It’s the end of August and the heat is kicking in here in Southern California, with more hot weather through at least September, if not longer. But the heat isn’t slowing down our WWS members, who continue to send out their fabulous work and publish it.
This month we’re celebrating the WWS members whose work was published during August 2021. I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Let’s celebrate our members who published in August!
Congratulations to Wendy Van Camp, whose SciFaiku “Close Approach” appeared in The Starlight SciFaiku Review.
dodge radiation
humans reach for god of war
take the close approach
A big hurrah for Carla Sameth, whose poem “June 2020: Alarm Goes Off” appeared in Altadena Poetry Review.
clutch wife, remember
to breathe, remember
George Floyd,
fear floods in, room congested.
A poet wrote me a poem
think of your son
when you first wake up
and I do but terror for
the risk to his soul,
his body, his
Black skin.
In addition, Carla’s poem “The View Changes” appeared in Sledgehammer.
I tell people I’m an 18- year-old butch, a boi, trapped in my 58- year-old body, or a 20- something year old, sober young man, like my son’s friends in recovery that gather around him on his 21st birthday. Then I too can say things like cool as fuck or even be that—cool as fuck. One of my son’s young friends, a girl, says oh look your mom she’s such a mom so cool so beautiful. Tells me, I’ve wanted to meet you.
Kudos to Isabella Rose, whose essays “Through the Eyes of a Child” and “From Womb to Birth: Baby to Adult” appeared in the anthology Mother, Self-Queen: Butterfly Stories, published by Healing Pen.
Kudos also to Ruby Hansen Murray, whose short story “We Threw Them Away” appeared in the Cutthroat.
At noon on Saturday Joe drove out to the cultural center with his cousin Terry
slouched in the seat beside him. He parked between an SUV and a pickup with Osage
tags in the nearly empty lot. The American, Osage Nation and MIA flags hung limp on a
metal pole. Joe was going to name a family of California Osages. A woman named
Dahlia McIntyre looking for someone to name her granddaughter had called the
congressional chambers when he was the only one in the office. Usually people were
named by someone in their family, but not always.
Congrats to Erika Schickel, whose memoir The Big Hurt was published by Hachette Books. Says Hachette of Erika’s memoir,
This complex memoir shows what it was like growing up in the shadow of a literary father and a neglectful mother, getting thrown out of boarding school after being seduced by a teacher, and all of the later-life consequences that ensue.
A shout out to Natalie Warther, whose micro-fiction “Bicycle” appeared in HAD.
I went to sleep as a woman and woke up as a bike. My joints are stiff and folded like a beach chair. My butt is a saddle. My boobs are tires now. I am left in the garage and my only voice is a bell.
In addition, Natalie’s flash fiction “Box” appeared in New Flash Fiction Review.
We emptied an old bankers box and put our parents inside. First his, then mine. They shook their fists, but they were no bigger than salt and pepper shakers, so, really, what could they do?
Let’s hear it for Arlene Schindler, whose review of the TV series “Blindspotting” appeared in The Watercooler.
A spin-off sequel of the acclaimed 2018 film of the same name, Blindspotting the series is set in the same gentrifying, culture-clashing world of Oakland — and with some of the same characters. In the movie, unpredictable Miles is determined to get his childhood best friend Collin in trouble days before his parole term ends. But Miles is white and Collin is black, and when Collin witnesses a black man getting shot in the back as he runs from the cops, it upends his life.
And to Elizabeth Galoozis, congratulations for publishing her poem “Corps de Ballet” in Q/A.
The year I turned eleven,
Miss April pulled me aside
after class. I had to work harder,
she whispered, to stand straight-backed at the barre
because I was starting to get “boobies.”
My whole body burned.
Kudos to Maylin Tu, whose interview with Amanda Montell, titled “We’re All a Little ‘Cultish’: How Cults Use Language to Influence People,” appeared in Rewire.
Last year I attended an online event for two writers I admired. I had been to many virtual book events, but this one was different.
The Zoom chat flowed fast and heavy. The conversation was warm, supportive and uplifting.
Before the event had ended, we collectively decided to start our own online community. Within 24 hours, we had our own Slack group and an enterprising person had set up a spreadsheet to decide on our first book to read together.
That’s where I met Amanda Montell.
Congrats to Désirée Zamorano, whose interview with Naomi Hirahara, titled “Naomi Hirahara on Writing a New Historical Mystery about Post-internment Life for Japanese-Americans,” appeared in CrimeReads.
Recently Naomi Hirahara and I, fully vaccinated, met up at a local soda fountain. In between discussion of pandemic tragedies and the bright spot of MariNaomi’s stop AAPI hate mural, the first AAPI public artwork in the San Gabriel Valley, we found we were co-contributors to the upcoming Akashic Noir South Central edited by Gary Phillips. We chatted about her stunningly prolific life as a writer, and her groundbreaking novel, Clark and Division. Set in 1944 Chicago, her latest novel tackles Japanese American life post incarceration in US concentration camps. This interview has been condensed for clarity and space.
And to Helena Lipstadt, congratulations on publishing her poem “Surrender” in Cutthroat.
I won’t get it right yesterday or today.
I won’t get it right tomorrow. Still
I throw myself into the waves
of every time
my grandmother puts
her shabbos hands on my head
every time
she smooths back my hair.