A WWS Publication Roundup for April

A personal note this time around: I hope this post finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe during these trying times. I’m glad to be able to share this roundup and to be part of such a supportive community. Congrats to the published writers and be well to all! Laura

From Lisa Eve Cheby‘s “Taking Stock” at Verse-Virtual:

I conduct inventory: 
Chad and Ed are sick, Priya is better, 
Doug is improved, Jon is still healthy. 
A friend’s father died, 
as did a stranger’s. 
Widows forced to grieve alone. 

From “Modern Archaeology” by Lituo Huang at Mineral Lit Mag:

Modern archaeology’s been around for 100 years, give or take.
When I die, my bones might be preserved for
 
the future to find. But let’s face it, my chances
are slim: The bodies on Everest will outlast mine.

Congrats to Carla Sameth who had three poems – “​LA Stories: Urban Mountain Lion, South African Transplant,” “Bruised Arms” and “Dreaming Sobriety” published at Anti-Heroin Chic. From “LA Stories: Urban Mountain Lion, South African Transplant”:

You didn’t want to come here. Los Angeles took you. Down to the basement, near Parker
Center and the Deja Vu Strip Club, next to the new marijuana mall. Where tourists take
photos and buy souvenirs while freshly tatted dazzling dispensary girls sell them strains
with names like “Flying Monkey” and “Ganja Goddess.”

From Stephanie Abraham‘s “In the World to Change It” at the Los Angeles Review of Books:

[LINDA SARSOUR’s] new book, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance, maps her journey from growing up as an outspoken oldest child of immigrants to former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and national co-chair of the Women’s March.

From Helena Lipstadt‘s “Speaking to the Dead; my mother didn’t whistle; Not Asking” at Cathexis Northwest Press:

Let me not be thief of your story   let me paint a still life 
of names you stand over me and below me I inhale the shimmer
of your breath I will not betray your blame

From Désirée Zamorano‘s “Death in the Neighborhood” at Terrain:

As I write I am sitting in my front yard patio, a tiny courtyard well-defined by a surrounding low stucco wall. The wall reminds me that I am good at boundaries, from years of struggling with an over-identifying, tiny and close-knit family of origin, from years spent “individuating,” as a young woman, carving out my private life, my secrets. In this shaded area I can hide under the camellia trees, watch people walk their dogs, listen to the chirruping of the birds, follow a pair of hummingbirds as they build their discreet nest, be both simultaneously public and private. It’s the same patio where my reclusive friend Liv, once and only once, shared a pitcher of Manhattans with me.

Also from Désirée, “Census 2020: A Quiz,” at Lady/Liberty/Lit:

Quizzes can be a way to get to know yourself better. Please self-identify to the best of your ability.

1. During apartheid in South Africa these would be your choices. Choose the one that best describes you:

a) White
b) Black
c) Coloured
d) Indian or Asian

From Noriko Nakada‘s “California” at The Nasiona:

Every second of the drive to California for summer vacation feels heavy, weighted down just like our car, packed tight with the six of us, suitcases stretching at their zippers, and the big cooler stuffed full of snacks. Dad drives the station wagon along cool mountain passes, past Lake Shasta, and into a desert valley where the sky is clear and the hot sun pounds through the windows. There is nothing to see except hills that look like blankets thrown over sleeping giants. I watch for something to change, but nothing has looked different for hours.

Also from Noriko, “How Do We Count Our Dead?” at bitter melon:

By breaths lost
loved ones left behind
accomplishments in life
shades of acquired fame?

Congrats to Noriko whose essays, “Vegas Indulgences” and “At Home in America” were published in Lady/Liberty/Lit and in Mom Egg Review!

From “A Relative Stole the Baby Name I Wanted to Use, but in the End I Was Thankful” by Rachael Rifkin at Good Housekeeping:

When my mom died a year and a half before I got pregnant, however, the names we’d chosen no longer seemed relevant. We knew if I eventually got pregnant, we’d name our child after my mom.

From Ryane Nicole Granados‘ “Peter Harris and Adenike Harris: This Father and Daughter Confronted Pain and Healed Together” at LA Parent:

They say it never rains in Southern California, but on a recent day clouds hovered over the hotel lobby where I sat in a corner booth sipping hot chocolate and eating breakfast sandwiches with Peter Harris and Adenike Harris, the father-daughter team behind Popsn’Ade, a project they started in 2016 to help others heal through creativity and call-and-response dialogue.

From Melissa Chadburn‘s “The Forgotten Babies” at Alta:

It was the summer of dead babies. At night I sat drowning in coroners’ reports and case files. Coyotes frolicked in the wash behind my house. Dry by summer, it held remnants of snow play—bright yellow and electric-blue plastic bits of toboggans. Brittle palo verdes littered with refuse from teenage parties, things like bottle caps and empty bags of chips. The hour of molting. The wildlings came in groups of three and four—clearing the mean ash-green pincushions and devil’s fingers in gleeful jumps. They danced, silhouetted against the black. Bats twisted above.

From Ashunda Norris‘ “On Watching Surviving R. Kelly” at Trampoline Poetry:

you understand nothing if you do not
have to imagine your own abuse replay
every time another blk girl opens her mouth
upturned & over complete

Congrats to Ashunda, who had two poems “Grandma’s Hands” and “The Book of Generation(s) of the Negress,” published in La Presa Issue 9!

Congrats to Rachel Sona Reed for her review of “Sociolinguistic variation in children’s language: Acquiring community norms” at Cambridge University Press!

Congratulations to Janel Pineda who had three poems, “English” “Rain” and “In Another Life,” published in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext published by Haymarket Books!

Check out Tanya Ko Hong‘s National Poetry Month 30 days project on Youtube!

Storytelling in Action: Personal Narrative

by Ramona Pilar

This isn’t the first time we, as a species on this globe, have experienced an illness that impacts every demographic facet of society. An illness that careens through the bullshit hierarchies and infects indiscriminately. 

This is, however, the first time a new or “novel” virus has emerged during this current era. A new virus for a viral era. And because of all the different outlets we have to communicate to, with, and at each other, there are wealth of experiences and stories being shared. News-wise, there has been some looking to past viral outbreaks – more often than not the 1918 Flu Pandemic – seeking insight or lessons on how to divine the best way out of this current crisis with some degree of sanity and sense of safety.

This led me to wonder about the literature of the time. I couldn’t recall any “Flu Lit” subgenre from around the turn of the 20th century, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. What I did find was that, while it was a major historical occurrence, the Flu didn’t quite find its way into literature in a major way.

Continue reading “Storytelling in Action: Personal Narrative”

Writing on a Budget: Meditation in Times of COVID19

By Lisbeth Coiman

All I have to offer you today are my solitary confinement meditations.

Let’s weave the collective thread of our sorrows in a cloak to protect us from all evil.

Unless you are a widowed-mother of four in a war torn country, stop calling out privilege.

Let’s inundate the web with poetry and art. No need to advance bad news. Devastation will hit us in the face when we come out of our dens.

Give generously and accept with humility.

Share wisdom, not resentment.

I rather go with a broken than with a frozen heart.

Love yourself as if you are loving the entire humanity.

With the blinds open, gift your neighbors the joy in your face. It may be the last time they amuse themselves.

Allow solitude to transform you into a wondrous human.

Resourcefulness equals acceptance equals survival.

two wash clothes hanging from a toilet paper dispenser

Think of what will carry you through this transformation but no longer be useful at the end of the crisis. It’ll be the metaphor of what you shed in this journey.

Accept the prayers offered to you. It might be all they have to give, and it might as well be your last meal.

If you might die of a suffocating disease, why are you strangling yourself? Practice breathing.

You don’t know if tomorrow you’ll be hooked to a ventilator, morphine dripping into your transition, unable to whisper, “te amo.” Call those who need to hear it now.

When deep in the trenches, even the toughest soldiers cry.


Writer Lisbeth Coiman from the shoulders up, standing in front of a flower bushLisbeth Coiman is an emerging, bilingual writer wandering the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada to the US. She has performed any available job from maid to college administrator, and adult teacher. Her work has been published in Hip Mama, the Literary Kitchen, YAY LA, Nailed Magazine, Entropy, and RabidOak. She was also featured in the Listen to Your Mother Show in 2015. In her self-published memoir, I Asked the Blue Heron (Nov 2017), Coiman celebrates female friendship while exploring issues of child abuse, mental disorder, and her own journey as an immigrant. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches and dances salsa.

A WWS Publication Roundup for March

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!

Storytelling in Action: Quarantine Edition

In light of the current state of affairs surrounding the COVID-19 virus, I’ve opted to switch out my original idea for this month’s post for my personal take on self-isolation, self-quarantine, and social distancing during this pandemic. As someone who has been practicing all three for a while (for various reasons not to do with communicable diseases), I’m experiencing this shift in social consciousness along with everyone else, and have observations – not necessarily solutions – that I hope can be helpful. Because one of -if not the – biggest reason I’ve been drawn to writing/storytelling since I was old enough to read, was to add another (my) perspective to a larger conversation.

* * *

I saw the pictures before I experienced it myself – first in Twitter and Instagram feeds, then from a friend of mine who lives in the town just north of me. I’m single, without children or a partner, and have been dealing with a spinal disc protrusion / sciatica issues for the past six months, so I’ve not been able to be in a rush to get anything from anywhere.

Photo credit: Nadia Tedmori
Photo credit: Nadia Tedmori
Continue reading “Storytelling in Action: Quarantine Edition”

A WWS Publication Roundup for February

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!

Storytelling in Action: the World of Audio

Still from Saturday Night Live January 25, 2020

by Ramona Pilar

About this Column:

When I was about to graduate form Graduate School, I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to do with an MFA in Creative Writing. 

I was born and raised in the second tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a survival mode of sorts: living moment to moment, reactive instead of proactive, ready to put out fires, real and imagined. That level of “readiness” without an actual crisis transformed into debilitating anxiety. I learned I lacked the mental space, energy, and experience to plan. Having that buffer is a type of privilege I’m only now learning to understand and practice. Hence going to grad school under the assumption that there were career answers there. They may have been, but I knew not where to look or what questions to ask of whom in order to build a career.

The initial intention was to teach, but the MFA program I attending didn’t really provide TA-ships or other teaching opportunities. Again, proactivity was not a strength I’d developed or a muscle I even knew I had; It was mythical.

At the end of it all, with fat debt and fatter doubts in my abilities, the time came to take my skills into the professional realm. I had just enough skills and aptitude in certain areas to be hyper-aware of how unqualified I was for everything remotely related to my interests and training.

I was a playwright, essayist, arts & film critic, and novice marketing/PR copywriter with no big-name bonafides and a drought of confidence. There was no “fake it ‘till you make it” for me. 

Continue reading “Storytelling in Action: the World of Audio”

Writing on a Budget: Risk Management for a Sabbatical Year

By Lisbeth Coiman

I have been thinking about an unpaid sabbatical to complete a couple of writing projects. I consider risk management is essential when thinking about leaving a fairly good job to pursue an artistic goal. As an emerging writer, I should meet the following benchmarks before taking a sabbatical year.

Continue reading “Writing on a Budget: Risk Management for a Sabbatical Year”

A WWS Publication Roundup for January

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!

Writing on a Budget: Happy 2020

By Lisbeth Coiman

May your 2020 be filled with regular celebrations of small accomplishments towards an overall goal.

Tree next to shrine in a forest in China
Year of planting

As a person who suffers from a mental disability, I often speak in public about how I live a regular life while coping with the challenges of my condition. The audience often expects me to speak about dreams for the future. Instead, I say that I don’t dream anymore because I am actually pursuing my goals.

During the last decade, I have approached every new year with an overall theme to guide my planning for the year. This practice has helped me make life changing decisions. It hasn’t prevented me from some unexpected turns on the road, but it has served as a light in times of difficulty.

My approach has been to set an overall theme for each year and goals around that theme. When the theme was “survival,” my goal was to complete requirement to find a reliable job, find an affordable place to live, and well, there is no other way to put it, to not kill myself. There was a year of “reinvention,” and a last year of  “presence.”

When I think of my goals I write achievable, specific, and measurable objectives, in which the different aspects of my life are interconnected. For instance, achieving a financial or professional goal may open time and space to reach a creative goal. I also set a timeline for milestones, so I give myself a sense of urgency. Finally, I post this yearly plan where I HAVE TO SEE it every day, reminding myself that I have to work daily to accomplish what I want.

In the few days before to return to work, I will prepare my vision board with those specific goals and activities I want to achieve by the end of 2020.

I invite you to do the same. Think of an overall theme with all the aspects of your life you want to improve. Set specific goals, and a time line to achieve them. And then keep the focus while going through 2020 like a woman on a mission, achieving one small step at the time.

And enjoy the ride.


Writer Lisbeth Coiman from the shoulders up, standing in front of a flower bush
Lisbeth Coiman is an emerging, bilingual writer wandering the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada to the US. She has performed any available job from maid to college administrator, and adult teacher. Her work has been published in Hip Mama, the Literary Kitchen, YAY LA, Nailed Magazine, Entropy, and RabidOak. She was also featured in the Listen to Your Mother Show in 2015. In her self-published memoir, I Asked the Blue Heron (Nov 2017), Coiman celebrates female friendship while exploring issues of child abuse, mental disorder, and her own journey as an immigrant.