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!
Let’s hear it for Natalie Warther, whose flash fiction “Phase” appeared in Maudlin House.
Abby’s going through a phase. At bedtime we have to tuck her in and kiss her forehead three times and say “Goodnight goodnight goodnight,” and then “Sleep tight tight tight,” and then “Don’t let the bed bugs bite bite bite,” exactly in that order. Then, peck each other three times and flick the lights on and off and on and off and on and off while we hum a high-pitched note. If we complete this routine with zero variations, she sleeps. Otherwise, she does not.
Congratulations to Lisa Eve Cheby, whose essay “Weeding in the Patriarchy” appeared in Ethel.
To kill the weed, you have to dig up the root
otherwise it re-sprouts in all your newsfeeds
as male friends emboldened to admit that though Hefner
had a “dark side,” they loved “St. Hugh products”
for the stories, of course.
___
As dedicated as librarians are to collecting knowledge and promoting books, we must be avid and aggressive weeders. We are all constrained by finite space and time in curating our library collections. Archivists are specialized librarians tasked with preserving specific types of material in particular disciplines, but even they must discern what is worth preserving and what does not need to be saved. Though, even if space were infinite, not every book is worth keeping. Do we need to preserve considerate texts on sex education beholden to gender stereotypes from decades ago or high school history books that portray colonizers as saviors and indigenous cultures as being in need of civilizing? Still, the public balks at the idea of throwing out books, any books. They build little free libraries to avoid throwing out even the most tattered and offensive books. Librarians pack weeded
books off to warehouses to be disposed of discreetly. We do this to make our libraries stronger. We do this because even those who do not buy their own books deserve to read books that are whole, current, and relevant.
Kudos to Amy Shimshon-Santo, whose poem “Stop a War” appeared in The New Verse News.
i don’t understand why people keep choosing fascism.” —my mother.
my words are knots, while I need parachutes.
sleepless from threading imaginary-strategies potential sentences to disrupt the state.
try lots of periods. . . . . .put the [killers in brackets]
some writers spin enviable lines,bumper sticker responses
at the ready, then go out for cappuccino.
Congrats to Mary Camarillo, whose novel The Lockhart Women was published by She Writes Press. Says Susan Straight, author of In the Country of Women, of Mary’s novel,
The Lockhart Women is deeply and thoroughly Southern Californian―in all the perfectly detailed cities and streets and, of course, freeways, but also in the evocation of its time: the 1990s. These women in this page turner―flawed and desperate and seeking redemption―are vivid portraits.
A big shout out to Toni Ann Johnson, whose short story “Daughtered Out” appeared in the Coachella Review.
You’re growing your first child inside; it’s a girl, and your father is visiting for Thanksgiving. He wears a chocolate-brown ascot with a white shirt under a multicolored Pucci jacket. You wonder when he began wearing ascots, and you curse under your breath because you’ve already purchased his Christmas gifts, which include an insanely-expensive silk tie you took forty minutes to select on the first Saturday of November when, on rare occasion, you weren’t working. Why didn’t he tell you he’d switched to ascots?
Kudos to Donna Spruijt-Metz, who published two poems in Psaltery & Lyre. The first is “God in Amsterdam.”
The Esnoga— see time’s horses
slipping down
YOUR holy walls
the 400-year-old bricks
and glass
Sabbath’s opaque light
filling the women’s balcony
no service now,
just this milky glow
the Torah quiet
in its closed Ark.
The second is “And Left in the Sky.”
Even the small boats
are restless—they mermaid
and scoop—they are buttered—
the small boats grip the sheen
with the palms of their
small boat hands—they
are feeling overlaid, the small boats burn
the pages with their small boat
mouths—they have left so much
unsaid—they are, after all,
only small boats, and afraid
of the flames—afraid of the journey
from paper to ash…
Congrats to Liz Harmer, whose short story “The Bowerbird: a tale” appeared in Event 50/1.
There were strict rules within the village. Big box stores could not thrust their steel hides up into space. Except for a coffee brand known for the split-tail mermaid on its green logo, chain restaurants were not permitted. Freeway ramps could come so close and no closer. To the north, mountains swirling with snowy peaks promised hikes and escapes, should a villager desire an escape. Many of them did desire escapes. Such is the nature of the villager.
Congratulations also to Bonnie S. Kaplan, whose poem “Mastectomy, Simple,” a finalist for the Marica and Jan Vilcek Poetry Prize, appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review.
Let’s hear it for Désirée Zamoranos, whose short story “Caperucita Roja” appeared in Chicana/Latina Studies.
Kudos to Sara Ellen Fowler, who published three poems in Interim. The first is “Tempest.”
—you, me, Celia
Reaching for your deepest voice, you rock yourself
blindfolded in the storm—uncoupling
flashes of light from the ravishing claps
that plunge us back, each, into ourselves stunned brute
as sky. Rain blows down down through the tree cover
and fans across the windows….
The second is “Rest.”
wings toward the grey daze
right above the tree line. Rest cannot
dodge the many minds sharp in air,
cannot sound, cannot envelop
the lowest register of sky.
And the third is “Snare.”
She tried to take her hands apart
with just her teeth. Only warm-dead. No,
it is the sun coming over our flat roof.
Let’s hear it for Thea Pueschel, whose blog post “Submissions: The Harsh Reality and How to Improve Your Odds” appeared on Shut Up and Write.
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.
Congratulations to Maylin Tu, whose liturgy “A Lament (for Feng Daoyou)” appeared in The Unmooring.
No one claimed her body
Strangers attended her funeral
We will not be erased.
We condemned the dehumanization of Asian women
Seen and unseen
Invisible and hyper-visible
Body as object
Existing for the white male gaze
We will not be erased.
A shout out to Laura Sturza, whose article “Why My Deflated Balloons May Not Mean the World is Out to Get Me” appeared in Elephant Journal.
I woke up this morning to find the balloons my husband had gifted me yesterday were no longer aloft—most of the helium was gone. First thought—the store screwed up. Couldn’t they even get balloons right?
Growing up, my family generally assumed that bad shit was about to happen and other people were out to get us. While I’ve spent decades unwinding that way of thinking, there it was again. My deflated balloons were stand-ins for anything that’s gone wrong and all that’s about to go wrong. Okay, so maybe I tend towards the dramatic.
In addition, Laura’s article “A cease-and-desist letter for cicadas? A Nextdoor community takes on the noisy nuisances” appeared in the Baltimore Sun.
My neighbors have banded together in response to the controversial chirping of the cicadas, which has transformed the soundscape of our region. An online discussion started this month by “W.S.” on our Rockville, Maryland, networking site, Nextdoor, has turned into one of the site’s most carefully watched threads. What follows are selected comments from among the hundreds of possible “solutions” offered for noise abatement, using the initials of those who posted:
W.S.: Cicada noise petition. I was wondering if any neighbors would be interested in signing my petition to control this noise these cicadas are making. This petition would call for fining anyone who doesn’t control the noise from cicadas in their yards. This petition also seeks to shut down the local cicada rescue. I’m done with these cicadas.
M.G.: I second your motion.
A big congrats to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, whose poem “My Latest Dude Poem” appeared in Whisk(e)y Tit.
If only I could pattern a raft
from red flags, safely sail
through bullshit and wait
for clouds to part, a rainbow
to promise, Mujer,
you’ll never need to feign
interest in his interests again,
I wouldn’t be where I began
wishing this compass pointed up
over north…