April 2026 Publication Roundup

The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during April of 2026. Three of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.

I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!

Congratulations to Jasmine Vallejo-Love for her publication of “I Was Taught To Be Afraid Of Men Who Look Like You” in Quibble Lit. She also had “My Response When the Instructor Prompted Us to Craft a Poem About Flowers at a Time Like This” picked up by The Pinch Journal. See excerpt of the former below:

Fierce-faced, tall, sturdy, white, bearded, in camo.

I was taught to be scared of men with profiles like yours.

Country-bred, trained in combat, knows the kill points.

But you defied every stereotype: warm not angry,

funny not sarcastic, hug-fueled not trigger happy,

with a deep bellowed laugh that shimmers with joy,

not the ominous cackles that make me want to Get Out.

Kudos to Christine Heriat whose fiction piece “Fluidity of Illusion” was featured in SPANK the CARP.

“A Hot Buttered Houdini,” said the woman who stood opposite Matilda. “TikTok was right; this place is fire. Love the cash-only, retro vibe.”

The woman must’ve been twenty-one, but she looked twelve, and like she’d just rolled out of bed, with hair in open rebellion against hairbrush and conditioner. Matilda, onetime mistress of teased bangs, never imagined she’d catch herself judging the young.

But a grand reopening for a fifty-year-old magic-themed bar was indulgent, gimmicky, like her new Potions, which were classic cocktails renamed, such as the whisky sour masquerading as a Sour Magician or a daiquiri as a Rummy Rabbit. If this reinvention spared The Magic Carpet from becoming yet another sanitized chain outlet, as so many other local institutions had, it would be worth repurposing tradition.

Matilda scanned the crowd. The only regular was Patrick, sitting far from his usual spot, the type of man who was overlooked until displaced.

“I’m too old to knock elbows with postmodern irony,” Patrick explained. He angled his head towards the crowd, where hipster mustaches dominated.

“You’re not old, just well salted.”

Shoutout to Sharon Langley whose poem “Blue Bottles in the Window” has been published with Golden Foothills Press.

Congratulations to Gayle Nicholls-Ali whose article “Nurturing creativity and emotional intelligence: social-emotional learning and peer-to-peer feedback in the arts classroom” was featured in Arts Education Policy Review.

Kudos to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose craft chapbook An Interview With Fear was published with Sundress Publications’ Craft Chap Series.

In September 2017, I spoke to ghosts. Big, old ghosts. White supremacy ghosts. Confederate soldier ghosts. The ghosts of racism that haunt many of us on a daily basis while others say that we’re seeing things, or no such thing exists.

In September 2017, Colin Kaepernick was still playing for the 49ers and taking a knee each Sunday. Trump had so much to say about this. Trump always has plenty to say. He’s also like a ghost that rattles the pipes in the night and never gives it a rest. He’d make the walls bleed if it meant we’d pack our things and run out the violent house, exclaiming, “We’re never coming back!”

In September 2017, I was tasked with facing my fears. Big, old fears. White supremacy fears that looked like red caps and the words “Make America Great Again.”

Shoutout to Ryane Nicole Granados whose creative nonfiction piece “Flammable” appeared in Torch Magazine.

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I do like the feeling of being able to start again. A new calendar year counts by increments of one, similar to the box breathing method my therapist claims will help manage my anxiety. Four structured rhythmic counts, four seasons, four chances to get it right. Inhaling for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, and holding for four again.

It’s winter and I’m in the holding stage. Holding all the weight from a heavy year. The problem is, I’m not a weightlifter. My strength has always been in my legs. I’m a runner. I used to be exceptionally fast, but these last few years have caught up with me. I can no longer outrun the anxiety, so winter becomes my new favorite season. The season for rest and reflection. The time to pause and hold tight because at midnight, you get to burn it all down.

Congratulations to Ann Tweedy whose three poems “Fat,” Untitled, and “Undammed River” were featured in Voices & Visions Fine Arts Journal Spring 2026 Issue. See excerpt of the former below:

Fat I need the fat I gave
to liposuction,
transplanted
so my breast might look
full again.

My body is crying for it now
sheets of bruises where
fat was sucked through cannulas.
I walk or sit and immediately
begin to wince.

Kudos to Elizabeth Galoozis whose poem “the island” appeared in Issue 78 of Hayden’s Ferry Review.

Shoutout to Michelle Smith who published three poems this month: “Awesome and Anew” in Spring Broken; “Flopping for the Fix” in Don Kingfisher Campbell’s Four Feathers Press; and “Calamity” in LA Arts News’ April Poets Place. Excerpt of the latter available below:

Hot weather
Heat Wave
High gas prices
I don’t own a car
but the cost is clear
as in cutting onions slices
Both bring a sting
to my eyes and pocketbook

*Feature image credit to Margaret Gallagher*

January 2026 Publication Roundup

The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during January of 2026. Two of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.

I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!

Congratulations to Thea Pueschel whose creative nonfiction piece “Pleasure: Sacred Paint Chips and Memory Fragments” appeared in Flowersong Press’ anthology The White Picket Fence: Stories of Individuality as Rebelliousness Collection.

Kudos to Lisa Eve Cheby whose article “Well, we start, not surprisingly, with research:’ Depictions of Guided Inquiry and Critical Information Literacy Instruction in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was published in Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy+.

From Covid to the current elections, information literacy is often the thin line between our well-being and our endangerment. In 2022, NATO declared the lack of media literacy education a global threat and partnered with the Center for Media Literacy (CML) to host a series of webinars addressing the global crisis of media literacy (Media and Learning Association). Tessa Jolls, president of the Center for Media Literacy, chronicles the history of media literacy and the new urgency for common frameworks and pedagogy to better prepare people in an increasingly decentralized, globalized media landscape. Rather than seeking to rely on social media companies’ accountability, Jolls recommends building media literacy frameworks to guide interventions through education—both formal and informal—of the public in the process-skills needed to understand the content and context of media messages.

Shoutout to Joyce Loh whose poems “Uh-oh” and “Kembangan – a pantoum” (among others) were featured in poems on the mrt. She also published another poem “Lotus Buds – a Sestina” with Frazzled Lit’s fourth issue (excerpt available below).

The tropical heat glows upon the roof.
In the morning light the mother
busies herself before waking the child.
Tiptoeing across the floorboards of wood,
gathering the embers of yesterday’s fire,
adding new coal, noting her beating heart.

The Promised Land, she tells her heart
where they would have a roof
over their head, a kitchen with fire.
She touches her jade bangle, the mother;
arranges the kettle on the wood.
The floor creaks, here comes the child.

Kudos to Audrey Shipp whose memoir piece “How to Eat Grits” appeared in A Gathering Together: Literary Journal.

Life demanded that my sister and I eat weekday breakfasts of cold cereal before school, but we often enjoyed traditional weekend meals that stretched out time ensuring family experience remain in our memory.

On a Saturday morning that didn’t require weekday rushing, Grandmom wore her thin, pale pink house robe with a pajama dress underneath. Her brown legs displayed a sprinkled patchwork of dark moles beneath the robe. Her hair was tied in a rust-colored scarf, darker than her brown skin.

I sat on the kitchen stool and watched as she stood in front of the stove pouring dry grits into a small pot with boiling water. At six years old, my legs didn’t reach the floor. My ten-year-old sister stood nearby in the home we lived in with just Grandmom and our step-grandfather, Hayden.

Congratulations to Gabriella Contratto whose fiction piece “The Floods” was featured in The Tiger Moth Review‘s fifteenth issue.

Until recently, Althea had been a girl who lived by the sea. Her life had been simple, and quite happy. Her father and brother would go fishing every morning in the reef by the village, looking for eels or other delicious fish. Althea would go to the village’s school, and in the afternoon, she and her mother would work in a small shack by the beach, taking the catch and turning it into nilarang. Their nilarang was made with the freshest fish possible and it made their shop one of the most popular on the beach. Locals, after a hard day’s work, would come to the beach to relax and spend time with their family. They would always finish off their day with Althea’s nilarang and praised the family for the tasty dish. American tourists, in their flashy clothes, would giggle over the strange fish in the soup, yet devour it all the same.

But when the typhoon came, the tourists went away. They were unable to fly into the island because the flood waters had risen over the landing strip of the airport. Althea’s father and brother had to stay home and board up the shop as best they could, but the corrugated tin was no match for the howling wind and pounding waves. Their little shop was swept away. The family was disappointed, but it was not the first time that a typhoon had taken from them, and their house further inland had survived better. The family helped their neighbors and began to rebuild the shop, even though the beach had been mostly swept away, and was now seven feet more inland than before.

Shoutout to Azalea Aguilar whose four poems “Sunday Best; Mother Tongue; Late December in DC; You Can Run” appeared in The Mid-Atlantic Review. She also published the poem “Straw Houses” in Yanaguana Volume 1, Issue 1.

I was 8 when she left my father for the last time

One morning I decided to ask about the straws
I’d seen them around before
On top of bookshelves, tucked deep into drawers
Straws cut into smaller pieces

She stumbled through the apartment half awake
Starting her clean of the night before
Counters covered in empty beer bottles, ashtrays overflowing
A couple passed out on our living room floor

What are these?

*Feature image credit to Margaret Gallagher*

May Publication Roundup

As we near the end of Spring and the midpoint of 2021, our WWS members continue to thrive in the publishing world. May was an especially productive publication month for our members. I’ve included in this publication roundup an excerpt from the published pieces (if available) of members who published this month and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.

Congratulations to all those in WWS who published work during the month of May!

Continue reading “May Publication Roundup”

WWS Chapter Roundup: March Publications

A wood plank table with black glasses, a pine cone, a book, typewriter, a journal, pen, and arranged in a semi-circle. There is a text box with the words "Chapter Roundup March" in the bottom center of the image.

As seen on our Join Us! page, Women Who Submit has chapters all across North America! These are just a sample of the work WWS members are getting published:
Publications from the San Francisco Chapter (2)
Lead : Rebecca Gomez Farrell

From L.S. Johnson’s short story, “Properties of Obligate Pearls,” in Issue 020 of New Haven Review:

“You have to know what to look for. Younger, definitely—stones from the elderly are heavy and black, decades of layers dulling the luster. No one wants the weight of a grandmother’s worries around their neck.”

From Ruth Crossman’s “An Election Year” short story in Issue 91 of Sparkle + Blink:

“First the guy from Motorhead dies. On New Year’s Eve the billboards on the venues say RIP Lemmy, and the metal heads hold wakes and mock funeral services in his honor. I’m not a metal head or anything, but it sets a tone.”

Continue reading “WWS Chapter Roundup: March Publications”