Breathe and Push: Hampshire Gates and Mentor Meanderings

by Thea Pueschel

There are gates that some of us are born outside of. We may try to scale the barbed fence, but without guidance, we only wind up nicked and wounded. When I grew up in Orcutt, California, an unincorporated city in northern Santa Barbara County in the 80s and 90s, these barbed wired fences were all around, holding livestock and rusted tractors. 

Faded No Trespassing black signs hung on posts. Sometimes a gate would be left open and the temptation to pass would arise. However, uninvited, you never knew what was on that land. Might be a shotgun or a bull. That was what my mother, an Angeleno, told us, and being filled with trepidation, I listened.

I grew up the third of four daughters, in a family of blue-collar workers. Farmers on one side and house painters on the other. Hard working; dirt, or paint under the fingernails.

image of Hampshire Gate swung open to a grassy, tree-lined field
Sebastian Ballard, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

When I was 13, I went to work with my dad to paint a plant nursery. The Hampshire Gate was unlocked, and we drove up the easement. My dad pulled over to the soft sand shoulder and said the words I hoped to hear. “Would you like to drive?”

I slid out of the passenger seat and into the driver’s side of his white Chevy Luv truck. Barely able to reach the pedals, I pressed the clutch in hard and found first. He smiled. I pulled back onto the dirt road. I went into second. Pride filled my heart as it confirmed—I was indeed my father’s son.

The road was bumpy; we pulled up near the grower station. A kid and a dog played ball in the middle of the dirt road. There was a manure pile on the other. 

Not knowing what to do, I forgot about the brake and swerved and hit the manure pile at full speed—15 miles an hour. The truck lodged two feet deep into the pile. My dad shook his head. “What were you thinking, Pueschel?” 

“Not to hit the kid,” I said through the ache of my misguided intuition.

“You didn’t think about hitting the brake?” He slid out of the passenger side to dug us out leaving me alone in the driver’s seat for the first time. I had dreamt about sitting there alone since age eight, when he first allowed me to sit on his lap and steer. It was also the last until Driver’s Ed at fifteen.

The reality is my father could have told me to hit the brake and I would have obeyed, but he opted to let me figure it out myself. A moment of direct guidance wasn’t present. Along with work dirt, there was a constant reinforcement of rugged individualism. He was there, but simultaneously, I was alone.

Craft Gates

I thought writing was solitary. I saw the fence, but I couldn’t recognize the gate or see how to get to the other side. They did not leave it open like the nursery. My literary voice was unfamiliar compared to those I saw in the literary canon, and I had the rejections to prove it. 

Growing up androgenous and with ADHD left me on the other side of gates my entire childhood and much of my adult life. Like a closed Hampshire Gate, I could see on the other side of things, but crossing without permission, I never knew what I was heading into. I would be bit by barbs when trying to break into community with being “too masculine” by my female family members and girls from my congregation or being called too stupid or immature by teachers without emotional intelligence or proper professional boundaries. It gifted me curiosity and alternative perspectives. In workshops, folks have pointed out that I have a lot of different POVs. That’s the thing about being able to see through the Hampshire Gate. All you can do is observe what’s going on inside of them, and when your brain is wired differently, it alters how things are seen and what stories want to be told.

Gate Opening

A screenwriting agent approached me when I was in film school. He had fallen in love with my film festival long-listed script and expressed interest in representing me. I did as I did not do with the manure pile. I pumped the brakes. I didn’t have guidance and didn’t know what would be on the other side of representation. The possibility of success seemed as daunting as a bull, particularly because my screenwriting instructor had stated how flawed that same script was and how I should stick to directing because it was obvious I was more passionate about that. It was the shotgun that scared me off from professionally pursuing screenwriting.

I was first published in elementary school as the winner of a young writer’s award. Later, as a young filmmaker, I published film reviews under a pseudonym on the web, which led me once being on a panel with F. X. Feeney debating from the feminist perspective to a full theater. They had let me in the gate a few times, but without direction, I didn’t know how far I could wander up sans permission.

Twenty years later, I remained solitary. I wrote a lot, finished little, and published primarily in the Wellness space until three years ago. I would occasionally venture out and submit a poem or CNF piece. My unhelpful screenwriting professor instilled doubt in me. I shut down sharing fiction and screenplays. The rejections I received from the few times a year I submitted poetry or CNF were verification: I was unwelcome in the literary and creative writing space. That changed three years ago when I found WWS, a community eager to support and lift. A community based on unity versus competition.

A workshop curated by a WWS member through a local university with another WWS member as facilitator was where I found my confidence to share my fictional creations once again. It was a prompted one-off. I read my work. At the end, when we were in conversation, the instructor said to me, “You’re a fiction writer.” I self-deprecated. She refused to let me do so.

This was a gate opened wide for me. Someone saw me on the other side and encouraged me to cross into the literary landscape. Then the pandemic hit. My business was impacted and decimated, and all I had was writing. My work went from primarily CNF to fiction: the type of story I could control.

Mentor Meanderings

I ditched the mythos of rugged individualism in creative writing as I became a fully vested member of the WWS community with engaged literary citizenship. A collective is much stronger than a solo writer. I found writing partners and generous guidance from members.

This experience led me to think that I had evolved beyond interactions with men who weren’t particularly good at guidance, who closed gates I had enough skill to walk through, but too much trepidation to move without permission. I thought I had gotten over this trend until I enrolled in a mentorship with a male editor I held in esteem.

I thought, here is a gate I can access, and it was open. I was a courageous writer and had thirty-plus pieces published in the last two years, twenty-six of them fiction, a few craft essays, some blogs for Women Who Submit, and a few CNF essays. I had been paid for twenty-five of them, for twenty-two I was paid handsomely. I had tested my mettle and proved to myself that they intended the open gate for me. 

New post lockdown confidence and a lot of recent writing credits under my belt, I was sure this well respected and connected editor would be the mentor to guide me further into my success. Perhaps, one day indirectly it will have an impact, but in the now, the scabs from the barbs are healing.

The mentor had great credits, is well respected, and gave great craft talks. I went to a few of his drop-in workshops, and I had confidence in his ability to guide me. My interactions to this point were so positive, I recommended his workshops to others. Our first meeting went fine. We set up the parameters of what our one-on-one work would look like. I was hopeful.

When I received notes from him, I was extremely disappointed. He wasn’t cruel, but it was clear he did not get my work. Looking through the notes there was some useful feedback, but when we met it was clear, he either wasn’t the reader for me or he wasn’t reading the work fully (our last meeting he rescheduled, then the day of sent me a note asking if we could meet later so he could finish my packet). Some of his notes asked questions, that if he had read the text fully, he would have seen I answered those questions. I had others read the same works and verify that there were clear connections.

He seemed to be stuck in his world view, or maybe he was not into my writing. In one piece, I wrote there was a reference to feeling eyes undress the character to which he said “eyes don’t do that.” I argued, “It may be cliché, but eyes definitely undress people. Folks who live in perceived female form have had many an experience of eyes leaving them feeling attacked.” He disagreed because it wasn’t something he had experienced. In his worldview, eyes didn’t do that. I conceded with “what you are telling me is that it isn’t working, so it’s not working.”

The feedback was starkly different from that of other writers/editors I have workshopped with. As a neurodivergent writer, my work is meta. It’s part of who I am and it’s not something I can stop. My perspective watches patterns, focuses on the psychosocial aspect of human development, and often has multiple layers. Patterns emerge, not quite to the Beautiful Mind level, but they seem obvious to me.

The following meetings he kept bringing up that I was a genre writer, something I had never been called before. Genre writers do something far more difficult than I could ever do. They build complex worlds based on formulas. My brain rejects that kind of structure. 

I think what he was meaning is I use accessible language, which I do, but my work is more complex than the words he read, it just didn’t work with his taste. After our third meeting and him repeating genre about 10x, I told him I had never been called a genre writer before, ever. He attempted to assuage my frustration and stated he didn’t mean it as an insult. In most literary spaces I find when people say someone is a “genre writer” it’s not generally a compliment. It is a closed gate.

I would be remiss if I said I didn’t feel destroyed after our meetings. Once, I cried in frustration for four hours. The solace was that WWS member and mentor Colette Sartor prepared me for this. She said, “You are an experimental writer. A lot of literary editors will not get it. That’s okay, you just have to submit to the places that will.”

The editor said I needed to be less metaphorical overall. In another piece, he said I was too universal. What this told me is that we were not a good match. A few weeks toward the end of our program together on Twitter, he said that if he could write like anyone, it would be Elizabeth Strout. Had I known that, I would have known we were not an ideal pairing. Elizabeth Strout is a gifted writer that writes MFA style prose, but it isn’t my style of writing or preferred reading. My writing is New California and Strout’s is New England literature. Mine is experimental; it is odd; it is as unique as my neurology.  

The editor kept saying that I like to tackle different and difficult perspectives. I do not think he realized that this is the way my brain works. It’s not about liking to write a particular way, it’s my authentic voice. I choose accessible language most times because I find arbitrary barriers nonsensical, but the perspective isn’t forced, it just is. Trying to fit into neurotypical forms can make my brain feel broken and forced.

Friends, mentors, and colleagues all said the same thing: that he was a gatekeeper but not my own. My interaction with him triggered the same feelings I had going through elementary school with teachers that did not understand children who think and see the world differently. When all was done, I was able to detach from the feeling of being worthless. 

Now, I take the wheel, knowing I am the driver of my writer’s voice. I do not need permission to travel this road, the words are always with me. I zip over the literary terrain in the vehicle of my imagination and I am still learning when to hit the brakes. Sometimes I find myself lodged in a mountain of manure. I dig myself out with the support of a community. I learn, I adapt, and I course correct to find another gate to access. Thankfully, I am a member of a community that opens gates and provides kindheartedness along with useful guidance and direction.

Thea Pueschel is a nonbinary emerging writer and artist, a member of Women Who Submit, a facilitator for Shut Up & Write, a California Arts Council Panelist 2022, and a Dorland Arts Colony Resident. Thea’s first solo mixed media exhibition “44: not dead, just invisible” ran at The Center of Orange from September 2021-December 2021.  Thea has been published in Short Edítion, and Perhappened, among others.

My Action Partner—A Thoughtful Witness

By Laura Sturza

While I have never birthed a human baby, I often benefit from the practices taught in birthing classes, the ones name-checked in this column—breathe, push. I spend much of my time pushing to be seen, heard, known, read, welcomed, held. I breathe between pushes, sometimes because I’m about to pass out.

Among the things that have carried me through my pushes to write, publish, read, support other writers, and teach—has been the support of having an action buddy (aka action partner). We’re both goal-oriented people, full of visions and the chops to carry them out. It happens with greater ease by having a consistent partner who serves as a reminder of our progress.

stock photo of two women with dark hair looking at a page in a journal.

Even though I have a spouse and other friends who know a lot about what I do, a daily check-in with my action buddy means having a thoughtful witness to the details of my day-to-day actions and intentions. Meanwhile, I get to see her process, victories, challenges, and moments when she needs to catch her breathe. We listen deeply, ask if the other needs particular support. 

The pandemic meant that most of us weren’t out in the world as much. It was easy to feel invisible. Yet each day, I’ve had someone watching out for me while I’m watching out for her. Our partnership helps me make mindful choices about activities concerning my writing goals, along with seemingly unrelated (yet related) tasks like hanging blackout curtains, which help me sleep better. Self-care is a recurring theme.

We correspond via email, often starting with a short check-in like “Spouse overfed the cat again. I’m furious.” or “Had a shitty night’s sleep, but hopeful anyway.”

Then, two lists. The first is the day’s action plan. I do mine in bullet points, which are so tidy and filled with hope the items will magically get completed. 

  • eat to support well-being
  • breathe, rest, take breaks
  • savor my teaching success
  • welcome health joy, yes, peace
  • meditation/prayer
  • type up notes to students and email them
  • brainstorm new story pitch
  • read
  • yoga
  • avoid multitasking
  • date with stepdaughter and her fiancé on Zoom
  • lights out at 10:15

Even the items that aren’t completed are considered achievements. They mean we weren’t only pushing. We were breathing too.

The second list celebrates what went well the day before:

Gratitudes:

  • ate to support well-being
  • health
  • Mom got her hair done
  • amazing first class, teaching!
  • lady at Starbucks
  • Tom, Zari
  • handled issue at Mom’s place with grace
  • took breaks
  • morning walk
  • the last episode of Insecure
  • progress on writing projects

Beyond corresponding with one another, we talk by phone at least once a week to enjoy a more directly interactive exchange. 

I’ve had many action buddies over the years as schedules and priorities have changed, and I’ve found them through writing groups and other social circles. We’ve had commonalities and differences, which has worked well in having someone who introduces me to new ideas and approaches.

Finally, my action buddy isn’t the only person who supports my writing and other visions. I rely on a team approach, reaching out to people when taking harder actions with texts like “hitting send on my latest story.” I also attend the WWS Saturday check-ins and stay current on our Rejection Brag. 

However, having that one consistent person has been among the ways I’ve found stability, especially during the shaky nature of the past couple of years. We serve as birthing coaches, reminding one another when to breathe, when to push.

headshot of author Laura Sturza

Laura Sturza’s writing is in The Washington Post, The LA Times, AARP’s The GirlfriendHippocampus, and Lunch Ticket, among others. She is completing her memoir, How I Got Married After 50 for the First Time. Laura wrote, produced, and starred in the one-woman show, Finding the Perfect Place to Live in 111 Gyrations. She recently started teaching writing to older adults. Laura lived in L.A. for 20 years and is now in Rockville, Maryland. laurasturza.com

Writing on a Budget: The Cost of Self-Promotion

By Lisbeth Coiman

Self-promotion is a full-time job. Large publishing companies have entire PR teams to promote an author’s work. If the writer signs with a small press the weight of promotion falls on the author who can chose one of three options. A. Do not promote at all. Bring the book into the world and allow the universe to do its thing.  B. Hire the services of a PR company which can go anywhere from $1800 to $3000. C. Blow your own horn and blow loud. 

Bird eating a butterfly with book title
Available at FLP

After all, books are like children. We conceive them. We care for them when they are gestating. But once they are born, it is our responsibility as word artists to nurture their growth. I am proud of all my children: the two human and the three books. As much as I have been/am a committed mother, I refuse to just put a book out and abandon it to its luck. 

The cost associated with self-promotion can skyrocket. It will cost a couple of hundred dollars to learn to design a website. Li Yun Alvarado does an excellent job. There are fees associated to purchasing and keeping a domain. You will need a few author pics to use for submissions, events, and social media graphics. At minimum that would be another $250. Melissa Johnson offers budget sensitive photo shoots.

Then there is the issue of advertising on social media platforms. Pay anywhere from $15 to $30 to boost a post. Pay fees to store graphics in Planoly or any other social media friendly archive. There is also the opportunity of paying somebody just for the task of posting on social media, which is not cost effective but can take time off your shoulders. I have temporary hired designers to do this for me, but only for short periods of time. Camari Hawkins and JT have helped me design graphic concepts and update my website. Graphics must meet social media constrains, which will require fees if you want a sophisticated job.

In the end, the only low-cost option is a DIY approach. My choice is always to go for the most basic. But even when spending the minimum, the time spent in advertising your forthcoming or just released book takes a toll on the individual. I do not wish to exhaust my readers with a mile long to-do list of items required for a book release campaign. Know that it requires hours of careful planning. These include but are not limited to: writing press releases, sending letters, contacting reading series, calling radio stations, organizing events, contacting libraries, getting a zoom account, purchasing your own books to sign to readers, writing emails back and forth, designing graphics for social media and cross posting everywhere possible to avoid boosting fees, or updating a website that is far from perfect. It is unpaid time in a long process that can last a whole year leaving even the most committed writer with no space to develop new content. 

Don’t get me wrong. It is gratifying too. I feel proud knowing that I have done this on my own, with the help of friends who retweet/repost, or encourage me, or offer their venues to host an event, or simply offer fresh ideas. Even when three people show up for an event, I am happy to know that I reached new readers, and they are now aware of my work as a poet.

I am nowhere close to be an established writer even when I can no longer claim to be emerging. But in the last five years, I have worked day and night learning, writing, and making myself known. Yes, I am grateful for all the support I have received along the way from the extraordinary talented community of Women Who Submit and others in LA for they have have welcome me and my craft. But I thank me first for the hard work I put raising my babies. 


headshot of Lisbeth CoimanLisbeth Coiman is an author, poet, educator, cultural worker, and rezandera born in Venezuela. Coiman’s wanderlust spirit landed her to three countries—from her birthplace to Canada, and finally the USA, where she self-published her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017). She dedicated her bilingual poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento, Finishing Line Press( Sept. 2021) to her homeland, Venezuela. An avid hiker, and teacher of English as a Second Language, Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Writing on a Budget: How I Became a Budget Whisperer

By Deborah Edler Brown

I have a confession to make: I am in love with my budget. Yes, my budget. Those five letters that usually spell constriction, that have always sounded like a stern math teacher glaring over her glasses growling “No,” have become an exciting almost magical portal to possibility and peace of mind.

As a freelance writer, budgets always scared me. They took the long view: what do you make in a year and what do you spend? Because I didn’t know the answer to the first question, I was afraid to look at the second. 

Then a poet friend announced that she had eliminated $10,000 of debt with a program called YNAB (You Need a Budget). Interest piqued, I jumped in. More than a budgeting program, it was a philosophy. It was also an educational system & community. The key questions were how much money I had now and what were my plans for it. Forecasting was discouraged (what if that check never comes?). The goal was to stay current, clear-eyed, and flexible because life happens. My first goal was total awareness…which suddenly felt doable and kind. I started to understand my finances, what they could and could not do. I now only budget money that is actually in my account. I give every dollar a job and only one job (because, unlike me, my money can’t moonlight). The sheer sobriety of this approach washes over my financial fires like spring water. I can’t wait to allocate my paycheck each month, and I breathe easy when I pay bills because I know the money is waiting.

So, inspired by the elegance of clear numbers, I turned the budgeting lens onto my overwhelming schedule. I opened a new file and named it “TimeNab.” Every day, I deposited $24 and, for a few weeks, tracked where I “spent” it. Total awareness struck again. With travel and prep, my four-hour teaching assignment ate up eight full hours of my workday. Sleep took another eight, which left the remaining eight to cook, clean, write, exercise, socialize, watch TV, shop, and attend medical appointments, not to mention driving there. I was not lazy! I was trying to pack three weeks of clothing into an overnight bag; it just didn’t fit.

Sometimes time is money…although what it’s worth will vary by who is paying me. Sometimes money can buy time, like paying someone else to do something I hate or can’t do. The value in both is in the life they allow me.

As writers, we negotiate time to write, to edit, to research, and submit. And while writing is one of the least expensive arts, we still pay for supplies, submission fees, and workshops. Having both as realistic budget categories puts us in the driver’s seat.

This month’s destination is the 8th Annual WWS Submission Drive, so it’s time to check my budget. When will I polish my pieces? When will I research target markets? How much can I spend on submission fees while respecting my other goals? Those questions are like gas in my tank: they tell me how far I can go. But they do more than that. Each decision I make with time and money is a decision about where I want to go, where I plan to go. It’s like casting a spell to make it happen. Who could not love that?


Woman holding a face maskDeborah Edler Brown was born in Brazil and raised in Pittsburgh. Her poem “Cubism” won Kalliope’s Sue Saniel Elkind Poetry Prize, her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart, and she was 1998 Head-to-Head Haiku Slam Champion. She lives in LA, where she teaches reading to adults and dances daily.

Writing On a Budget: Budgeting Emotions

By Lisbeth Coiman

Many years ago, a friend of mine gifted me a kit advertised as a spiritual tool for affirmation. It’s a cute concept: write a wish on a piece of fine paper, roll the paper like a funnel, place it on a platform, and lit on fire. The paper quickly burns and lifts your wish into the air in a magical moment that lasts seconds. It’s cute.

Only I had stopped placing my intentions in the universe as wishes. Instead, I plan and design my life based on well informed decisions, considering risks and unexpected circumstances. The process is not always pretty and most of the time far from smooth.

Bookkeeping concept aside, budgeting is a way to keep an eye on where the expectations reside while we watch the colors of the balance sheet go from black to crimson red. Budgeting is mental health into the future.

Sunset in hues of orange over mountain
Sunset near Edwards, CO 7/3/21

Budgeting a small investment for retirement for the untrained entrepreneur requires a steady hand and an incredible amount of trust in the Self. Those monetary decisions should allow for the unexpected changes and turbulences pass through our lives without breaking us, even as they shake us.

Only five months into the pandemic, I took a risk greater than anything I had tried before and bought a house. Then the budge burnt with a puff in the air, like that spiritual tool for affirmation my friend gifted me.

After eight months waiting for a building permit, prices of lumber went up 400%. Plumbing material tailed behind. Inspectors found fault and the project was delayed even more. I am now into the one-year mark of building a tiny ADU unit and still no end in sight. At times, I wondered if there was any joy left. I felt depleted.

Then the past came back to threaten my sense of security. I reacted with more work and a flood of tears.

But I didn’t budget my emotions. 

I allowed myself to feel all the anxiety, fear, abandonment, and anger. I considered these negative emotions as valid as joy and laughter and love, and they were necessary to remind me that being human requires authentic feelings, that my face doesn’t have to be IG ready every day. The reality is I wouldn’t have gone through it without friends holding me. They listened with patience on the phone when the sky turned dark. I am grateful they checked on me and offered advice, “Do not let anybody get into your head. Do not engage.”

With the help of those friends, and a good reserve of joy stored deep inside me I have hiked through this stretch.

What we can do to budget our emotions is to experience joy in its fullest whenever it steps into view because joy’s duration is unpredictable. Fill ourselves with its invigorating energy. Take the risk to love again. Get in touch with our senses. Jump into the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean and let that childish moment fuel the next heavy days. And write because the role of poetry is to survive and find beauty even in despair. 

I don’t complain about my life because I am convinced I have done the right thing. Despite the budget being way into the red palette, I am content in my achievements so far. During all this time, I have lived intensely and with purpose. I am satisfied and impressed of my own ability to reinvent myself even when somebody threatened my sense of security.

All my decisions have been well informed. My personal life is on hold but not over.  It’s compartmentalized into being a word artist, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a mother, a daughter, and a friend. All these parts of me come together to give myself what I didn’t give me before: a chance to design my own joy and future.

Both look spectacular from here, rough as the uphill road might be. 


Lisbeth Coiman is an author, poet, educator, cultural worker, and rezandera born in Venezuela. Coiman’s wanderlust spirit landed her to three countries—from her birthplace to Canada, and finally the USA, where she self-published her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017). Her poetry and personal essays are featured in the online publications: La Bloga, EntropyAcentos Review, Lady/Liberty/Lit, Nailed, Hip Mama Magazine, Rabid Oaks, Cultural Weekly, and Resonancias Literarias. In print media Spectrum v.16, The Altadena Literary Review, and Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology. An avid hiker, and teacher of English as a Second Language, Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Breathe and Push: How a Hawk Lured Me Out of a Dark Holler into the Creative Light

by Anne Pellicciotto

Writing my secrets has always been my secret. 

I’ve scribbled away, diligently, in the margins of my life and, by now, in my fifties, I have a fully completed manuscript. Though it’s never done, is it? 

To keep the creative spark alive, over the years, I’ve taken workshops, gone away to residencies, joined critique groups, attended conferences. With the support of a writing community, and because I’ve had no choice, I kept going. I’ve written and rewritten: the very first version was a novel. I deviated to other stories, essays, blogs. I’ve always come back. 

I’ve mustered the courage to pitch to agents. I’ve gotten kind rejections. I’ve gotten silence. I’ve gotten a bite: Interesting, send it when it’s fully polished and ready to go.

It’s not ready to go; it will never be ready. 

A misty October in a holler in West Virginia.
image of a West Virginia holler by Anne Pellicciotto

Then, one misty morning this past October, in a holler, in West Virginia, that hawk swooped down and caught me in the gaze of his beady yellow eye. I stopped in my tracks. Everything became still. My heart thumped in my chest as I watched him, expanse of brown and white striated wing, sail upward.

“Simplicity and freedom,” I whispered, as he hung above me like an untethered kite.  Then a smile, the first in ages, spread across my face.  

I’d escaped DC for a much-needed break from the pandemic and political mayhem, from the helicopters circling over my neighborhood, rattling the windows in their frames, from appalling events that had yet to unfold. Over the course of my week in the woods the panic attacks subsided, my racing heart calmed, the mind-numbing headaches waned. I slept through the night. I wrote through my days. I hiked through the fields, along the brook, taking in the scent of jasmine and decaying leaves. 

Maskless, out in nature, I could breathe.

Back in Washington, I felt immediately trapped again. This suffocating feeling was not unfamiliar to me: trapped as a kid in a home with my drunken, enraged father; confined in a young marriage that was supposed to have saved me from my imploding family. 

In middle-age, in this time of Covid, I felt a bubbling urgency, once again, to escape. 

As a professional change consultant and coach, I’d spent the past six months guiding clients – business owners, artists, solopreneurs – through their pandemic pivots. In doing so, I’d navigated my own business pivot. I ported my services online and zoomed my days away like the rest of the white-collar world. My clients were inspiring: in the face of so much adversity, many made the shift from survive to thrive.

The problem was:  I wasn’t thriving. I hadn’t been since way before the pandemic. The silver lining of Covid for me, one of the lucky ones who hadn’t been inflicted directly, was that I could see my own fragility – and its polarity – my vitality.

The encounter with the hawk had woken me up to a glimmering possibility. But what was I supposed to do? What did simplicity and freedom mean? 

Initially, I took it to mean selling my house, divesting of my belongings, shuttering my business, and driving west across the country to seek out a new life. But that vision – along with a parade of real estate agents through my home of 22 years – only accentuated my fears. When I closed my eyes at night, the image of pulling away from Park Road, a car crammed with my earthly possessions, drifting around the wide-open west, untethered, ironically, did not feel like freedom. Instead, my chest felt constricted; the sleeplessness and anxiety returned. 

My therapist told me, frankly, “Anne, you’re scaring the shit out of yourself.” 

I chuckled nervously. I bit my thumb cuticle bloody. Did this mean I wasn’t ready? Ready for what?

I went back to my half-finished vision board for clues. The collage of pictures ripped from magazines and glued onto posterboard depicted serene scenes, isolated abodes with decks and Adirondack chairs facing vistas of water and mountains. A pink lotus flower bloomed out of the left upper corner with the word contemplate pasted above it.

When I really focused, I could see: the images were of me, very still, in quiet places. I had to close my eyes to access what was in the depths of my heart, a secret well-kept from even myself: I needed simplicity and freedom in my life to, shhhh, write.  

Even typing these words, revealing this truth to the page, felt like a betrayal, like something I should backspace and erase. But that admission – that writing has always been my passion – was a door, and I stood on the threshold.

My manuscript sits, weighed down by secrets. When will it be ready? When will I?

It’s time to double down on Monday Night Writing Salon, I tell myself. I’ll sign-up for a memoir class at the Writers Center. 

I blink my eyes shut and reopen them to my vision board, propped on the radiator. A calm river runs down the center, a kayak piercing the shady green water. A bluebird, not quite a hawk, drifts across a sunlit sky, song notes emanating from its beak.

I exhale a puff of exasperation, bend closer to the collage, brow crinkled. A woman in white dives into a tropical blue abyss. A hiker gazes across and open field toward the horizon with the message: Trails are merely suggestions.

The truth stares me in the face. 

The truth speaks to me in my dreams. The hawk opens its hooked beak and says I can.

 I don’t need another writing program, a swirl of busy work, a litany of applications, rejections, submissions, decisions. 

I have but one decision to make.

I don’t need a grant; I need to grant myself permission to stop zooming and go.

Writing is a story burning inside me. Writing is a decision to feed the flames.

Writing is the hawk that has reminded me, has lured me, has eyed me.

I stand at the edge of the field feeling the nudge of the breeze against my back. I take my first step through the tall grass. The ground feels firm on this path; my heart feels light. I am in motion.

The next steps are practical; this is a self-funded sabbatical. I prepare my house for rental, post an ad, field the inquiries, draw-up a lease, begin to sort through my possessions. I take another step and reserve my cabin in the woods, in the mountains, by a river, with a good desk and chair and light and air. I make those symbolic pictures real.

I have already run up against Resistance – a very familiar voice that says things like: “Well, you’re not a real writer,” and “The world doesn’t need another book,” and “Isn’t it a little late for a career change?”

This time I reply sweetly, firmly: It’s never too late to become who you are. It’s never too late to be free.

Head shot of author Anne Pellicciotti standing in front of a wide expanse of water.

Anne Pellicciotto, life coach and owner of SeeChange, writes about the crossroads in life that break and make us. Heeding the hawk’s message, she’s hit the road for a year of simplicity and freedom. In the void, Anne plans to complete Strings Attached, a #metoo coming of age memoir in which she marries her music teacher lover to save herself and, eventually, must break free from him. Follow her midlife coming of age adventures at www.seechangeconsulting.com/blog or on Medium at https://anneseye.medium.com/.

Writing On a Budget: Poem for Mature Women Contemplating Independence

By Lisbeth Coiman

Know that crowds will cheer your decision

Will shout words of encouragement from the sidewalk

Know that any well thought-out plan

Will blow with the clouds in the Santa Ana winds

Know that working weeks have more than 80 hours

And only one wallet will open at the grocery store

Know that you don’t qualify for grants or subsidies

Because 80 hours a week income is enough

Know that a stove, a phone, a tire, and the windshield wiper can all break

On the same week you must pay car insurance

Know that poetry and zoom meetings on a broken screen

Produce throbbing headaches

Know that union fees could easily pay for a new computer

But you’ll never cross the picket line

Know that there are phone services for $20

Discounts for gas, electric, and insurance during the pandemic

Know that you will consider questionable sources of income

But you will decide to rent a room instead

Know that if you move

IRS might misplace your stimulus check

Know that submissions, workshops, books, and literary events

Can become luxury items on a limited budget

Know that your feet will hold you

Know that you will write anyway


headshot of Lisbeth Coiman

Lisbeth Coiman is an author, poet, educator, cultural worker, and rezandera born in Venezuela. Coiman’s wanderlust spirit landed her to three countries—from her birthplace to Canada, and finally the USA, where she self-published her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017). Her poetry and personal essays are featured in the online publications: La Bloga, EntropyAcentos Review, Lady/Liberty/Lit,Nailed,Hip Mama Magazine, Rabid Oaks,Cultural Weekly, and Resonancias Literarias. In print media Spectrum v.16, The Altadena Literary Review, and Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology. An avid hiker, and teacher of English as a Second Language, Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Writing On a Budget: When Writing is Your Business

By Cybele Garcia Kohel

We writers are a lonely crew. Well, at least that is how we are depicted. And this is true much of the time, when we are at work. We seek time alone in bits and stretches to get our work done. Writers often fail to see ourselves as part of a larger picture, however: The Creative Economy. We are part of a larger engine which moves sums of money, large and small, around our communities. I can predict what you are thinking. I don’t get paid to do my writing… yet. I understand. I am the same. I don’t get paid to do my creative writing. But I do get paid to write grants. I consider that to be creative work, but it isn’t my personal creative work. And, I am lucky and grateful to get so much support from Women Who Submit for my creative writing work.

Women and non-binary writers are constantly doing the work of mothering writing–nurturing it–giving feedback, writing reviews, editing for our friends and small organizations that we help to survive. It’s not monetized, these bits of work. None of it. But it is still our Business (yes capital B) and we should be strategic about it. This isn’t a plea to get you to stop your unpaid work. Besides, there are other types of compensation. The support we give to community-centered organizations ensures that marginalized people and voices are heard. That compensation is satisfactory to me a lot of the time. This column is really an encouragement to recognize we are part of a bigger picture, a business sector, and as a business people we should be watching trends, downshifts, upshifts, etc., so we can be ready when opportunity comes knocking.

So how do we do that? In California we are lucky to have something called The Otis Report for the Creative Economy . The Otis Report is an idea hatched by administrators at Otis College for Art and Design to map the creative economy of Southern California, and set out to prove American’s for the Arts adage: Arts Means Business. The idea behind the report started as an argument for the “why” behind Arts Education, and, the why “having a vibrant arts sector” is important in every community. Because arts jobs are viable, even critical, to thriving communities. The Otis Report has been around since 2007 and has blossomed into an examination of the creative economy across California. And you, writer, are part of it.

Each year The Otis Report comes out in February or March. It is free to attend the presentation, or download the report, or view the synopsis of the report. I encourage you to do so. Writers may have a hard time finding themselves in the report. But we are there. The report is divided into different sectors, and we are in the Entertainment and Digital Media sector. This sector according to The Otis Report, is the largest of the five sectors, weighing in at 57,120 businesses. That includes micro-businesses (you and me) to large newspapers like the Los Angeles Times. It goes on to say that, “establishments with less than 10 employees account for 10% of the industry’s workforce.” Taking a look at this report may help you make writing decisions for the future. We are artists, and of course we should be paid for our work. Sometimes it is a stipend, an honorarium, a royalty. Sometimes the compensation is the community that is built. That’s okay.

But never forget you are an important part of something bigger. See yourself in it. Because if you don’t, who will?


Cybele Garcia Kohel is a Puerto Rican (Borikén Taíno) writer living on unceded Tongva land, called Pasadena, California. She writes poetry, short stories and essays, in a loud voice from the margins. She is a mom and fierce dog lover. You can read her individual poems the Altadena Poetry Review (2017, 2018), New American Legends (2019), Screaming from the Silence Anthology (Vociferous Press, 2020), the Women Who Submit anthology, Accolades (2020), and the Altadena Literary Review (2020). Her latest essay is Acknowledgement: On Race and Land, read it online at Cultural Weekly. https://www.culturalweekly.com/acknowledgement-on-race-and-land/ 

Writing On a Budget: Artists Do Not Work in Isolation

By Lisbeth Coiman

How do you grieve for a homeland that no longer exists? 

Uprising / Alzamiento, my upcoming bilingual collection with Finishing Line Press,  is my answer to that question. It’s a vehicle to process the pain of watching the land of my birth transform into something for which I don’t even have a passport for a safe return. 

As a teacher and poet, I asked myself what words should I write to inform about the tragedy in my homeland. How could I paint a clear picture of the conflict to inspire a shift in perspective in those who oversimplify this humanitarian crisis with memes on social media? 

Original art depicting a bird and butterflies
Apuntes Para Una Pesadilla by Francisco Itriago

The English language has a name for this kind of writing: Poetry for Social Justice. Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo was the first to point that out to me: “Detach from the subject to convey the tragedy you are experiencing.” 

In her class, Poetry as Survival, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo taught me to create symbols and to change the point of view in order to separate myself from my pain. Thus, Uprising / Alzamiento began. Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo inspired me to transform my emotions into images, to show my working class neighborhood in its splendor so that others could see what was lost.

A year ago this week, I started collaborating with a poet I admire and respect, who lent me his wisdom to weed out the unnecessary language and move my craft  away from ideological dialectics. He also encouraged me to focus on the faces of the Venezuelan crisis to bring to life the images of the struggle on the streets of the once wealthy nation. During the first few months of the pandemic, between March and May 2020, Peter J. Harris and I became conversation partners over long hours on the telephone to polish the English manuscript.

By then, the book included several brief poems by a young Venezuelan artist, Felipe Itriago. When it was ready, I translated each poem into Spanish because I wanted my siblings and childhood neighbors to understand what I wrote for them. Another poet, Mariano Zaro, helped me edit the Spanish version. And so the book was finished and ready to submit. Then the Women Who Submit did what they do so well: showed me the discipline of the submission process.

When I read the acceptance letter sent by Finishing Line Press, I announced my joy to the world in social media and private messages to my family. Francisco Itriago, donated the art for the cover. I am beyond thankful to all those who held my hand all the way through. 

The whole process reminds us that artists do not work in isolation. Uprising / Alzamiento is the product of intense collaboration with artists who believe in my ability to relate emotions into images and for my art to become a vehicle for change. What matters is that my poems inspire others to take action.


Uprising / Alzamiento will be published by Finishing Line Press in early June 2021. I am happy to announce that it is now on pre-sales on their website at Finishing Line Press .

Order today and help me call attention to the faces of the Venezuelan crisis and pay tribute to those who have given their lives to restore democracy to my homeland.


headshot of Lisbeth CoimanLisbeth Coiman is an author, poet, educator, cultural worker, and rezandera born in Venezuela. Coiman’s wanderlust spirit landed her to three countries—from her birthplace to Canada, and finally the USA, where she self-published her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017). She dedicated her bilingual poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento, Finishing Line Press( Sept. 2021) to her homeland, Venezuela. An avid hiker, and teacher of English as a Second Language, Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA.


Breathe and Push: I Ain’t Mad at 2020

 by S. Pearl Sharp

 “Somebody got to step up and 
testify for blessed lives
just so you remember the 
possible is real . . .”

The public rage against 2020 is so strong, so virulent, that I almost feel like I’m committing a sacrilege to say that in 2020 I had a good year. 

As COVID became hourly breaking news, I recognized that I was safe in so many ways. I was not home schooling, not a family caregiver, not a front-line essential worker. I already work mostly from home and could keep running my business. Financially I was spared the blood pressure raising hours that millions experienced while trying to get unemployment benefits.  

A still life of shoes left outside a door and resting in both sunlight and shade.
“All Here”  S. Pearl Sharp 2020

 “Surreal” is the word I’ve heard most to describe 2020. What the pandemic asked of me was to become useful within my means to do so. That included the pleasure of shopping for a 98-year-old friend and finding books she might find interesting. Once she learned how to use Zoom, we were on a social roll. Sharing that $1200 stimulus check with those who were not going to get any check introduced me to activists organizations I had not been aware of, like a group founded by Latino bartenders here in Los Angeles who support the mostly undocumented back-of-kitchen help, and two groups with showers-on-wheels who roll into different sites each day providing full shower services to houseless individuals. In the presence of such a staggering loss of lives and multiplying crisis I thought it was important, among friends, to skip the complaint and to keep sharing a “We are still standing” message.  

2020 gave us a new Book of Revelations: white Americans on TV shows looking quite amazed as they declared that the pandemic had revealed to them — as if the news was new — the full scope of disparities in health and housing, life and death, between the really rich and the every day poor. Then look at all the corporations, media and business heads who suddenly realized how mono-colored their boards and executive offices are with few or no Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans. Now if all these entities who publicly promised to fix their part of the problem actually keep that promise then that alone might make 2020 significant.

Early in the year, I was part of the hospice team of a friend and co-creator who was  making her transition after a long struggle with lung cancer. Yes, watching her die was heart  wrenching, yet it also brought some new artistic friends into my life. For the rest of the year  each phone call, each e-mail announcing the loss of another friend or hero took my breath away.  In between these moments I was inspired by those who dared to say “There’s another way to do this.” For example, as thousands were denied access to their loved ones, even while watching them die, at a hospital in Illinois someone made sense out of the abnormal. They put the son of a dying patient in full protective gear. The son was then able to hold his father’s hand until he passed. Compassion often requires courage.  

I’m a creative, by choice and profession, so I’m thankful that 2020 brought out people’s most magical and useful creative efforts all around the world, with technology allowing us to witness it. From the cellist who fingered the notes using a roll of toilet paper and played perfectly, to the father who built a full graduation stage in his front yard for his daughter to walk across, to the year-end release of Boston Dynamic’s smooth dancing robots, this embrace of creating alternate possibilities in a time of lock down has its own healing affect. 

So, thank-you 2020! Because of you “normal” has gained full permission to become something new and, if we focus on it, the possibility of becoming something better.  

poem excerpt: “A Blessed Life” available on S. Pearl’s poetry w/jazz CD Higher Ground  c.2020 S. Pearl Sharp/ Poets Pay Rent, Too

Headshot of the author, S. Pearl Sharp standing against a colorful mural wearing a bright smile and cloud-gray sweater.

S. Pearl Sharp is a writer, filmmaker, actor, creativity coach, broadcast producer & host, and artivist. Learn about her work at http://spearlsharp.com/ and her YouTube channel asharpshow.