The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during November of 2025. Three of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
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 take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments, especially with so many writers published this month. Thank you and happy submitting!
Congratulations to Michelle Smith who published “Fireball Whiskey” and “Too Hot Is…” with Four Feathers Press. Excerpt of the former available below:
Water fueling may not cool or calm me
the red dragon of Fireball Whiskey
utterances spiced, flame breathing
He is my only child, my Creative, Happy, Righteous, Intriguing, Social Soul.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, said MLK Jr.
I love you to the moon and back
Major props to Jacqueline Lyons whose poem “Fire Season: Super Perennial” appeared in Palette Poetry. It is also the winner of their 2025 Nature Poetry Prize, selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
Did the headline that read “Succulents Saved Their Home” end
with or without a question mark
Last night, distillations beneath a live oak’s canopy
a friend fantasizes a fire-proof dome over his house
Crassula along the fence absorb his carbon dioxide
In one dream, a rain shower in every room, matchbook rolled
into the hem of a yellow dress
fountain tumbling with smoke instead of water
Who said to make someone happy, take away everything they have
then give it all back
Kudos to Ronna Magy whose poem “Perhaps” was featured in SWIMM Every Day.
i will find you down basement stairs in a damp fruitroom along oilcloth covered shelves mason jarred cling peaches strawberry jam green tomatoes floating dilled stems and hard seeds bare light bulb pull chain dark earth under feet
perhaps your back will bend over wooden washboard and sink a bristled brush scrubbing out old family stains hot water murphy oil soap gnarled fingers hold a white shirt to dim light housedresses hankies pinned to the line
Shoutout to Kate Maruyama whose article “The Conversation Continues, Even When They’re Gone” was published in Locus Magazine‘s 778th Issue. Her fiction piece “Faith” also appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
Congratulations to Amy Raasch whose poem “ontology of llorando” was published with Sonora Review.
feet slap dark moss soft webbed
platypus plap plap plap
bump on my eardrum tap tap tap
cave-wall lit like a microphone
my amoeba legs flow in and out
lightly on a lily pad lightly
to the rhythm of the white
flower blooming in the teal black
night spilt into the bright
gold pond of a stick-on tear
why (it asks why forever)
Major props to Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley whose memoir piece “El Desahogo—The Undrowning” appeared in Exposition Review and was announced as an honorable mention in their Flash 405 competition.
One of the rare times that she let Papi sit with her, he called her “Mi amor.” She erupted like a faulty pressure cooker, blowing off her lid, splashing the scalding residue of everything that had been simmering inside. The pent-up rage from her shitty marriage and the injustice of why her and not him splattered all over the walls.
I resented her anger, but never let on. Not because Papi didn’t earn it but because her kids didn’t deserve its side effects. I stayed quiet and let her vent while my siblings talked back.
“Yo tengo derecho a desahogarme,” she said, defending her right to undrown herself.
Kudos to Laura Sturza whose article feature “Older pets and owners pair up” was published in The Beacon.
When a beautiful, fluffy calico cat named Lucy was 12 years old, her family gave her up. Lucy was sick, and they couldn’t afford her medical care, according to Maddie Lederer, an adoption counselor at the Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center in Derwood, Maryland.
“We looked at her records and saw she had a history of bladder stones,” Lederer said. “We were able to treat her and put her on prescription diet food, so she hopefully wouldn’t have a recurrence.”
Lucy quickly became a favorite among staff and volunteers, who described her as a “purring machine” and a “professional loafer with a cute face.” Despite those endearing qualities, though, Lucy was overlooked by prospective adoptive families because of her age and medical condition.
Shoutout to Jesenia Chávez whose poem “i think my mom has been grieving since she was a kid” was featured in Chillona: the zine, produced by writer Sofía Aguilar.
Congratulations to Jennifer Blackledge whose poem “November waits for you in the parking lot after the bar closes” was published in ONE ART: a journal of poetry. She was also their top most-read poet of November 2025.
because it likes to pick a fight
rattles around like the last two pills in
a bottle labeled zero refills
it dims the lights and
rolls its eyes when you object
invites you to dinner but clears your plate before you’re done
sneers and shakes your trees bare
opens your gate and lets your dog out
because it likes to hear you cry for lost things in the dark
Kudos to Melissa Chadburn whose creative nonfiction piece “Tilting at Windmills” was featured in Adi Magazine and her article “The Facts of Comportment” was published by the Feminist Press’ Women’s Studies Quarterly. See excerpt of the former below:
One guy spent his childhood ducking under desks in his classroom, hiding from stray bullets from a war raging outside in his hometown in San Salvador. Another guy spent much of his adult life drenched in music. He would perform the danza de viejitos, the dance of the old men, which he later demonstrated for my students on campus, wearing a papier-mâché mask and the infamous clankity-clank huaraches while holding a cane, his guitar nearby. He came here to make a better way for his wife and daughter. But that is another story; this is the story of day laborers.
Shoutout to Citlaly Penelope whose creative nonfiction piece “Cozy Weather” appeared in The Acentos Review.
I believed in Santa long after I probably should have. His arrival meant matching PJs in front of the fireplace and listening to the adults talk over whatever Christmas movie was playing on the tv. My mom’s blonde hair bobbed up and down whenever she spoke; her infectious laugh echoed through the white picket fence house, and I questioned if whatever she heard was that funny. His presence meant peace and hope–just for a little while, anyway.
I don’t remember Christmas before we moved into that house. Before, my older brother’s and I’s nights would involve making ourselves comfortable in two folding chairs with someone’s jacket covering us as we dozed off to the blasting Spanish music and smell of tangy stale air.
Major props to Amy Shimshon-Santo who published an essay collection entitled Piecework: Ethnographies of Place with Unsolicited Press. She also wrote the introduction “Savor This Book” to Writing Braille With Chocolate, co-edited with Madalyn U. Spangler and created by the Braille Institute of America Library.
Shoutout to Meg Whelan whose poem “Backyard Blue Pine” was featured in The Banyan Review. She begins with the words: Somewhere in the basement, sealed in a black pleather book, there is evidence.
Congratulations to Azalea Aguilar who published three creative works this month: the poetry chapbook Foxhole with Bottlecap Press, the poem “I Was Once a Whisper” in The Aerial Perspective with Quillkeepers Press, and another poem “May on Meridian Street” in If All the Trees were Pens Vol. 1.
Kudos to Ashton Cynthia Clarke whose two poems “Inspired by ‘Woman of the Popo Country’ Jamaica 1770s” and “Cracked” were both published by Four Feathers Press. The latter is available below:
I glared back at the sullen reflection wondering how this split came to be stitched together from faces of others come before two-toned swaths of a father’s dutifulness bitter rage seething on the reverse pulled & torn at ragged seams.
Props to Carla Sameth whose two poems “Dethroned” and “December, 1995” appeared in Mutha Magazine. Excerpt of the latter available below:
At first we all just took that December
to be the month before everything
would change. Of all
the mad scientist cures for miscarriage,
prednisone led to gestational diabetes
which led to food deprivation.
Finally pregnant, yet on a diet
after planning to eat whatever
I wanted when I had a real being inside,
at last. I held this sparkly feeling
that never left no matter
the taste of grey toast or dirt,
the strange bright red blood
at 13 weeks. This time,
the baby stayed.
The alchemist grew with me.
Shoutout to Molly Cameron whose memoir piece “Why I Still Want a Delia’s Bucket Hat” was featured in open secrets magazine.
Visiting my parents recently, I attempted to clean out a drawer in my childhood bedroom when I found what remained of my stash: four Delia’s catalogs, slightly worn and faded but otherwise preserved. One of them was the Summer 1997 issue that started my obsession, featuring the bucket hat. A thrill tingled through me. I spread them all out on the carpet and read each one cover to cover. I recognized all the models as if they had been old friends and remembered so many articles of clothing that I had lusted after. The floral-print ringer tee. The long green plaid skirt. The platform flip-flops. I put the catalogs in a Ziploc freezer bag and brought them home with me to Queens.
Congratulations to Mahru Elahi whose creative nonfiction piece “Body Double” was published in Black Warrior Review’s Issue 52.1, and they placed another creative nonfiction piece “Change of Name” with Solstice Magazine. Excerpt of the latter is available below:
Whether in its original or post-9/11 form, I can tell you that my first name is a multisensory site of racialized contention. It isn’t just the painful stutter that I have to watch out for. There has been a lifetime of dubious looks: when I stand and walk to a door held open by someone in scrubs for a doctor’s appointment, it’s there. I sense a bodily hesitation, like the door might close in my face. It happens when I press my papers to a bullet-proof glass window at passport check and wonder if the extra questions, the extra care with searching my body, is related to the name I carry.
The dubious look is followed, sometimes, by a question.
Kudos to Gina Rae Duran who edited Flowersong Press’ anthology The White Picket Fence: Stories of Individuality as Rebelliousness Collection (alongside Edward Vidaurre) where it was released just this month! They also placed a poem in the California Bards SoCal Poetry Anthology 2025, produced by Local Gems Press.
*Feature image credit to Margaret Gallagher*
