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We hope this roundup finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe! To ease the stress of these unsettling times, please enjoy this lengthy and exciting list of publications from Women Who Submit members. Congrats to all!

To begin, we’d like to invite you to check out Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology that includes writing from Women Who Submit members!

Congratulations to Aruni Wijesinghe, whose poem “Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick, Crème Color #640, Blackberry: Part I and Part II,” was published in Making Up: Poems!

From Anita Gill‘s “What We Can’t Do: A Father and Daughter’s List” at Citron Review:

On that trip, I would ask you for the millionth time why you never taught me your native tongue and your answer would be the same, “What use would it have been?”

Also from Anita, “Coronavirus Forced Me Home from Spain Where I Was a Fulbright Scholar,” at the Baltimore Sun:

On March 12th, I woke up in my apartment in Spain to discover the president of the United States had announced a ban of all travel between the U.S. and Europe on account of the ever-growing cases of coronavirus patients.

From Kate Maruyama‘s “Not Yet” at Barren Magazine:

This was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention when his arm went around my throat. I tried a back kick, an elbow to the ribs, I tried to turn to face him. But I couldn’t move. I visualized a knee strike to his head—but apparently all of those years watching my boy do karate and jujitsu didn’t pay off, because I blacked out.

Congratulations to Bonnie S. Kaplan who had a piece published in Closet Cases – Queers On What We Wear edited by Megan Volpert!

Congrats to Tanya Ko Hong who had three poems published in Cultural Weekly. From “Yang Kong Ju”:

Koreans called her
Yang kalbo
Yankee’s whore

Korean men say
No thanks—
even though it’s free

Check out this interview of Tanya and this book in which Tanya’s work is featured!

From “Parenting Through An Apocalypse” by Liz Harmer at The Walrus:

The day we got the keys to our new house in California, the so-called Holy Fire was blazing a few kilometres away. The sky rusted a kind of brownish orange, and on the piled boxes and half-dismantled furniture on the patio of our newly purchased home, ashes collected lightly, like dry snow. I had not been sleeping well and did not appreciate this omen.

Congrats to Helena Lipstadt who had her poem, “First Light June,” published in Undeniable: Alternating Current Press!

From Lituo Huang‘s “My Beautiful Sister” at VIDA:

My beautiful sister is eating a slice of watermelon. It tastes so good she shows me the whites of her eyes.

My slice is old. All the cells have gone dark.

My slice is old, I say.

Also from Lituo, “DO NOT CONTACT YOUR EX DURING THE PANDEMIC,” at Bitter Melon:

Do not call and ask him to hold your hand at the end of the world.
Do not email him to get your things back.
Do not drive by his house, slash his tires, slash your wrists.
Do not confess.

Also from Lituo, “My Small Press Writing Day,” at my (small press) writing day:

My writing day begins at 4:00 a.m., or sometimes 5:00 a.m., or 6:00 a.m., or 7:00 a.m., or 8:00 a.m., when I wake up with anxiety. The first writing I do is in a notebook where I write down when I went to bed. When I woke up. If and when I fell back asleep and woke up again. How tired I am.

From Angela M. Sanchez‘s “Bucking the Danger of a Single Story with the Power of a Multitude – A Review of Tales from La Vida: a Latinx Comics Anthology,” at solrad:

A single story, fortunately, is not what readers get in Tales from La Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology. Edited by Dr. Frederick Luis Aldama, Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University, Tales from La Vida offers a panorama of Latinx narratives, featuring seventy unique vignettes and over eighty contributors. With eye-catching artwork, some pieces harken to fotonovelas (Leighanna Hidalgo, Fernando Balderas Rodriguez) while others, like Zeke Peña’s fleshy heart pulsing with nopales, are stand-alone striking. 

Congratulations to Li Yun Alvarado whose poem, “Hechizo Para Congelar,” was published in Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology!

Happy Leap Year and congratulations to all the Women Who Submit who were published in February!

From Jenise Miller‘s “How Compton’s Communicative Arts Academy Rebuilt the City for Artists and Community Life” at KCET:

Before NWA, there was the CAA. Decades before young rap artists blasted a tough city image onto the world stage, a group of artists in Compton established the Communicative Arts Academy (CAA), a vital arts program in the era of the Black Arts Movement in Southern California in the 1960s and 70s. During the height of their operation from 1969 to 1975, the CAA invigorated Compton with art inspired by life and possibility in California’s first majority black city.

Congratulations to T.M. Semrad who had 2 pieces published at Nightingale & Sparrow – “A Wedding” and “Toward the Unfinished.” From “A Wedding:”

The groom sketches a self-portrait. He begins with the feet. They are practically shod. His feet ache. The shoes are black lace-ups with rubber soles. They are planted wide. He erases and begins again. He starts with the feet. He wears socks: nubby, cream, and thick. His feet get cold walking across the bare floor. He erases and begins again. He starts with the feet. They are bare, wide, the toes short. The big toes curl slightly up. He erases. He brushes the pale pink crumbs and pencil dust from the page, now smudged gray.

Check out T.M.‘s poem, “Virtual Realized,” published at Pomme!

Congratulations to Angelina Sáenz who had 2 poems published at Acentos Review – “Humidity” and “Estoy Sola.” From “Humidity:”

Humidity transports me

                  to musty brick homes along dusty roads
                  moist sunrise rooster calls
                  ragged dogs roaming on roofs

                  to Tepic, Nayarit

Neighbors in my Tia’s living room tiendita call

                  ¡Quiero! 

Also check out Angelina‘s, “I Come From a Place Where All We Knew Was to Be Ghetto Fabulous and Together,” at every other!

Have a listen to Lituo Huang‘s “Something to Remember” at Manawaker!

Congratulations to Donna Spruijt-Metz whose “Devil’s Fair,” a translation of Lucas Hirsch from the Dutch, was published at Copper Nickel!

Congratulations to Helena Lipstadt who had 3 poems published in February – “From Kalisz, Air, Earth” in The Midwest Quarterly, and “Doina in the Studyhouse” and “It Could Happen” in the Blue Mountain Review!

Congratulations to S. Pearl Sharp, who had a poem featured in the City of Los Angeles’ 2020 African Heritage Month Calendar and Cultural Guide!

Happy New Year and happy writing! Congratulations to all the women who were published in January 2020!

From Mia Nakaji Monnier‘s “Netflix’s New ‘Goop Lab’ Needs More Normal People and Less Gwyneth Paltrow” at The Lily:

It’s easy to dislike Goop.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand sells a kind of self-care that appears effortless but actually requires a lot of effort and money. The contradiction makes even browsing Goop’s Instagram account — a grid of fresh produce, lush landscapes, and happy-looking white women with loose waves — an irritating exercise.

From “Stargazer” by Alana Saltz at Yes Poetry:

I roll my eyes back
to watch my personal astronomer
make marks in my sky
with clicks and lines.

From a review of Alana‘s book of poems, The Uncertainty of Light, published in Blanket Sea:

The Uncertainty of Light explores how it feels to inhabit a body that is misunderstood. Through lenses of the natural world, astronomy, science fiction, and pop culture, this evocative collection captures snapshots of a life with chronic illness while tapping into universal experiences of searching for meaning, seeking acceptance, and falling in love.

From Sakae Manning‘s “Michiko’s Waltz” at Blood Orange Review:

I knew about people touching me without asking long before the dry lipped, gap-toothed lizard man swooped around the corner of Coalman and Edgewater in a blue El Camino, all chrome and shine. I’d nearly cleared the half-way mark to the sidewalk. Two blocks from the market. A half block from home. He wanted directions and beckoned me to step closer on account of he couldn’t hear me over the engine. I scooted closer, hugging the carton of cold milk perspiring in my arms. He set his claws into my crotch and held on tight. 

From Kate Maruyama‘s “The Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Power of Narrative and Community Amid Chaos” at Entropy:

There is no good way to open this. I can only try to make sense of the summer of 2017 when my mother lost her mind and the country seemed to lose its. And the stories we told ourselves to find our way through.

*

“I think everyone’s really sad and feeling weird because of Trump. Like everyone I talk to is weird.” The argument was sound, but a little strange for my mom. She was worried, afraid. Not like herself.

From Ava Homa‘s “For Me, There’s No Escaping Iran: A Toronto Novelist on Terror, the Pain of the Ukraine Plane Crash and Glimpses of Defiance” at The Star:

The plane crash was only one of the incidents in a chain of events that have demoralized those of us who can’t find solace or prospect. We are aware that a dramatic change is not plausible or desirable, but a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel could help since day after day we receive tragic or terrifying news.

Congratulations to Margo McCall whose piece, “Into the Heart of the Storm,” was published at Blank Spaces!

Happy New Year and congratulations to everyone who was published in 2019! Cheers to these writers whose work was published in December.

From “Vanishing Twin Syndrome” by Rachael Rifkin at Pulp:

IVF produced three embryos and my doctor implanted one, leaving two on ice.

When that one didn’t take, I took a couple month break from fertility treatments. I let myself become so used to the appearance of single lines, I wondered if my body could ever overcome my disbelief. I let myself believe I wasn’t a person concerned with getting pregnant, and for a couple months I was.

Congratulations to Ashunda Norris who had four poems published at Dreginald! From “My Therapist Says I’m Mourning the Loss of An Undead Sister:”

& the grief wrecks me a bride of caskets stabbing
heated cotton fields my sister’s manic curses slice through
my father’s prayers mid request & what else is there for god to do

From Helena Lipstadt‘s “All By Myself,” at Glint:

I am having an affair
with you

you don’t care
you don’t know
ty lubie

From Soleil David‘s “Last Transit of Venus This Century Draws Stargazers Around the World” at Sinking City:

High noon & I trek out to a Gangnam playground with you,
sit on a swing, trace larger & larger arcs & you fit
your face over the pinhole projector you made, staring into
the haloed reflection of a sun as yet unblemished. Around me

Also from Soleil, “Mt. Mayon” at Mary:

It is not Pompeii yet. 
Not the stew of magma
& rainwater.

Congratulations to Romaine Washington whose poem, “1. Nuzzle and 2. Shrinking,” was published in Is It Hot In Here or Is It Just Me?: Women Over Forty Write on Aging!

Congratulations to Li Yun Alvarado whose essay, “Literatura, Música, y (Huracán) María: A Puerto Rican Poet’s Reflection After the Storm,” was published in Boricua en la Luna, a collection of work written by Puerto Rican authors!

Congratulations to Lituo Huang whose chapbook, This Long Clot of Love, was published this month!

As 2019 comes to a close, we are excited to share another great roundup of publications from Women Who Submit members. Congratulations!

From Désirée Zamorano‘s “Our Collective History: An Interview with Michael Nava” at the Los Angeles Review of Books:

MICHAEL NAVA: It’s a very common story. I’m about to turn 65. I’ve been out since I was 17. I’ve had hundreds of conversations as a gay man and realize that Bill’s story is just not that uncommon. I think it’s changed a little since 1971, where the opening is set. It has improved for the LGBTQ community in those intervening 40-plus years, so I have some emotional distance from the rawness of the story. That’s what protects me from not being able to write about it.

Also from Désirée, “Scarification” at Acentos Review:

One evening in July, in San Antonio, a group of us fled the stiff air conditioning of our rooms and gathered  impulsively at the outdoor seating of the college dorm at Texas A & M University. People brought beer, bottles of Topo Chica water, bottles of wine. Others brought hummus, potato chips, brownies. I glanced around the crowd of mostly women, and wondered, how many novels, memoirs, chapbooks, essays, present and future, did we all represent?

Congrats to Deborah Edler Brown who had two poems published in poeticdiversity, one of which, “Buddhi” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize! From “Buddhi”:

I know my wings when they show up
I feel their heft on my scapula,
on the wingspan between shoulder blades
I feel their stretch and the shadow
they draw across the ground. 

From “We’re Losing Generations of Family History Because We Don’t Share Our Stories” by Rachael Rifkin‘s at Good Housekeeping:

Most people don’t know much about their family history. This is because people usually don’t become interested in genealogy until they’re in their 50s and 60s, when they have more time to reflect on their family identity. The problem is that by that time, their grandparents and parents have often already passed away or are unable to recount their stories.

From Lisbeth Coiman‘s “El Guaire” at Acentos Review:

Before born,
El Guaire provided Caracas
With fresh water streaming down from tributaries.

Citizens proud of
First source of constant energy
In the subcontinent.

Congratulations to Helena Lipstadt whose poem, “First Light June, was published in A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis!

Congratulations to Bonnie S. Kaplan who had two poems published in the Northridge Review!

Congratulations to Tanya Ko Hong whose book, The War Still Within, was published at KYSO Flash!

Congratulations to Romaine Washington whose poems “Br’er Boombox,” “Childman in the Motherland, Saguaro,” and “All-American Pastime,” were published in Cholla Needles 36!

Congratulations to Mareshah “MJ” Jackson whose story, “Too Nice,” was published at the Citadel!

October has shaped up to be one of the busiest months for WWS publications! Congratulations to all the women who were published in October.

From Ryane Nicole Granados‘ “Home-Schooling Away from Home” at LA Parent:

Picture a child working on lessons at the kitchen table and you’ve pictured just a tiny sliver of the home-schooling landscape in SoCal.

From “Mimesis” by Maylin Tu at Exposition Review:

I have decided to become my father, to put on his body like a second skin.

I practice rolling my head back and forth around on my neck, like a bobblehead. I put my hands on my hips and shake one finger up and down in front of me. My face tightens into an exaggerated grimace as my finger picks up speed.

From Laura Warrell‘s “I Gave Up on Love, and It Was One of the Best Decisions I Ever Made” at Huffington Post:

At the end of our date in August 2018, Justin escorted me to my car, where he nervously kissed me. When I kissed him back, he cheered, pumping his fists in the air like he’d won something. I walked from the curb to my car, and when I turned around, he was watching me, beaming.

From “documents of light” by Helena Lipstadt at About Place Journal:

when the knock comes on the door
what do we take with us?

do we carry everything in one thin suitcase?
are we walking are we running?

From “The Coyotes of India Street” by Whitney Easton at Animal:

I wake to the sound of yipping in the night. Yipping turns to howling and a chorus of coyote song ensues, echoing throughout the ravine below. My chihuahua perks his ears to stand guard. The pitch and frequency intensify as more join in.

From Mia Nakaji Monnier “What My Name Says about Who I Am” at Zora:

I became Mia Nakaji Monnier in college. I didn’t change my name so much as reveal more of it. While I’d always gone by Mia Monnier before then, the rest of my name appeared on all of my official documents: Mia Gabrielle Nakaji Monnier, a combination of Japanese and French, reflecting both of my parents. In college, I learned that my face alone rarely said enough about who I was.

From Lisbeth Coiman‘s “De Mujer a Mujer” at Lady/Liberty/Lit:

To Venezuela.

Mujer, I talk to you without hair on my tongue
As clear as this blue sky over our heads
Here is a mojito
Take a sip
I don’t have a drawer inside to hold unspoken truths

From “Prayer for a Sunday Morning” by Deborah Edler Brown at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Divine wisdom,
Please show me how

To breathe
When the smell of hatred
Is hot and dank against my cheek

From Lindsey Skillen‘s “Labor Day” at Cosmonauts Avenue:

I’m not the kind of woman who would participate in a threesome, which is exactly why I went. I’m lately trying to be a different sort of woman—one who can pull off an edgy haircut. A sort of Brooklyn-blonde pageboy kind of haircut. I’m Jean Seberg from Breathless in my mind.

From “We are our own Multitude: Los Angeles’ Black Panamanian Community” by Jenise Miller at Boom California:

On a Saturday morning in late October, public workers in downtown Los Angeles block off the stretch of Broadway from Olympic Boulevard to Hill Street. Around 10 am, a crowd gathers, donned in blue and red garments, shirts embroidered with mola, white polleras with bright-colored pom-poms, or Panama flags draped across their backs, to celebrate the Annual Panamanian Independence Day Parade. 

From “An Immigrant Mom’s Push for Understanding” by Tanya Ko Hong at LA Parent:

My children bring magic into my life. However, there is no map to navigate being a parent in a multicultural society, especially when you are an immigrant parent.

Congratulations to Diana Love for having two poems published at Kelp Journal! From “Thrown Back in the Surf:”

Before the sense of self
there must be some surroundings.
In my green blue days of youth
the Valley was a smog-wrapped bubble,
a satellite apart, a cushion-edged suburban haze

Congratulations to Peggy Dobreer for having her poetry published in Aeolian Harp Series, Vo. 5!

Congratulations to Désirée Zamorano whose story “Bobby’s Leave 1968” was published in ¡PA’QUE TU LO SEPAS! edited by Angel Luis Colón!

Congratulations to Liz Harmer whose story, “Decisive Action,” was published at PRISM International!