Category: Closing the Gap

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Asking “What If” – A Love Letter to Fellow Emerging Writers

In 2021, I was admitted to workshops and received fellowships with Tin House, Macondo, VONA, and the Authentic Voices program via the National Women’s Book Association, my poems and essays were accepted for publication in various venues, and I completed the first full draft of my creative nonfiction manuscript. I somehow did this while surviving a pandemic, working from home with no childcare, and being a single parent/teacher/everything to a fifth grader who was distance learning. And as we shift to a “new normal” this fall, I am still exhausted. There is still so much that is unsaid and unfelt. And yet, I remain hopeful that many of us will retain our virtual communities of care, including our writing communities. That is the way that I survived.

When the world panicked in March 2020, I had nowhere to go but online. I joined Women Who Submit and began attending the weekly Saturday meetings. At first, I doubted whether I truly belonged there because I had internalized the belief that I had to “prove” myself as a writer with external accomplishments, such as publications or awards. But I slowly learned to challenge my mindset. At WWS, rejection letters became “motivation letters” and we applauded each other for writing and for not writing, for trying and for not trying, for hitting “submit” or for not hitting submit. And then we did it all over again. I learned that everything matters, no matter how small, and it opened up something new in me. I had something to say. I filled multiple journals. I started scribbling poems on the backs of receipts again. I began to remember my childhood dream of being a published author. What if?

Asking “what if” led me to have a relationship with my writing, which is to say that I began to have more of a relationship with myself. The page is where I found the fullness of myself. And I claimed myself as a writer while the world was on fire. It felt both marvelous and terrifying. Did I really have the luxury or the audacity or the confidence to be a writer? Yes and yes and yes. I am a writer simply because I say I am.

And yet, no one ever does anything alone. Not even writers. Especially writers. When I drafted my first statements for fellowship applications, the words felt clunky and odd. I didn’t know what I was doing. I feared that I would never be selected for the fellowship. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. But I asked for help anyway because support will always move us closer to our goals. And once I finally crafted one fellowship application that seemed strong, it was easier to tailor it and apply to more workshops and fellowships. At the same time, life happens, and I didn’t worry much if a deadline for a certain opportunity passed. I did what I could at the time and I am okay with it because there will always be more chances.

The first fellowship that I completed was the Authentic Voices program with the National Women’s Book Association (NWBA). Directed by the NWBA President, Natalie Obando, my cohort and I met over the course of four months with her and other guests, including a six-weel writing workshop with the wonderful writer Mireya Vela. As someone without an MFA, I am still learning about so much, and the fellowship taught me about the business of publishing, the art of writing and revising, querying, and other concrete tools that will help me as an emerging writer. It also felt almost surreal to be in a BIPOC-only space where we could understand each other without explaining or censoring ourselves or our writing. And while institutional racism and other forms of inequities remain embedded in traditional publishing, programs like Authentic Voices make me hopeful that more change is coming.

The next workshop was the Tin House summer workshop. At the final happy hour meeting, a fellow participant said that it felt like an entire semester compressed into one week, and I wholeheartedly agree. I was pleasantly surprised that most of the Tin House faculty were BIPOC and they were privileged in the programming for the talks and lectures. However, I did not anticipate how grueling the schedule would be. Each day had over 12 hours of live programming. While all the talks and lectures were recorded, I made arrangements with my job to attend Tin House and so I wanted to use all the time that I could that week. I had meetings with a literary agent and editor, both women of color, who were honest about institutional racism in the publishing industry but encouraging. For the workshop portion, I was both inspired and a bit intimidated to work with the incredible Jaquira Diaz. My cohort and I talked with her about ghosts, speculative nonfiction, and what it means to write into the complexities of our lives. More than anything, Jaquira taught me that anything is possible, including our dreams.

My final workshop was the Macondo writers workshop. While the Macondo schedule was not as time-intensive as Tin House, it also felt rigorous. I was delighted to work with Daisy Hernandez who challenged us to consider space and place in our writing. My cohort and I wrote about mothering, beds, science, childhood homes, hopefulness, and helplessness. I also read a short excerpt of a personal essay during the Macondo open mic which felt like an accomplishment to me because I have not participated in many readings. And yet, at Macondo, the new Macondistas were welcomed with open arms and I felt a sense of belonging. Of all my fellowships so far, Macondo feels the most sentimental to me because I worked with the Chicana feminist writer and Macondista, Carla Trujillo, as an undergraduate. And Macondo’s founder, Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros, was the first book that I ever read that was written by a Chicana. With Macondo, I felt more certain than ever that I am not simply a fan of writers, but I am a writer too.

Even a year ago, I never would have dreamed of having any of these experiences, but here I am. For my fellow emerging writers, don’t give up and remember these phrases.

  1. No means next. I learned this phrase from my friend, Yvette Martinez-Vu, who uses this phrase to help motivate her students. When I submitted to a Tin House workshop for the first time, my application was declined. But when the next round opened up, I applied again and was accepted. No means next, not never. If a venue says no, apply again or somewhere else. Don’t stop.
  2. Your pace is the right pace. What if you did not write today, this week, this month, this year? Or perhaps even many years? It is okay. Whether or not you put pen to paper, you are still a writer, no matter what. Release the guilt and stress. The page will always welcome you back when it’s the right time for you and only you. Your pace is yours.
  3. Ask for help. This one still feels difficult for me even today because asking for help can sometimes mean exposing your vulnerabilities and insecurities. And yet, building relationships with others in the writing community means that there are always friendly folks who are willing to help you with feedback, support, or advice. It is okay to ask for help. In fact, it is necessary. And then the best part is that we can pay it forward by helping the ones coming up after us.
  4. Don’t compare and despair. It is normal to feel jealous, doubtful, or insecure when we compare ourselves to other writers who seem to have all the dream publications, awards, fellowships, book deals, etc. Feel those feelings and then let them go. There’s more than enough for us all and what’s meant for you will not pass you up. And remember, no one else’s success will ever diminish the inherent value of your work.
  5. Lay a brick a day. I saw this phrase in a meme and I immediately loved it. The little things do add up. Even if you write just one sentence a day, it matters. 
  6. The magic is in the mess. Marvel in the mess and then marvel some more because that’s where the magic happens. Stay with the discomfort and the doubts. The right words will come, I promise.

Remember, your writing is worthy. But, even more important than that, you yourself are worthy.

With love,

Cecilia Caballero

Cecilia Caballero is an Afro-Chicana single mother, poet, creative nonfiction writer, teaching artist, speaker, and educator based in Los Angeles. Cecilia is a founding member of the Chicana M(other)work collective and she is co-editor of the book The Chicana Motherwork Anthology: Porque Sin Madres No Hay Revolución (University of Arizona Press 2019). As a teaching artist, Cecilia designs and facilitates poetry workshops for BIPOC folks to cultivate more spaces of healing and social justice. She has been invited to give workshops and talks at numerous institutions and organizations such as UCLA, UC Berkeley, San Diego State University, East Los Angeles College, the University of Arizona, Parenting for Liberation, and more. Cecilia’s prose and poetry is published or forthcoming in Dryland Magazine, Star*Line Magazine, The Nasiona, Raising Mothers, The Acentos Review, Chicana/Latina Studies, Gathering: A Women Who Submit Anthology, and more. Find her on Twitter @la_sangre_llama

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SUBMIT 1: 8th Annual WWS Submission Drive

In years past, we’d called this annual event the “Submission Blitz,” reappropriating a destructive term in pursuit of gender parity and wider representation of marginalized voices in literary publishing. But as the last 20 years has brought unbearable violence punctuated by recent catastrophic times, we at WWS thought it was time for a new direction and outlook.

SUBMIT 1 is the one day out of the year WWS encourages women and nonbinary writers across the globe to send out at least one of their top pieces to one top tier journal as one community. This is no longer about bombarding editors’ desks and slush piles.

SUBMIT 1 is an act of solidarity and faith in our own voices and communities.

WWS hosts quarterly workshops and panels to help demystify the submission process and provide professional development to the writers. One of my personal favorites was “Strategies for Submitting to Contest” in 2016 with Tammy Delatorre, winner of the 2015 Slippery Elm Prose Prize and 2015 Peyton Prize.

On that day she advised us to send our best work, the pieces we loved, the ones we had to see in the world, our absolute favorites. This was an aha moment for me.

If I want an editor to love my work and champion it in their pages, I have to love it first. If I want to turn the heads of the readers at the top journals, the work I send should be top shelf quality.

This year, in our 8th installment of this literary submission drive, I invite you choose one piece of writing, your best and most beloved piece, and do the work of sending it to at least one top journal (Or five!). And when it’s rejected (because chances are it will be), send it out again, and then again, offering as many editors as possible the privilege of reading your work, until you finally find it the right home.

This isn’t an attack. This is an act of love.

How to Participate:

1. Before September 18th, study THIS LIST of “Top Ranked Journals of 2021” with current open calls to find a good fit for your work. Links to guidelines are included.

2. On September 18th, submit one of your best pieces of writing to at least one tier one magazine from where ever you are in the world at any time of day.

3. Notify us on Facebook, Twitter, or IG. Be sure to tag us @womenwhosubmit, so we can celebrate you with lots of claps, cheers, and funny gifs.

4. Hang with us on IG Live at @WomenWhoSubmit from 7am to midnight for a full day special guests, support, and resources. Here is where you can ask WWS members for tips on submitting, get encouragement, or receive LIVE claps for when you hit send.

7am-8am: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (@xochitljulisa) & Lauren Eggert-Crowe (@dazzlecamouflage)

8am-9am: Elizabeth R. Straight

9am-10am: Cybele Garcia Kohel (@cybelegk)

10am-11am: OFFLINE

11am-12pm: Alix Pham (@alixenpham)

12pm-1pm: Thea Pueschel (@theapueschelofficial)

1pm-2pm: Suhasini Yeeda

2pm-3 pm: OFFLINE

3pm-4pm: Toni Ann Johnson (@treeladytoniann)

4pm-5pm: traci kato-kiriyama (@traciakemi1)

5pm-6pm: Deborah Edler-Brown

6pm-7pm: OFFLINE

7pm-8pm: Cassandra Lane (@cassandra.lane71)

8pm-9pm: Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley (@lucyrodriguezhanley)

9pm-10pm: Becca Gomez Farrell (@theGourmez)

5. After submitting, fill out THIS FORM to help us track how many submissions were sent out, which will help us in our continued mission towards gender parity and wider representation of marginalized voices in literary publishing.

Submission Drive Origins:

After the first VIDA Count was published in 2009 illustrating the dearth of women’s voices in tier one publications, members of VIDA, Women in Literary Arts, began asking the editors of these journals why they thought the numbers were unbalanced. The most common answer was women don’t submit as often as men. In response, Women Who Submit and the monthly submission party was created in 2011 to support women and nonbinary writers in submitting their work for publication in order to raise the number of such voices coming across editors’ desks.

Our annual submission drive is a call to writers to submit their well-crafted and cared for work en masse to tier-one literary journals that historically have shown gender disparities in their publications. It is a call to action. Our first WWS submission drive was in September 2014 at Hermosillo Bar in Highland Park, CA.

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Submissions: The Harsh Reality and How to Improve Your Odds

By Thea Pueschel

First published by Shut Up & Write  June 3, 2021

A rejection letter leaves many writers devastated. For years, I would submit one to three pieces a year to literary magazines, and if the work received a rejection, it became dead to me. My nonfiction wellness articles had a 98% acceptance rate, leading me to believe I would have no problem getting my fiction and creative nonfiction published. I did not know about the incredibly low acceptance rates of literary magazines. 

There are finite spaces to fill in the literary world, though the internet itself seems infinite. Writers hoping to be published in top-tier literary magazines are faced with startlingly low acceptance rates. According to Duotrope, The New Yorker magazine accepted only 0.14% of 1,447 unsolicited submissions received in a year. The lower-tier magazine Split Lip received 938 unsolicited submissions that same year, and only 0.11% were accepted. 

- Find & Share on GIPHY

Rejection feels personal, though it isn’t. It’s a numbers game, even with smaller publications. To prove this, I reached out to Viva Padilla, the editor-in-chief of the annual literary magazine Dryland, and asked her about the submission statistics for her publication. “The most submissions we have ever received [for a single issue] was over 1000,” she said. “Every issue has about 50-55 publishing spots available, with around 40 reserved for poetry.” I did the math. That equates to an acceptance rate of 1%-1.5% for a work of fiction. For poetry, the odds are slightly better at 5%. That’s a rejection rate of 95-99%. The acceptance rate is higher compared to Split Lip and The New Yorker, but even then most of the work is rejected due to space limitations, among other reasons.

The work Dryland publishes is primarily through open calls. Most literary magazines and journals solicit work from writers they know or those with name recognition, presenting an entry barrier to emerging or unrepresented writers. In her 2015 article for The Atlantic, acclaimed writer Joy Lanzendorfer made two interesting assertions. First, that the average published story is likely rejected 20 times before being published; second, that slush pile submissions only account for 1-2% of published work. Simply put, most of the work you see in the literary spaces is based on connection or writer recognition. Despite the rejection stats, and the reality of how many times it takes for a story to stick to a magazine’s pages, this emphasizes the importance of being an active member of the writing community. Editors solicit work from people they know. To be known you have to be an active member of the literary community.

A few years ago, I became a member of Women Who Submit (WWS), a nonprofit focused on elevating the voices of BIPOC, women, and nonbinary writers. This organization helped me see behind the literary curtain. Various members have taken time to offer me guidance and mentorship through both the submission and rejection process. WWS showcases the importance of relationships and elevating each other’s voices. The reality is that writers who know writers get published more, and all editors of literary magazines are writers themselves.

Since having my eyes opened by WWS, I have become a member of other writing communities, including Shut Up and Write. Outside of my WWS bubble, I have seen that other writers in various spaces struggle with the inevitability of rejection like I did. I hope this helps reduce the sting of rejection, and I would encourage you to submit again and again until your work finds its literary home.

Recently, I received a really nice standard rejection from Zyzzyva. The last paragraph said, “I would like to say something to make up for this ungraciousness, but the truth is we have so little space, we must return almost all the work that is submitted, including a great deal that interests us and even some pieces we admire. Inevitably, too, we make mistakes.”

I asked Christopher James, the editor-in-chief of the five-year-old Jellyfish Review, how often his magazine rejects stories they love because of lack of space. He responded, “We frequently say no to a lot of very strong stories, we would never say no to something we loved. We often accept imperfect pieces because we’ve fallen in love with them and hope our readers might fall in love with them too.” As the newer journal matures, they too may have to say no to work they admire. At the moment though, if they read your work and love it they’ll make space for it. Most journals have a limitation and only accept a certain amount of work—Jellyfish is the exception, not the rule.

Rejection is part of the process of getting your work out into the world. Should you default to younger journals? You can, but I believe that as a writer you should submit to the journals that speak to you, the magazines that you envision as a perfect fit. Familiarize yourself with the work they publish, follow their submission guidelines, and keep submitting work that aligns with their aesthetic. It will increase your chances of acceptance.

Even though stats are against them, many writers still manage to succeed, and you could be one of them. I reached out to the writers I know and asked if anyone had received multiple rejections only for a piece to be published later. Carla Sameth, author of “One Day on the Goldline: A Memoir in Essays” shared that her personal essay, “If This Is So, Why Am I?” was rejected 22 times before it was published in The Nervous Breakdown, only to be selected as notable for The Best American Essays of 2019. Just because something receives multiple rejections does not mean it isn’t worthy of recognition, accolades, or publishing. It left me wondering if those other 22 magazine editors felt they missed their window and had inevitably made a mistake.

I asked Kate Maruyama, the author of my favorite novella of 2020, “Family Solstice,” about her experience. Eighteen editors rejected her first novel “Harrowgate” before it was purchased. A short story of hers was rejected 35 times before being published. “For the short story, rejection number 10 was from Roxane Gay when she was reading for a journal,” Maruyama explained. “She said it wasn’t right for that journal but that it was a damn fine story.” Those words of encouragement along with her writing community kept Maruyama submitting.

To improve your odds and to keep a stiff upper lip when rejection inevitably finds its way to your inbox, here are some pointers to help ease the painful experience:

Take resubmission requests seriously. If a magazine rejects a written piece of yours but asks you to resubmit, they are not being nice. They don’t have time to be nice. They enjoy your work! Resubmit.

Familiarize yourself with the places you want to submit. If editors keep telling you that your work doesn’t fit their publication, read the publication. If you can’t access the publication because of monetary restrictions, look for copies in your local library or read the work of the writers who have recently been published by the magazine or journal. A Google search of the author will find other work of theirs that you can read for free. Compare their aesthetic to your own. Are you a fit? Then it’s a good place to submit!

Make sure your work is submission-ready. This is the number one sin of writers, according to Viva Padilla. Dryland doesn’t edit poetry; “…we expect poems to be ready to go,” she said. “When it comes to fiction and nonfiction that gets rejected, it’s mostly work that doesn’t seem to have a focus where we’re left wondering, what was that about?” Workshop your work with other writers and make sure to check your grammar before you submit.

Don’t expect an editor to provide feedback. If a magazine rejected you without giving a reason, pestering an editor for the “why” will quickly slam doors on future opportunities. Personalized rejections are rare. They are nice when they come in, but an editor doesn’t owe you a reason.

The reality is slush piles at literary magazines are immense, and many editors are volunteers or minimally compensated. These magazines are mostly labors of love for the written word. Rejection may seem personal, but it’s not. Even literary magazine editors get rejections from other publications. The more you submit, the greater the chance your work will find a literary home. The more time you take to prepare and research the best market for your work, the greater your odds for acceptance. Don’t be discouraged when you get a no. Look over your work and see if there are any structural or grammatical issues. If not, submit it again ASAP. If there are errors, fix them and send your piece out again.

Bottom line: it’s time to Shut Up & Submit!

Thea Pueschel is a writer, multi-media artist, and the winner of the TAEM 2020 Flash Fiction Summer Contest. Thea enjoys exploring the dark with light and the light with dark and a firm believer that without the shadow art and literature has less soul. 
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Together We Thrive: Encouraging Women Through Writing and Workplace Communities

By Daria E. Topousis

In 2015, I felt like my whole world was coming apart. I had spent ten years writing a memoir that never came together and had finally made the hard decision to abandon it. I had returned to my first love, fiction, but all of the stories I sent out were being rejected. I was a failure as a writer. I started to wonder if I should give up on my life-long dream. And then I read an article in Poets & Writers Magazine about an organization called Women Who Submit. The story of how women stop submitting after a few rejections hit close to home, and I loved how the founders wanted to change that. I showed up to my first meeting about a year later and knew I wanted to be part of this community. 

Around the same time, I was floundering at work. I had worked in software at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for twenty years. It was the lifeline that kept me financially and intellectually tethered, despite the vicissitudes of my writing life. A group of new managers were hired in my organization, and I was suddenly feeling unwelcome in the male-dominated technology world. I was starting to wonder if I should leave my software project management career altogether and find something else to do to earn a living. This struggle went on for a couple of years, and in the heart of it I went to a conference called the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC). I was blown away by how welcoming everyone was, despite the fact that it was an enormous conference (15,000 attendees that year). I went to tracks where women told stories similar to my own. By the end of the event, I decided I was not going to walk away from my career. No, I was going to stay and try to bring this spirit of support back with me. I wanted to have that encouragement and enthusiasm every day, not just once per year. So I organized a meeting of women who had attended GHC to see if they were interested in forming some kind of community at JPL.

Fifteen women showed up to our first meeting. We talked about the conference, and about how it had been a morale booster for all of us when we attended (all at different times). We decided we wanted to continue meeting, but what would we focus on? We scheduled a second meeting to figure that out. Women who had attended the first meeting started spreading the word so that by our second meeting forty people showed up. We talked about our struggles, our achievements, and suggestions for future meeting topics. I also asked if anyone would be willing to help manage the group, and several volunteered. And so Women in Tech began. 

From the beginning, we wanted to be a peer-to-peer network that would foster each other’s careers, support each other at work, and learn from each other. In dialog with some of the early members, I realized how much women in science and technology have in common with writers. Like women who give up after their writing is rejected, women will not apply for a job if they don’t get it on the first attempt. An internal report at Hewlett Packard, which was widely publicized through books like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, showed that women wait until they’re 100 percent qualified for a position (men apply when they are 60 percent qualified) before they apply. I realized many of us were suffering from imposter syndrome and self-doubt. One of my favorite parts of Women Who Submit is the submission party: a coworking space where when someone sends a piece of writing off to a journal, everyone in the room cheers. It helps us associate positivity with the normally nerve-wracking process of sending our work into the world, and also gives us control of when and how we submit. I decided we needed something similar at JPL. I loved that submitting work had become something to brag about, as had rejections (the WWS monthly submission brag is a comment board where members can share their latest rejections for support). So, in one of our early Women in Tech meetings, we asked anyone who had taken a risk in their career to stand up. A risk could be applying for a new job, sending a paper in for a conference or peer-reviewed journal, or having a talk with your manager about your career. When the risk-takers stood up, we applauded. This was a huge success, and at our next meeting women wanted to share what kind of risk they took. After that we spent time hearing about what women were doing and celebrating their bravery. They can’t control whether they get a job or whether their paper gets accepted in a peer-reviewed journal, but they can control whether or not they try. 

Soon women were approaching me at work to introduce themselves and tell me about a risk they took because they heard other women’s stories. Women were applying to be conference chairs, to be part of big initiatives in their field, and were starting to stand up for each other in meetings when they felt like another woman’s voice wasn’t being heard. We were encouraging each other to be brave. 

We also introduced the idea of giving a shout-out to anyone who had done something as an advocate or ally. Maybe they stood up for your ideas in a meeting. Maybe they pushed you to apply for a role you didn’t think about going for yourself. We also started peer-to-peer training on impostor syndrome, negotiating for yourself, and tips for applying for jobs within JPL. 

Now, three years after starting, we have 350 members who are supporting each other, building each other up, and connecting with mentors. When the pandemic hit, we moved to virtual meetings. We now have anywhere from 75-250 people on our calls. And they aren’t just women. We are also open to non-binary professionals and to any men who want to be allies. Even when we are alone in our homes working, we know we have colleagues who have our backs and who are there to lend an ear or give advice. New employees are building their networks and finding friends through our community. 

As for me, I know I will stick it out in this field. This year I celebrated my 25th anniversary working at JPL. I am still writing too. I’m sending work out, both fiction and nonfiction. I have learned to celebrate my successes and my failures. I have my confidence back and I owe it to all the amazing women in my life, both in Women Who Submit and Women in Tech. I am grateful for Women Who Submit for providing this model of how to build supportive communities that believe in a tide that raises all ships. Together we thrive.

Women writer with two tone hair and a teal shirt in front of a light colored wall

Daria E. Topousis is a prose writer and a software project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 2020 she received the Equal Opportunity Medal, a NASA Honor Award, for her work building Women in Tech. 

This work was done as a private venture and not in the author’s capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. The content has not been approved or adopted by NASA, JPL, or the California Institute of Technology. Any views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of NASA, JPL, or the California Institute of Technology.

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Why I Will No Longer Advise Poets Against Publishing on Social Media

Because Elijah McClain was just going home.

Because Breonna Taylor was home.

Because Dominique Rem’mie Fells deserved everything she hoped for.

Because George Floyd called for his mama.

Because news reports call Andrés Guardado a man, but he was barely on his way to becoming one.

Because over 130,000 people have died of Covid in the US, and people still call it just the flu.

Because Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died of the flu on a cold cement floor with no family to comfort him.

Because Toyin Salau needed refuge.

Because Vanessa Guillen needed help.

Because Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Angie Valeria needed a chance.

Because Sandra Bland didn’t kill herself.

Because Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe was stolen from the Lakota.

Because Standing Rock protects the water.

Because Flint still doesn’t have clean water.

Because all people have to do is wear masks and wash their hands.

Because for some words can’t ever be clean enough for their standards.

Because Elijah McClain said, That’s my house. I was just going home.

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Idle Hands and Roti

A stack of round and orange sweet potato roti in a red towel.

By Thea Pueschel

Welcome to the brave new world, where your commute (unless you are an essential worker) is from your bed to the couch. Perhaps you are feeling a bit judgmental. With so much extra time on your hands, the thought I should be writing might be circling your brain. 

For those who are new to working from home or have an ample amount of time due to being furloughed or being laid off, you may have realized that a 1-hour task can take 16 hours. The lack of structure, and the ability to make your schedule, might have you reeling for normalcy and discipline. Reeling seems to be a symptom of the pandemic. 

My father, the king of ADHD and distraction, likes to say about himself, “It doesn’t take me all day to do an all-day job, it just might take me all day to get there.” Going from a film studio corporate structure with set hours and workload to being my own boss– I hate to say it, but I resemble that remark, especially with my inherited ADHD. 

This thing called time organization might be new to you. I’ll be honest; it can be a struggle at the best of times.

Time travel is weird, y’all. You don’t even need a time machine to do it. Your mind might be rushing to the future. What will the world look like after this? Your mind might be on the present. Do I have another roll of toilet paper? Your mind might be in the past. I miss XYZ; I felt so much happier then. You might find yourself in a time loop, repeating the same time thoughts over and over again.

These days I see friends and colleagues lament on social media about their lack of productivity, and unsure of where the time has gone. I know where— time travel. The mind cannot be in the present if it’s occupied with the future or the past. Pandemics are great time traveling devices as there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties.

Remember the old idiom idle hands are the tools of the devil or another version of it idle hands are the devil’s playthings. Folks often believe this expression came from the bible, but we can thank Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee (1405) for the proverb. The character Melibeus says, “Dooth somme goode dedes, that the deuel, which is oure enemy, ne fynde yow nat vnocupied.” My translation of that is, stay busy, so the devil doesn’t find you some work. My interpretation is biased by my experience. Growing up, if my sisters or I said we were bored, there was always a woodpile or brick pile that we would have to move from one side of the yard to the other and served no other purpose. Amazingly, it cured us of boredom, or perhaps it just taught us sublimation.

To me, the idiom is not so much about falling prey to sin; it’s about how the mind can reel, how time travel happens when we are not otherwise occupied. Doing something with your hands can be very grounding. It can help disrupt the time loop. They say gardening and baking can help you feel more grounded, but maybe you don’t have the resources to do that. I have a two-ingredient sweet potato roti recipe for you. Works on a hotplate or stovetop. It will give you the opportunity to smash, knead, flatten, and roll. I dare you to attempt to time travel while making this. 

2 Cups flour of your choice (I use Bob Mills 1-to-1)

2 Cups sweet potato 

Pinch of salt (optional)

Flour for dusting

Steam the sweet potato(s), let it cool slightly. Peel the skin off the sweet potato when it is cool enough to touch. Mash it with a fork or potato masher until it is mashed really well, or all your existential angst is gone. Then stir in the flour. Knead to mix well, until dough forms. Divide into 12 balls. Put one ball on a flour-dusted surface, flatten it with your hand, then use a rolling pin to flatten it even more to about 2mm. Heat a skillet on medium heat. Once hot, place one roti at a time, flipping it after 2 minutes each side. If you don’t want to make 12, match equal parts sweet potato and flour, it will still work. The roti also freezes well. 

After you have paid the devil his due, and enjoy the roti, it’s time to wash your hands and get back to writing.

Dark-haired woman writer in a black top, leaning against a green wall.

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

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WWS at the Start of 2020

Three women writers of color sitting at a table discussing the validity of writing programs. WWS banner in blue and green is displayed behind them.

By Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

February has been exciting! WWS partnered with #DignidadLiteraria and Antioch University Los Angeles to host the conversation, “Latinos and the Crisis in U.S. Publishing,” addressing the American Dirt and Flatiron controversy first ignited by Myriam Gurba’s review, “Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature” published at Tropics of Meta. The panel conversation featured, Roxane Gay (founder of Gay Mag), Myriam Gurba (author of Mean), Romeo Guzman (editor at Tropics of Meta), Christopher Soto (cofounder of Undocupoets), Wendy C. Ortiz (author of Excavation), and moderated by yours truly. The night included a community conversation where those in the audience were invited to share their own grievances and solutions. You can see coverage of the night from L.A. Times, or watch the full conversation on the WWS Facebook page.

Writers of color sitting at a long table with microphones speaking on a panel on the crisis of Latinx writers in publighing.
From left to right: Christopher Soto, Myriam Gurba, Romeo Guzman, Roxane Gay, Wendy C. Ortiz.

This past weekend we hosted our first public workshop of 2020 at the Exposition Park Regional Library. Saturday, February 8th, we began at 10am with “Should I Go?” a discussion on applying to and attending creative writing programs with Dana Johnson, Sara Borjas, and Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera. They talked about financial barriers, family expectations, traversing white spaces, and more. You can catch the full conversation on the WWS Facebook page. At this event we also gifted five regrants to WWS members to offset submission fees. Our next regrants will be offered in May.

We are excited to announce the release of our very first anthology, ACCOLADES, edited by Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera and Rachael Warecki and published by Jamii Publishing. Join us Thursday, March 5th at 4pm at La Botanica in San Antonio for our AWP release party featuring Sakae Manning, Désirée Zamorano, Cybele Garcia Kohel, Kate Maruyama, Cynthia Carlson, Heather Romero Kornblum, Sehba Sarwar, Tanya Ko Hong, Mia Nakaji Monnier, Leticia Urieta, and hosted by Noriko Nakada. This anthology was made possible by the Center for Cultural Innovation, Investing in Tomorrow grant.

Mexican-American woman with short black hair, yellow top and red-lipped smile

New this month, we welcome back former “Claps and Cheers” editor, Ramona Pilar Gonzales with her new series, “Storytelling in Action,” which highlights interesting, alternative professional applications for (creative) writing skills and experience: podcasting, marketing, content creation/development, and whatever else there might be! Ramona Pilar Gonzales writes plays, prose, and songs. Her works have been produced around Los Angeles, published online and in print, and performed across Southern California. Her dramatized essay “Del Plato a la Boca” was produced via a grant from La Plaza Cultura y Artes Foundation.

Here at the WWS website, we offer new content every Wednesday. Be sure to visit us each week for new writing from “Submitting on a Budget” with Lisbeth Coiman, “Closing the Gap” with Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, “Storytelling in Action” with Ramona Pilar Gonzales, “Breathe and Push” with Noriko Nakada, and “WWS Publication Round Up” with Laura K. Warrell published on the last day of the month. And check out our guidelines and consider submitting an essay to any of the above.

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

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How I Came to Host a #DignidadLiteraria Read-In

Protest posters, one with the words "I grew up crossing the border on Saturday mornings. #dignidadliteraria" surrounded by #ownvoices books.

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

When I first saw the Vroman’s Bookstore event for American Dirt had been cancelled I thought to call up a new guy and set up a date for Tuesday now that my night was clear, but then I waited. I remembered the #DignidadLiteraria manifesto just out from Myriam Gurba, David Bowles, and Roberto Lovato. I went back and read their call to actions and thought, what if something else took its place?

At first I waited to see if something was already in the works. I mean, the call had already been put out to protest the event. People were ready, but I waited to see who might still be going. A few others asked the same question on Twitter. I sent a DM to Myriam–whose critique of AD was the first voice of dissent on the issue–asking if anything was being planned and waited for a response.

I know Myriam through the LA literary scene, we once featured together, but I don’t know her really, and yet, her words have saved me.

When the El Paso shooting happened on August 3, 2019 killing 22 people and injuring 24 others, and the news came out that the shooter was targeting Mexicans, I was horrified and heartbroken. Later that same week my family gathered for our annual summer pool party, and when I panned across the 80+ family members in their different shades of brown, I thought if a person wanted to kill Mexicans we were an easy target gathered in the open and covered in nothing but swimsuits and sunshine at a public El Monte pool. It’s as if we were flaunting it. I should have been laughing with my tías and racing my nieces, but instead I kept a watch on the entrance gate and marked every new arrival who came through looking out for any persons I didn’t know.

That week I was scared silent.

But Myriam had words. On August 5th, just two days after the horrific event, she had this to share on Instagram.

Simple. To the point. And yet, one of the hardest things to say in that moment. Through her words on social media, I felt seen and not alone. She helped me find my bravery again.

I may not know Myriam, but I know it isn’t easy being that one voice time and time again, and so when I hadn’t heard back via Twitter I thought, She doesn’t always have to do the heavy lifting. I, too, can do something at Vroman’s. It’s my local bookstore, after all, and Myriam can be the one to call up a honey and enjoy her night.

So that’s what I did.

I started by emailing a call to my friends and organizers, a list of people I actually see and work with and trust on a regular. Most sent back encouraging regrets and maybes if traffic was kind. It was a Tuesday night, and though I’m a San Gabriel Valley local, most of my compatriots are not. I pushed on.

Next I put the call out on social media. Though I don’t have a big following, I figured I might catch a few people, and thankfully, others reposted the call as well. Over a day, I had two people confirmed to join.

The morning of I woke with the idea to reach out to Vroman’s and see if they’d officially host us. They had the space going unused, and maybe if I had this piece of the puzzle more people would join. They said no, but that an #ownvoices event is in the works for March 21st. Would I like to be involved?

Sure.

Was what I wrote out in the reply email but didn’t press send. I left the computer for a while and went on to get ready for the day and drive to work. On the drive, where I do my most intense thinking, I drafted a response in my head. When I arrived at the office, I sent it off.

“I appreciate Vroman’s planning an #ownvoices reading in March, but I find it unfortunate that the organization doesn’t see value in having two #ownvoices events. You have an opportunity to support your local immigrant and children of immigrant communities as well as other readers and writers of color by opening up a space [that] is currently going unused. While the March event will likely feature books and writers already on your shelves, this is a chance give space to indie, emerging, and newer writers who are currently hurting from lack of representation and support in publishing. 

I hope you reconsider.  Thanks for your time. “

By now it was noon, and I had told people to meet at Vroman’s at 7pm. I waited.

The Vroman’s rep wrote back that they would still not host us without time to promote, but they would be interested in collaborating on such an event with me. This seemed good: open communication and a possible future event featuring my fellow writers. The questions became, Do I call off the event? Do I tell Vroman’s we’re already planning to be there?

I reached out to two trusted friends, and one was available for feedback. After some more thought, I sent a reply.

“Thank you for the invitation to work on either the March 21st event or a separate event. I appreciate your interest in building bridges with local writers of color both already featured at Vroman’s and those not yet on the shelves. I do want to work with you on a future event. 

The idea to host a reading tonight came out of a call from #DignidadLiteraria–a collective created by Myriam Gurba, David Bowles, and Roberto Lovato–to organize read-ins and other actions, and the canceling of the AD event felt the perfect time to act in solidarity with the work they’ve been doing. I do have a small group of people interested in coming out tonight. I know you can’t host us at this time, but would it be possible for us to gather in the outside courtyard at 7pm? I would encourage people to patron the store to buy Marcelo’s book and other picks from the #ownvoices displays.

I want to honor the store’s wishes and continue this conversation beyond today, but I still feel compelled to join with people tonight in either in the courtyard or another space close by.”

Vroman’s gave us permission to gather in the courtyard.

At 6pm, friend and advocate, Désirée Zamorano treated me to a quick happy hour bite and glass of wine down the street. At 6:30pm I brought out my roll-away amp and speaker, a few blank posters, Sharpies, and an armload of #ownvoices books and started setting up.

On one poster I wrote: “I grew up crossing the border on Saturday mornings.”

The publishing industry (and movie industry) believes in only one portrayal of the border, but I actually grew up going to Tijuana with my parents for day shopping trips. We’d buy school shoes, Christmas presents, and inventory for their concession stand at Pico Rivera Sports Arena. My weekends were spent in three places: my grandmother’s house in Boyle Heights, shopping malls in Tijuana, and selling candy to Tigres del Norte fans in Pico Rivera, but that’s not the border story big publishing wants to hear. I tell it anyway.

Right at 7pm, friends Kate Maruyama, Lauren Eggert-Crowe, Ashaki M. Jackson, and Luivette Resto walked up. I encouraged people to write their own messages on posters provided, and we displayed the words with the books I brought.

At 7:15 we began with Désirée Zamorano reading her essay “Scarification” published at Acentos Review. Next up was F. Douglas Brown reading a basketball poem in honor of the fallen star and father, Kobe Bryant. Sehba Sarwar read from her newly released novel, Black Wings and shared how it was difficult for her to publish the book because publishers and editors wanted to put her in a box she did not belong in. Angela M. Sanchez shared an essay on the colonization of the ahuácatl/aguacate/avocado. Josh Evans read poems about his Black experience and wanting to fit in. Luivette Resto read work from Judith Ortiz Cofer and Puerto Rican ancestral poet, Julia de Burgos. I closed out with a poem from Sara Uribe’s Antígona González and my poem “To Be the Daughter of Immigrants” about those Pico Rivera days.

By 8:15 we were done and the audience had grown to about 20. People coming in and out of the store had stopped by to listen. A mother and daughter sat right up front for the whole thing. When I talked to them after, I found out that they had come out to see what American Dirt was all about. “All I knew was Oprah picked it,” the mother said and laughed that maybe that was a poem. The daughter talked about a writer coming to visit her class. They were happy to have found us. I met a shy Latinx librarian. I met booksellers and a rep from the the publisher, and looking back now, I wish I could have talked to more people.

In the end, I’m glad we were able to gather together, and I’m thankful for those who showed support along the way. If I were to do it over, I would have brought more books to display and asked my friends to amplify the call sooner so more people could join, but in the end, I’m happy for all the waiting and starting small.

This is all to say, You, too, can host a #DignidadLiteraria read-in. I hope you do. One thing I take from Myriam Gurba is we cannot be silent.

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

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

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

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

Dear writers,

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

And enjoy these words of encouragement from Danez Smith.

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

To you reaching the next stage in your journey!

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

BUILDING UP TO EMERGING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cheers to 2019!

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

Dearest Writers,

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

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

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

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

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

In 2019 we also hosted the following workshops and panels:

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

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

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

August: Tier One Submission Strategies with Désirée Zamorano

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

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

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

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

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Director of Women Who Submit