Closing the Gap – Page 7 – Women Who Submit

February 10, 2016

The Art of Submitting to Writing Contests

by Tammy Delatorre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 3, 2016

Reconciling the Tug of War Between Teaching and Writing

by Ryane Nicole Granados

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

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

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

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

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

Rule #1: Recognize and Accept There is No Such Thing as Balance
Maybe you are a morning person and dawn is the best time for your creative juices to flow. That’s great, except for that one semester where you end up teaching an 8 a.m. class and have to brave traffic and your son’s third-grade drop off all before teaching English 110. It is in this space where you must adapt and embrace the fact that your commitment to writing means nurturing that relationship in a more flexible fashion. In my case, my writing process most resembles one of those cartoon bombs from the 19th century. I have a slow-burning match cord filled with ideas that I tuck away during various times of the day. On my work commute, while waiting at my son’s drum practice, or even in my dreams, the fuse continues to burn. Eventually, it reaches the gunpowder and explodes. It’s at this time that I write feverishly. Oftentimes I’m inspired in the early morning, but I’ve learned that if that time slot isn’t available I must strive to write in whatever interval I can unearth. Same thing goes for marathon grading and there are definite weeks where one priority takes slight precedent over the other. Unlike the Shaw reference, one adage I can uphold is “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Following those off weeks, namely finals week, where my writing takes a major back seat, when I do return to the page I often produce some of my better work. Without guilt or shame, I sit down. I greet my characters. I start again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 27, 2016

A Tax Primer For Writers

by Michelle Joy Lander

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

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

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

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

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

Deductions allowed include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 20, 2016

Less is More: On Decluttering Our Lives & Writing

by Stephanie Abraham

Brazilian Artists Create Labyrinth Using 250,000 Books — (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Since New Year’s Eve, my social media stream has been brimming with friends’ resolutions to declutter their lives, purging negative relationships, thoughts and behaviors. Inspired by their resolve but clueless as to how to start, I asked my friend for advice. She told me about the Japanese decluttering queen, Marie Kondo who says, “Anything that doesn’t make you happy or isn’t absolutely necessary should be touched, thanked and sent on its way.”

I wanted in. I decided to give away enough books to fit the remaining ones onto two bookshelves, eliminating the piles that had accumulated throughout the house. Even before starting, however, I felt defeated.

“How can a writer let go of her books?” I whined to my honey, heartsick by the thought of parting with the texts that have helped me understand the world and my craft.

“Scan them,” he responded, knowing it would annoy me. He has no patience for my emotional ties to paper. If I had to live with me – and my piles – I wouldn’t either.

As I started to sort through the piles of books, rather than purge, I began to read. I picked up William Zinnser’s On Writing Well, whose advice calms me. His premise? “If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” Music to my ears.

“Clutter is the disease of American writing,” he asserts. “We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.”

We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, yet, our attention spans are shorter than ever so we’re less likely to absorb it. In the U.S., people spend on average 40 minutes a day on Facebook, but fewer than half actually finish an article they click on.

“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,” Zinnser advises. “Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who’s doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.”

So how to declutter our writing? Regardless of genre, if a word or phrase isn’t absolutely necessary, it should be touched, thanked and sent on its way. Also, I find these three tricks essential:

Stick to Your Point

I write the thesis of my argument or the desired outcome of a scene at the top of my screen (or paper when writing in a notebook) and refer back to it often. If what I’ve written doesn’t support the main point, and unless it’s going to pay off later, I eliminate it.

This isn’t easy. It sometimes requires deleting beautifully poetic passages, but if they don’t feed the main argument, they distract.

I save deleted work in a document entitled, “Cuts.” That way I can refer to my treasured deletions later and feel like their existence was not in vain.

Read Your Work Aloud

Once I got over feeling weird and self-conscious about this technique, I realized how crucial it is. Any place you ”bump”– whether it’s a tongue twister or just sounds odd –that’s where you should cut and tinker. If it doesn’t flow out loud, it won’t read well on the page.

That’s not to say you should write as if you’re talking. “Actually,” “like,” and “oh my God” are common in conversation (perhaps more so in L.A. than other places) but cumbersome when written. We might say aloud, “Like I was saying,” but when writing, we should just say it.

Use a Red Pen

Yes – a la first grade teacher. Print out your work and get to it! Zinnser recommends using brackets around (rather than striking through) words and passages that aren’t absolutely essential to the meaning of a sentence. The brackets allow you to see that the sentence works, and is usually cleaner, without the extra words. Eventually, you’ll be able to spot the clutter on your screen without using that dreaded red pen. My honey’s hoping to find a red pen to eradicate my piles of books!

Decluttering our lives – and our writing – is a discipline worth practicing. Fewer words can communicate clearer and in a way that readers may actually read.

Stephanie Abraham is a writer and media critic based in Los Angeles. In addition to completing three puppy obedience classes with her goldendoodle, she’s completed a Master in Professional Writing at USC and a Master of Art in Cultural Studies at Cal State LA. Follow her on Twitter @AbrahamSteph.

January 13, 2016

On Getting Into The Huffington Post: Approach from Another Angle

by Alana Saltz

When I first started writing essays, I knew that I wanted to become a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post. It’s one of the largest and most trafficked publications in the world, providing an invaluable platform for a fledgling writer like myself.

But getting into HuffPo wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Unlike other publications I’ve managed to get my work in, it would take several attempts—as well as a few different tactics—to land that coveted “Contributing Blogger” title.

When I started submitting essays to The Huffington Post, I used my standard approach. I submitted an article, waited a few weeks, and then submitted another. When a few more weeks passed with no response, I tried one more time.

Each submission was sent to the same category, “Healthy Living,” because my writing at the time focused on mental health. And each time I submitted an article, I received no response whatsoever.

I realized that it was time to approach the situation from another angle. My mother happens to be a contributing blogger for HuffPo after getting connected with an editor through one of her contacts. I decided to try out the same approach and asked her to connect me with her editor. We exchanged a couple of emails, and the editor assured me that my articles were being passed on to the right people at “Healthy Living.” After two months of waiting, there was still absolutely no response.

I was ready to give up hope. I told myself that HuffPo wasn’t the right fit for me. They didn’t like my writing. I wasn’t marketable enough. I should just stop trying. I should give up.

But then I wrote an article that was different than the kinds of articles I’d been writing before. It was about the Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, and how the newest season dealt with the subject of depression. After getting the pitch rejected from Salon, I decided I might as well send it off to HuffPo because it seemed like it would be a good fit.

I chose “Entertainment” as my category for the post and sent it off at a Women Who Submit meeting without any expectations. A few days later, I received an email from an “Entertainment” editor informing me that my piece was going to be published. She sent me the information to set up my account, and I officially became a Huffington Post Contributing Blogger. I was absolutely thrilled.

Once my article, “What Orange is the New Black Gets Right About Depression,” was posted, I submitted an article that had previously been rejected by the “Healthy Living” section. To my surprise, it was also published a few days later…in the “Healthy Living” section. I’m now able to submit pretty much any article I want, and as a contributor, it goes right through.

The entire process from first submission to eventual publication took about eight months and six separate essay submissions. It would have been easy to give up on becoming a HuffPo contributor after any of these attempts and approaches failed. It took rethinking my approach and submitting a different kind of piece to a different set of editors to finally get published on the site.

The thing I’ve learned about getting published is that it’s not just about trying again and again. Persistence and patience aren’t always enough. Sometimes you need to switch gears and approach something from a new angle to get your foot in the door.

Alana Saltz is a writer, freelance editor, and occasional ukulele rocker residing in Los Angeles. Her essays can be found in The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, HelloGiggles, RoleReboot, The Manifest-Station, and more. You can visit her website at alanasaltz.com and follow her on Twitter @alanasaltz.

January 6, 2016

On Saying Yes: Fight the Fear

by Kate Maruyama

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Eight years ago, I had two small kids and had sunk whole-heartedly into the motherhood thing. I was working reading scripts for money, which I did at home after the kids had gone to sleep. I was writing screenplays because that’s what I always did, but otherwise I didn’t have to see people much or be out in the world. I loved my kids, and that part of my life was all consuming, exhausting, hilarious and exhilarating, but I had unwittingly cut off an entire part of myself. My brain was occupied with planning meals, organizing around toddler sleep patterns, childhood illnesses and, honestly, thoughts of when which kid had pooped last. It was easier to call myself a stay at home mom than a failed screenwriter. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of my thinking self.

But when my youngest was about to go off to kindergarten, and my screenwriting career hadn’t so much happened, I got overwhelmingly and completely depressed. This was not helped by the fact that my five year old daughter asked, “Why do Daddies work and Mommies stay home?” My own daughter, who was meant to be a third generation feminist, was making sense of the world in a way I hadn’t envisioned at all. My idea of a career had all but evaporated and the script reading work was on the wane, reducing my monetary contribution to the family considerably.

What could I possibly do next? What at all did I have to offer by way of career or even basic income? Despite my extensive experience in the film industry and in screenwriting, I learned that I couldn’t teach screenwriting without a Masters. Going to grad school in something I’d spent fifteen years working at and feeling like a failure at felt defeatist. A friend told me about Antioch’s MFA in Creative Writing program and my first knee jerk reaction was, “I can’t do grad school! I wasn’t even good at college! How could I do grad school?” Everything I thought of was met with a fearful, internal, “no.” Finally, I went down to campus for an informational meeting, and learned about Antioch’s social justice mission and its focus on creating a writing life. It felt like coming home. So after having written one pretty terrible novel on my own, I applied. I needed schooling. And I needed to start saying yes, even though I was afraid.

Only when I came home high from my first residency, a ten day whirl of writing workshops, lectures, new friendships, from using my brain again, from being completely consumed in thoughts, words and concepts, did I realize how afraid and cut off I had become over the past several years. It wasn’t something that happened all at once, when I had my kids. I certainly can’t blame them. Instead, it crept up on me. I fell out of touch with my pre-kid friends. I backed away from opportunities for reunions with people I used to work with. I became better acquainted with cable television, which grocery stores to hit and doing all of my work online so as to avoid personal contact. Early bedtimes. I was writing less. All of the goals I had set for myself in my twenties had come and gone. As a result I had simply shut down. For some reason it felt easier and more comfortable to resign myself as a failure than to risk actual failure.

But after that first residency, with my brain reawakened, my need to write rekindled in fiction, I could see that this trap into which I’d fallen had happened too easily because of fear. I felt like I’d lost a decade of forward movement to that fear, and I wasn’t going to do that ever again. Here I was at forty, finally at an age where fear was no longer an option, starting a new career all over again.

So often I had put things off with, “I can’t. I don’t think I can,” or, “I couldn’t possibly be qualified to…”

I have learned that one way to trick the brain past these fears is to sign up to do something well in advance of having to do it.

Instead of waiting for a place of comfort, where I knew I was prepared and ready, I started promising to do things before I could fully wrap my mind around actually doing them. This worked because, the way I was raised in New England, backing out of something you’ve already signed up for isn’t really an option. Signing up for something out of my reach was a bit like a dare to myself. Learning to say “yes,” before I was certain I was ready.

So, knowing I was terrified of public speaking, at the next residency in my MFA program I signed up for a “brown bag reading.” I would get up and read my writing in front of other students. I had never done this before. The week before the reading, I practiced and practiced and timed it and when the day came, my voice did a weird warbly thing, and I lost my place twice and broke into a flopsweat, but I got through it. When I finished, I resolved to sign up for another one six months later.

I was working on a novel, but had come up with some short stories along the way. The idea of having them read and judged by strange editors was terrifying. But I realized that all of the published writers in my program had actually submitted their work to journals in order to get it published. You may laugh, but that’s a leap of logic a lot of fearful writers don’t always understand. If publication is validation, and if you feel like you don’t belong because you aren’t published, you actually have to submit your work places to have it read and rejected in order for it to be published. You have to put your work out there.

No one was going to write to me and ask me for a story and my finished stories, already read by mentors and peers in my program, were not going to get into journals by osmosis. I had to put my work in front of actual editors. So I set myself up with Duotrope. The lists of journals upon journals were overwhelming until I figured out the filters, but I finally had it wired and submitted my story to one place. I believe I took a nap afterward.

It didn’t take me long to realize I was sitting around waiting for an answer on this story. One thing it’s taken me many years to learn as a writer is: Waiting is not an activity. This magazine cautioned that responses could take up to six months. When the next Saturday rolled around, I submitted my work three more places. Soon I got into the ritual of submitting. I submitted three short stories a total of 70 places before I got my first publication.

A friend asked me to contribute to an article about my work as a woman screenwriter. I felt I had no place to speak on the matter as, in my mind, I had failed in that endeavor, but I said yes. I sat down and wrote her something. It turned out I had a lot to say.

Another friend asked me to speak at her high school about the glass ceiling for women in the working world. It was a subject we had talked about in passing. I felt I had no place to speak out on such a subject, but said, yes. Over the course of the next few months, I worked up a lecture and slideshow that followed my mom’s work as a reporter in the fifties and tracked all the way up through my work in Hollywood. The talk was pretty good and I learned a great deal in putting it together. The students were fantastic and responsive, and I realized that saying yes before I was ready was a fantastic challenge and pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Saying yes WHILE afraid is now my modus operandi.

Will you write a genre story to submit to this anthology on a specific subject? Help! I can’t come up with a story on command, are you kidding?? Yes. Even though it wasn’t included in the anthology it was requested for, had I not said yes, the story would not have been written and placed into a different anthology of which I’m quite proud. Will you be on a panel at a writers conference with people who know so much more than you about a subject? Yes. Turned out I had useful information on submitting work as practical and useful for the writers at the conference as the words of the more experienced New Yorker published writers I was sitting with and felt less worthy than. Can you submit a Christmas-related horror story for our anthology? Are you out of your mind? How can I come up with a themed story in a month? Yes. Another story that wouldn’t have happened in a collection that seems to be doing well for itself.

I was asked to come up with the book coaching program for inspiration2publication.com through my alma mater. Terrified and feeling underqualified, I ignored my inner “No” and said yes, and it turned out I was exactly the right person for the job. My years of experience giving screenwriters notes in the film industry complete with the work I’d done with students and fellow writers made me ideal. While I squinted my eyes shut and repeated, I belong at this table, I belong at this table, I belong at this table, I not only put the fear behind me but grew the job into something I love to do and believe in.

Pushing past that resistance is essential.

OLLI talks, Cal State Fullerton, runs inspirational talks for retirees. They asked if I would do a 90 minute talk about writing in their 150 person auditorium. I asked if I could have the audience do writing exercises. I am fully comfortable teaching a writing class for 90 mins. They said no, it would be lecture format. Eeek! But Yes. I’m putting together information and a slideshow I’m guessing will teach me as much as my audience. I’m terrified, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

So in this New Year, as we go forward ask yourself: What are you afraid of? What have you turned down doing so often before? It could be simple as going out with fellow writers. Maybe speaking publicly is your jam but getting your work out there is your challenge. Maybe you need to ask to be in an anthology. Maybe you’ve submitted a ton of work but are terrified of hosting something. Host a reading! Put together a bunch of people for an event! Apply for a far away writers’ retreat. Do the thing that scares you. Better yet, write about the thing that scares you to write about. Because the truth is, you’re only on this planet for one ride, and hanging in your comfort zone binge watching Netflix is definitely a nice way to pass the time, but it’s much nicer to do after you’ve done the one thing you thought you couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. This is the year of pushing forward and doing the scary thing. This is the year of you as a writer. Carpe Annum.

Kate Maruyama‘s novel Harrowgate was published by 47North. Her short work has appeared in Arcadia, Stoneboat and Controlled Burn and is now featured in two new anthologies, Phantasma: Stories and Winter Horror Tales as well as on The Rumpus, Salon and The Citron Review among other journals. She teaches at Antioch University Los Angeles in the BA and MFA Programs and for inspiration2publication.com as well as for Writing Workshops Los Angeles. She writes, teaches, cooks and eats in Los Angeles where she lives with her family.

December 2, 2015

Women Who Share: Désirée Zamorano on Daily Goals and the Power of Conferences

In 1997, more years ago than I care to admit to, I attended a Bouchercon mystery conference and listened to the writer Patricia Sprinkle speak about the “seasons” in a writer’s life. At that time I had two small children, taught 5th grade, and had committed myself to carve time out of my day to write. But, I had given myself a daily quota that I was daily unable to make. I goaded, scolded and loathed myself for not accomplishing my daily goal, day after day after day. When Ms. Sprinkle spoke, she reminded her audience of the different seasons in our lives, to recognize and honor them. I took her words in, deeply. I vowed not to beat myself up for missing arbitrary targets.

Continue reading “Women Who Share: Désirée Zamorano on Daily Goals and the Power of Conferences”

November 25, 2015

Closing the Gap: On Confidence and Community

by Ramona Pilar

Reposted with permission from our friends at Lumen Magazine, where this article was first published on August 5, 2015.

Women Who Submit was born out of a reaction to a couple of gross injustices: a) women are not being published as often nor as broadly as men, and b) women may not be submitting or resubmitting their work as often as men. Men and women of color are published to an even lesser degree. The founders of Women Who Submit took this information, acknowledged it, and asked themselves what could be done to change this?

The Atlantic published an article called “The Confidence Gap” which posed the idea that “… there is a particular crisis for women—a vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology.” In their research, authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman found that women will tend to psyche themselves out of opportunities if they don’t feel close to, if not perfectly suited for the opportunity while men did not have that particular issue.

While there are exceptions to generalizations, there was enough of a commonality to infer that a lack of confidence was one of the reasons why women weren’t submitting their work for publication as often as men.

Confidence is something I personally struggle with when it comes to writing, much less submitting my work for publication. There are layers upon layers of experiences that have transformed me from the bravado-fueled fireball I was in adolescence (my most prolific writing years to date) into a domesticated housecat who refuses to come out from under the bed, shiny eyes reflecting at you from the furthest corner, resigned to remain planted until I’m good and ready to come out.

I’ve been an active member of Women Who Submit for about two years. In that time I’ve submitted work to a total of maybe 10 places. Which, comparatively speaking, is a fraction of a fraction of the amount of submissions other members have followed through on. But comparison is not the point and has never been the point. What brings me closer to crawling out of the safe, uneventful, under-the-bed darkness is being around women who have navigated out of that safe crawl space. Women who have more experience submitting than I do.

The trick, I’ve learned, is to focus on what is actually within my control rather than on being accepted. I can control the content I create, the journals I submit to, the frequency with which I submit pieces. There is not one way to do anything. For example, I’ve acquired four different versions of cover letters to send with submissions. Each of them different and each of the women who shared them with me had success with her version and their reasons why they stuck by it. Hearing sometimes contradictory advice lets me know that the point cannot be about acceptance. That is a faulty, foul gauge of success. The point is to commit to submitting or getting my work ready to submit, at whatever pace feels comfortable for me. Cats don’t live under the bed forever.

The mere act of getting together with committed frequency, either in person or virtually, via Skype or checking in via email, matters. That sense of community is paramount to success, for me individually, and for the overarching goal of working towards gender parity in publishing.

Confidence isn’t some magic superpower only a chosen few are anointed with at birth. It’s something that comes from tangible practicality, from looking at a daunting task and knowing it can be broken down into easily digestible, easily completed tasks. I am inspired by and grateful to the women who have demystified submission by showing me how it’s done.

Ramona Pilar is a writer, performer, emotional fluffer and native Californian. She is currently working on a collection of essays entitled “Darth Vader Abandoned his Daughter and Other Thoughts Along The Heroine’s Journey.” She can occasionally be found troubadouring with her band The Raveens.

November 18, 2015

Closing the Gap: DON’T CHEAT. YOU CAN STILL GET PUBLISHED.

Back in September, The New Republic published an article entitled, “Cheat! It’s the Only Way to Get Published.” but not everyone was so convinced. Here is one rebuttal from writer, Rachael Warecki reposted here from Zoetic Press, first published October 5, 2015.

First, let me say that I’m aware I have several legs up in the literary world just by dint of being white, middle-class, over-educated, and employed in a white-collar job. My family and friends have always been supportive of my desire to write, even when they haven’t understood it; I’ve never had anyone tell me that writing is something I shouldn’t do. I have time, space, and a room of my own: in many ways, to many people, the life I lucked into could be considered its own literary cheat.

In the fall of 2011, though, I was recovering from several serious medical issues, unemployed, and in the middle of my first semester as a graduate student in Antioch University Los Angeles’ MFA program. (In the spirit of encouraging fellow emerging writers, it’s perhaps pertinent to add that I did not just sail into an MFA program; Antioch accepted me off the waitlist.) I didn’t have any literary connections to recommend my work. I didn’t have any prestige-journal stationery on which I could write my cover letters. While looking for literary magazines that might publish my short stories, I noticed a call for submissions for the inaugural issue of The Masters Review, a lit mag that—at that time—was only open to writers attending grad school.

Back then, my assets consisted of my words, my classmates’ assurance that my stories were ready for publication, and the generosity of a literary magazine truly committed to helping new writers succeed. Because The Masters Review’s author demographic was so narrow, I thought my work might have a better chance of successfully making its way through the slush pile. As it turned out, I was right: my short story “The Rites of Summer” was published in The Masters Review’s 2012 issue.

In the years since, I’ve worked to build those post-slush literary relationships. I’ve kept in touch with one of The Masters Review’s editors, and I’ve continued to submit my work to their contests and anthologies, which have now expanded to include all emerging writers—not just those in MFA programs. My most recent submission, “10:25 a.m. EDT,” earned an honorable mention and a pending review from a top literary agency, which is an amazing career opportunity for which I’m eternally grateful.

More importantly, I’ve also continued to work those slush piles. Although I had zero relationships with any of the top-tier literary magazines, once I had work I thought was strong enough, I started shooting for the moon. Out of those long-shot submissions, I’ve received personal rejections and encouragement from fiction editors at Tin House, The Atlantic Monthly, Agni, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Blackbird, and PANK. I say this not to brag, but to point out that you can submit to slush piles of top-tier magazines and, if your work is a good enough fit, editors will start to pay long-term attention to you, even if you don’t have a list of previous publication credits or a fancy lit mag’s letterhead to back you up.

Here’s the rub, though: at the most basic level, if you want to be published without “cheating,” you need to be selective about what you send. Three years later, I’m still proud of “The Rites of Summer,” as I am of every story I’ve published, but I’ve also written stories that I’ve stopped submitting for now because I know they’re not yet strong enough for the markets in which I want to be published. Of my unpublished work, I have three “powerhouse” stories making the rounds of contests and top-tier literary magazines, but I also have five other stories, all written almost two years ago, that I’m still pumping up to that heavyweight level. Beyond that, everything else is unsalvageable for various reasons. That’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my fledgling writing career: my work can be well-written and well-constructed, but it can still be too unoriginal, too white-bread, and/or too autobiographical to be publishable. Not everything is fit to print.

Which leads into the fact that you also need to be selective about where you send your work. If you’re an emerging writer, look for literary magazines that are committed to finding, publishing, and promoting emerging writers; that way, you won’t be competing for limited page space with the likes of Joyce Carol Oates and Adam Johnson. The Masters Review is a great place to submit since it’s only open to new voices, but many other top-tier publications, such as Glimmer Train and A Public Space, hold contests and grant fellowships specifically designed to attract new writers. If you’re working in a certain genre, submit to magazines that appreciate that genre rather than disdain it. If you think a certain publication might be a good fit for your work, get a hold of some back issues to make sure—even print journals usually have one or two stories available for free online.

The world of literary journals and publications can seem exclusive, insular, and elitist, and that reputation is in many ways deserved. But it’s not a completely impermeable membrane, and you don’t have to cheat to make inroads. Just be strategic and selective about your submissions, and don’t be afraid to cultivate relationships with other writers, wherever you may find them.

1091093_347757792022433_1818843801_o Rachael Warecki received her MFA in Fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is also an alumna of Scripps College, Loyola Marymount University, and the 2008 Teach for America Los Angeles corps. Her fiction has appeared in The Masters Review, Midwestern Gothic, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. In her spare time, she enjoys rooting for the Cleveland Indians and the Ohio State Buckeyes. She is currently at work on a novel.