The Power of the Post-It: Writing My Life into Existence

by Li Yun Alvarado

“PhD by 33”

Those were the words I scrawled on a yellow post-it note shortly after beginning my doctoral coursework. At the time, the fact that the phrase rhymed felt significant, as if the rhyming meant my five year deadline was somehow meant to be.

I was twenty-eight when I began, and even though five years to complete the coursework, comprehensive exams, a proposal and dissertation was an ambitious goal, I believed it was attainable, so I wrote “PhD by 33” on that post-it and stuck it prominently above my desk. That post-it was only the first of a collection of messages that decorated the area I came to call my “dissertation station.”

“Shitty First Draft!” proclaimed another post-it, making reference to Anne Lamott’s advice that all great writing begins with a shitty first draft.

“What Must Get Done Will Get Done” — a mantra I picked up from a high school friend also made an appearance on my wall. I had used that phrase for over a decade to psyche myself up before long nights of paper writing during high school, college, and graduate school.

After reading Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day by Joan Bolker, I posted several quotes from that book on my wall as well:

“Living (and writing) well is the best revenge”

“First you make a mess, then you clean it up”

“Not every single word of this can be garbage”

“Writing is probably the best cure for a scared writer”

“Create and Care for Your Writing Addiction”

“Don’t cry over spilt milk, or unwritten pages”

“Write one day at a time”

“WRITE FIRST!”

“The best dissertation is a DONE dissertation”

One of my favorite post-its came from an unexpected source: the last line from Cristina Yang’s final monologue on the TV show Grey’s Anatomy: “Assume it will be Brilliant.”

I’m not unique in my use of post-its to motivate and inspire. On the TV show Being Mary Jane, Gabrielle Union’s character Mary Jane displays meaningful quotes and affirmations on yellow post-its all over her home—even on her head board.

Chicana feminist-poet-scholar Gloria Anzaldúa wrote her ambitions on “candle affirmations,” circular pieces of paper on which she wrote personal, professional, spiritual, and writing aspirations. Presumably after writing these affirmations, she’d place a candle on top of the paper, set her intention, and light the candle. You can find Anzaldúa’s candle affirmations at her archive at UT Austin (Box 5 Folder 5).

Most recently, a page full of affirmations were found in one of novelist Octavia Butler’s notebooks. “I shall be a bestselling writer,” she begins. “This is my life. I write bestselling novels,” she continues. Her aspirations are not limited to her own success either. She affirms, “I will help poor black youngsters broaden their horizons. I will help poor black youngsters go to college.” One powerful phrase that she repeats is: “So be it! See to it!”

News of Butler’s page of affirmations circulated like wildfire among my friends’ FB pages. Her words alongside her successful career acted as an example of the power of clear and precise envisioning. As the title of one Blavity article proclaims, “Octavia Butler’s Personal Journal Shows the Author Literally Wrote Her Life Into Existence.” I think it is that idea of writing oneself into existence that resonated so powerfully with us writers because so many of us are trying to do exactly that.

Butler’s affirmations reminded me of another post-it I stuck on the wall above my desk while dissertating: “Dr. Alvarado.” I wrote the title “Dr.” beside my name long before my dissertation was done as if to say, “So be it! See to it!”

These examples, combined with my own experiences creating vision boards and posting advice and affirmations around my home, have made me a true believer in the power of the post-it, or, more accurately, the power of clearly articulated aspirations, affirmations, and images posted prominently in our living and working spaces. I’ve come to believe that these post-its, lists, candle affirmations, and vision boards can function as powerful aids in attaining our hearts’ deepest desires—as writers, artists, and even as human beings.

So, did I achieve my goal of “PhD by 33”? No. That was a crazy goal!

But by my 34th birthday in October of 2014, my committee and I had agreed that I would be ready to defend my dissertation that spring — the first person in my cohort to do so. Having the “PhD by 33” stretch goal made me stay focused on making steady progress on my doctoral work even when life got in the way (losing a friend and a grandparent; having my brother, sister-in-law, and infant/toddler nephew as roommates; finding a (benign) tumor on my breast; teaching and grading (ugh!); embracing a long distance romance turned cross-country move turned marriage; planning a wedding in Puerto Rico from California; and buying a first home—to name just a few examples). During those six years, I pushed myself and pushed my committee to support me on my forward progress, so that I could not only finish, but finish quickly.

When it became obvious that “PhD by 33” wasn’t going to happen, I let myself off the hook. I crossed out 33 and wrote in 34. Finishing by 33 was never the point; finishing was the point. By pushing myself to make that 33 “deadline,” I was a lot closer to the ultimate goal by my 34th birthday than I might have been otherwise.

Post-PhD, my writing related post-its remain above my desk, along with some new additions, like a picture of Idris Elba asking “Shouldn’t you be writing?” Yes, Idris, yes I should be.

The post-it that replaced “PhD by 33”?

“5 Books & 2 Babies by 45!”

0a30ce95-d370-4e46-a66f-8b6eee7f6ebdI’m giving myself ten years to focus my efforts on “Books & Babies.” I even created one of my elaborate vision boards filled with cut-outs from Poets and Writers and parenting magazines evoking the parent/writer life.

Will I make these things happen? Sure. Why not? I don’t know. What I do know is that if I don’t try to make them happen, then they most certainly won’t.

A few months after writing “5 Books & 2 Babies by 45!” on a post-it, a poetry manuscript I’ve played around with and submitted in various forms for about nine years was finally picked up. That chapbook, Words or Water, is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press (book #1). The summer after I earned that PhD, I wrote a picture book manuscript, submitted it to a contest with Lee & Low Books and won second place. I have faith that it will be published one day (book #2). As we speak, I’m compiling poems for a full-length manuscript I hope to start submitting next fall (book #3). My husband and I are enjoying trying for baby #1. I’d say that’s not too shabby for my first year of “5 Books and 2 Babies by 45.”

In the end, clearly articulating what I really want—in writing— helps keep me focused and striving. I write towards those goals, and I submit towards those hopes, and I think of new projects with those aspirations in mind, and I make love open to those dreams. And I move forward. And I write my life into existence.


 

836a7816-6944-43db-9d60-c4da48346a59Li Yun Alvarado is the author of Words or Water and Nuyorico, CA. A poet and scholar, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education; The Acentos Review; and PMS Poemmemoirstory among others. She recently received the Lee & Low New Voices Honor, and in 2012 she received an honorable mention for The Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She is currently the Senior Poetry Editor for Kweli Journal and is an alumna of VONA/Voices Writing Workshop and AROHO. She holds a BA in Spanish and sociology from Yale University and an MA and PhD in English from Fordham University. Li Yun is a native New Yorker living in Long Beach, California who takes frequent trips to Salinas, Puerto Rico to visit la familia. You can order her new book and learn more about Li Yun on Facebook and at www.liyunalvarado.com.

March Submission Deadlines: 20 under $20

By Lisbeth Coiman

As part of our ongoing effort to encourage women to submit to top tier literary journals, Women Who Submit has put together a monthly submission call round up, hoping women writers find it useful and come back to it again and again. For our first list, we have included 19 publications with under $20 submission fees, and one publication with a slightly higher fee.

General

  1. The Indiana Review

Reading Period: Opening date not listed – March 10

Submission guidelines

What They Like:  They’ve received a ton of stories about cancer, so he could do without seeing any of those for a while and would prefer to see stuff that’s “different.”

  1. James Franco Review

Deadline: March 31

Submission guidelines

Genre: Poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction

Rotating Editors

Blind reading

  1. The Masters Review

Reading Period: January 15 – March 31

Submission guidelines

What They Like: Emerging fiction from new writers. They run year-round New Voices online editions and additional contests judged by the magazine editors and other writers.

  1. The Cincinnati Review

Reading Period: August 15 – April 16

Submission guidelines

What They Like: Realistic fiction, some humorous pieces
Responses: One submission, one form rejection

  1. Room Magazine

Deadline: for issue 39.4 : April 30

Submission guidelines.

Cost: $0

Featured: Sookfong Lee and Betsy Warland

Editor: Chelene Knight

Canadian publication. Recommended to read a couple of issues to get the feel of what they publish @ www.roommagazine.com/magazine. They are interested in poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction by women. They pay from CA$ 50 up to CA$120 depending on the number of pages. They accept one submission per genre per quarter and publish 80 to 100 pieces from a 2000 submissions slush pile.

  1. The Sun Magazine

Deadline: Open Call

Submission guidelines

Cost: $5

Hardcopy submissions only sent to

Editorial Department
The Sun
107 N. Roberson St.
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

They publish personal essays although they also accept interviews, fiction and poetry. Your immaculate personal essay competes against thousands of other great essays in the slush pile every month. They take up to six months to reply. The nicely printed rejection letters make for a good keepsake too. They pay from $100-200 for poetry up to $2000 for interviews. SASE required.

It is highly recommended to read at least a couple of issues to get a feel for the magazine content and what the editors expect.

  1. Arcadia Magazine 

Deadline: Open Call

Submission guidelines

Cost: $3

Genre: Fiction, Poetry, Non-fiction, drama, and blog

Query before submitting. Online submission only.

  1. Red Light Lit

Deadline: Open Call

Submission guidelines

Genre: Poetry, prose, and art for events and for the magazine.

Editor: Jennifer Lewis

Submit to: Jennifer@redlight.com also

Oakland based reading series and quarterly journal since 2013 publishes emerging writers and artists who delve in the senses with sophistication, humor, and wit.

                  Short Fiction Only

  1. The Paris Review

Reading Period: All year, but do not accept more than four submissions per year

Submission guidelines
What They Like: They seem a fair bit eclectic

10. The Atlantic

Reading Period: All year

Submission guidelines
What They Like: I’ve seen a little bit of everything, but they seem to prefer realism

11. The New Yorker

Reading Period: All year

Submission Guidelines: http://www.newyorker.com/about/contact
What They Like: I’ve seen a little bit of everything, from realism to magical realism to a few other types of fiction, but not too much “genre”
Responses; If you haven’t heard from them within three months, you’re just supposed to assume you’re rejected

  1. Glimmer Train

Reading Period: Open year-round, but with general submissions in January, May, and September

Submission guidelines

What They Like: Rural stories, coming-of-age stories

  1. The Mid-American Review

Reading Period: Open year-round

Submission guidelines

What They Like: I’ve read everything from the fantastical to the dystopic to the realistic to the WTF-how-did-this-get-published, so they seem rather eclectic

  1. The Missouri Review

Reading Period: Open year-round, as far as I can tell, but don’t quote me on that 

Submission guidelines

What They Like: I haven’t been overly impressed with what I’ve read, but they seem to like realistic, rural, small-scale stories 

Anthologies

  1. Tayen Lane Publishing

First Annual Articulated Press Short Story Anthology

Deadline: March 31

Cost: $0

Submission guidelines

Editors: Nora Boxer and Kelly Luce

Submit to

Chosen contributors receive $100, publication, and two hardcovers, two softcovers, and an eBook edition.

Procyon Science Fiction Anthology

Deadline: March 31

Cost: $0

Editor: Jeanne Thornton

Chosen contributors receive $100, publication, and two hardcovers, two softcovers, and an eBook edition.

Submit to

  1. Ideate Publishing

Where is My Tiara? Anthology

Deadline: March 31

Genre: Short fiction

Theme: Stories that feature multilayered female protagonist that illuminate and celebrate the many facets and complexities of being a woman

Submit to

Selected stories will receive a copy of the anthology and a stipend of $100.00

  1. Masters Review

Anthology Volume V

Deadline: March 31

Submission guidelines

Cost: $20

Genre: Fiction, literary non-fiction (7000 words)

Prize: $500

This yearly anthology is composed of 10 stories by emergent writers. Last year, the Masters Review won the Silver Medal for Best Short Story Collection through the INDIEFAB Awards. (Among the past judges: Lauren Groff and Lev Grossman; current judge is Amy Hempel.)

Contests 

  1. James Jones Fellowship Contest

Deadline: March 15, 2016
Submission guidelines

Cost: $33

Genre: Fiction (novels) only.

Prize:

  1. $10,000
  2. $1,000 x 2

Submit to: James Jones First Novel Fellowship

c/o M.A./M.F.A. in Creative Writing

Wilkes University

84 West South St.

Wilkes-Barre, PA 18766

Our most expensive publication on the list. This contest is seeking emergent fiction writers who have yet to publish a novel. The award honors the cultural and social values exemplified by late James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity. Contestants can’t have previously published novels, but are eligible with published short fiction and non-fiction work.

  1. Writers Community of Simcoe County

Word by Word – WCSC Short Fiction Contest

Deadline: March 31

Submission guidelines

Cost:       CAN$15

US$20

Judge: Literary Agent, Hilary McMahon of Westwood Creative Artists

Award:  Publication on WCSC website and

  1. $500 and commentary by Ms. McMahon
  2. $250
  3. $100
  1. Solstice, A Magazine of Diverse Voices

Solstice is a tri-quarterly magazine, with a response time of two to four months. It publishes fiction, non-fiction (essays and memoirs), poetry, and photography. It publishes both emergent and established writers of diverse backgrounds.

Solstice Annual Literary Contest

Deadline: April 20, 2016

Submission guidelines

Cost: $18

$500 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry

Judge: Richard Blanco

$1000 Fiction Prize

Judge: Celeste Ng. 

$500 Non-Fiction Prize

Judge: Michael Steinberg

Winners will be published in the Summer Award Issue in early August.

This is all for now. Hope to see you back next month, when we will try to compile another list of journals with plenty of details to help you plan and budget your submissions.


Headshot 2Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer standing (unbalanced) on a blurred line between fiction and memoir. She has wandered the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada, to the US, and now lives in Oakland. Her upcoming memoir The Shattered Mirror celebrates friendship among women and draws attention on child abuse and mental illness. She also writes short fiction and poetry, and blogs “irregularly” at www.gingerbreadwoman.org

The Wisdom to Know the Difference: On Rejection, Violence, and Resilience

by Jay O’shea

Recently, I was rejected for a fellowship for which I was asked to apply. This isn’t the first time I’ve been invited to put myself forward for an honor of some kind – an award, a job, a publication opportunity – only to receive a rejection. I am aware of this and, yet, every time I receive one of those requests-to-apply emails, the cogs of the fantasy-generating apparatus in my mind start to turn. I reflect on the benefits of the award, publication, or job and how satisfied I would be on receiving it. Each of those rejections sting even as I tell myself that rejection is part of the writing game and that rejection is, as we’ve all heard so many times, a sign that we’re making our best efforts to add our voices to the conversations we long to be part of.

Like many writers I reassure myself with all those tales of great works rejected. Robert Pirsig’s classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected a stunning 121 times. Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness was dismissed as “unreadable.” More recently, Booker Prize winner Marlon JamesJohn Crow’s Devil received 78 rejections.

The pattern of high quality writing getting rejected is so common that it’s easy to assume that rejection is arbitrary. And it is.

Except for when it’s not.

To keep our equilibrium as writers, we need to recognize typologies of rejections. In doing so, we can, I think, take a lesson from self-defense.

The Empowerment Self-Defense framework, with its attention to violence as a tool of social control, is particularly useful for thinking about categories of aggression and how they suggest different responses. The idea here is that we can better counter violence if we anticipate what an aggressor intends their cruelty to accomplish, altering their script with our defensive actions. We can observe, for instance, that women face predatory violence from men whereas men encounter territorial violence. Because men see women as prey, not as rivals, they frequently lure potential victims into temporary relationships of trust and launch an assault from that point. It is frequently effective for a woman to counter a male aggressor by assertive boundary setting, first verbal, then through the use of physical force if necessary. A male aggressor attacking a female target usually expects cowering and pleading; he doesn’t expect a jab to the eyes or a palm strike to his nose.

Because men typically see other men as opponents, an aggressor often draws his target into a challenge fight. The temporary relationship an aggressor establishes is one of rivalry, drawing imaginary lines that he insists his target has crossed. A man attacking another man expects his potential victim to take the bait that’s offered; he expects “what’re you looking at?” to be countered with “you got a problem?” not with an unflustered “just thinking about something that happened at work.”

A woman’s boundary setting and a man’s refusal to engage can be effective because they diverge from conventional gender behavior. They provide an aggressor with exactly the opposite response than he intended to provoke and subvert his expectations, potentially leaving him struggling how to respond. They are also, particularly at first, hard to execute because they contradict years of strictly enforced gender socialization. For these reasons, working with typologies of violence is a good place to start with self-defense.

Thinking back on my own experiences of conflict, I see that it’s not a great idea to end there.

One time in particular stands out in my mind. I was walking down a crowded street in Amsterdam. A drunk British man checked my shoulder. I turned, expecting mutual apologies but he was already in my face, shouting. He yelled some barely coherent insult; I yelled back. He shoved me. I shoved back. He pointed in my face. Without thinking I pointed back. We postured, we shouted, we countered one aggressive action with another, raising the stakes gradually and almost imperceptibly. Finally, my partner grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me from the conflict as the drunken man’s friends took hold of him and moved him away.

It came to me only gradually: that was not predatory violence. My safety did not depend on scaring that man. In fact, he wanted to be scared so that his aggression would be justified.

That was a challenge fight. And I walked right into it.

I gave a drunken idiot exactly the response he hoped for. I let him write the script for my interaction with him.

Now, when I teach and write about self-defense, I talk about violence as gendered but also point out that we may end up in situations where we face kinds of violence we don’t expect. Extracting ourselves can be harder if we expect predatory violence and wind up in a challenge situation or we expect the challenge and face predation. Our chances for emerging unharmed are enhanced when we can identify the typology of violence before us. Our chances for coming out of it safely are better yet when our ability to recognize violence is adaptive, responsive to what we see before us rather than based what we think we’ll see.

I call this ability the wisdom to know the difference.

Rejection is not the same as violence. Few people who reject our work intend to hurt us. In the case of violence, both ends of the spectrum are cruel, violating, and dangerous. The binaries of rejection consist of joy on one end and disappointment on the other.

There is, however, a certain commonality in the way our responses bifurcate. It is all too easy to fall into either-or responses: bad writing gets rejected; good writing does not. Or, conversely, it’s the good writing that receives rejections, precisely because it’s challenging and new. Bad writing slips through all too often, seemingly without anyone catching it.

Exciting, provocative writing sometimes does get rejected. Work sometimes gets rejected because it’s innovative and a reviewer second-guesses it, assuming the writer can’t pull off what’s in the proposal or the query letter. Work gets rejected because a reviewer is having a bad day.

Writing that is poorly crafted or not fully realized also gets rejected. Writing gets rejected when there are flaws in its execution that an agent or editor can’t articulate or doesn’t have the time to comment on. Writing gets rejected when it’s just plain not ready for publication.

It’s up to us as writers to figure out when our writing is rejected because it’s unsettling and when it’s rejected because it’s not up to par. We need to know when to change and when to keep plugging on with submitting until our work finds a home. We need the wisdom to know the difference. Unlike in self-defense, our safety doesn’t depend on this wisdom. But our happiness and our resilience as writers might.


 

Sports Shooter Academy Lighting Workshop April 16 - 19, 2015.

Author, martial artist, and amateur neuroscientist Jay O’Shea lives and works in Los Angeles. A Professor at UCLA, she is currently working on a project entitled Risk, Failure, Play: What Martial Arts Training Reveals About Proficiency, Competence, and Cooperation. She has written and edited several books on dance; her essays have been published in three languages and six countries. Her short fiction has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Toasted Cheese, and in the anthologies Bloody Knuckles, Death’s Realm, and The Female Complaint. She is about to send her first novel, The Alchemy of Loss, out into the fray of agentive and editorial evaluation.

Twitter: @jayboshea

A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP FOR FEBRUARY

February was a banner month for WWS members getting their work into the world. Here is a brief look at the work published and awards won this month.

From “Tract Home Take Down” by Rachel Sona Reed published at Angels Flight Literary West:

A house like ours
is a pile of rubble
is a new foundation
is a giant skeleton
is a mess of noises
is an empty stucco signifier
is a nameless neighbor
is a neighborhood renewed
is a house no more.

Also from Rachel Sona Reed, “The Medical Procedure that ‘The Blacklist’ Blacklisted,” published at Hello Giggles:

Yet after the shock of finding herself pregnant by her (fake) ex-husband, Elizabeth spends exactly one episode in tearful contemplation before calling an adoption agency. Perceptive viewers will note that this decision still exposes the baby to the occupational hazards of her life, if only for nine months or so.

Notably absent from Elizabeth’s calculus is abortion. It’s not that it would be in character for her to elect an abortion, but it’s difficult to believe that this character wouldn’t even consider it.

From Tisha Reichle’s “South of Resurrection” published at Annotation Nation:

Before I sign up for a workshop or class with any writer, I always read at least one of her books. If she has multiple novels, I choose the one that has some element similar to what I’m doing with my own writing. I selected South of Resurrection by Jonis Agee because it is in a rural setting with characters who are not wealthy; these are the people of my childhood. The characters also battle nature and a history of racism; this has been the chaos of my adulthood.

Tisha also received an acceptance from Ghost Town (Issue 9) for her story “An Argument Against Old Cheese.” Great news!

For ten weeks, Cultural Weekly will publish one poem per week from Ashaki M. Jackson’s chapbook, Surveillance, forthcoming from WritLarge Press. In February, “Professional Wrestling Holds,” “The Public Examines Black Resilience and Is Dissatisfied” and “The Public Confuses Death with Pornography” were published.

From “The Public Confuses Death with Pornography”:

You sit in the violence Teeter
into the video from your safety
You are – each time – unsure
of what you’re viewing: Videos
of Black bodies crumbling so primitively
it is convincing

From Lauren Eggert-Crowe‘s poem “Things I Have Burned Intentionally” published at Horse Less Press:

Come June, we gathered our papers. Flung them in
unmemorized. We children, we lit fires.

Look forward to “Supercuts” from Kate Maruyama upcoming in Duende magazine and “Traces” upcoming in F(r)iction.

Toni Ann Johnson’s short story “Time Travel” will soon be featured on the podcast Reading Out Loud.

Carla Sameth‘s “Donor X” is forthcoming in MUTHA Magazine. 

Jay O’Shea was invited to give a TEDxUCLA talk called “A Crisis of Play: Kinetic Experience in a Viewing Society,” a presentation focusing on the importance of physical, informal, competitive and cooperative recreation for the individual and the larger society.

Lots of great news for Elline Lipkin who was accepted to a July residency at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony and also had a poem, “Florida,” come out this month in Cherry Tree. Look for her poem “Among Mothers” in TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics in March.

Last but certainly not least, Antonia Crane received a string of acceptances this month:

  • an article (title pending) in Buzzfeed for a column called “Concepts of Home”
  • two articles in a new publication called PrimeMind: “White Hat, Black Stilettos: An Interview with Violet Blue” about the connection between sex workers and hackers AND an interview with neuroscientist Dr. Nicole Prause about the effect of pornography on the human brain
  • two articles in Tabu, a new publication about sexual health and wellness, which encourages women to feel empowered in their unique sexualities (coming in March)

Congratulations to all of you! Truly inspiring.

How to Look at a Solar Eclipse: A Trick on Writing for Social Change

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Every Wednesday we publish writing advice for women in our “Closing the Gap” series. This week we take a slight side-step to cross-post a piece with our friends at inspiration2publication.com. Starting in March, “Claps and Cheers,” “Behind the Editor’s Desk,” and “Submissions in Review” will also become regular series. 

I remember when George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin. I remember being devastated and posting the news announcement on my Facebook with the caption, “No words.” I couldn’t stop thinking about how Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old kid walking back from a convenience store with a bag of Skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea, never made it back to his father’s house, and how wrong that was. I had no words.

But then another poet commented on my post with something to the effect of, This is exactly when we need words. Write.

When writing about a societal injustice, I see two hurdles: one, finding a way to spend time with a tragedy that is hard to face long enough to write about it, and two, figuring out how to hook readers into spending time with you too.

For the first, my advice is to trick your mind.

Some tragedies are so heartbreaking that to take a long look at them hurts the soul and can even physically turn a person ill. Sometimes the only way to write about injustice is to play a trick on yourself. “Tell it slant” is how Emily Dickinson put it: “The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind—”

When I was a kid I experienced my first solar eclipse. My father was with me, and he let me wear his giant welding mask and made me a pinhole projector out of a cardboard box. I remember standing barefoot on my front lawn, my face pointing to the sky, the heavy mask pressing down on me, preferring its tinted glass and weight to the tiny hole and shadows on cardboard. Going slant can be like finding your welding mask, or making a pinhole projector. In poetry, this can be playing with a classic form, counting syllables, using a rhyme scheme, or arranging a found poem. These tricks can free, or protect, the poet from the subject—acting more like a game than a duty—long enough to write about it. To be clear, I’m not saying to make light of something serious. If you are reading this article, and you are looking for tips on how to write for social justice, then it is clear you are a person who cares, so what I’m saying is, give yourself a break.

In August 2011, I traveled out to the Sonoran desert to volunteer as a desert aid worker with the direct humanitarian organization, No More Deaths. For nine days I camped in the desert along the Arizona-Mexico border in 100+ degree temperatures. I often worried for my safety, but I knew it was nothing compared to what the people crossing into this country were experiencing. Everyday my heart broke with what I saw and heard, and every night I cried myself to sleep. I volunteered with the intention of writing about the border, but when I got back my home, writing was the last thing I wanted to do. It took me six months to a year to finally start writing poems, and when I did, I played tricks. I wrote a villanelle, I played with repetition, and in one poem I stole lyrics from a Katy Perry song. I was in part inspired by Kate Durbin’s collection The Ravenous Audience, which is teeming with different forms. Her collection showed me what could happen with a little experimentation.

“Our Lady of the Water Gallons” is a poem I wrote about the process of leaving fresh water on migrant trails. All summer long volunteers patrol the desert borderlands looking for people in distress and placing fresh water supplies in strategic locations. Volunteers write messages in Spanish and draw images like butterflies and crosses on the water gallons to communicate to those crossing that the water is safe to drink and not a border patrol trap. I found my way into this poem by experimenting with a made up long form created by my friend and formalist poet, Scott Miller, that uses repetition similar to a crown of sonnets.

To this day, anytime I know I’m going to read this poem in public, I have to practice it several times at home so I don’t cry, but I kind of hope every once in a while someone hears it and is inspired to donate money to humanitarian border causes, or even volunteer.

For more pinhole tricks and for strategies on hooking your reader, join my workshop on Writing Poetry for Social Change with inspiration2publication on March 5, 2016 at 10am on the Antioch Campus. We will be writing poems inspired by the poetry of Martin Espada and Carolyn Forche, and taking a look at social media/poetry movements such as #blackpoetsspeakout and Poets Responding to SB1070.


21b7407f-950a-4b8b-8dba-67ce36234ae5Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the 2013 Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange poetry winner and a 2015 Barbara Deming Fund grantee. She has work published in American Poetry Review, crazyhorse, CALYX, and Acentos Review among others. A short dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Chicano activist and Hollywood director, Jesús Salvador Treviño can be viewed at latinopia.com. She curates the quarterly reading series HITCHED and co-founded Women Who Submit. Her debut poetry collection, Built with Safe Spaces, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications.

Submit Like A Man: How Women Writers Can Become More Successful

by Kelli Russell Agodon

Reposted with permission from Ms. Agodon. This article was first published at Medium.com on May 24, 2015.

For six years, I worked as Co-Editor-in-Chief at a small literary journal in the Northwest, Crab Creek Review.

If I had to make one general statement about what I most learned at the press as an editor, the big revelation was that men and women submit their work differently.

Here is what I noticed —

If an editor of our press rejected work from a male writer, but wrote something like, “This came close. We’d like to see more of your work, please send us more poems” on the rejection note — we would usually receive another submission from the male writer within the same month and sometimes even within a few days after he received his rejection.
When we sent this same note to a woman writer, she might resubmit her work in 3–6 months, but more likely, we would not hear from her until over six months to a year later. Sometimes, she will not resubmit at all.
I don’t fully understand why this is, but as a woman writer who grew up in the age of not imposing on people or the fear of being a bother or “too pushy,” here’s my guess to why this happens —

When we send a rejection to a man and ask a man to resubmit, he thinks, “They like my work and they want more; I better get it to them soon before they don’t want it anymore.” And the submission is sent. (Right now, there’s that cliche’ line about men “wanting to spread their seed” going through my head.)

When we ask a woman to resubmit she thinks, “When would be the best time to resubmit? I don’t want to seem pushy, but I do want to get them my work. Maybe I should wait a few months so I don’t seem desperate or so I don’t irritate them by submitting so fast. Do they really want to see more work, or were they just being nice? I’m sure they want to see more work, but I should probably wait a few months, I wouldn’t want to be an imposition and it would be better manners and more respectful to wait a bit. Or should I? Yes, I’ll play it cool and wait a few months. I wouldn’t want to impose.”

And then the woman writer waits or forgets or sends out her submission a few months to a year later (The generalization of women over-thinking things is going through my head right now.)

I know some of what I write here is a big generalization — some women when asked to send more work, do so and do so quickly. But so far as being an editor (and a woman writer) this has been my overall experience — women do not resubmit as quickly (and perhaps as much) as male writers do.

I have even done this self-sabotage dance more than once myself. Once I was so happy with the handwritten rejection from the New Yorker, where Alice Quinn handwrote on my rejection a personal note,“We’d like to see more of your work,” I didn’t resubmit for years because an almost from the New Yorker was a win; it was good enough for me. And in fact, by resubmitting to the New Yorker, I might actually fail — I might get back a blank rejection as opposed to this feel-good-rejection-note I had just received. Why trade mediocrity for possible rejection? I must have been thinking. This thinking does not help any writer, as an almost is not a “win” in publication credits.

For many years, when I received a note saying, “We’d like to see more of your work. We liked what we saw, please resubmit,” my response was to wait until the next year to send again because I didn’t want to send too soon. Or many times, I just wouldn’t resubmit.

After working as an editor (and now as an editor at Two Sylvias Press), I no longer do that. Why? Because I realize how easy it is to forget a writer. Now, if someone likes my work and wants to see more (and it’s a journal I want to be published in), I send them more work within a month of receiving their note.

~

So Ladies, Women Writers, Sisters of Poetry and Prose —

When an editor tells you they like your work and asks you to resubmit, do so and do so soon after.

The men have it right — the editors do want to see your work and you want to submit before they forget about you and your work. You want your name to be on the tip of their tongues and not hiding in the back of their mind.

This is where many of our “have good manners and think about other’s feelings” good-girl childhoods do not serve us well.

I know when we said at Crab Creek Review that we wanted to see more of a writer’s work, we did. We weren’t just saying it to be nice. And we don’t say it to everyone. If we did, we’d be creating a lot of unneeded work for ourselves.

So let’s say it together — If an editor says they want to see more of your work, they want to see more of your work — they are not just saying it to be nice.

And if you get this note on your rejection slip, send them more work and within the next two months of receiving the note. No later. I mean it. You have permission to respond quickly and professionally. And no one thinks anything bad of you. Promise.

You are not being pushy or rude, you are taking care of your writing life.

~

And to the Gentlemen who are reading —

Men, Good Chaps, Brothers of Poetry & Prose —

Keep doing what you’re doing. But fewer poems about killing frogs when you were a boy. And less epic work, we like your one-to-two page poems best.

~

P.S. And to anyone who got to this article because they googled “submit like a man” — you are probably very disappointed right now. . .


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Kelli Russell Agodon (@kelliagodon) is a poet, writer, editor, book designer, & cofounder of Two Sylvias Press living in the Seattle area.

She was the Winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Prize in Poetry as well as a two-time Finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New England Review, and O, The Oprah Magazine.

She is currently working on her fourth collection of poems and finishing a memoir.

The Art of Submitting to Writing Contests

by Tammy Delatorre

It was the first writing contest I had placed in. I was in the seventh grade. Our English teacher had forced us to write haikus and entered them—with a brief mention of this in class—into a statewide contest. On a field trip, we would find out the winners.

Cut to: We’re crowding into an auditorium, the good meal of a tuna sandwich and milk swimming in my belly. I was looking forward to a fun bus ride home, when a woman on stage announced I had won honorable mention for my haiku. Having heard my name, I looked around. People were waving me onstage. In a daze, I went up and accepted my ribbon.

For the most part, every writing contest I’ve placed in thereafter goes pretty much the same way. Bleary-eyed incredibility. I won. Are you sure?

Over the years, I have learned many lessons about entering writing contests, and chief among them is 1) you don’t have to believe you have the best submission out there to win. I know this from entering more than 100 contests and having placed more than 10 times, which brings me to another lesson: 1b) people who win contests typically submit a lot.

The next contest of note: I was a sophomore in college. There was a call to write an essay or poem about friendship. I was a poor student and needed the money. I had a best friend at the time (although I eventually lost her). She was my inspiration to write an embarrassingly bad poem that won $500. This brings me to another very important lesson: 2) the subject material should be extraordinarily important to the writer. I loved that best friend. I might have even been in love with her, the emotions so stirring it brought others to see the value in my piece.

One contest was local, sponsored by the Ventura County Writers Club. My short story placed third, won $120, and ran in the Ventura County Star. A writer I admired (Thaddeus Rutkowski) saw my story and asked to run it in the literary magazine, Many Mountains Moving, for which he served as editor. The lesson here: 3) size doesn’t matter; all types of contests can help in the advancement of a writing career. It was the first time I was called to read as a recognized author, not just part of a workshop or requirement for my MFA.

In another competition, River Styx Schlafly Beer Micro-Brew Micro-Fiction Contest, my piece, “Gifts from My Mother,” won a case of beer along with $1500. The story was less than 300 words. I’d been writing a lot of flash fiction and thinking, why am I wasting my time writing these short pieces? This brought me to another lesson, a variation on the size-doesn’t-matter theme: 4) short pieces have immense value. My roommate at the time loved beer; he drank the alcoholic portion of my winnings. I was happy to share.

I found out River Styx was hosting a reading in St. Louis, Missouri. I excitedly offered the editor to fly out from LA to participate. He said, but you’ll spend half your winnings to just come out here. I let him talk me out of it. In truth, I really wanted to go and had always regretted not doing it, so…  6) if you’re fortunate enough to win a contest, always find a way to perform a reading of your winning work—to honor the work, to celebrate your success, to tell the universe, Thank you! Thank you so much!

At that point in my writing, a friend of mine mentioned she’d met a great teacher who taught personal essay. I had no desire to write personal essay, but a couple other lessons that have helped in my overall development as a writer and eventually led to other contest successes were…  7) always be on the lookout for a good writing mentor, and 8) try not to limit the kind of writing you say you’re going to do, are willing to do, or are good or not good at… Try all kinds of writing. One type informs the other.

So I took the class. That personal essay mentor, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, told me a lot of things. Chief among them: 9) professional writers get paid to write, and in a side comment when reviewing one of my essays: 10) I think you’ve had an interesting life. For me, that was probably the most earth-shattering lesson of all. I didn’t know that people might find my life interesting. At the time, my life—full of family secrets—was something to hide, not publish.

I went home and searched my journals and notebooks. I’d been writing about my life all my life, so why not try to write something remarkably personal? I wrote “Out of the Swollen Sea,” which went on to be selected by author Cheryl Strayed as the winner of the 2015 Payton Prize and published on therumpus.net.

But when I first finished that essay, Taffy’s important words rang in my ears (see #9). If my mentor had inspired me to write a piece so personal, how could I let her down and submit it to venues that would pay me nil, nada, zilch? So I thought, how could I get paid for this piece? What did I think this piece was worth?

Those questions led me to a submission strategy and an experiment of sorts. If you’d like to learn about it, come to the February Submission Party hosted by Women Who Submit, Saturday, February 13 at the Libros Schmibros: Lending Library & Bookshop (1711 Mariachi Plaza de los Angele, Los Angeles, California 90033). I will be leading a discussion on successful strategies for submitting to writing contests and share my “Anatomy of a Submission.”


bb5bc3b5-4e1f-41a2-8c80-d8277c6407baTammy Delatorre is a writer living in Los Angeles. In previous lives, she’s worked for a Nobel-prize-winning biochemist; helped to build and race a solar car that won the World Solar Challenge in Australia; and danced the hula despite being teased of stiff hips. Her essay, “Out of the Swollen Sea,” was selected by Cheryl Strayed as the winner of the 2015 Payton Prize, and her most recent essay, “Diving Lessons,” won the 2015 Slippery Elm Prose Contest. More of her stories and essays can be found on her website: www.tammydelatorre.com.

Reconciling the Tug of War Between Teaching and Writing

by Ryane Nicole Granados

I published my first story when I was 8 years old. This is the same age as my strong-willed son, who proudly refers to himself as a mathematician. Although he is indeed proficient in math, I’m convinced he mostly does this as a way to stick it to the establishment, also known as his parents, and in particular his English professor mom. This is undoubtedly the consequence of being interested in so many things that he bounces from task to task, finding the fine art of reading and writing to be a time-consuming, slow-paced plod. I, on the other, spent my childhood reading books, writing stories, and staring at strangers as I turned their innocuous interactions into potential Nancy Drew meets Dynasty scandals. I could spend hours hidden under a blanket fort with my nose in a book or a worn-down pencil in hand. While some kids collected trading cards, I collected composition journals. At 8 years old I was certain I was just an odd child who loved dissecting sentences and independent reading time in school. It was my grandmother who thankfully explained to me that I wasn’t odd; rather, I was a writer. Later I learned I was, indeed, an odd person, but that has actually aided my writing even more.

To punctuate my newfound identity my grandmother convinced an editor of a community newspaper to feature my debut story “How the Pig Got Its Snort.” It was a medical drama set on a farm where the pigs began to snort due to untreated colds. From that moment on I was a writer, and all roads were supposed to lead to a slew of best-selling novels, a beachside writing villa and a floor-to-ceiling personal library, transforming my blanket fort into the fortress of my dreams.

As life would have it, the novels are still being written and are yet to be published. My personal library is wedged between my husband’s desk and my toddler’s trampoline. And if I squint just right, on a rare day with no L.A. fog, I can make out something that looks like the beach, which is fine by me because I have little time for villa living with the lecturing and grading load of my full-time job teaching English.

My grandmother’s prophetic claims didn’t say anything about being a professor. George Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, did assert, “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” It is in this paradox that I have to reconcile: How can I be both a teacher and a writer, and how can I do them both well?

In an often-winding road to an answer, I have adopted four rules in my attempts to create some symmetry in the insanity of juggling teaching and writing:


Rule #1: Recognize and Accept There is No Such Thing as Balance

Maybe you are a morning person and dawn is the best time for your creative juices to flow. That’s great, except for that one semester where you end up teaching an 8 a.m. class and have to brave traffic and your son’s third-grade drop off all before teaching English 110. It is in this space where you must adapt and embrace the fact that your commitment to writing means nurturing that relationship in a more flexible fashion. In my case, my writing process most resembles one of those cartoon bombs from the 19th century. I have a slow-burning match cord filled with ideas that I tuck away during various times of the day. On my work commute, while waiting at my son’s drum practice, or even in my dreams, the fuse continues to burn. Eventually, it reaches the gunpowder and explodes. It’s at this time that I write feverishly. Oftentimes I’m inspired in the early morning, but I’ve learned that if that time slot isn’t available I must strive to write in whatever interval I can unearth. Same thing goes for marathon grading and there are definite weeks where one priority takes slight precedent over the other. Unlike the Shaw reference, one adage I can uphold is “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Following those off weeks, namely finals week, where my writing takes a major back seat, when I do return to the page I often produce some of my better work. Without guilt or shame, I sit down. I greet my characters. I start again.

Rule #2: When Your Students Write You Should Write
During my first few years teaching, every spare moment of the class was spent doing something I thought was professorial. If the students were working on an activity I was going over my lecture notes. If they were taking a quiz, I was calculating grades. In retrospect, I imagine I felt those actions meant I was being a noble member of academia, but in hindsight I’ve come to realize I was engaging in a missed opportunity for experiential exchange. Now when I give my students a journal prompt I write a response as well. When they are tackling a free write, I’m circled up with them, letting my own pen wander across the page. Sometimes I share my musings, and at other times, the simple act of modeling the work of writing benefits my students and my own craft. An entire chapter of my current novel-in-progress was inspired by a free write created in my developmental English class. I will forever be grateful to the purity of that place comprised of students with raw talent and blossoming potential.

Rule #3: Ask for Help, which is Synonymous with Asking for Respect
Being a writer who teaches or a teacher who writes means I have to train those around me to respect my time, and I have to learn to ask for help when the craziness of the world comes careening down upon me.

I capitalize on my first day of class by expanding my typical day-one activities into a lengthier discussion of a writer’s life. We talk about commitment, the drafting process, overcoming writer’s block. And, we talk about respect. Respect means showing up to my office hours during our agreed upon meeting time. Respect means understanding that I have a self-imposed 24-hour window to respond to all emails and while I may reply sooner, email is not a direct pipeline to my editorial services. Respect also means I am not a personal editor. I am a professor purposed to teach, trained to comment and periodically inspired to remind students that spell check is their friend. Respect essentially means requiring students to respect my time because, after all, that time could be spent writing, raising my own little humans or squinting my eyes just right to catch a better glimpse of the beach. I repay that respect by honoring their time and by returning essays that are generous in feedback and thoughtful in delivery. I also show my respect by acknowledging the reality that writing is just as much a process for my students as it is for me; therefore, a piece of writing is sometimes deserving of a second and third, and dare I admit, fourth chance to get it just right.

With regards to my family and friends, I’ve had to compel them to consider my teaching career in no way means I’ve given up writing for a “real job.” Likewise my writing career doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy teaching (which in many ways and for many reasons, I do). Despite some social skepticism, I truly consider myself both a writer and a teacher. Maybe it’s the super powered XX chromosomes of our womanhood that allows for women to multi-task in a variety of ways. Maybe it’s a knack born out of necessity and passed down throughout history. All I know is that on any given day, I can be more than one thing. Teaching my family to embrace this truth is both a matter of respect and a springboard for reminding them that they should invest in my dreams just as much as I invest in theirs. As a result, when I have a deadline for a piece, or a breakthrough in a problematic area of my plot, or a stack of essays collated into a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I ask for help. I invite my family into my two-pronged profession, sometimes for artistic feedback, sometimes for babysitting and sometimes for cheerleading. I pride myself on being the loudest voice at my son’s soccer game, so why shouldn’t I garner a cheering squad too?

Rule #4: Make Your Own Rules
At the end of the day, when you curl into bed and try to turn down the volume of your relentless thoughts, the best advice I can give you is to make your own rules. The seedlings of my novel were crafted on hospital notepads recovered from a diaper bag years after my middle son’s surgery. My fall semester grades are typically turned in on my laptop connected to a hot spot in my husband’s truck while we travel on our annual winter trip to Yosemite. My characters and I have internal conversations in between carpools, wiping baby snot and drool and imploring my untrained dog to heel. My black-humored friends, my supportive husband, my family and even my children’s teachers know that Monday through Thursday I will be dressed in attire appropriate enough for public view. On Fridays, however, when I don’t teach, try to grade, hope to write, but sometimes end up binging on Netflix, they will likely find me in yoga pants, but not practicing yoga, or in Christmas pajamas long after the season has passed. My Friday fashion faux pas are spurred by the fact that I make my own rules, I ask for help when I need it, I write with and for my students, and I gave up on the idea of balance eight years ago when my bourgeoning mathematician was born.


0e0bc632-0160-4aa9-a22d-9859402c1b72Ryane Nicole Granados is a Los Angeles native and she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in various publications including Gravel, Role Reboot, For Harriet, The Manifest-Station, Mutha Magazine, Specter Magazine, FORTH Magazine, the Good Men Project, and the Atticus Review. Ryane is best described as a wife, writer, teacher and mom who laughs loud and hard, sometimes in the most inappropriate of circumstances. As a result, she hopes her writing will inspire, challenge, amuse and motivate thinking that cultivates positive change. More of her work can be found at ryane-granados.squarespace.com or Twitter: Ryane Granados @awriterslyfe

A WWS Publication Round Up for January

Over the last month, WWS members have been getting work published and some have won awards. Here is a brief look at what has come out this month.

From Guest Post: The Art of Low Stakes Daily Writing and How It Can Transform Your Year by Li Yun Alvarado:

I’m not brilliant, or inspired, or awake enough every day to write something meaningful, and with Low Stakes Daily Writing I don’t have to be. Each day I connect with the page. Each day I promise a few moments—however brief—to my writing. To myself.

From Melissa Chadburn’s “On Kitchens of the Great Midwest: Why We Read Books” published at LA Review of Books

Kitchens of the Great Midwest transported me to a place I longed for. A place that was warm. The protagonist Eva Thorvald had so much of what I was lacking. She was tall. So to me she had a backbone. A backbone and a discerning palate. We’re talking about a palate that lusted for heirloom tomatoes at three-and-a-half months old.

From “Melissa Chadburn interviews Carmiel Banasky” published at LA Review of Books:

This is a side people don’t get to see of women too often. Women who don’t merge or women who merge and then don’t. Women who are fickle in love.

Or women who love each other so much they think they are in love, or vice versa — who say they are in love, but it turns out to be just a beautiful, if sexless, affection. (I think we see portrayals of that dynamic between heterosexual duos on TV and whatnot, but not between female friends.)

One of my closest female friends and I certainly have had some sexual tension — but I think this is an extension or offshoot of a really lasting, big love for each other.

From “MUSLIMS DIDN’T INVENT TERRORISM” by Lisbeth Coiman published at Hip Mama:

Muslims didn’t invent terrorism
It has always existed since
Humanity created gods. No
Muslims didn’t create fear today
But we want to believe it’s true

From “HOW ON EARTH COULD YOU RAISE A KID IN LA?” by Ryane Nicole Granados published at Forth:

When they hear car speakers blasting so loud that their tiny feet and swaying car seats move in a musical jamboree, I hear a radio rewind of the Watts Prophets, West Coast Hip Hop, G-funk and that wanna-be-b-girl in me. Friday nights at the Good Life Café, schoolgirl crushes cemented by a Fatburger and a meticulously made mix-tape.

Congratulations to Tammy Delatorre for the  winning Slipper Elm’s 2015 Prose Prize for her essay, “Driving Lessons,” which can be read in the latest edition out this month!

Congratulations to Siel Ju whose manuscript “Cake Time” won the Red Hen Press Fiction Manuscript Award!

 

A Tax Primer For Writers

by Michelle Joy Lander

“Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.” -Herman Wouk

Writers and artists are notoriously right brained. While this allows for creativity, flights of imagination and pure magic, it can be a hindrance when it comes to more practical matters. Such as income taxes.

It wasn’t until I attended a workshop on finances and taxes offered by the Writers Guild of America, West that I learned the scope of deductions available to writers. The average tax preparer is not well versed in these and there are misconceptions as to what constitutes a “business” versus a “hobby.”  If your objective is to make your living as a writer, you are a professional writer. Even if you also work slinging hash, teaching or performing brain surgery.

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You don’t need to get all fancy-shmancy to start declaring writing as an occupation on your taxes. You can simply file a Schedule C using 711510 as the Principal Business Code in box B, along with your 1040. There are years you will show a profit and others where there will be a loss, especially when you are just starting out.  While it is always better to show a profit rather than a loss, the IRS is not likely to question that a “new” business is operating at a deficit (even if you have been writing since you were five, the IRS will deem it as new if it is your first year filing). The good news is that the loss will offset other income and reduce your overall tax liability. This is information I have garnered over the years. I am not a professional tax preparer, so be sure to check the IRS instructions or seek professional help if you are concerned about a specific issue.

The most important thing is to keep records. Since I am not the most organized person on the planet, I opened a separate bank account and have a credit card dedicated to business expenses. There are all sorts of expenses writers can deduct.

Deductions allowed include:

Books Books Books! – Any book you buy can be considered a deduction, as well as magazine subscriptions and newspapers, whether in newsprint or online.

Office supplies – Basically anything you can buy at Staples or Office Depot for your writing can be deducted.

Equipment – Before you run out to Apple to buy a new MacBook Pro know that IRS Section 179 states you need to use the computer for your writing more than 50% of the time to deduct the full amount. How they would ever determine this beats me. And I figure I can always claim that I use online Scrabble to build my vocabulary. Under Section 179, you can deduct the cost of equipment bought for your business in a single year rather than depreciating over five years. This includes office furniture. Pottery Barn, here I come!

Memberships – Membership fees paid to professional organizations such as AWP, WGA, PEN, Poets & Writers and a multitude of others can be deducted. You can find a detailed list of writing organizations at www.writersandeditors.com.

Telephone/Internet – I choose to deduct 50% of the costs for my cell, landline, Netflix and Internet to keep the wolves at bay.

Car expenses – The easiest method is to keep a log of miles driven for writing related activities: meetings (yes, Women Who Submit meetings!), seminars, readings and anything related to projects you are working on. For 2015, the standard mileage rate is 57.5 cents per mile. If you are taking buses, subways, cabs or Uber, be sure to keep receipts.

Travel – Travel expenses accrued while attending conferences (standard airline tickets and hotels…I would hold off on private jets and The Ritz for now) can be deducted.

Meals and Entertainment – Here is the one area where I believe it best to be very conservative. I know people who deduct every trip to Starbucks, but I feel it is not worth the risk. It would be tragic to face an IRS audit due to a Venti Pumpkin Spiced Latte.

When you have a publishing deal, there will be even more deductions, including agent’s commissions and legal and professional fees.

Finally, there is the pièce de résistance, the home office deduction. While the IRS has simplified things so that one can deduct $5 per square foot (with a maximum of 300 square feet) used for business, it is a tad more complicated. It must be a dedicated space in your home used for your writing. This is another deduction that can be difficult to gauge. Although I have an office in my home and use it as the basis for the deduction, I rarely use it. The reality is that most of my writing is done in my dining room or on the sofa in my pajamas (not a tax deduction) snuggled up with my dogs (definitely not a tax deduction) on my brand new laptop.

For further reading check out this tax advice from Writer’s Digest.


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Michelle Joy Lander is a native New Yorker living in the wilds of Van Nuys with her two furry beasts. She is currently seeking greener pastures while working on a collection of short stories and gearing up to read hundreds of submissions to The Blank Theatre’s Annual Young Playwrights Festival. You can follow her on Twitter @MichelleJLander.