Breathe and Push: Who’s Got Next?

By Noriko Nakada

It was December in 2016. In the warmth and light of Avenue 50 Studios in Highland Park, I attended my first, in-person Women Who Submit workshop. Our presenter, Sara Novik, attended via video conference to speak with us about writing and activism post-election. On that cold LA morning in those waning days of the Obama presidency, I hoped the nightmare of a Trump presidency wouldn’t materialize, that the election had been a bad dream from which I might startle awake. But as I listened to Sara and the work she engaged in as a refugee and deaf writer, I resisted closing my eyes and falling asleep to the reality of our country’s future. I galvanized myself for the fight ahead.

After Sara’s presentation, I participated in a WWS orientation, and then I got started submitting. All around that room, women were writing, sharing stories, submitting work and cheering one another on in the process. We were setting goals and pushing back against a world that was poised to work ever harder against us. As a new WWS member, I set goals for my creative work and this organization helped me submit that work for publication. Since then, I have averaged over 50 submissions a year. I have prioritized my creative work by applying for and attending writing residencies, and I’ve leaned into literary citizenship with this community.

A couple of years later, I volunteered to start a column for the WWS blog, and Breathe and Push was born. Inspired by Civil Rights attorney Valarie Kaur’s words: “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead, but a country that is waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor? […] Because if we don’t push we will die, and if we don’t push our nation will die. So tonight we will breathe, tomorrow, we will labor.”

This metaphor helped me through several challenging years and this column helped many of us breathe out essays pushing against gun violence, family separation, and state-sponsored police violence. We reminded ourselves that in the midst of busy lives, our creative work could push the world toward justice.

When I joined WWS’s leadership team in 2019, I took on management of the blog and a year later, we moved almost exclusively to virtual spaces. Throughout the pandemic we navigated a shifting and uncertain world by continuing to write essays, poems, stories and books. These past few months, we were able to celebrate so many members’ hard work with in-person book launches and readings, while continuing to acknowledge both publications, and passes. I am thankful to WWS for continuing to clap and cheer along the way.

This space will continue to allow us to connect in our increasingly fragmented world, to press against the cracks and let the light come in through so much darkness. The words that I have had on repeat during much of the past few years have been those of Colson Whitehead from his acceptance speech during the 2016 National Book Awards ceremony: “be kind to everybody, make art, and fight the power.” My work with WWS has helped me do this. But in 2023 I will be stepping down as the Women Who Submit blog manager. This means we are looking for someone to help curate this space and embrace this opportunity. You will have lots of support and a quarterly stipend, so if you are tempted, considering, wondering if this might be for you, please send an email to womensubmit@gmail.com.

In pickup basketball, those waiting and watching the game from the sidelines let everyone know if they want to play the next game. It can be scary, but it’s court etiquette, and it works to call out, “I got next.” So, here I am asking: who’s got next?

Noriko Nakada is a multi-racial Asian American who creates fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to capture the stories she has been told not to talk about. She is the author of the Through Eyes Like Mine memoir series. Excerpts, essays, and poetry have been published in Hippocampus, Catapult, Linden Ave, and elsewhere.