The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during November 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), 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 November 2023!
Congratulations to Preeti Kaur Rajpa, whose poetry collection “membery” was published by Tupelo Press. Says Illya Kaminsky of the collection,
“In the house of language I enter through brick” writes Preeti Kaur Rajpal in this terrific debut where songs of exiles become a ceremony as the poet gathers her tribes and confronts history through family visions and invocations, ‘a canopy of memory opening against bone rain.’ As Rajpal calls on heritage to shield against the pains of racism and injustice, the language of the poems elevates, resulting in longing and vividness, emotive intelligence and beauty that’s fresh as the “first bite in the fleshed apple of language,” making membery a very moving and beautiful book.
Congrats also to Kyla D. Walker, whose article “7 Craft Books to Help You Become a Better Writer” appeared in Electric Literature.
Craft is often thought of as the backbone of literature, the scientific and mathematical side of the creative process that examines an artist’s techniques. In prose, it often involves terms such as plot, pacing, point of view, characterization, scene-setting, structure, dialogue… It is the rational breakdown of those mechanisms that work behind the scenes in the stories we love and despise most—the ones we wish we’d written ourselves.
Kudos to Ashunda Norris, whose poems “Genesis @ Midnight Hour,” “The Forks of the Road,” and “Can the Planet Be Rescued From The Psychopaths?” appeared in Evergreen Review. Here’s an excerpt from “Genesis @ Midnight Hour:”
The day I turned 13
I was reborn under uranus
I latched onto my flowered song
wit a cross to bear
plucked right through
lips silky wit gin
Here’s an excerpt from “The Forks of the Road:”
In the morning R.H. Elam decided to sell some Negro slaves. In total,
he had 27 LIKELY YOUNG NEGROS. (He will keep a constant
supply on hand during all of trading season.) R.H. planned to sell all of
them. About how many Negro slaves do you think R.H. Elam sold? Do
you think he sold an equal negro slaves as his counterparts?
Here’s an excerpt from “How Can The Planet Be Rescued From The Psychopaths?”
What is wrong with America?
a. Crack
b. Opium
c. Hero(i)n
A shout out to Lisbeth Coiman, whose article “How to Survive the Holidays” appeared in L.A. Parent.
The last time I hosted a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, I almost lost my oldest son’s respect. After two glasses of wine, my tongue unleashed itself in front of my two adult sons, my new daughter-in-law, my husband, his relatives and their young children. The next day, my eldest son and his wife rose before dawn and left the house unannounced. When I reached him over the phone, he swore never to sit with me at a table again.
In addition, Lisbeth’s book review “Auto/Body: Redistribution of Power is southeast L.A.” of Vickie Vértiz’s poetry collection Auto/Body appeared in Culteral7 Daily.
In Vickie Vértiz’s newest collection Auto/Body, Southeast LA shines like the rim of a ’61 Ford Sunliner. Vértiz uses the language of auto mechanics and the Latinx context of Southeast Los Angeles to deconstruct patriarchy. Like a car at the repair shop, Southeast LA is elevated not only to examine its inner problems but also to reveal the role of the Latinx queer in reclaiming power.
Congratulations to Lorinda Toledo, whose interview “The Confines of Masculinity Are Killing Us: A Conversation with Joe Milan Jr.” appeared in The Rumpus.
Joe Milan Jr.’s debut novel, The All-American (W.W. Norton & Company, 2023), is a wry, propulsive, heartfelt exploration of an immigrant boy’s journey toward manhood. Milan questions our culture’s conceptions of identity, citizenship, and masculinity by turning the expected narratives on their head.
Congrats also to Andrea Gutierrez, whose news story “Germans Prep for Pot Legalization” appeared on NPR News.
It’s one of those mild evenings in Berlin that’s too nice, too warm to spend indoors, yet the lounge is buzzing with chatter. A few people hover over snacks and coffee. This is a meeting of CSC High ground. They are a cannabis social club.
A shout out to Daria E. Topousis, whose short story “King of the Arroyo” appeared in Greetings from Inlandia.
Gary had been all around this big old country, from the boggy swamps of Louisiana to the dry desert plains of Colorado, from the ivy-covered colleges of New England to the starlit streets of Southern California. He’d thumbed rides on open interstates and worked at ranches and factories to pay for his next ride to another place, another adventure, another unknown town. He thought this would be true for the rest of his life: riding the rails, never letting the dust settle under his feet. But one day while riding the steep hillsides and canyons of the San Gabriel mountains, a place where Vásquez the bandit hid out from the law and where the sons of abolitionist John Brown lived their last days, he caught a ride on a rickety old tugboat. It stood empty at the edge of the river, paint chipped and bow bent, but inviting all the same. He clung to its plastic corners as it slide down the ravines and whizzed through the trees, a magical ride through old oaks, feral figs, sycamores, and madrone. It washed up on a shore bounded by rocks and hillsides, a place that hadn’t seen real rain for several years, a place as dry and desiccated as any the West could contain.
Kudos to Flint, whose creative nonfiction “Horse Crazy” appeared in The Offing.
1
Asked her view of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 obscenity trial, Mrs. Patrick Campbell remarked, My dear, I don’t care what they do, so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.
2
Every horse-crazy girl hears the same thing: When you meet the right boy, you’ll grow out of it. Like it’s a developmental phase girls go through, like growing breasts or getting acne or hair sprouting up in all sorts of places. Like one day we’d be out riding our horse on the street-side trails of Miami-Dade County’s Horse Country, and that guy in the Camaro who is always slowing down and shouting out his window, Hey Baby, I’ve got something better for you to ride right here, will slow down and shout out his window, only this time we will finally come to our silly-goose girl senses and abandon our horse on the side of the road, ripe and ready for the ride of our life, and fingers crossed hoping he doesn’t mind that our hymen’s already been broken.