Claps and Cheers: When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

by Jesse Bliss

Mentorship is an integral part of developing as an artist. We can be mentored officially, through mentorship programs or by merely engaging and asking a respected professional for guidance. And there are unofficial mentors who come into our lives when we most need the encouragement of someone who’s embarked on a journey we’ve just begun. They are powerful presences who impact the course of our lives and we cherish them for as long as we can.

Writer, educator, and mentor Jesse Bliss recently lost her mentor Linda Lowry. This Claps and Cheers is Bliss’s homage to her late mentor. – Ramona Pilar, Ed.

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laura
Actor and Mentor Linda Lowry

It was a typically windy, cold to-the-bone yet electric San Francisco night. I was a 20 year-old walking up Market Street around the corner from the Tenderloin District where I lived next door to a Thai restaurant. Next to that was a known location for sex solicitation. I often cruised toward the train gripping the handle of a knife. The danger in that hood was not gangs, but unpredictable drug-induced violence. I had just left Sacramento and all that was trying to keep me from my dreams, and had shown up in the Golden Gate city with nothing more than a bag and a friend, ready to discover my soul as a professional artist.

Continue reading “Claps and Cheers: When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears”

Public Notebook to Book: An Interview with Wendy C. Ortiz

Saturday December 3, 2016 Wendy C. Ortiz will lead the 3rd installment in the WWS Fall Workshop Series: Public Notebook to Book. Ortiz is the author of two memoirs, Excavation (Future Tense Books, 2014) and Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2015) and has her third book, Bruja, being release October 31, 2016 from Civil Coping Mechanisms.

Ortiz has used journals and public notebooks throughout her career. In fact, “Hollywood Notebook, a prose poem-ish memoir, and Bruja, a dreamoir, both began as public notebooks and eventually found their way to becoming print books,” and in her workshop, Ortiz will share strategies for keeping a notebook and how to shape it into a piece of writing intended for an audience.

But first, Ortiz, who has been a contest judge for Blue Mesa Review, and a reader for Hedgebrook and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange, among others, shares her thoughts on confidence, submission, and community.

Women Who Submit: How have Notebooks been in important to your work?

Wendy C. Ortiz: I’ve been carrying notebooks all my life and still do, whether it’s a physical notebook meant for a specific subject or my phone’s Notes app. Notebooks and journals have always been a necessary part of my work.

WWS: When did you choose to take your writing seriously, and what or who helped you in that pursuit? Continue reading “Public Notebook to Book: An Interview with Wendy C. Ortiz”

On Movement and Writing: An Interview with Jay O’Shea

Saturday, November 5th  Jay O’Shea, a martial artist and Dance Studies professor at UCLA, will be leading the second workshop in the WWS Fall Workshop Series: On Movement and Writing with Jay O’Shea. She recently offered a Ted Talk on the benefits of physical play and games with a focus on process versus winning, and of course fun.

With a unique point of view, O’Shea’s workshop is sure to shift participants’ stories and characters from the mind to their hands and feet. As O’Shea describes, “In this workshop, we treat movement as central, seeing it as a place where character, narrative arcs, and imagery can emerge in a different, sometimes more vivid, way than they do through dialogue and description.”

O’Shea writes fiction, non-fiction, and academic pieces, and below she shares with our WWS community some strategies for revision, submission, and rejection.

WOMEN WHO SUBMIT: How has movement been in important to your work?

JAY O’SHEA: Like most writers, I’ve always been a scribbler, and I couldn’t say when I started writing. I’ve also always had a physical practice: dance, yoga, rock climbing, martial arts. I spent much of my young adult life trying to figure out whether I most wanted to write or to dance. I found a way to join my passions, becoming a dance scholar and writing about dance in its historical, cultural, and political contexts. Only after finishing my PhD did I realize that I was different from other academics in that writing was not only a means to an end but a craft that I cared deeply about in itself.

Continue reading “On Movement and Writing: An Interview with Jay O’Shea”

A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP FOR SEPTEMBER

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

Author Jim Bishop once wrote, “autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” In September, the writers of Women Who Submit had lots of gold in their pockets.

From “When Depression Steals Your Voice,” by Alana Saltz in The Mighty:

I don’t know what to do now that depression has stolen my voice. I poise myself over a blank page, clench a pen and notebook in my hands, and nothing comes out. My brain is full of white noise that drowns out anything I might say. It’s like a switch has been flipped. Where there used to be words, there is emptiness.

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Behind the Editor’s Desk: Erin Elizabeth Smith

For the past sixteen years, Sundress Publications has been publishing chapbooks and full-length collections (including WWS co-founder Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo’s forthcoming debut collection Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge), as well as hosting online journals and the Best of the Net Anthology. Managing Editor Erin Elizabeth Smith answered a few WWS questions about being an editor, and what makes Sundress unique.

How did you get started with Sundress?

I founded Sundress in 2000 to serve as an umbrella site for a number of online journals, including Stirring, Samsara, and several others. We still maintain this sisterhood of lit journals by hosting or promoting journals including Stirring (under new management) Rogue Agent, Pretty Owl Poetry, Wicked Alice, and cahoodaloodaling. In 2006, we began the Best of the Net anthology in order to promote the work publishing in online venues.

We began publishing chapbooks in 2003, but after our first three, we realized that we weren’t ready to give the time and finances needed to properly publish and promote books. It wasn’t until 2011 that we really decided to jump into print publishing. We started slowly, understanding that it was going to be a learning process and also understanding that we needed to build our reputation as a consistent and engaged publisher. We now publish seven print books a year along with our e-chapbook series. We also have three imprints, our journals, the Best of the Net, the Gone Dark Archives, and much more! Continue reading “Behind the Editor’s Desk: Erin Elizabeth Smith”

Highlight on WWS-Las Vegas: An Interview with Chapter Lead, Jocelyn Paige Kelly

Women Who Submit: How would you describe your city and your local literary community?

Jocelyn Paige Kelly: Vegas is becoming a vibrant literary community. We have very supportive local bookstores that showcase local authors: The Writer’s Block and Books or Books.

There are also lots of opportunities for poets. We have three paying markets for poets: Desert Companion, Downtown Zen magazine, and Helen: A Literary Magazine. There are numerous open mics, a local slam team (Battle Born, named after the state motto), and readings that go on throughout each month. A few local groups have also started to sponsor awards and contest for local poets as well. We also have our first Clark County Poet Laureate Bruce Isaacson who does a lot to support the local poetry scene.

Continue reading “Highlight on WWS-Las Vegas: An Interview with Chapter Lead, Jocelyn Paige Kelly”

Lunas on the Road

by  Karineh Mahdessian and Sophia Rivera
(intro by Ramona Pilar)

Las Lunas Locas is a Los Angeles-based poetry collective who aims to empower women through their different identities and cultures. They have a writing circle that has been meeting on Mondays for the past few years to “create a safe space for a community of self-identifying womyn to write, right and rite.” They also host/present/produce and organize a plethora of events and writing workshops in Los Angeles.

This is an amazing group of literary artisans who are inspiring in their level of energy commitment to community, and dedication to forging their own path (literally as you’ll see below) whether or not the mainstream takes notice.

Earlier this year, a group of about 30 of the Lunas embarked on a four city reading tour that began on a whim. Initially an invitation for poets to read at a bookstore San Francisco ballooned into “a wonderful, serendipitous event that grew to be too big to be contained,” according to Karineh Mahdessian, one of the co-facilitators of the Monday meetups  and Lunas organizational juggernaut who helped to make the reading tour materialize. I followed their journey via social media and was blown away all that they were able to accomplish with the power of The Ask and a strong community.

In the tradition of a road journal, Karineh writes about that journey and what it took to take a group of about 30 women to Northern California for a reading tour.

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Las Lunas Locas, a womyn’s writing group from Los Angeles, formed into existence in July of 2014 and has met every Monday night at Here and Now in El Sereno. For the past two years, we have participated in various community poetry readings.

In November of 2015, five of the Lunas had the opportunity to read with the Poet Laureates of Los Angeles and San Francisco at Avenue 50 Studios in Highland Park. Continue reading “Lunas on the Road”

Are you really, really ready to attend an M.F.A. in Creative Writing program?

(I wasn’t, but I did learn some valuable lessons!)

by Sarah Rafael GarcĂ­a

If you would’ve asked me about a year ago if I’d recommend Texas State University’s Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing program to other writers (particularly women and writers of color), you would probably have to sit through a rant containing an array of emotions—anger, depression, regret and countless examples of microaggressions I experienced.

Although I still regret attending that program, I have also come to terms with the outcome. After all I became a stronger writer and mentor, not because of the MFA program but because the adverse experience forced me to seek support and resources outside of the MFA world, resources I’m not sure I would’ve sought otherwise. Continue reading “Are you really, really ready to attend an M.F.A. in Creative Writing program?”

The WWS Fall Workshop Series

Women Who Submit is excited to hold its first workshop series with three LA-based professional poets and writers who will share personal writing and accountability tools for success in order to help writers craft their next poem, essay, or story and build confidence in their own process. This workshop series offers an opportunity for people of all genders, genres and skill levels to gain practical take-aways from three of Los Angeles’ most fresh and exciting WWS authors and work with an organization dedicated to growing a socially conscious and diverse community focused on supporting women and nonbinary writers in the pursuit of equal representation in publishing and writing programs.

The Women Who Submit Fall Workshop Series, in partnership with PEN Center USA and Avenue 50 Studios, is a not-for-profit event created as a fundraiser for future WWS programming, events, and conference presentations. It is open to people of all genders, orientations, and creeds.

On Silence in Poetry with Ashaki M. Jackson
Saturday, October 1, 2016
10am-1pm at PEN Center USA
Tickets: $80 regular / $60 WWS & PEN

On Writing and Movement with Jay O’Shea
Saturday, November 5, 2016
10am-1pm at PEN Center USA
Tickets: $80 regular / $60 WWS & PEN

From Public Notebook to Book with Wendy C. Ortiz
Saturday, December 3, 2016
10am-1pm at PEN Center USA
Tickets: $80 regular / $60 WWS & PEN

Each workshop, led by a WWS member, leans into their own particular approach to developing work from inception to execution. A $200 ($150 for PEN and WWS members) discount is available for purchasing all three workshops.
Continue reading “The WWS Fall Workshop Series”

A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP FOR AUGUST

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

The summer wraps up with an inspiring list of publications and acceptances from Women Who Submit members.

Check out Issue 42 of Coffee Lovers Magazine to read Rachel Sona Reed‘s “Reconsidering the Percolator.”

Congratulations to Kate Maruyama whose short story, “Akiko,” will be reprinted in Horror Writers for Peace, a horror anthology. All proceeds from sales of the book will go to Lambda Legal Defense Fund in response to the Orlando Massacre.

Tanya Ko Hong published two poems, “Breathing Free” and “Mustard Flowers Falling” in the Berkeley Korean Literature Society.

From DĂ©sirĂ©e Zamorano‘s “A Woman of Privilege” in Akashic Books’ Mondays are Murder:

Continue reading “A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP FOR AUGUST”