Since New Year’s Eve, my social media stream has been brimming with friends’ resolutions to declutter their lives, purging negative relationships, thoughts and behaviors. Inspired by their resolve but clueless as to how to start, I asked my friend for advice. She told me about the Japanese decluttering queen, Marie Kondo who says, “Anything that doesn’t make you happy or isn’t absolutely necessary should be touched, thanked and sent on its way.”
I wanted in. I decided to give away enough books to fit the remaining ones onto two bookshelves, eliminating the piles that had accumulated throughout the house. Even before starting, however, I felt defeated.
“How can a writer let go of her books?” I whined to my honey, heartsick by the thought of parting with the texts that have helped me understand the world and my craft.
“Scan them,” he responded, knowing it would annoy me. He has no patience for my emotional ties to paper. If I had to live with me – and my piles – I wouldn’t either.
As I started to sort through the piles of books, rather than purge, I began to read. I picked up William Zinnser’sOn Writing Well, whose advice calms me. His premise? “If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” Music to my ears.
“Clutter is the disease of American writing,” he asserts. “We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.”
We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, yet, our attention spans are shorter than ever so we’re less likely to absorb it. In the U.S., people spend on average 40 minutes a day on Facebook, but fewer than half actually finish an article they click on.
“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,” Zinnser advises. “Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who’s doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.”
So how to declutter our writing? Regardless of genre, if a word or phrase isn’t absolutely necessary, it should be touched, thanked and sent on its way. Also, I find these three tricks essential:
Stick to Your Point
I write the thesis of my argument or the desired outcome of a scene at the top of my screen (or paper when writing in a notebook) and refer back to it often. If what I’ve written doesn’t support the main point, and unless it’s going to pay off later, I eliminate it.
This isn’t easy. It sometimes requires deleting beautifully poetic passages, but if they don’t feed the main argument, they distract.
I save deleted work in a document entitled, “Cuts.” That way I can refer to my treasured deletions later and feel like their existence was not in vain.
Read Your Work Aloud
Once I got over feeling weird and self-conscious about this technique, I realized how crucial it is. Any place you ”bump”– whether it’s a tongue twister or just sounds odd –that’s where you should cut and tinker. If it doesn’t flow out loud, it won’t read well on the page.
That’s not to say you should write as if you’re talking. “Actually,” “like,” and “oh my God” are common in conversation (perhaps more so in L.A. than other places) but cumbersome when written. We might say aloud, “Like I was saying,” but when writing, we should just say it.
Use a Red Pen
Yes – a la first grade teacher. Print out your work and get to it! Zinnser recommends using brackets around (rather than striking through) words and passages that aren’t absolutely essential to the meaning of a sentence. The brackets allow you to see that the sentence works, and is usually cleaner, without the extra words. Eventually, you’ll be able to spot the clutter on your screen without using that dreaded red pen. My honey’s hoping to find a red pen to eradicate my piles of books!
Decluttering our lives – and our writing – is a discipline worth practicing. Fewer words can communicate clearer and in a way that readers may actually read.
Stephanie Abraham is a writer and media critic based in Los Angeles. In addition to completing three puppy obedience classes with her goldendoodle, she’s completed a Master in Professional Writing at USC and a Master of Art in Cultural Studies at Cal State LA. Follow her on Twitter @AbrahamSteph.
For many artists, creation takes the form of protest. They are tasked, chosen, or ignited somehow to use their mode of expression to make sense of incongruity/injustice and provide individual solutions to inherent systemic challenges, obstacles that became embedded into the status quo long before any of us were alive.
Jesse Bliss, educator, writer, and activist, created the chapbook I Love Myself Golden to, in her words, “cultivate self-love and respect in the young women she encounters in the [juvenile] halls.” Bliss has been leading creative writing workshops within the juvenile hall system in Los Angeles for upwards of 10 years. Through her experiences she became impassioned and has since dedicated her work as an artist to advocate against the Prison Industrial Complex. She was compelled to create this book to address young, incarcerated women who are, in this society, of the most invisible and vulnerable populations.
The book itself was created as the result of a workshop series she developed through InsideOUT Writers and was supported with a grant from Poets & Writers. It is intended as “a love letter, speaking piercingly to all young women in and outside of physical bars.”
Through the years of working with this community and hearing the girls ask questions such as how to give birth, Bliss was moved to create something to give to them, but she didn’t know exactly what. “What to Expect When You’re Expecting… [would be] totally insulting to them. That’s for upper and middle class people.” Bliss drew on her experience creating chapbooks through her creative writing class at Inner City Arts to craft I Love Myself Golden for this one, specific demographic. “Because it’s been in my heart for so many years, I already [knew] what it should look like… I feel like a lot of us don’t do these types of things because there’s no time, there’s no money. So my first thought was, ‘How can I make this succinct, and how can I make it to size for them, and who can I find that can illustrate it that will really appeal to these girls?’”
Enter Alfie Ebojo, aka Alfie Numeric, a brilliant artist and writer based in the Los Angeles area. Her artwork has a surreal whimsical aesthetic overlying a weighted gravitas in the subject and composition, reminiscent of Mark Ryden and Margaret Keane. “There’s beauty and pain coupled together [in her work]… There’s young women of color… expressing their pain in a way that also shows strength and beauty…”
“’For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.’ A head nod to Rudyard.” – 2011 Acrylics on wood
While the initial aim of the chapbook was inspired by the young women who had questions around motherhood (some of whom were soon to be new mothers themselves), the scope expanded. “I realized it couldn’t just be for those girls; it had to be for all the girls because they were all susceptible to the same circumstance, of pregnancy…it was all connected. It was not separate. The same things needed to be said to the girls who were not pregnant…I feel like all young women in our society are targeted to think and believe that we’re not worth anything because it’s a big money maker: ‘You’re not pretty enough. Your size isn’t right…’ By empowering girls, they’re taught that there’s other options.”
The Roots and Wings Project, founded by Bliss, is a “politically charged, socially transformative theatre company that brings attention to truth and provides stage and space for stories of the unnamed, unspoken and misunderstood through theatrical innovation and multi-media collaboration.” Having written and produced theater for most of her career, this chapbook marks an expansion to other forms of writing. “Theater is my #1 vantage point as an artist, but I’ve always written poetry…Since the time my daughter’s been born, I’ve been noticing that I really should let my work live on the page…and [let other forms of writing] open up a new world for me.”
Bliss, along with partner Peter Woods and publisher Mark Gonzalez have organized an event inspired by the chapbook, which is not so much a chapbook release as it is a platform for “elevation, transformation, conversation,” with the book itself as a catalyst. The event will be held at Espacio 1839, a collectively-run boutique, art gallery and radio station located down the street from Central Juvenile Hall, where some of the workshops took place.
Activism and self-determination can have a wide breadth of incarnations; some manifestations emerge in the form of dedicated, tenacious protest. Some inspire individuals to take on the vocation of creation, conjuring, crafting and bringing into existence the very needed thing that hadn’t yet materialized, that was waiting for that one particular voice and vessel to bring into this realm. Hechiceras and hechiceros del arte, mediums who produce the work that affects, inspires, ignites and heals.
Ramona Pilar is a writer, performer, emotional fluffer and native Californian. She is currently working on a collection of essays entitled “Darth Vader Abandoned his Daughter and Other Thoughts Along The Heroine’s Journey.” She can occasionally be found troubadouring with her band The Raveens.
Jesse Bliss is a playwright, director, producer, actress, poet and veteran arts educator with her work produced around the world at venues such as the United Nations, Edinburgh Festival, Lincoln Heights Jail, S.P.A.R.C at the Old Jail in Venice, The Last Bookstore, The Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts, Casa 0101 Theater, Theatre of Note, Occidental College, UCSC, UCLA, and California Institute of Integral Studies to name a few. She has taught and created curriculum for Center Theatre Group, The Geffen, Inner-City Arts, Unusual Suspects, J.U.I.C.E. and Inside OUT Writers among others. She is a featured artist in Kate Crash’s LA WOMEN and in Yahoo News’ SHINE Documentaries. Ms. Bliss is a grant recipient from the Flourish Foundation and recently from POETS and WRITERS for writing workshops for incarcerated girls inspiring her chapbook I LOVE MYSELF GOLDEN. Jesse is Co-Producer of KPFK 90.7’s THINK OUTSIDE THE CAGE. She is Founder and Artistic Director of The Roots and Wings Project. www.therootsandwingsproject.com.
When I first started writing essays, I knew that I wanted to become a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post. It’s one of the largest and most trafficked publications in the world, providing an invaluable platform for a fledgling writer like myself.
But getting into HuffPo wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Unlike other publications I’ve managed to get my work in, it would take several attempts—as well as a few different tactics—to land that coveted “Contributing Blogger” title.
When I started submitting essays to The Huffington Post, I used my standard approach. I submitted an article, waited a few weeks, and then submitted another. When a few more weeks passed with no response, I tried one more time.
Each submission was sent to the same category, “Healthy Living,” because my writing at the time focused on mental health. And each time I submitted an article, I received no response whatsoever.
I realized that it was time to approach the situation from another angle. My mother happens to be a contributing blogger for HuffPo after getting connected with an editor through one of her contacts. I decided to try out the same approach and asked her to connect me with her editor. We exchanged a couple of emails, and the editor assured me that my articles were being passed on to the right people at “Healthy Living.” After two months of waiting, there was still absolutely no response.
I was ready to give up hope. I told myself that HuffPo wasn’t the right fit for me. They didn’t like my writing. I wasn’t marketable enough. I should just stop trying. I should give up.
But then I wrote an article that was different than the kinds of articles I’d been writing before. It was about the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, and how the newest season dealt with the subject of depression. After getting the pitch rejected from Salon, I decided I might as well send it off to HuffPo because it seemed like it would be a good fit.
I chose “Entertainment” as my category for the post and sent it off at a Women Who Submit meeting without any expectations. A few days later, I received an email from an “Entertainment” editor informing me that my piece was going to be published. She sent me the information to set up my account, and I officially became a Huffington Post Contributing Blogger. I was absolutely thrilled.
Once my article, “What Orange is the New Black Gets Right About Depression,” was posted, I submitted an article that had previously been rejected by the “Healthy Living” section. To my surprise, it was also published a few days later…in the “Healthy Living” section. I’m now able to submit pretty much any article I want, and as a contributor, it goes right through.
The entire process from first submission to eventual publication took about eight months and six separate essay submissions. It would have been easy to give up on becoming a HuffPo contributor after any of these attempts and approaches failed. It took rethinking my approach and submitting a different kind of piece to a different set of editors to finally get published on the site.
The thing I’ve learned about getting published is that it’s not just about trying again and again. Persistence and patience aren’t always enough. Sometimes you need to switch gears and approach something from a new angle to get your foot in the door.
Alana Saltz is a writer, freelance editor, and occasional ukulele rocker residing in Los Angeles. Her essays can be found in The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, HelloGiggles, RoleReboot, The Manifest-Station, and more. You can visit her website at alanasaltz.com and follow her on Twitter @alanasaltz.
Eight years ago, I had two small kids and had sunk whole-heartedly into the motherhood thing. I was working reading scripts for money, which I did at home after the kids had gone to sleep. I was writing screenplays because that’s what I always did, but otherwise I didn’t have to see people much or be out in the world. I loved my kids, and that part of my life was all consuming, exhausting, hilarious and exhilarating, but I had unwittingly cut off an entire part of myself. My brain was occupied with planning meals, organizing around toddler sleep patterns, childhood illnesses and, honestly, thoughts of when which kid had pooped last. It was easier to call myself a stay at home mom than a failed screenwriter. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of my thinking self.
But when my youngest was about to go off to kindergarten, and my screenwriting career hadn’t so much happened, I got overwhelmingly and completely depressed. This was not helped by the fact that my five year old daughter asked, “Why do Daddies work and Mommies stay home?” My own daughter, who was meant to be a third generation feminist, was making sense of the world in a way I hadn’t envisioned at all. My idea of a career had all but evaporated and the script reading work was on the wane, reducing my monetary contribution to the family considerably.
What could I possibly do next? What at all did I have to offer by way of career or even basic income? Despite my extensive experience in the film industry and in screenwriting, I learned that I couldn’t teach screenwriting without a Masters. Going to grad school in something I’d spent fifteen years working at and feeling like a failure at felt defeatist. A friend told me about Antioch’s MFA in Creative Writing program and my first knee jerk reaction was, “I can’t do grad school! I wasn’t even good at college! How could I do grad school?” Everything I thought of was met with a fearful, internal, “no.” Finally, I went down to campus for an informational meeting, and learned about Antioch’s social justice mission and its focus on creating a writing life. It felt like coming home. So after having written one pretty terrible novel on my own, I applied. I needed schooling. And I needed to start saying yes, even though I was afraid.
Only when I came home high from my first residency, a ten day whirl of writing workshops, lectures, new friendships, from using my brain again, from being completely consumed in thoughts, words and concepts, did I realize how afraid and cut off I had become over the past several years. It wasn’t something that happened all at once, when I had my kids. I certainly can’t blame them. Instead, it crept up on me. I fell out of touch with my pre-kid friends. I backed away from opportunities for reunions with people I used to work with. I became better acquainted with cable television, which grocery stores to hit and doing all of my work online so as to avoid personal contact. Early bedtimes. I was writing less. All of the goals I had set for myself in my twenties had come and gone. As a result I had simply shut down. For some reason it felt easier and more comfortable to resign myself as a failure than to risk actual failure.
But after that first residency, with my brain reawakened, my need to write rekindled in fiction, I could see that this trap into which I’d fallen had happened too easily because of fear. I felt like I’d lost a decade of forward movement to that fear, and I wasn’t going to do that ever again. Here I was at forty, finally at an age where fear was no longer an option, starting a new career all over again.
So often I had put things off with, “I can’t. I don’t think I can,” or, “I couldn’t possibly be qualified to…”
I have learned that one way to trick the brain past these fears is to sign up to do something well in advance of having to do it.
Instead of waiting for a place of comfort, where I knew I was prepared and ready, I started promising to do things before I could fully wrap my mind around actually doing them. This worked because, the way I was raised in New England, backing out of something you’ve already signed up for isn’t really an option. Signing up for something out of my reach was a bit like a dare to myself. Learning to say “yes,” before I was certain I was ready.
So, knowing I was terrified of public speaking, at the next residency in my MFA program I signed up for a “brown bag reading.” I would get up and read my writing in front of other students. I had never done this before. The week before the reading, I practiced and practiced and timed it and when the day came, my voice did a weird warbly thing, and I lost my place twice and broke into a flopsweat, but I got through it. When I finished, I resolved to sign up for another one six months later.
I was working on a novel, but had come up with some short stories along the way. The idea of having them read and judged by strange editors was terrifying. But I realized that all of the published writers in my program had actually submitted their work to journals in order to get it published. You may laugh, but that’s a leap of logic a lot of fearful writers don’t always understand. If publication is validation, and if you feel like you don’t belong because you aren’t published, you actually have to submit your work places to have it read and rejected in order for it to be published. You have to put your work out there.
No one was going to write to me and ask me for a story and my finished stories, already read by mentors and peers in my program, were not going to get into journals by osmosis. I had to put my work in front of actual editors. So I set myself up with Duotrope. The lists of journals upon journals were overwhelming until I figured out the filters, but I finally had it wired and submitted my story to one place. I believe I took a nap afterward.
It didn’t take me long to realize I was sitting around waiting for an answer on this story. One thing it’s taken me many years to learn as a writer is: Waiting is not an activity. This magazine cautioned that responses could take up to six months. When the next Saturday rolled around, I submitted my work three more places. Soon I got into the ritual of submitting. I submitted three short stories a total of 70 places before I got my first publication.
A friend asked me to contribute to an article about my work as a woman screenwriter. I felt I had no place to speak on the matter as, in my mind, I had failed in that endeavor, but I said yes. I sat down and wrote her something. It turned out I had a lot to say.
Another friend asked me to speak at her high school about the glass ceiling for women in the working world. It was a subject we had talked about in passing. I felt I had no place to speak out on such a subject, but said, yes. Over the course of the next few months, I worked up a lecture and slideshow that followed my mom’s work as a reporter in the fifties and tracked all the way up through my work in Hollywood. The talk was pretty good and I learned a great deal in putting it together. The students were fantastic and responsive, and I realized that saying yes before I was ready was a fantastic challenge and pushed me out of my comfort zone.
Saying yes WHILE afraid is now my modus operandi.
Will you write a genre story to submit to this anthology on a specific subject? Help! I can’t come up with a story on command, are you kidding?? Yes. Even though it wasn’t included in the anthology it was requested for, had I not said yes, the story would not have been written and placed into a different anthology of which I’m quite proud. Will you be on a panel at a writers conference with people who know so much more than you about a subject? Yes. Turned out I had useful information on submitting work as practical and useful for the writers at the conference as the words of the more experienced New Yorker published writers I was sitting with and felt less worthy than. Can you submit a Christmas-related horror story for our anthology? Are you out of your mind? How can I come up with a themed story in a month? Yes. Another story that wouldn’t have happened in a collection that seems to be doing well for itself.
I was asked to come up with the book coaching program for inspiration2publication.com through my alma mater. Terrified and feeling underqualified, I ignored my inner “No” and said yes, and it turned out I was exactly the right person for the job. My years of experience giving screenwriters notes in the film industry complete with the work I’d done with students and fellow writers made me ideal. While I squinted my eyes shut and repeated, I belong at this table, I belong at this table, I belong at this table, I not only put the fear behind me but grew the job into something I love to do and believe in.
Pushing past that resistance is essential.
OLLI talks, Cal State Fullerton, runs inspirational talks for retirees. They asked if I would do a 90 minute talk about writing in their 150 person auditorium. I asked if I could have the audience do writing exercises. I am fully comfortable teaching a writing class for 90 mins. They said no, it would be lecture format. Eeek! But Yes. I’m putting together information and a slideshow I’m guessing will teach me as much as my audience. I’m terrified, but I’ll let you know how it goes.
So in this New Year, as we go forward ask yourself: What are you afraid of? What have you turned down doing so often before? It could be simple as going out with fellow writers. Maybe speaking publicly is your jam but getting your work out there is your challenge. Maybe you need to ask to be in an anthology. Maybe you’ve submitted a ton of work but are terrified of hosting something. Host a reading! Put together a bunch of people for an event! Apply for a far away writers’ retreat. Do the thing that scares you. Better yet, write about the thing that scares you to write about. Because the truth is, you’re only on this planet for one ride, and hanging in your comfort zone binge watching Netflix is definitely a nice way to pass the time, but it’s much nicer to do after you’ve done the one thing you thought you couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. This is the year of pushing forward and doing the scary thing. This is the year of you as a writer. Carpe Annum.
Kate Maruyama‘s novel Harrowgate was published by 47North. Her short work has appeared in Arcadia, Stoneboat and Controlled Burn and is now featured in two new anthologies, Phantasma: Stories and Winter Horror Tales as well as on TheRumpus, Salon and TheCitron Review among other journals. She teaches at Antioch University Los Angeles in the BA and MFA Programs and for inspiration2publication.com as well as for Writing Workshops Los Angeles. She writes, teaches, cooks and eats in Los Angeles where she lives with her family.
When setting your reading and writing goals for 2016, consider the work being done by other women writers and editors – people like you! Think about subscribing to one or more of the journals listed below. Make a conscious effort to read print and online journals edited/curated by women writers. Submit your work regularly to the journals and magazines that address themes you are writing about. As we move towards being more responsible literary citizens in the upcoming year, keep our sister writers in mind. (Information below is edited from each journal/magazine website information.)
If there are publications that have not been included on this list, please add a brief description and a link in the comments below so others can learn about it and we can update our information.
13th Moon: A Feminist Literary Magazine
Founded in 1973 in the ferment of early second wave feminism, as a home for women writers and their readers. Because the surrounding culture has tended to erase women writers from history, their work has needed rediscovery, preservation and its own dedicated space each generation.
Adanna Literary Journal: a journal for women, about women
A name of Nigerian origin, pronounced a-DAN-a, is defined as “her father’s daughter.” Women over the centuries have been defined by men in politics, through marriage, and, most importantly, by the men who fathered them. Today women are still bound by complex roles in society, often needing to wear more than one hat or sacrifice one role so another may flourish. Submissions must reflect women’s issues or topics, celebrate womanhood, and shout out in passion.
Adrienne
This is an intermittently published literary journal featuring poetry by self-identified queer women. Work need not be lesbian themed. The definition of “queer women poets” is also a flexible term; they welcome work by women who identify as queer, lesbian, dyke, bisexual, and trans* as well. Each issue is built around a small number of poets and showcase the variety within the queer poetry community. They are not looking for any one style or form; each issue will represent multiple poetic forms, including traditional poetry, prose poetry, spoken word poetry translated to the page, and experimental poetry.
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
A nonprofit, independent, feminist media organization dedicated to providing and encouraging an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture seeks to be a fresh, revitalizing voice in contemporary feminism. They are uniquely situated to draw in young readers who are at a critical moment in their lives—a moment when they are discovering feminism and activism, finding answers to who they are, and questioning the definitions of gender, sexuality, power and agency prescribed by the mainstream media.
Blackberry
A magazine devoted to sharing the literary voices of black women. This online journal is run by women who strongly believe in its mission to showcase a new generation of writers as well as illuminate voices from the past that may have been ignored.
Bluestockings Magazine
A feminist multimedia publication with a gender-aware perspective and an anti-oppression framework. Their feminisms are rooted in opposition to all forms of oppression with an understanding that feminism links together the political, the structural, and the personal. They aim to center voices from marginalized and historically resilient communities across intersections of color, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, immigration status, disability, gender identity, sexuality, class, substance use, status of incarceration, experience of violence and trauma, and other identities not listed here. They accept work from every genre and medium, and highly encourage work from people of color with intersectional identities. They also welcome work from first-time contributors, who can expect a hands-on editing process from the team.
Bone Bouquet
A biannual online journal seeking to publish the best new writing by female poets, from artists both established and emerging. They aim to highlight the important work of female poets, who are often underrepresented in the writing community and popular media. Rather than personal politics, their criteria are excellence and vibrance. Rather than segregating the poetry of ‘women’s issues’ from ‘regular’ creative work, their goal is to provide an additional arena to make work more visible to readers, building their reputations as artists.
Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women
A forum for women’s creative work—including work by women of color, lesbian and queer women, young women, old women—CALYX Journal breaks new ground. Each issue is packed with new poetry, short stories, full-color artwork, photography, essays, and reviews.
damselfly press: A gathering of women’s voices
The name is derived from the tenacious damselfly, a unique and highly independent insect whose remarkable compound eyes allow her the advantage of examining many aspects of her environment. They value writing that soars beyond common perceptions and seek to promote exceptional writing by women. They welcome fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from female writers of all experiences. They are interested in work that is honest and explores human nature; there is truth even in fiction.
The Fem
It is a literary journal that publishes feminist, diverse, and inclusive creative works and interviews with writers, artists, and creators twice a week. They practice intersectional feminism, and seek to act as a safe space for both readers and writers from marginalized groups.
Feminist Formations
It is a forum where feminists from around the world articulate research, theory, activism, teaching, and learning, thereby showcasing new feminist formations. An interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, they publish innovative work by scholars, activists, artists, poets, and practitioners in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. A permanent section of the journal devoted to contemporary feminist poetry is designed to push at the bounds of academic knowledge production to make space for creative writers whose work can help us to see, learn, and experience from fresh angles.
Feminist Studies
They are committed to publishing an interdisciplinary body of feminist knowledge that sees intersections of gender with racial identity, sexual orientation, economic means, geographical location, and physical ability as the touchstone for our politics and our intellectual analysis. They welcome all forms of written creative expression, including but not limited to poetry and short fiction in all forms. They are interested in work that addresses questions of interest to their audience, particularly work that pushes past the boundaries of what has been done before. They look for creative work that is intellectually challenging and aesthetically adventurous, that is in complicated dialogue with feminist ideas and concepts, and that shifts readers into new perspectives on women/gender.
The Feminist Wire
It is a peer reviewed online feminist publication. They welcome essays, interviews, op-eds, stories, poetry, plays, and visual art that explicitly deploy a feminist lens, and define feminism very broadly. They are also committed to anti-racist and anti-imperialist approaches.
Hip Mama
This is the original alternative parenting magazine, covering subjects from weaning to home schooling with humor and political edge. It is a forum for single, urban and feminist mothers. And the December 2015 issue features WWS member Lisbeth Coiman!
Iris Magazine: for thinking young women
After more than 30 years of publication, they continue to celebrate and empower young women through provocative pieces. Their mission is not only to showcase women’s achievements at the University and within Charlottesville, in support of the women’s community and in conjunction with the Center’s mission to creating change, but to also underscore the relevance of women’s issues throughout the community to foster change and highlight accomplishments.
Lavender Review
Born on Gay Pride Day, June 27, 2010, it is an international, biannual (June & December) e-zine dedicated to poetry and art by, about, and for lesbians. This e-zine is free, and open to everyone.
Lilith Magazine
Independent, Jewish & frankly feminist since 1976, it charts Jewish women’s lives with exuberance, rigor, affection, subversion and style. Their work includes bold reporting and memoir, original fiction and poetry, and a lively take on tradition, celebrations and social change.
Literary Mama
Since 2003, they have featured writing about the many faces of motherhood, including poetry, fiction, columns, and creative non-fiction that may be too raw, too irreverent, too ironic, or too body-conscious for traditional or commercial motherhood publications. They honor the difficult and rewarding work women do as they move through motherhood by providing a smart, diverse venue to read, publish, and share mama-centric stories.
Lumen Magazine
It is a project for (and by!) women and nonbinary people. They are interested in poetry, fiction, personal essays, and interviews that examine how people move through the world, both as complex individuals and as members of larger communities. The conversations they are interested in are those that shed light on our stories—our struggles, our triumphs, and all the in-betweens.
Luna Luna Magazine
It is the dreamer’s lifestyle diary where readers can indulge their good and bad sides in the quiet conversations, the confessions, the uncomfortable, the indulgent and the beautiful. They aim to capture everything that makes our world so powerful: beauty, light, nuance, oddities, opulence, magic and desire. They consistently profile brave, unapologetic, feminist and creative thinkers from all walks of life. They focus heavily on the personal, intimate, literary, artistic and occult.
Minerva Rising
It is an independent literary journal celebrating the creativity and wisdom in every woman. They publish thought-provoking fiction, non-fiction, photography, poetry and essays by women writers and artists. It has grown out of a love of literature and the knowledge that when women come together, we flourish. Just as the Goddess Minerva represented creativity, wisdom, medicine, commerce, arts and education, the journal provides the opportunity for and the evidence of that bounty.
The Mom Egg Review: Literature & Art
An annual literary journal by and about mothers and motherhood. Celebrated writers and new talents explore the experience of motherhood from diverse perspectives and examine the nexus of motherhood with other identities, cultural and personal. Multi-ethnic and multi-generational, it tells important stories ignored or marginalized by other publications, and nurtures exciting literary talents.
MP
It is an online, peer-reviewed, international feminist journal. Their goals are to provide an intelligent forum for feminist discourse in cyberspace and provide space for a variety of voices on issues of gender and power. They believe that words can change the world!
Mslexia: for women who write
It tells you all you need to know about exploring your creativity and getting into print. No other magazine provides their unique mix of debate and analysis, advice and inspiration; news, reviews, interviews; competitions, events, courses, grants. All served up with a challenging selection of new poetry and prose.
Ms. Magazine
A brazen act of independence in the 1970s, the authors translated a movement into a magazine. It is the first national magazine to make feminist voices audible, feminist journalism tenable, and a feminist worldview available to the public. Today, the magazine remains an interactive enterprise in which an unusually diverse readership is simultaneously engaged with each other and the world. It continues to be an award-winning magazine recognized nationally and internationally as the media expert on issues relating to women’s status, women’s rights, and women’s points of view.
Mutha Magazine Mutha explores real-life motherhood, from every angle, at every stage, including the ways Moms looked in the 50s and 60s and 70s and the way Moms look now. It explores how people stay creative and vital while raising kids. This is a place online to hang out with all of it, without having pink flowers or digital sprinkles of fairy-baby dust assaulting the aesthetics.
Persimmon Tree
This online magazine is a showcase for the creativity and talent of women over sixty. Too often older women’s artistic work is ignored or disregarded, and only those few who are already established receive the attention they deserve. Yet many women are at the height of their creative abilities in their later decades and have a great deal to contribute. They are committed to bringing this wealth of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to a broader audience, for the benefit of all.
Pheobe: a journal of art and literature since 1971
They support up-and-coming writers whose style, form, voice, and subject matter demonstrate a vigorous appeal to the senses, intellect, and emotions of readers. They choose work that succeeds at its goals, whether it is to uphold or challenge literary tradition. They insist on openness, which means they welcome both experimental and conventional prose and poetry, and they insist on being entertained, which means the work must capture and hold their attention, whether it be the potent language of a poem or the narrative mechanics of a short story.
PMS: poemmemoirstory PMS proudly features the best literary writing by emerging and established women writers. While a journal of exclusively women’s writing, the subject field is wide open. First published in 2000, the editors seek to include compelling, intellectually rigorous writing that represents a diverse range of women’s voices and experiences. Simply put, they want to be riveted.
Quaint Magazine: a women’s quarterly literary magazine Quaint publishes dynamic, arresting, and transgressive poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction by female and gender non-binary writers. They are trans-inclusive and are strongly committed to publishing work from traditionally marginalized writers, giving voice to the strange, the weird, and the unsettling.
ROAR Magazine: A Journal of The Literary Arts by Women ROAR is a print literary journal that exists to provide a space to showcase women’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We are committed to publishing literature by emerging and developing writers and we aim to support the equality of women in the creative arts. ROAR accepts work that represents a wide spectrum of form, language and meaning. In other words, don’t worry if your work isn’t specific to feminist issues. If you’re a gal, we just want your point of view.
Room: literature, art, and feminism since 1975
Room to read. Room to write. Room to converse across our many differences. Canada’s oldest literary journal by and about women showcases fiction, poetry, reviews, art work, interviews and profiles about the female experience. Each quarter they publish original, thought-provoking works that reflect women’s strength, sensuality, vulnerability, and wit.
Sinister Wisdom
It is a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal that seeks to open, consider and advance the exploration of lesbian community issues. They recognize the power of language to reflect our diverse experiences and to enhance our ability to develop critical judgment as lesbians evaluating our community and our world.
So To Speak: feminism + language + art
They publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art that lives up to a high standard of language, form, and meaning. They look for work that addresses issues of significance to women’s lives and movements for women’s equality and are especially interested in pieces that explore issues of race, class, and sexuality in relation to gender. They are committed to representing the work of writers and artists from diverse perspectives and experiences and do not discriminate on the basis of race, class, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, culture of origin, political affiliation, disability, marital or premarital status, Vietnam-era status, or similar characteristics.
Torch Journal
They publish and promote the work of black women by publishing contemporary poetry, prose, and short stories by experienced and emerging writers alike, to archive contributor’s literary work for posterity and educational purposes, provide resources and opportunities for the advancement of black women writers.
Weird Sister
An online community that makes people laugh, and maybe cry, and always think a lot. One that resonates with our lives as writers and artists and activists and teachers and curators and moonlighters. A website that speaks its mind and snaps its gum and doesn’t apologize. It explores the intersections of feminism, literature and pop culture, featuring essays, interviews, comics, reviews, playlists, secret diaries, and love letters written in invisible ink.
WomenArts Quarterly
They aspire to nurture, provide support, and challenge women of all cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and abilities and seeks to heighten the awareness and understanding of achievements by women creators, providing audiences with examples of historical and contemporary work by women writers, composers, and artists.
Women’s Review of Books
They provide a forum for serious, informed discussion of new writing by and about women and a unique perspective on today’s literary landscape, featuring essays and in-depth reviews of new books by and about women. Their goals include advancing gender equality, social justice, and human well-being.
Women’s Studies Quarterly
It is an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of emerging perspectives on women, gender, and sexuality. Its thematic issues combine psychoanalytic, legal, queer, cultural, technological, and historical work to present the most exciting new scholarship on ideas that engage popular and academic readers alike. It is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal published twice a year that along with scholarship from multiple disciplines, showcases fiction and creative nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, and the visual arts.
Word Mothers
It is dedicated to showcasing women’s work in the literary arts around the world, featuring female author interviews and women in the book industry discussing what they’re really passionate about. They embrace diversity; minority voices and genderqueer artists are especially encouraged to contribute.
Tisha Marie Reichle is a Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen. Her stories have appeared in 34th Parallel, Inlandia Journal, Muse Literary Journal, Santa Fe Writers Project, The Acentos Review, and The Lunch Ticket. She earned her MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and is the fiction editor at Border Senses magazine.
In fall 2014, four of us —Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Ashaki M. Jackson, Ramona Pilar, and Tisha Reichle— collaborated on our first WWS grant proposal for the Surdna Foundation’s “Artists Engaging in Social Change” grant. We were not awarded funding, but what resulted was a clear plan for where we saw WWS going over the next year and beyond.
Starting in January 2015, Women Who Submit began holding monthly submission parties with public WWS orientations on the even numbered months. On February 14th, we held our first orientation and submission party at Here & Now in El Sereno where we were joined by three new members.
Désirée Zamorano leading a talk on confidence at
the December 2015 Orientation.
Over the year, we hosted five public WWS orientations and submissions parties at Here & Now. On the odd numbered months, we started traveling to members’ homes for private submission parties. In 2015, we traveled to Palos Verdes, Chinatown, and Glendale thanks to the generosity of members who invited us into their homes.
WWS members submitting work at the November 2015 submission party.
2015 has been a big year for Women Who Submit, and we are always up for celebrating accomplishments. Besides our commitment to monthly submission parties and bimonthly public orientations, we also built this blog, commissioned a logo, activated a Twitter account, presented at Lit Crawl L.A., held panels at Antioch University and the Pasadena Playhouse, hosted a 2nd annual WWS Submission Blitz at The Little Easy in Downtown L.A., and now we are assisting the development of WWS chapters in other cities including Las Vegas and San Francisco.
But we don’t want to only celebrate the organization’s accomplishments. Individual members have been hard at work writing, submitting, tracking, and publishing and in order to celebrate their efforts, we sent a call asking members to share their submission numbers (submissions, rejections, and acceptances). 15 women responded to our request, and we now celebrate the following collective numbers based on their own records:
Thank you to the following journals, presses, conferences, residencies, and funders for accepting work from one or more of our members. We also celebrate the work you did over the year reading submissions, sending out responses, editing and publishing work in order to share exciting and new voices with the larger community.
Accentos Review
Al Jazeera America
American Poetry Review
Barbara Deming Fund
BinderCon
Cactus Heart
Cal Arts
Callaloo Workshop
Cave Canem/VSC
Cherry Tree
crazyhorse
CURA: A Literary Magazine (#BLM)
The Daily Dot
Economic Hardship Reporting Project
Finishing Line Press
Flash Flash Click
Future Tense Books
Germ Magazine
The Guardian
Hedgebrook
HelloGiggles
The Huffington Post
Hometown Pasadena
Horse Less Review
Hunger Mountain
Inch
Into the Heart of Addiction
The James Franco Review
Jezebel
KCET Departures
KCRW
LA Review of Books
The Los Angeles Times
Lumen Magazine
Lunch Ticket
The Manifest-Station
Miel and 111O Press
MUTHA Magazine
Mujeres de Maiz
The Nervous Breakdown
New Madrid
The Philadelphia Review
Pluck!
Poets & Writers
Prairie Schooner
Red Hen Press
Redux
RoleReboot
Rose City Sisters
The Rumpus
The Rusty Toque
Solo Parent Magazine
Sundress Publications
Sundress Political Punch Anthology
TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics
Tahoma Literary Review
Tia Chucha Press Coiled Serpent Anthology
Thread Makes Blanket
Tucson Festival of Books
Upper Rubber Boot
Vida Web
YesYes
Please leave us a comment sharing where you’ve been accepted this year. We want to clap for you too!
“But as someone who has spent her entire adult life working in the sex industry, I can attest to the fact that women in this business face inherent, unique physical risks. I’ve been bitten, drugged, smacked and ripped off. Years ago, a large man tried to block me from leaving a private room in a nude strip club in San Francisco. When I yelled for help, the person who came running was a stripper named Cinnamon. She yanked him by his shirt from behind. I ran.”
“When she cranes her neck up at the sky, at night, she shivers. This may be because she is trying to find Scorpio. She is more afraid of falling up endlessly than gravity. The night is colder than it should be. She wonders if one of the spheres has a hole. A leak that hisses the light out like a deflated tire.”
“You consider lynching mechanics and question which was raised first – the rope or the neck. You think of the ease with which dancers lift each other’s bodies at particular curves and imagine a neck hoist bringing a faceless audience to its feet. You ask who is in this audience. You are in the audience.”
“So, are Las Lunas Locas really locas? How did your nombre lunático come about?
We knew we wanted to name ourselves that which spoke to us, the moon is the most feminine of it all. And womyn often tend to be thought of as “crazy” and “emotional.” In this capacity, we wanted to celebrate all things that are often misjudged and ridiculed. The naming of Las Lunas Locas allows for embracing all that is wonderful and challenging about being a womyn in a patriarchal and misogynistic society.”
From Tisha Reichle’s YA fiction piece, “I want to be a Cowgirl,” published in the latest issue of Lunch Ticket:
“Mom watches from her bedroom window; I can feel her. Not ready to be wrong about my hunger, I stand on the bales of hay stacked behind the heeling dummy. It was painted brown a long time ago and Dad actually put a frayed rope tail so it looks like the skeleton of a steer’s butt. Its rusty pole legs dangle lifeless until I kick them; their squeaky rhythm breaks the morning’s silence. Mom closes the curtain. She hates when I practice roping and defy her orders.”
“Mom is sitting at the kitchen table with several bags of weed in front of her. She has taken off her jeans, and has a glossy look of heat shining off her face, as she rolls another joint. I head out the back door to the wooden water tank at the rear of the house. It’s hot and I’m thirsty. The tank sits in the shade surrounded by Ti leaves and banana trees, its sides covered in thick green-black moss and a thin layer of moisture. The rainwater that fills the tank is sweet. I slurp it straight from the spout, letting the run-off splash on my muddy toes.”
Lastly, congratulations to Melissa Chadburn and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo who share the honor of being awarded grants for nonfiction from Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.
On Melissa’s project:
“This essay collection includes the title essay, a previously published piece about my experience in foster care. The other essays capture the myriad of effects of poverty—or the converse: the effects of affluence and power. I think this is the one element that binds all of my work together—I talk about class and race but what I really am speaking of are the effects of power on the human condition.”
Pssst! Fiction writers, The Barbara Deming Fund is now taking applications for fiction projects. It awards “small artist support grants ($500-$1500) to individual feminist women in the arts.” Submissions close December 31st.
Ashaki M. Jackson is a poet and social psychologist residing in Los Angeles. Her poem “An American Paratrooper” appears in [r.kv.r.y. quarterly‘s] April 2014 issue. Noted authors and Ashaki confidants Khadijah Queen (www.khadijahqueen.com) and Kima Jones (www.thenotoriouskima.com) recently pitched a few questions to her about her work – an ongoing reflection on grief, coping, and defunct mortuary rites grounded in her grandmother’s death.
This interview is reposted with permission from the editors of r.kv.r.y. quarterly where it was first published.
Khadijah Queen (KQ) begins a little late but gracefully: Snap! I got distracted by YouTube and middle school homework and cake and hot dogs… What distracts you most from your creative work, and how do you overcome said distraction(s) and/or use them to your advantage?
Ashaki Jackson (AJ): This day-to-day thing. I’m responding from bed while deep-conditioning my hair and jotting a To Do list for the next four hours.
Chicken is marinating. Dishes still aren’t going to wash themselves. This basket of clean laundry is giving me the side-eye. It is 5:30 PM.
Being swallowed by the mundane is very comforting to me. My writing revolves around personal loss — mainly that of my grandmother. I still reside in her memory and fold into my grief when I evoke her in poems. The feelings are oppressive even when I write about my broader reflection on loss as I did with An American Paratrooper. Inundating myself with a Big Bang Theory-spring cleaning-pedicure session or reading books in a loud restaurant gives me respite. It gives me spaces to tuck my grief until I’m ready to see it again.
KQ: Talk about the bodied-ness of your poems. How central, tangential, and/or inextricable are the physical and the linguistic?
AJ: I have bodies. Many bodies. Other peoples’ bodies. Loved ones’ bodies.
Sometimes it is the thought of the last state in which I saw a late loved one that pops into my mind.
This is a painful but helpful entry into my drafts. I also spent quite a bit of time studying anthropologists’ articles about mortuary rites. Cecilia McCallum, Ph.D., is a lasting favorite. She documents the care with which certain South American tribe members once treated their deceased family members’ bodies before consuming them.
I learned that mourning isn’t merely psychological; it is a ceremony, a meal, something that lingers on the palate. The language of consumption in relation to the lingering sense of loss underpins many of my pieces—devouring, preservation, and that sense of never being sate. Some of my poems read as if words are falling out of the mouth haphazardly. Others read as if I’m choking on the grief. I’m not able to articulate the craft, but thematically I might refer to it as written keening.
Kima Jones (KJ): Essentially, form is choosing skin, so I want to revisit Khadijah’s question on bodied-ness: Which form, which body do you like to take on most? And for your grandmother?
AJ: My good friend, Noah, mentioned that some of us “like to wear each other’s bodies.” We were speaking about recent travesties — Malaysian Flight 370, MV Sewol in South Korea, the Chibok girls. For all of those bodies lost, families only received apologies from officials — the emptiest gesture. Like gristle.
I think you crave a body — living or dead — particularly when you do not have one.
Bodies are tangible and to be cared for. That care is some kind of ritual.
My work doesn’t have a particular body. Forms are rare in my work. However, I allow my lines to occupy the page in non-traditional ways. One poem is written in the choppiness of a choking cry. In a different piece, the words collide at the bottom of the page – a visual homage to hopelessness in grief. The reader should want to gather words from these pieces, scrape them from the ground, and comfort them.
I spend a good amount of time thinking on my late grandmother’s passing. It aides my coping to wade through the memories, but it also gives me access to a dialect of grief that others might make use of in the future. In my manuscript, I write about her transition in various forms with the same sentiment about the body. She should be home, with us, and cared for. I don’t know if it’s the best I can do to evoke her in my pages as if my manuscript is her portable body. It is a start for me.
KJ: There is always something hiding, even in the uncovering and undoing. I am wondering how Ashaki keeps the secret things hidden during the excavation, the mining of all those graves?
AJ: I’m of the mind that the reader does not need to know me to enter, understand, experience, or relate to the work. Few books would ever be read with this requirement. What I need from the reader: trust. I might not hand you my articulated grief or reveal everything I’ve had to unearth to write a piece, but I’ll share work that will resonate in some way with the reader–that will rub the reader’s bruises just as my ache is continually touched.
KJ: It’s a question I’m turning over more and more in my head in regard to my own heart and my own good feeling, so I ask you, what is the use of the love poem?
AJ: Use of the love poem: praise for a body; idolatry; celebration of the mind’s fire; a method of serenading; to fully taste; to build a word altar to a moment; to sustain a beautiful feeling; to tuck a piece of candy in my pillowcase for later; to be reckless in my selfishness by flaunting; to maintain my warmth; to serve me.
I think that’s broad enough to comfortably fit my poems on grief and loss and loose enough to include the poems I have yet to write for the loves I have yet to know.
KQ: Truth & honesty– where on the spectrum when dealing with loss/grief do these consciously figure? Are they seeds or threads? Both? How much gives way to metaphor or story or construct?
AJ: I think Kima’s question about the use of a love poem is relevant here. If I were to write a love poem — let’s say “romantic” in some way — my approach could be seen as dishonest because I haven’t known love. I’d tell you that in the poem. I’m pretty forthcoming with what I don’t know. But, it would still be a decent poem because lies are often the most interesting genre.
When dealing with loss, I am more honest about what I have experienced than what I have not. I think my feelings are evident and even resounding when I write about personal loss because I know its labyrinth. I become the omniscient tour guide. When writing others’ losses: my empathy might seem insufficient. My feelings about documenting grief are still true and perhaps a projection of my mourning. But, I don’t know others’ specific pains, which are rooted in long relationships, family, home, and hopes for the future.
The lyric fills in those hollows. The poem becomes indigenous to its characters — not me. I am honest until my imagination converts a paratrooper’s body being retrieved from Cambodia into a native stork.
Dr. Ashaki M. Jackson is a social psychologist and poet who has worked with post-incarceration youth through research, evaluation and creative arts mentoring for over one decade. She is a Cave Canem and VONA alumna. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Rkvry Quarterly and CURA Magazine, among others. Miel Books will publish her chapbook, Language Lesson, in fall 2016. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
In 1997, more years ago than I care to admit to, I attended a Bouchercon mystery conference and listened to the writer Patricia Sprinkle speak about the “seasons” in a writer’s life. At that time I had two small children, taught 5th grade, and had committed myself to carve time out of my day to write. But, I had given myself a daily quota that I was daily unable to make. I goaded, scolded and loathed myself for not accomplishing my daily goal, day after day after day. When Ms. Sprinkle spoke, she reminded her audience of the different seasons in our lives, to recognize and honor them. I took her words in, deeply. I vowed not to beat myself up for missing arbitrary targets.
Reposted with permission from our friends at Lumen Magazine, where this article was first published on August 5, 2015.
Women Who Submit was born out of a reaction to a couple of gross injustices: a) women are not being published as often nor as broadly as men, and b) women may not be submitting or resubmitting their work as often as men. Men and women of color are published to an even lesser degree. The founders of Women Who Submit took this information, acknowledged it, and asked themselves what could be done to change this?
The Atlantic published an article called “The Confidence Gap” which posed the idea that “… there is a particular crisis for women—a vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology.” In their research, authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman found that women will tend to psyche themselves out of opportunities if they don’t feel close to, if not perfectly suited for the opportunity while men did not have that particular issue.
While there are exceptions to generalizations, there was enough of a commonality to infer that a lack of confidence was one of the reasons why women weren’t submitting their work for publication as often as men.
Confidence is something I personally struggle with when it comes to writing, much less submitting my work for publication. There are layers upon layers of experiences that have transformed me from the bravado-fueled fireball I was in adolescence (my most prolific writing years to date) into a domesticated housecat who refuses to come out from under the bed, shiny eyes reflecting at you from the furthest corner, resigned to remain planted until I’m good and ready to come out.
I’ve been an active member of Women Who Submit for about two years. In that time I’ve submitted work to a total of maybe 10 places. Which, comparatively speaking, is a fraction of a fraction of the amount of submissions other members have followed through on. But comparison is not the point and has never been the point. What brings me closer to crawling out of the safe, uneventful, under-the-bed darkness is being around women who have navigated out of that safe crawl space. Women who have more experience submitting than I do.
The trick, I’ve learned, is to focus on what is actually within my control rather than on being accepted. I can control the content I create, the journals I submit to, the frequency with which I submit pieces. There is not one way to do anything. For example, I’ve acquired four different versions of cover letters to send with submissions. Each of them different and each of the women who shared them with me had success with her version and their reasons why they stuck by it. Hearing sometimes contradictory advice lets me know that the point cannot be about acceptance. That is a faulty, foul gauge of success. The point is to commit to submitting or getting my work ready to submit, at whatever pace feels comfortable for me. Cats don’t live under the bed forever.
The mere act of getting together with committed frequency, either in person or virtually, via Skype or checking in via email, matters. That sense of community is paramount to success, for me individually, and for the overarching goal of working towards gender parity in publishing.
Confidence isn’t some magic superpower only a chosen few are anointed with at birth. It’s something that comes from tangible practicality, from looking at a daunting task and knowing it can be broken down into easily digestible, easily completed tasks. I am inspired by and grateful to the women who have demystified submission by showing me how it’s done.
Ramona Pilar is a writer, performer, emotional fluffer and native Californian. She is currently working on a collection of essays entitled “Darth Vader Abandoned his Daughter and Other Thoughts Along The Heroine’s Journey.” She can occasionally be found troubadouring with her band The Raveens.
Stephanie Abraham is a writer and media critic based in Los Angeles. In addition to completing three puppy obedience classes with her goldendoodle, she’s completed a Master in Professional Writing at USC and a Master of Art in Cultural Studies at Cal State LA. Follow her on Twitter @AbrahamSteph.
Alana Saltz is a writer, freelance editor, and occasional ukulele rocker residing in Los Angeles. Her essays can be found in The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, HelloGiggles, RoleReboot, The Manifest-Station, and more. You can visit her website at 
Ramona Pilar