This year, February flew by so quickly that I only just realized it ended. Our amazing Women Who Submit members, however, have been working hard, as always, and their efforts have paid off with more amazing publications.
The WWS members included in this post published their work during the month of February. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb (if available) if the publication is a book, along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in February!
Congratulations to Lois P. Jones, whose poem “A Ghost of Oneself” appeared in PoetrySnaps!
Because I have no life
it is easier to remember who I was,
though exact names pass from flesh
into sunlight, forgotten. What stays
belongs to a land’s measure, a root
system of the soul, a kind of capillary
consciousness for the places I thirsted,
drank, became. And so too, a transpiration,
something of me exhaled into the air
and revisited, rebreathed…
Congrats also to Donna Spruijt-Metz, whose poems “Intaglio” and “as if YOU had them” from her poetry collection General Release From the Beginning of the World (Free Verse Editions) appeared in Another Chicago Magazine. Here’s an excerpt from “Intaglio:”
As Moses was dying, we stood poised
to cross over the Jordan,
to finally enter into the land.
For forty years we had wandered
the desert wilderness.
We were tired. We wanted a home,
We just wanted to unpack.
Here’s an excerpt from “as if YOU had them:”
unable to eat enough to feel full or to drink enough
to feel drunk currently unable to hear YOU—
Could it be YOUR turn to listen?
I place these days in YOUR hands
—as if YOU had them—
In addition, Donna’s poem “Sarah’s Antique Sake Cup” appeared in Bracken.
Truth is, if you swat flies in the kitchen, towel-snapping
like a high-schooler in the locker room,
shit is gonna break.
Kudos to Tanya Ko Hong, whose interview “Tanya Ko Hong talks her process, writing, and The War Still Within” appeared in Allium.
Can you describe your writing process?
The process depends on the project. Sometimes the project calls for collaboration with other authors, or I have to write for an event. No matter the subject, I feel a responsibility to bring out the best writing I can offer in the moment. I like to isolate myself and write in solitude, because blocking out everything else to focus on my art honors my commitment to it.
Usually, I enter into the subject matter deeply after the first draft. It helps to devote myself to writing first thing in the morning—get up, write, eat a little something if I’m hungry, write some more—so I can leave whatever comes out and come back to it later. Sometimes I am struck by inspiration in the midst of doing something else—taking a walk, watching the news, reading a book, etc—and I just start writing, then I leave it aside. If the inspiration that compelled me at first stays with me, I come back and rewrite it.
A shout out to Kate Maruyama, whose short story “Jacaranda Park,” winner, Uncharted Magazine Short Story Contest, appeared in Uncharted Magazine.
It’s not like I was going to marry him; we were just shacking up. But I was surprised Benji had the kind of money where he could buy a house.
The real estate agent, Ryan, couldn’t have been much older than us, but his loafers, his aftershave, and his hair comb made him seem downright middle-aged. He said, “Up and coming,” at least four times before we got half a block down the sidewalk-lined street where the doors and the windows had bars on them. There was a chest-high chain link fence around most of them, and kids’ toys in the yards. A couple of teenage girls with backpacks, likely on their way home from school, skirted by us. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I knew they were speaking Spanish. They looked at us like the Martians we were, walking through their neighborhood.
Congratulations to Eva Recinos, whose essay “This is Tradition” appeared in Gulf Coast Magazine.
As a teenager, I had a recurring daydream: I was in a basement with a sticky floor in the middle of a huge crowd. I was headbanging and running into the mosh pit, kicking my feet and jumping. After a while, I took the stage, with a microphone in hand. In these daydreams, I knew how to hit every note and every scream, with the full force of my teenage angst propelling the sounds forward. It didn’t matter that I was a petite teenager who didn’t know the first thing about growling without destroying my vocal chords. I stomped across the stage with ease, my energy crackling off me. I flung myself into the crowd, and everyone’s hands kept me afloat.
Congrats to Noriko Nakada, whose poem “Pronunciation Guide for My Mother” appeared in The Rising Phoenix Review.
How do you say
“Hers is a name I can’t pronounce”
in Japanese?
Is there a word for that in German?
Something akin to bedauern (regret)
or the Irish word for daughter (inion)?
Did you know I would be the one
with the light eyes, the Barry nose, the double eye-lids?
That I would pass as hakujin
even though I’m hafu?
Kudos to Aruni Wijesinghe, whose poetry collection The Litany of Missing was published by Arroyo Seco Press.
A shout out to Elizabeth Galoozis, whose poems “banger,” “intransitive,” and “slip” appeared in Pidgeonholes. Here’s an excerpt from “banger:”
have you ever
gotten a body
stuck in your head
like a song?
breaking through
mental calculations,
humming
while you’re in front of other bodies.
Here’s an excerpt from “slip:”
the smell of gasoline,
aerosolized by lake waves.
a knot of pontoons
crowding a damp and bobbing dock.
Elizabeth’s poem “intransitive” is brief and difficult to excerpt so please enjoy it in full by clicking on the link above.
Congratulations to Maylin Tu, whose article “Skid Row’s Life-Saving Warming Stations Delayed for Months” appeared in Los Angeles Magazine.
As the city of Los Angeles has experienced record-breaking rain this winter, frequent cold temperatures, and not enough shelter beds to go around, city officials and a non-profit have been stuck in a blame game about promised life-saving warming centers that by mid-February have yet to materialize, LAMag has learned.
The consequences of this delay may have been deadly. In 2021, 14 unhoused people in L.A. County died of hypothermia. In fact, more people die of hypothermia in L.A. than in New York and San Francisco, with most deaths resulting from cold weather occurring in December and January. And when it rains, people living on city streets are more likely to die.
Congrats to Laura Sturza, whose essay “As a first-time bride at age 53, I knew my husband and I were starting our ‘forever’ late” appeared in the Boston Globe.
My husband and I married when I was 53 and he was 61. We knew we wouldn’t get to have and to hold one another for the same “forever” my sister and brother-in-law had already enjoyed for 39 years of marriage, and counting. We wouldn’t have the 53 years my parents shared before Dad died.
Our time together would be shorter. So, I was bent on making the most of it, especially on our wedding day. I hoped our guests would tap into all the love in their own lives — and dream of more ahead. For me and Tom, I imagined the sounds, textures, words, and embraces of the day would stay with us into our future. I wanted it all to last in the way our marriage would last.
In addition, Laura’s essay “I Could Care Less” appeared in Washington Writers’ Publishing House.
I could care less. I could, but usually, I care far too much. About everything. On a given day, picking up the dry cleaning can take on monumental proportions. And that’s not even factoring in concerns of real consequence, like visiting a sick friend. Priorities, deadlines, and urgent matters (many self-imposed), are regular elements of my daily life.
I’ve been entertaining the idea that this business of caring too much is merely clickbait I haven’t been able to resist. I wonder what would happen if I swapped in my over-developed fretting skills. Will better qualities fill the space?
What do carefree people have that I don’t? With this question, my investigation is underway.
Kudos to Jenise Miller, whose essay “Tending a Remnant of Home: How a Glass Shelf Connected a Woman to What Matters Most” appeared in High Country News.
Two months into losing both of my parents, I felt an urgency to leave. I needed to be in a place that still felt like theirs. I left my home in Compton, California, and traveled to their home country, Panama. It was my first trip there without either of them in the world to guide me, to make sure I arrived safe. My uncle, my father’s brother, now the eldest living sibling, explained that I was running to a familiar place to deal with an unfamiliar grief.
A shout out to Maria Caponi, whose poem “Twisted Bark” appeared in February 2023 OAP Newsletter (p. 14).
Bark twist. I see you.
On my daily walk, ascending
the hill, 200 steps,
plunging downwards three blocks of concrete,
to the golden powder by the ocean.
Bark twist, you are.
By the side of the old
wooden stairs. Gray, brittle odd
shape husk as the back of two legs,
chest and head buried
in the soil, where we spread
your ashes, white fine dust.
Congratulations to LIsa Eve Cheby, whose chapbook “Buffy Averts a Mid-life Apocalypse” was published by Dancing Girl Press & Studio.
Congrats to Jay O’Shea, whose short story “A Cold Inheritance” appeared in Dark Fire Fiction.
The first time I saw her was after Dad’s funeral. A sticky hot day in June and we all sweated as we stood around the yawning hole in our mourning black. The coffin sat propped up on metal brackets and a couple of Joes stood in formation. If you’re military and you didn’t desert or get your fool ass dishonorably discharged, they send out a corps and cover your casket with a flag. They do it whether you were blown up or went out from a hospital bed full of tubes. Doesn’t matter how much of a loser you were. Whose life you screwed up. Or if you really were a good man. They did it for my dad. One day, they’ll do it for me.
Kudos to Elline Lipkin, whose poem “Self-Portrait, Gretel” appeared in Copper Nickel.