Author: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Posted on

Building Up to Emerging: Tips for Applying to Fellowships, Residencies and Workshops

Two writers over looking a view of a New Mexico mesa.

Dear writers,

I’ve been busy finishing the next draft of my manuscript and haven’t had a chance to write a start of the year piece for you all. My apologies, but I hope you understand as I work towards taking my novel to the next stage of its life in 2020. In the meantime, here’s an oldie but goodie first published June 29, 2016. I wrote this after being awarded a 2016-2017 Steinbeck Fellowship from CSU San Jose. I know many of you are currently considering applying to upcoming workshops and residencies, so I hope you find this helpful.

And enjoy these words of encouragement from Danez Smith.

Tweet from Black, non-binary poet, Danez Smith encouraging people to submit.

To you reaching the next stage in your journey!

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

BUILDING UP TO EMERGING

The first time I applied for a fellowship was in spring 2009. I was about to finish grad school, and I sent out a slew of applications like I was applying for a PhD. I figured it was the next logical step as I readied myself to move beyond my MFA program, and I had the mentors close by to help. I gathered transcripts and letters of recommendation, curated samples of work and wrote project proposals. I remember one mentor agreed to write a letter with what I perceived as little enthusiasm. When all the rejections came in that summer, I read the bios of those who won and took notice of all their previous awards and accolades. I thought back to that mentor and considered her lackluster support the response of someone who understood the literary world better than I did at that time.

See what I learned from this experience was that “emerging” doesn’t mean new like I thought it did, but more as the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines, “becoming widely known or established.” After my first attempt at a writing fellowship, I realized that to win an “emerging” literary award a writer must already be on the way to becoming established. In other words, to win a big award, you usually have to have won an award. After this discovery, I didn’t put too much energy into fellowships the following years because they are expensive, time consuming and I had little chance to win one anyway. I don’t mean I stopped applying all together. Since the start of this process my mantra has always been, you can’t win if you don’t apply, but instead of applying to six like I did that first year, I applied to one or two that I could either see myself doing (Tickner Writing Fellowship) or ones I dreamed of doing (Stegner Fellowship), and then submitted to a group of workshops and residencies.

In the spring of 2011, I applied to Macondo Writing Workshop, Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowship, and University of Arizona’s Poetry Center Summer Residency. For the latter application, I wrote a project proposal that included volunteering with the direct desert aid humanitarian organization, No More Deaths. I proposed that I would use my two weeks at the Poetry Center to write about my volunteering experience once I returned from the desert (the application no longer requires a proposal). I was rejected from all three, but that summer I decided to make my project happen anyway with or without the University of Arizona. I applied to be a volunteer and was accepted. Then in July of that year, I spent nine days in the Tucson-sector of the border camping, hiking, replenishing water supplies, and being a witness to the horrific realities of border policies and border patrol practices. When I was done, I set up my own little seven-day residency in Tucson at the Roadrunner Hostel & Inn, but I didn’t do much writing. Those nine days in the desert were difficult on my body, mind and spirit, and processing the experience wasn’t as easy as I originally thought it would be. In fact, I spent most of my “residency” streaming bad movies and TV. It wasn’t until six months later that I started writing poems about the border. I had written about 10 by the following summer and when the Poets & Writers California Exchange prize opened up that August. I submitted my new border poems, and shockingly I won.

In the fall of 2011, I applied to Hedgebrook for the first time and Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop. For the Hedgebrook project proposal I wrote out a novel idea that had been tossing in my mind for a couple of years about a feminist retelling of Of Mice and Men. I taught the novel to 9th graders and every year I would be angered by Steinbeck’s treatment of the nameless, one-dimensional character, “Curley’s wife.” Writing the proposal was the first time I took that idea from my mind and wrote it on paper. It was the first time I allowed myself to believe the idea could turn into something real. I ended up making it into the top 100 applicants. I wasn’t accepted, but in the summer of 2012 I did attend Las Dos Brujas, which was my first week-long writing workshop. I had the opportunity to work with Juan Felipe Herrera (now the Poet Laureate of the United States) and a beautiful community of writers of color in a magical location among mesas and red rocks in New Mexico. That summer I wrote more poems, completed a poetry manuscript and started sending it out to first book contests.

Over the last few years I’ve applied to Canto Mundo twice, Macondo three times, Hedgebrook three times, UofA’s Poetry Center Summer Residency three times, the Stegner fellowship twice, Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing three times, Bread Loaf three times, Bucknell University’s Stadler fellowship twice and a few others. This year, I was finally accepted to Hedgebrook and Macondo (after moving up from “alternate”) but when I was rejected for the second time from Macondo in 2014, my good friend Ashaki Jackson asked why we didn’t make our own residency, and that summer we spent four days writing in a little cottage we found on AirBNB that sat in an avocado grove in Carpinteria. When I got back, I reworked my poetry manuscript for the fourth time and resubmitted to first book contests.

In 2015, I received my first residency acceptance from the Ragdale Foundation in North Shore Chicago. While I was there, having 25 days to myself to do nothing but write, I finally found time to return to the proposal I wrote for Hedgebrook three years prior. I wrote a first draft of an epistolary novel telling the story of Nora aka “Curley’s wife,” a 16 year-old Mexican-American migrant worker who marries a gabacho landowner from Salinas County when her family is deported to Mexico during a Depression Era INS sweep.

Then in the winter, I found a submission call for the Steinbeck Fellowship from the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University and thought I might have a chance of winning the award since my project was Steinbeck inspired. I submitted the opening section of the book, which I was able to workshop and revise thanks to a weekly workshop I had with two friends, Tisha Reichle and Lauren Barry Fairchild, and asked a seasoned novelist I met at Ragdale to write a letter of recommendation on my behalf. He has six novels, tenure at a prestigious east coast writing program, and a Hollywood movie under his belt, so when he said my novel-in-progress had serious potential I was blown away. Thankfully, he said he would write it, and I think the combination of having a Steinbeck inspired project, workshopped pages, and the recommendation are what helped me win a 2016-2017 Steinbeck fellowship.

Now that I’ve reached my goal of becoming a fellow, I guess I can be considered an “emerging” writer, but growing to this point was a seven-year process (more if you count grad school and the road to grad school), and I’ve found that building a career is possible, but it is building something brick by brick. It’s slow and hard, and made of moments when you choose to push forward even when you aren’t getting recognition (I never did win a coveted first book award).

Here is what I have learned over the last seven years of submitting and resubmitting to these opportunities:

1. Always submit work (when you can afford to) whether you feel you can win or not because you will never get an acceptance if you don’t.

2. Resubmit. It took me three tries to get into Hedgebrook. The first time I applied, my application made it into the second round, but the next didn’t make it past the first, so you never know what can happen. First readers often change from year to year and so do judges, so resubmit.

3. Listen to recommendations. I would have never applied to Ragdale if it wasn’t for poet Veronica Reyes telling me to give it a try. I would have never known about Las Dos Brujas if Ashaki Jackson hadn’t sent me email reminders, and that was the best workshop I’ve experienced to date. We can’t possibly know all the opportunities out there, so listen to the writers around you.

4. Use the application process as a way to visualize a project. Even if your project is rejected, it can still end up being the start of a book, and don’t be afraid to move forward without the award or support. Of course, awards are nice, but don’t let the pursuit of such things stop you. You might find when you push forward new opportunities arise.

5. Don’t wait for a writing workshop to accept you when you can make your own. Besides the Carpinteria avocado ranch, this summer Lauren, Tisha, and I will be meeting outside of Denver at Lauren’s family’s cabin to finish workshopping our respective novels-in-progress—a process we sadly had to halt when Lauren moved out of California. Tisha calls it the Three Muses Workshop. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Ask someone who has a cabin, find a cheap rental, go in on a place with friends, but make it happen and write.

6. Look for workshops and communities that are going to feed your writing or awards that link to your writing or your writing philosophy. There is a wide range of workshops, residencies and fellowships to apply to and each application costs money. Like applying to colleges think about what region of the country you want to write in, what mentors you want to work with, what organizations you want to back your project. Be strategic.

7. And finally, when applying to residencies in particular try these tips:

a. Send your BEST work. I have heard this from a few writers. Do not send a sample of new writing that you wish to work on while in residency, but send writing that’s been perfected and even published. If what you submit is not what you want to work on, and you get accepted, that’s ok. No one will be checking.

b. If an application asks why you want to attend, come up with a more specific answer than needing a place to write. This advice came from a Hedgebrook alumna. Again, think of the application like a college essay. Hedgebrook receives close to 1000 applications. The first round is read by alumna, which select about 10% to go into round two, so you want to say something that makes you stand out.

c. When writing a project proposal, name your research sources. I got this advice from my eldest brother who is currently working on a PhD in Communications from University of Maryland. Back in 2007, when I was working on my Antioch University MFA application, I asked him to read my essay of intent. In it I mentioned my interest in social justice writing and poetry of witness but didn’t give specifics. His advice was to go back and name the research I had done, the books I had been reading, the writers I was studying as proof. Basically, let your application show the work you’ve already done and name names.

In the end, if an emerging writer fellowship is a goal of yours, know that you will most likely need to have other accolades first. That sucks, but the good news is working your way up is possible by submitting to the wide range of opportunities available to writers, many of which go beyond publication. Workshops, retreats, and residencies await you, and you’ll find that many offer scholarships and some are even free (after the application fee). I urge you to research and submit to a couple–and then resubmit. Over time you will meet and work with great writers, create friendships, generate and perfect your work, and discover new opportunities as they emerge.

Latinx woman with curly black hair and red lipstick smiles at the camera in front of a bookcase

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). A former Steinbeck Fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grantee, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, National Parks Arts Foundation and Poetry Foundation. A Macondo Writers’ Workshop member, she has work published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and American Poetry Review among others. A dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño, can be viewed at latinopia.com. She is a cofounder of Women Who Submit.

Posted on

Cheers to 2019!

three women of color holding beers and standing in front of a graphic black and white mural

Dearest Writers,

As we come to the end of another year (and decade), I like to look back at all we’ve accomplished this year, and congratulate everyone for continuing to thrive when too many want us to disappear.

Firsts the firsts. The Kit Reed Travel Fund, thanks to a donation from Kit Reed’s surviving family members, made it possible for WWS to sponsor three writers of color to attend a workshop, residency, or conference of their choice with a small $340 grant meant to offset travel costs. In the spirit of Kit Reed’s prolific work and adventurous spirit, Sakae Manning attended the Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers in Oregon, Grace Lee attended Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont, and Sibylla Nash attended Joya: AiR in Spain. We look forward to offering more grants in 2020.

Thanks to the tireless work of managing editors, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera and Rachael Warecki, we had our first anthology, ACCOLADES, made it through it’s open call, selection process, and design, and will be ready for release in spring 2020. ACCOLADES was made possible by CCI Arts Investing in Tomorrow grant and is a celebration of our writers’ publications and awards over the last few years.

Another first in 2019 was our WWS Happy Hour at AWP hosted by our friends at Nucleus Portland where we featured 10 readers to a jovial crowd drinking beer and wine. Be sure to be on the look out for our 2020 AWP event, the ACCOLADES, a WWS Anthologly, Release Party on March 5th at La Botanica from 4pm-7pm .

We ended the year strong with one last first, our first crowd funding campaign, and thanks to the work and leadership of Lauren Eggert-Crowe and Ashley Perez we surpassed our funding goal! These funds were needed to match funds from a CAC Local Impact grant we received in 2019.

In 2019 we also hosted the following workshops and panels:

February: You Need a Website! A Practical Guide to the What, Why, and How of Building (or Strategically Updating) Your Author Website with Li Yun Alvarado

April: Poetry Submission Panel with Muriel Leung & Vickie Vertiz and moderated by Lauren Eggert-Crowe

June: Finding an Agent and What I Never Knew Until It Happened with Natashia Deón

August: Tier One Submission Strategies with Désirée Zamorano

October: Pay attention: attending and collaborating at the end slash beginning of the world with Rachel McLeod Kaminer and Rocío Carlos

But let’s not forget other highlights such a the 6th Annual Submission Blitz in September, where we encouraged our members to submit to tier one journals, an action inspired by Vida and the Vida count. We also made our 4th appearance at Lit Crawl LA, with “It’s a Book Party!” featuring new titles from members Jenise Miller, Carla Sameth, Colette Sartor, Micelle Brittan Rosado, and Noriko Nakada, and we featured at the Los Angeles reading series, Roar Shack, hosted by David Rocklin with readers Sakae Manning, Grace Lee, Sibylla Nash, Ryane Granados, Lituo Huang, Andy Anderegg, and Ann Faison.

And last but not least we can’t forget the 125 publications and awards celebrated on the WWS Publication Round Up in 2019, a list curated each month by the brilliant and tireless, Laura K. Warrell.

So with that, I thank you for all you did this year. I thank you for sharing space with me, and for continuing to champion your work and the work of other writers in our community. We do this together, and I look forward to another year of submission parties and publications with you!

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Director of Women Who Submit

Posted on

How is Women Who Submit Intentional About Intersectionality?

Multi-colored flyer with the words, Intentional Intersectionality

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

When I first received an invitation to speak on a panel at a Lambda Litfest event called “Intentional Intersectionality,” I passed the invitation on to the rest of the Women Who Submit leadership team. These type of invitations often pay, and they’re an opportunity to not only raise WWS’s visibility but also the visibility whomever is speaking on behalf of the org, so opening them to the whole team is our regular practice. Plus, we don’t ever want one person to appear as the sole voice of Women Who Submit.

With no one else available, I almost passed because as someone who identifies as a straight, cis woman I didn’t want to take up space meant for another, but the organizers felt strongly about having Women Who Submit represented as a space for change, so I said yes.

Before the event organizers Cody Sisco, Rachelle Yousuf, and Sakae Manning, invited the readers and panelists to a planning meeting where we saw the space, a presentation room at The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, and then walked to a cafe to discuss logistics, intentions, and possible panel questions. In this planning meeting, Sakae looked over at me and asked, “How does Women Who Submit create intersectional spaces?”

Group of 10 writers, organizers, and community advocates sitting on a stairwell.
Intentional Intersectionality: A Reading and Discussion Amplifying Queer Voices at Armory for the Arts From left-right, front Row: Roxana Preciado, Eugene Owens, Sakae Manning, BA Williams Middle row: Reuben Tihi Hayslett, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Cody Sisco Back row: Evan Kleekamp, Rachelle Yousuf, Dan Lopez

It was a question I should have been prepared for since intersectional was in the name, and I’d been invited to be on the panel as a creator of such spaces, but suddenly sitting with the other talented and passionate readers and organizers, still figuring out how I could best serve this event, I was stumped.

It wasn’t until an hour later, on the walk back to my car, that I started to formulate a reply. I let Sakae know I now had an answer, and she let me know such was the purpose of the pre-panel meet up. I was relieved, but on the night of the event the question never came up. So now, I share it here with you.

Every Person is a Resource

At our bi-monthly meet ups, we invite local, professional writers to share their expertise with our community in one-hour workshops. We seek to curate speakers that reflect the marginalized communities we want to empower such as women of color, queer writers, non-binary and trans writers, disabled writers, mothers and caretakers, and working class writers. Speakers have presented on topics such as building an author website, finding an agent, and strategies for submitting to contests and tier one journals.

Six times a year, we invite a person to speak on a subject of their expertise, but at each of these workshops, we believe all people in the room are a resource. Often when someone asks a question at our workshops, the answer is group sourced. By honoring the worth of each writer’s knowledge and experience, we raise each other up.

Over the summer, I attended a week-long writers’ workshop where in one session a big, fancy east coast book editor asked a small group of us if we had questions for him. The way he conducted this Q&A made me feel like a child forced to listen to her adult teacher. But I wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t a teacher, but an editor with a capitalistic agenda.

When the discussion got to the difference between self-publishing, indie, and big business publishing, I didn’t agree with his response, and thought back to the writers I’d met in WWS who had found success in these varying spaces. I remembered our WWS workshops too and wished to speak, but instead I stood up and walked out on the conversation because it wasn’t a space that cared for my voice.

My hope is that since we’ve done away with this kind of elitism people will feel welcomed to stay and be apart of the conversation.

Accessibility

Some barriers we consider when planning our meetings are physical capacity, mental health, financial ability, and family obligations. To ensure that people facing such barriers can still reach our resources, we hold our public meet-ups at the Exposition Park Regional Public Library (when space allows). This location is central, close to the train and major bus lines, has handicapped and free parking, and is wheelchair accessible. We also Facebook Live our one-hour workshops for those who find themselves homebound, and all workshops and resources are FREE!

Failures are Accomplishments

Every month we have a “Rejection Brag,” a closed forum for our members, where writers can post the journals, contests, and other opportunities that chose to pass on their work. In this brag we celebrate each NO as a proof of the work each of writer is doing to advocate for her/their work. In a capitalist society, we’re taught that failure is shameful and a sign of not being able to cut it, but at WWS we’ve flipped that narrative, and use failure as a tool for advancement and community building.

Culture of Sharing

WWS shares everything: journals, spreadsheet templates, cover letter samples, snacks, submission calls, and even chisme (insider knowledge of literary markets, institutions, and orgs). Any resource we have is for the greater community. As I said at the beginning, even speaking engagements are shared. In a capitalistic society, it’s believed that only a few can succeed, but we reject this scarcity model. There are enough opportunities for all, and one person’s win is everyone’s win.

In the end, these are a few strategies we use for building spaces with intentionality, but we have areas for growth. And if you see a way WWS can be more intersectional, please share. We’re listening!

Our next free, public workshop is this Saturday, October 12th at Antioch University Los Angeles. “Pay attention: attending and collaborating at the end slash beginning of the world” with Rachel McLeod Kaminer and Rocío Carlos begins at 10am.

Posted on

Building Our Community

A woman standing before a room of women writers speaking.

By Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Let me begin by saying that we currently have an IndieGoGo Campaign to raise funds for our 2020 programming. Please consider donating and help us fight for gender parity in publishing. For those new to WWS, allow me to share some of our history and how we’ve arrived at our first ever fundraising drive.

In June 2011, Alyss Dixson and Ashaki M. Jackson invited me to help plan and host our first submission party. Our mission was to empower women writers to submit to journals in hopes of changing the gender disparity recorded by the first Vida Count. At this first party, I made quiche to share, we created a lending library of journals, and we set up a moving office with printer, paper, envelopes, and stamps. About six women met that day to set goals and submit work. Every time a person submitted the room cheered. With the exception of the moving office (since most journals now accept online submissions), these details have become the essential characteristics of any Women Who Submit event.

Over the years we continued to meet. One year we met about an average of once a season, and at one meeting we only had three participants, but we never stopped meeting.

In the summer of 2014, Writ Large Press launched their first #90for90 series, where they hosted 90 literary events in 90 days. Excited by the series, I reached out to then WLP partner, Jessica Ceballos and asked if there was room for a Women Who Submit event. She said yes, and we decided to host a panel on publishing a first book called “It’s a Book!” with author of Remedy for a Broken Angel, Toni Ann Johnson, author of Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazón, Iris de Anda, author of Harrowgate, Kate Maruyama, author of Spent, Antonia Crane, and hosted by Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera. This was our first official public event.

That same summer Tisha, Ashaki, Ramona Gonzales, and myself got together to write our first grant proposal. We had several meetings where we parsed out duties and fined-tuned our narrative. In that grant we proposed a professional development workshop series. We weren’t awarded the grant, but since we’d done the work to create the program, we decided to move forward with implementing it.

In 2016 I invited small group of writers to create a leadership team, along with those already involved to help manage our growing community.

Over the last few years we’ve had workshops on contest strategies, mothering and writing, building a website, finding an agent, self-care, applying to workshops, residencies and fellowships, writing an essay, and so forth. We went from hosting events at different literary and cultural spaces around Los Angeles to now having an ongoing residency at the Exposition Park Regional Library, thanks to literary community advocate and librarian Eugene Owens. And we’ve presented at AWP, Binder Con, Lambda Lit Fest, Macondo Writers Workshop, among others.

In 2017 we were awarded our first programming grant from CCI Arts, which allowed us to make our workshops a regular bimonthly event, pay our guest speakers, gift small grants to our members to offset submission fees, livestream workshops for accessibility, and publish our first anthology (to be released at AWP 2020).

In 2019, thanks to a generous donation from Kit Reed’s family, we were able to offer three writers travel grants to attend writing workshops out of state, and we were awarded our second grant, a matching Local Impact grant from the California Arts Council.

To have this community continue we need your help! All this programming is offered for free, and it’s part of our mission to continue to offer impactful resources to women and non-binary writers for free, but it’s not free to build and manage.

Check out our IndieGoGo campaign, and help us empower writers submit and fight for gender parity in publishing.

Posted on

Strategies for Submitting to Tier One Journals

Eight women with laptops sit on either side of a long table, smiling at the camera

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

The 6th Annual WWS Submission Blitz on Saturday, September 14th is when we call on women and nonbinary writers across the country (and world) to submit to tier one journals en masse as an annual call to action for gender parity in literary publishing. Though we find it important to support and empower each writer in finding her/their own submission and publication goals, sending work to whichever publications, contests, workshops, residencies, and the like are fitting to the individual, we ask our communities to join us in submitting to top tier journals on this one day of the year in honor of WWS’s history and mission and our shared fight for equitable representation, pay, and career opportunities.

In 2009, Vida, Women in Literary Arts counted how many women were published in tier one journals in comparison to how many men. The numbers of the first Vida Count showed unequivocal evidence of a great gender disparity in these publications. When the organization began asking the editors of these journals why the numbers were so, the most common answer from editors was that women don’t submit as often or resubmit as aggressively as men. 

In 2011, Women Who Submit was created in response to this conversation. WWS cofounder, Alyss Dixson, who worked with Vida at the time, had the idea to create a submission party–a co-working space for women to share resources, journals, and food, and to submit in real time–to help skew the numbers. 

With many barriers to consider when submitting to tier one journals, the following five steps are shared with your success in mind. And remember, the act of sending your work into the world is its own success.

STEP ONE: PREPARE A PIECE TO SUBMIT

FAQ: How do I know what to send? 

One of the first workshops WWS hosted was in early 2016 on contest strategies with Tammy De La Torre. Her strategy is to choose work that is an absolute favorite, work that you as the writer want to see in the world. Contests and tier one journals are similar in that they are highly competitive. Sometimes you may write a new piece and choose to submit it to a couple of journals as a way of throwing it against the wall to see what sticks. When submitting to tier one, it’s best to pick pieces that have been tested and fine-tuned. If not that, then pieces that are personally urgent or essential.  

FAQ: How do I know when it’s ready?

For most writers, it’s normal to find elements to tweak or fix even after publication. A piece may never be “perfect,” but it’s your job as a writer to send your best work. You can do this through revisions and by utilizing friends and colleagues for first and second read throughs. It’s not always easy to find someone with time or interest to read your work, so invite another writer to do an exchange. This way you’re both benefitting as well as building bonds with a peer. In general, avoid sending work before having another set of eyes on it. 

STEP TWO: SELECT A JOURNAL

FAQ: How do I know where to send? 

For this project, WWS encourages women and nonbinary writers to submit to tier one journals in honor of the VIDA Count and the creation of the first Submission Party in 2011. A tier one journal typically has large distribution and readership, many awards, and pays its readers. Check out the Clifford Garstang blog for annual lists of tier one journals in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Below is a list top tier journals with current open submissions curated by Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (find links and descriptions for each on our FB page):

Poetry

Kenyon Review

American Poetry Journal

Threepenny Review

New England Review

Southern Review

Gettysburg Review

Ploughshares

The Sun

One Story

Conjunctions

Paris Review

Ecotone

American Short Fiction

Georgia Review

Granta

New Letters

Agni

Almagundi

The Point

Fourth Genre

FAQ: What if I can’t buy all the magazines?

Every magazine will ask you to read past issues before submitting to ensure your work is a good fit. Reading the issue will also help with adding one specific detail about the journal in your cover letter. This is important for building communication and relationships with editors. But print journals are expensive, so pull resources with friends. Swap old copies. Share subscriptions. Or find past issues in libraries and in the creative writing departments on college campuses.

STEP THREE: WRITE A COVER LETTER

FAQ: What should I put in a cover letter? 

  1. Address the editor directly by finding specific editors’ names on the journal masthead. The easiest way to find the masthead is to Google “[journal name] masthead.” If you still can’t find the editor’s name, address the letter as “Dear [specific genre] editors.”
  2. Name the title of your piece or pieces
  3. Give one reason why you have chosen to send your work to this particular journal. This is where you can let the editor know you’ve done your homework by reading past issues. Make it short. Make it specific. 
  4. Write a short bio with your related credits. 

For an example, check out “Your Perfect Cover Letter” at the review review.

FAQ: What if I have no credits?

If you haven’t been published, it’s ok to say so. You can also include writing classes, workshops, or memberships, but don’t make up credits, and don’t fill space with cuties details. 

STEP FOUR: HIT SEND

FAQ: How important are guidelines?

The quickest way to be rejected is to not follow a journal’s guidelines. Thoroughly read the guidelines and be sure your submission is adhering to what the journal asks for. Every journal is different, so do one last check before you send. 

FAQ: Can I send the same work to multiple places?

If a journal does not specify otherwise, the answer is yes. Be sure to track (see step five) where you’re sending work because if a journal accepts a piece (YAY!), it’s your job to notify the other journals and withdraw. If a journal says they don’t take “simultaneous submissions” follow the guidelines and decide if you want to submit knowing they may not respond for a long stretch of time.

 FAQ: Who will help me celebrate when I hit send?

WWS will be submitting en masse to tier one journals on Saturday, September 14th from 12am-11:59pm. No matter where in the country (or world) you live, we encourage you to gather a few friends and have your own submission party. A typical WWS submission party will include shared copies of journals, wifi, computers, and plenty of snacks. And of course, don’t forget to audibly cheer anytime anyone hits send! 

If you are unable to gather with others, be sure to @womenwhosubmit on Twitter or Instagram, and we’ll send you plenty of claps and cheers from afar. 

If you’re in Los Angeles, you can meet us at The Faculty (707 N Heliotrope Dr, Los Angeles, California 90029) with your laptop on September 14th from 12:30pm-4pm. 

STEP FIVE: TRACK SUBMISSIONS

FAQ: What do I do after I “hit send”? 

Once you’ve celebrated, be sure to record the submission in your submission tracker. A tracker is a spreadsheet with columns for journal name, date submitted, title of piece submitted, etc. No two trackers are the same, but what’s most important is for you to know who has your work and for how long. This will help with building relationships with journals and self-advocating. 

FAQ: How long should I wait before sending a query?

Many journals will tell you how long to wait before checking in, and what they say should be followed. Some journals may respond within two months, but for many of the larger journals a reply can take 6-12 months. If a journal doesn’t specify, I typically wait six months before querying, but it’s not uncommon to wait two or three.

Posted on

Tsuru for Solidarity

multi-colored folded origami crane on a flat, black surface.

By Noriko Nakada

Read and bear witness. Retweet the tweets. Repost the images. Fold a crane. Fold another. And another.

Remember Sadako, the first story I heard, or read, about folding cranes. A girl who loved to run and play, an innocent victim of nuclear war who got leukemia years after the bombs were dropped. She folded cranes. One thousand and you get your wish. She didn’t make it to a thousand. The cranes she folded didn’t save her.

Fold cranes and attempt to make clean creases, to give energy and thoughts and wishes to children. Innocent victims again. This time they are in cages. This time they are separated from their families. Treated like animals. Criminals.

My sister-in-law folded 1000 cranes for her wedding. I contributed 200 to the cause. She had all 1000 of those gold folded origami cranes and assembled in a beautiful framed tsuri in the shape of the Nakada Kanji. In the rice field.

I once folded cranes at a table at the Deschutes County Fair in Oregon. I think we were protesting death squads in El Salvador, or the murder of a priest in Nicaragua, or the disappeared in Guatemala. Maybe it was later, and we were protesting nuclear weapons testing, or the first Iraq war, or acknowledging the anniversaries of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I taught nice white folks in Central Oregon who had never met anyone Japanese, who couldn’t believe my dad had been incarcerated as a child during World War II. “Well, that sure doesn’t sound very ‘Merican.”

It was. It is. America is all the truths we hold to be self-evident: the good and the bad. The ugly. We are a country built by people taken by force, built by people brought by force and forced to build this nation. This history is in the bones of the body of our nation.

We are a country who takes Native children from their families. We exclude immigrants from certain countries and embrace immigrants from another. We incarcerate whole families during times of war and turn refugees away and sentence them to death. We drop nuclear weapons on entire cities, take sides in civil wars, go to battle in the name of democracy, fight against communism, ensure our people have access to oil and resources and markets all for America and the pursuit of happiness.

We elect men who enslave, who father enslaved children, who rape, who murder, who who who.

So, today I fold. I teach friends to fold. I teach my daughter to fold and while we fold we think about the ways we can push back against all that is wrong. Push, y’all, and keep pushing. 

Check out Tsuru for Solidarity on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to find ways you can help push back. 


Noriko Nakada HeadshotNoriko Nakada is a public school teacher and the editor of the Breathe and Push column. She writes, blogs, tweets, and parents in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

Posted on

Working Through Writer’s Block

A pen and a stone sitting on a opened page of a hardcover book along with a journal and a small alter of candles.

By Thea Pueschel

The screen is blank, your fingers perch on the keyboard, the cursor is blinking at you, and your deadline is looming. Every writer experiences writer’s block at some point in their career. Perhaps, the blinking cursor and the blank screen even pervade your sleeping hours. When you are in a writing rut, and it feels as if there isn’t an exit it’s time to break free and find the flow again.

Body journal and breathe

You’re experiencing writer’s block with that comes a specific sensation or feeling. It’s time to step away from the computer. Take out a pen and paper and begin to write down the sensations you are feeling in your body. Give yourself 5-10 minutes for this exercise. Is your jaw tight? Can you associate the feeling with something else? Write it down. Are your shoulders shrugged up to your ears? When has that happened before? Write it down.

Go through as much of your body as you can in this time frame, write down the feelings and sensations as well as when you have experienced them before. Once, you’ve journaled, inhale deeply and exhale until your lungs feel empty. Take three breaths like this, stand up and stretch. You are ready to conquer the blank screen.

Stichomancy or bibliomancy

You’re stuck. Your thought pattern is circling and not going anywhere near what you need to write.  The muse has wandered away. Perhaps, relying on a 3,000-year-old divination technique would invite the muse back in. Stichomancy or bibliomancy is a divination technique where a random line or passage from a book or the bible is selected to help guide a person in life. This technique works well to get outside of your head, and change perspective.

Take a small stone or a coin; open the book of your choice. With your eyes closed drop the object on the open page. Look where it landed, take 5 minutes to write about the selected line or rewrite the text, or write about the topic from a different point of view. Once your creative channels are clear, it’s time to get back to your work.

When you write, it’s easy to get trapped in your perspective especially when you are feeling blocked. Using stichomancy requires you to write from a place that is outside your norm bringing a fresh approach to your creativity.  The body journal and breathe technique helps you reconnect to your body, explore your sensations and give them a voice which helps clear the mind and the body of blockages.

These techniques are a great way to break up the monotony of self-judgment and get your writing to flow again. Sometimes, the muse just needs to be taken for a walk through different techniques to open the channels of communication.

Thea Pueschel is a hypnotherapist, yoga/meditation teacher. She writes, creates visual art, and teaches yoga teachers and doulas how to deliver and write meditations in and around L.A. and Orange County. She is committed to submitting, only in a literary capacity with light-hearted yet dark creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

Posted on

The WWS Guide to LitFest Pasadena

The 7th Annual LitFest Pasadena is coming Saturday, May 18th and Sunday, May 19th. This two-day event will take over well-known Pasadena literary and arts venues such as Vroman’s Bookstore and the Pasadena Playhouse with over 50 panels, workshops, and readings featuring authors, publishers, editors, and educators from all around Southern California and beyond. This year individuals from our WWS community make a big splash featuring in 10 events. Here is a breakdown of where you can find our celebrated members.

See you in Pasadena!

Languas Revoltosas
Women of Color Disrupting Traditional Literary Zones
May 18, Saturday, 3-4 p.m. at The Stand

“Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language,” wrote the legendary poet-scholar Gloria Anzaldúa. Despite rich linguistic/cultural diversity within the United States, the primary passport in mainstream publishing continues to be monolinguistic. This multi-genre reading features writers of color with unruly tongues disrupting English-only literary zones and challenging perceptions of what constitutes Latinx and POC writing and identity. Featuring Angelina Sáenz, Tanya Ko Hong, Veronica Reyes, and Sehba Sarwar. Hosted by Olga Echeverría Garcia.

Writing Our Own Codices
Acts of Resistance to 500 Years of Detentions and Killings
May 18, Saturday, 4:30-5:30 p.m., Vroman’s Bookstore, courtyard

Project 1521 gathers artists, writers, and scholars to generate new visual and literary works as we approach the 500 year anniversary of the conquest of Mexico. The goal is to make sense of current acts of detention and killings and create works as acts of resistance. Participants will read new texts with a reproduction of Sandy Rodriguez’s “Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón” as outdoor installation, and dialogue with the audience. Featuring Adrian Arancibia, Letiticia Hernández, Arminé Iknadossian, Darren J. de Leon, Dr. Diana Magaloni, Linda Ravenswood, Yago S. Cura, Sandy Rodriguez, and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez.

You Might as Well Live
Traversing Pain, Pleasure, and Everything in Between in the Queer Memoir
May 18, Saturday, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Vroman’s Bookstore, upstairs

This lively and thought-provoking panel discussion will feature an eclectic and electric group of LGBTQ authors discussing their recent memoirs, the writing process, inspiration(s), and much more. Featuring Alex Espinoza, Ali Liebegott, Carla Sameth, Jacob Tobia, and Corey Roskin as moderator.

Diving into the Wreck
The Inheritance of Trauma
May 18, Saturday, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Pasadena Playhouse, courtyard

Award-winning poets William Archila, Lory Bedikian, Douglas Manuel, and Michelle Brittan Rosado read from their harrowing collections about family, what we inherit, and trauma that haunts through generations. Their works swim in the wake of Adrienne Rich’s 1973 Diving into the Wreck and seek “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth” of their own subjective experiences.

Power Treaties
May 19, Sunday, 3-4:30 p.m., Battery Books & Music
26. S. Robles Ave., Pasadena 91101

Enjoy a literary performance of poetry, prose, and music about the topic of power. The artists will stretch and play with the different dimensions of power —how they use it, lose it, abuse it, shape or share it. The performance will at Battery Books and Music will highlight the work of the following poets, essayists, and lyricists: Amy Shimshon-Santo, Adrian Ernesto, Mireya Vela, Brennan DeFrisco, and Avila Santo.

East Pasadena Poets
Celebrating Each Other Through Poetry
May 19, Sunday, 4:30-5:30 p.m., Pasadena Playhouse, courtyard

This six-year-old writers’ group has been gathering to share poetry, help one another improve, and to celebrate and support the art and craft of poetry. Members will read their own and others’ poetry in a round-robin style, focusing on the themes of community and connection. Featuring Beverly Lafontaine, Cathie Sandstrom, Elline Lipkin, Genevieve Kaplan, and Mary Fitzpatrick.

The Citizen Poets Sparking Our Civic Imagination
May 19, Sunday, 4:30-5:30 p.m., El Portal, banquet room

The Pasadena Rose Poets are a group of citizen poets who have been reading poetry during the public comment period of Pasadena City Council meetings since February 2017. “I believe that because of the poetry reading at City Council our meetings are more civil,” says Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek. Featuring Hazel Clayton Harrison, Gerda Govine Ituarte, Shahé Mankerian, and Toni Mosley.

Queer, Adoptive, and Nontraditional Families
Writing Our Truth
May 19, Sunday, 6-7 p.m., Pasadena Playhouse, library

Whether writing about child-rearing or unrelated topics, parenthood intersects at every level of the professional author experience. Queer parents are often intentional in creating their families and in how they position themselves as writers. This panel features diverse authors who define themselves as something other than a “traditional” mother. Featuring Pat Alderete, Nefertiti Austin, Cheryl Klein, Carroll Sun Yang, and Carla Sameth as moderator.

Is Traditional Masculinity “Toxic”?
May 19, Sunday, 6-7 p.m., El Portal, banquet room

This panel discussion will provide a basic overview of the key guidelines in the recent American Psychological Associations’ Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men. This report has generated considerable attention and controversy in the popular press in its description of some traditional tropes of masculinity as problematic and maladaptive, especially within the context of the #MeToo movement and on-going debates regarding “toxic masculinity.” The panelists, which includes one of the leadauthors of the report as well as an expert on adolescent development, will reflect on competing and often contradictory pressures that boys face in this environment, and how data indicate serious challenges in academic and health outcomes. Featuring Ioakim Boutakidis, Matt Englar Carlson, Sehba Sarwar, and Jinghuan Liu Tervalon, moderator.

No Longer the Scream Queen
Women’s Roles in Horror
May 19, Sunday, 6-7 p.m., Vanessa’s Café

Women creators in the horror genre discuss the roles and representation of female characters and archetypes in horror literature and film. Featuring Kate Maruyama, Kate Jonez, Kathryn McGee, Lisa Morton, and Ashley Santana, moderator.

Posted on

Transforming AWP Through Our Collective Power

Non-binary, Afro-Latinx poet speaking at a podium in a conference room while Latinx writers look on

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

On the first morning of AWP at the second session, I stepped into “Lenguas Revoltosas: Writers of Color Disrupting Traditional Literary Zones” a reading featuring Olga Garcia Echeverria, Maya Chinchilla, Veronica Reyes, Sehba Sarwar, and Alan Pelaez. As I sat down I noticed a tapestry embroidered with bright flowers covering the podium and AWP signage. It reminded me of a tip from my poetry madrina, Denise Chavez who said to always carry a rebozo if only to decorate the ugly podiums we speak from. When I looked beyond the podium, I saw signs all along the walls written in different languages. As poets took their place at the podium, a sign just behind their heads read, “something has happened here / algo ha pasado aqui.” In front of each panelist’s seat, a sign with their name followed by a six-word memoir: “Maya Chinchilla: A Guatefemme tenderqueer volcanic ocean intuitive.” When I looked up from the words around the room, I noticed that the speakers themselves were also dressed with streams of bright ribbons in teal, wine, and golden rod. It felt as if the panel itself had become a kind of altar.

“We had phrases and words in English, Spanish, Spanglish, and Urdu. I took in a tapestry from Chiapas, Mexico and we draped the AWP podium with this. This was about beautifying and adding color, but it was also about making ourselves “at home” in spaces that have not traditionally felt welcoming (in either overt or subverted ways). I think something as simple as a special piece of cloth and silent signage can speak loudly. It sets the tone for an even before the event even begins.” – Olga Garcia Echeverria

Their spoken and silent words, their dressing the space became like offerings to those of us just beginning this journey through three days of AWP, and I was thankful for the poets’ care, for this reminder that this often cold and anxiety-ridden event, can be transformed into something beautiful.

The next morning, arrived to the conference in time to sit in support of Khadijah Queen, Bettina Judd, and Ashaki M. Jackson on their panel, “All Your Faves are Problematic: #Metoo and the Ethics of Public Call-outs.” These women worked together in the public call out of once-celebrated black poet, Thomas Sayer Ellis, who had assaulted women in their community. On the panel, they worked together to share their experiences with this public figure and how they went about taking him down. Part witness and part tutorial on how others can do this work for their own communities, they lead by example and shared space for Native American writers, Erika T. Wurth and Elissa Washuta, to speak about the fight they are currently in to call out Sherman Alexie and their need for allies.

“The literary community is immense without a structure to report predation and assault, nor is there a standard pathway toward restorative justice. We designed the panel to identify the problem and describe our methods to turn the Hunt on its head; instead of giving any more space and security to a predator, we shared ways we took away his freedom over a long period. It’s not prescriptive, but it’s replicable. They key is a network—in-person and virtual—lead by survivors, that is persistent and clear on the end game.” – Ashaki M. Jackson

One of the most powerful statements the panel made was requiring the audience to write questions on small pieces of paper that they, the panelists handed out and collected. The questions were then curated and read by the panelists before being answered. No one was going to speak in this space without their consent, and it illustrated the kind of diligence needed to protect women writers of color in spaces like these, which are crucial for advancement in literary careers. “This is indeed a workplace,” Ashaki Jackson said on the day of. The message is behave professionally, or women will ban behind survivors to have you removed.

Directly after this panel, I went to “Writing & Mothering: Black Women Writing Under a Quadruple “Minority” in America” featuring LaCoya Katoe, Cassandra Lane, Ryane Nicole Granados, Tameka Cage Conley, and Cherene Sherrard. Moderator, LaCoya Katoe began the discussion by recounting the months leading up to her first child’s birth.


“I was pregnant in 2014 and 2015, and our news cycle was literally littered with black death— Trayvon Martin murdered in July 2013. Eric Garner murdered in July 2014. Mike Brown murdered in August 2014. Laquan McDonald in October 2014. Tamir Rice in November 2014. Eric Harris in April 2015. And these were just the names making national news; never mind the names of men I personally know and who were daily being affected by the criminal justice system. I did not want to raise a black son in America. But my son was coming, and I had to prepare for him.

Like always when I’m desperate, during this time, I reached out to my sisters, particularly those friends of mine already in the throes of mothering black boys in America. I reached out for help, guidance, support, tips, suggestions, anything they could offer at the time to help me process this fear. This panel was born out of those initial heart-wrenching conversations between friends about raising black boys in America, about protecting them, loving them in a country/world that doesn’t seem to. Over the last three years, we’ve morphed into something of a support group, our very own Mama Collective.” – LaCoya Katoe

These five women, mothers of black sons, had banned together to transform their pain and fear into power, creation, and even joy. During the panel, they were kind and giving with each other and with the audience. They shared insights on how to create “a room of one’s own.” They shared mental heath practices. Ryane Nicole Granados shared, “I’ve weaponized my words. They are my super power.” But most of all they shared their sisterhood.

On the third day of the conference, I had my own panel, “The Word on the Street: How to Start & Run a Community Literary Series,” and volunteer hours to complete at my MFA’s table, but I started with the panel, “That’s not Relatable: Radical Teaching on Race and Intersectionality in Writing” featuring Cynthia Guardado, Marisol Baca, Luivette Resto, and Gabriela Ramirez-Chavez. A collective of Latina academics, I was moved by their candidness with aggressions and hostilities faced in their classrooms, break rooms, and office hours.

At the beginning of the panel, Cynthia Guardado asked the audience to write down a list of biases students and colleagues see when we walk into a room. I wrote, “woman, brown, young, artist,” and it reminded me of all the times I was minimized in the classroom by the simple act of a male colleague stepping into the room with me. According to equalrights.org, “Latinas are experiencing the worst pay gap in the nation” earning of 55 cents to every dollar made by white men. We are undervalued in our classrooms and rarely seen as experts, but I appreciated how this panel used technology to change the narrative. Slides projected each panelist’s bio, major publications and handles as they spoke, and slides were also used to share resources. Cynthia Guardado even encouraged the audience to take photos to reference later.

“As far as social media and resources, I based this on considering what I often felt was missing at panels I attended. I wanted our panel to be more than a one time conversation so if people wanted to reach out to us for support, they could follow us or email us (of course I also wanted to highlight our publications because they are great accomplishments). I’m also looking for panels where I can grow as a writer and educator and often find myself leaving panels without tangible things I can use later. This was very important to me for our panel, and I knew we would have a lot of conversation and wanted to include slides with resources, tips, and information because sometimes its a lot to process. I also applied my teaching methods using auditory and visual techniques through technology to make the whole experience more tangible for folks.” – Cynthia Guardado

I finished this last day of AWP with bonding time with my two MFA-poet sisters, Nikia Chaney and Allison Tobey. Allison lives in Portland and let us stay in her guest bedroom. After a long day of panels, readings, and one dance party, we sat together on the guest queen bed and chatted about our poetry and our shared love of Fiona Apple’s lyricism. We applauded each other on how far we’ve come in our careers since graduating 10 years ago. In our little collective we have an editor, a publisher, and an organizer, but close to 1am on Sunday morning, the only thing that mattered was that we still had each other.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). A former Steinbeck Fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grantee, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, National Parks Arts Foundation and Poetry Foundation. A Macondo Writers’ Workshop member, she has work published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and American Poetry Review among others. A dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño, can be viewed at latinopia.com. She is a cofounder of Women Who Submit.

Posted on

The Benefits of Summer Writing Workshops

12 writers standing together posing for a group photo with trees in the background.

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

I didn’t know about writing workshops until after I graduated from my MFA program in 2009. How I completed two years of an MFA without ever hearing about summer writing workshops, I’ll never know. But it wasn’t until two years later in 2011, when a friend I met at a reading for the now defunct Splinter hGeneration told me to apply to the brand new summer workshop, Las Dos Brujas, organized by Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban. I applied solely on her recommendation and did so without understanding what I was applying for. Months later, we found ourselves on a two-day road trip through the southwest to our destination of Ghost Ranch Retreat Center in Abiquiu, New Mexico (home of Georgia O’Keefe) for a five-day writing retreat with workshop leads Juan Felipe Herrera, Denise Chavez, Kimiko Han, Chris Abani, and Cristina. Eight years later, this workshop nestled in the elbow of red mesas, with its early morning hikes and sunset writing circles, is still in my top five writing experiences of all time.

A writing workshop is typically about a three to five-day experience where you pay to have your writing workshopped by a celebrated writer in the literary world as well as a group of your peers (some workshops are generative). To be invited to a summer workshop, you have to apply with a sample of your work and pay a submission fee. The total cost to attend can vary and may include the cost of the workshop (typically a three-hour chunk of time with your mentor and peers), room and board, nighttime entertainment (drinks and dancing), and travel.

I’ve attended four different workshops in my tenure as a poet: Las Dos Brujas, Macondo Writers Workshop, Tucson Festival of Books’ Masters Writing Workshop, and VONA Voices. These workshops in differing degrees have been geared towards writers of color, focused on social justice writing, and featured mentors of color. When I applied to Las Dos Brujas, this wasn’t something I was looking for, but once I attended and saw the kind of community and kinship you can find at these workshops, something I didn’t always find in my MFA program, I knew it was something I needed.

No two writing workshops are the same. Prestige, mission, mentor selection, size, location, and structure all affect the overall tone of a workshop experience. For example, Bread Loaf is the most prestigious and competitive writing workshop in the nation and it’s also the longest with a 10-day commitment. If you are looking to find an agent this might be the workshop for you, but it probably won’t be the best place to find community. Cave Canem, Kundiman, and Cantomundo, are community workshops for people of color. The selection processes for these are competitive due to limited space and high demand, but they offer major community support for those accepted. All three typically have application deadlines before January 1, but Jack Jones Retreat, “open exclusively to women of color writers and nonbinary writers of color,” is currently taking applications for their fall retreat. Two summer workshops still open are Tin House and Community of Writers-Squaw Valley.

No matter what you are looking for in a writing workshop, you can probably find one that fits your needs. When looking into these opportunities be sure to familiarize yourself with the mentors because they drive a major part of the experience as the facilitator of the daily, three-hour workshop. If you don’t know them, read their work (always read their work), and ask friends about their own experiences with these writers and spaces. You are spending time and money to participate, and one lesson I’ve learned is literary accolades don’t necessarily mean a person is a good mentor or instructor. Do yourself a favor and research.

The benefits of attending a workshop on the most basic level are access to writers you admire and enjoying time spent with like-minded people. You can also walk away with your work being read by a mentor and peers, hopefully with helpful notes on how to improve your work, and maybe a few writing exercises for later. Long-lasting benefits can vary as a summer workshop can be used as a place to find future readers, editors, and collaborators, to soundboard ideas for projects in process, and to build relationships with awesome writers across the nation.

When my poetry book, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications) was released in 2016, one of my biggest goals was to create a book tour for myself. I decided on a west coast tour from Los Angeles to Seattle, and in the planning stages I reached out to people I had met at Macondo, Las Dos Brujas, and VONA. Thanks to help from those communities, I was able to book events in Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose and later in New York City, Las Cruces, San Antonio, and Houston. Another long-term reward was when Las Dos Brujas returned in 2017 with a workshop in San Francisco, I was invited by Cristina García and her team to lead a one-hour talk on applying to workshops, residencies, and fellowships based off my essay, “Building Up to Emerging.”

Of course, not every workshop will produce long-lasting friendships, partnerships, and job opportunities, but with each one I attend I do my best to enter the experience like a sponge and absorb all the knowledge, creativity, laughter, dance parties, ping-pong tournaments, and mind-melds that I miss out on the rest of the year sitting at home and working alone.

In the end, to attend a summer writing workshop is a major financial commitment, so I suggest doing your research and looking for a workshop that fits your needs. Many offer scholarships to help offset costs, and if you are a WWS member, in 2019 we are offering two scholarships of $340 to attend a conference, workshop, or residency through the Kit Reed Travel Fund for Women-Identifying and Non-Binary Writers of Color.

Happy submitting!

Latinx woman with curly black hair and red lipstick smiles at the camera in front of a bookcase

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016). A former Steinbeck Fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grantee, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, National Parks Arts Foundation and Poetry Foundation. A Macondo Writers’ Workshop member, she has work published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and American Poetry Review among others. A dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño, can be viewed at latinopia.com. She is a cofounder of Women Who Submit.