themselves and tell me about a risk they took because they heard other women’s stories. Women were applying to be conference chairs, to be part of big initiatives in their field, and were starting to stand up for each other in meetings when they felt like another woman’s voice wasn’t being heard. We were encouraging each other to be brave.

We also introduced the idea of giving a shout-out to anyone who had done something as an advocate or ally. Maybe they stood up for your ideas in a meeting. Maybe they pushed you to apply for a role you didn’t think about going for yourself. We also started peer-to-peer training on impostor syndrome, negotiating for yourself, and tips for applying for jobs within JPL.

Now, three years after starting, we have 350 members who are supporting each other, building each other up, and connecting with mentors. When the pandemic hit, we moved to virtual meetings. We now have anywhere from 75-250 people on our calls. And they aren’t just women. We are also open to non-binary professionals and to any men who want to be allies. Even when we are alone in our homes working, we know we have colleagues who have our backs and who are there to lend an ear or give advice. New employees are building their networks and finding friends through our community.

As for me, I know I will stick it out in this field. This year I celebrated my 25th anniversary working at JPL. I am still writing too. I’m sending work out, both fiction and nonfiction. I have learned to celebrate my successes and my failures. I have my confidence back and I owe it to all the amazing women in my life, both in Women Who Submit and Women in Tech. I am grateful for Women Who Submit for providing this model of how to build supportive communities that believe in a tide that raises all ships. Together we thrive.

Women writer with two tone hair and a teal shirt in front of a light colored wall

Daria E. Topousis is a prose writer and a software project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 2020 she received the Equal Opportunity Medal, a NASA Honor Award, for her work building Women in Tech.

This work was done as a private venture and not in the author’s capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. The content has not been approved or adopted by NASA, JPL, or the California Institute of Technology. Any views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of NASA, JPL, or the California Institute of Technology.