Category: Submission Party

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SUBMIT 1: 9th Annual WWS Submission Drive

SUBMIT 1 is the one day out of the year WWS encourages women and nonbinary writers across the globe to send one of their most beloved pieces of writing to one top tier journal as one community. This is an act of solidarity, not only with our writers, but with editors and publishers as well. SUBMIT 1 dares to connect the literary publishing community as a whole. 

Black event flyer with "Submit" in green. Green circle at the center with a purple "1" at its center.

In its 9th year, thanks to an Impact Project grant from the California Arts Council and the support of our fiscal sponsor, Avenue 50 Studio, WWS has expanded this event into the WWS Summer Series. This program includes the Summer Writers Workshop in July, the Submission conference in August, and Submit 1 in September. 

The submission drive was created in 2014 for WWS’s five-year anniversary and to honor Vida, Women in Literary Arts, and the Vida Count. It was the 2009 Vida Count that inspired the co-founding of Women Who Submit in 2011. While the event celebrates our history and the importance of gender equity in literary publishing, over the years, we’ve questioned if we were doing enough to help prepare our writers to send their work to the top journals of the nation and world. 

The WWS Summer Series is our answer to this question. In July, 36 writers were given the opportunity to participate in month-long workshops with our faculty, Melissa Chadburn (CNF), Muriel Leung (Poetry), and Colette Sartor (Fiction). In August, over 150 writers registered for the Submission Conference, a one-day, online event that featured 18 writing professionals sharing their best tips and strategies (For recordings of the 2022 panels with closed captions visit the WWS Youtube page.). So then, SUBMIT 1 is not only an act of solidarity, but an act of faith in our writers and the writing process. 

How to Participate:

1. Before September 10th, study THIS LIST of “Top Ranked Journals of 2022” with current open calls to find a good fit for your work. Links to guidelines are included. BE SURE TO READ AND FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES. 

2. On September 10th, submit one of your most beloved pieces of writing to at least one tier one magazine from wherever you are in the world at any time of day.

3. Notify us on 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 10pm PACIFIC 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.

SUBMIT 1 IG Live Schedule (all times are PACIFIC):

7am-8am: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (@xochitljulisa), WWS Director 

8am-9am: Joy Notoma (@joywriteshermedicine), WWS-Europe Lead 

12pm-1pm: pm Suhasini Yeeda (@suhasiniwrites), WWS-LA Member 

2pm-3pm: Toni Ann Johnson (@treeladytoniann), WWS Board Member 

3pm-4pm: Desiree R. Kannel (@rwwrites), San Antonio Lead 

5pm-6pm: Lituo Huang (@thelmerfudd), WWS-LA Member 

6pm-7pm: Jessica Ceballos y Campbell (@alternativefield), WWS Board Member 

8pm-9pm: Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley (@lucyrodriguezhanley), WWS-Long Beach Lead 

9pm-10pm: Juanita E. Mantz Pelaez (@lifeofjem1), WWS-Inland Empire Member

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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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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Final Workshop of 2020

Join us Saturday, November 14th at 10am for our final workshop of 2020, “How To Boost Your Literary Citizenry By Writing and Placing Book Reviews” with Melissa Chadburn. Chadburn has placed book reviews in such prestigious publications as The LA Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Times Book Review, and the New York Review of Books. Help in our mission for gender parity in publishing by learning how to write and place book reviews and bring visibility to historically marginalized voices.

Women Who Submit is a supportive community for women and non-binary writers submitting work for publication. To become a member, you can register and participate in this month’s new member orientation. EDIT: NEW MEMBER REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED DUE TO BEING OVER CAPACITY. * There is no fee to join.

The Schedule for the Day:

10am-11am – “How To Boost Your Literary Citizenry By Writing and Placing Book Reviews” with Melissa Chadburn and hosted by Lauren Eggert-Crowe

11am-12pm – New Member Orientation with Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

11am-12pm – Returning Members Checkin with TBD

12pm-1pm – WWS Submission Party

This workshop is over Zoom. Those admitted to the orientation will receive the Zoom link through email a week before. To participate, you’ll need a laptop or desktop computer, personal research on magazines, journals, and open calls, and crafted poems/essay/short story ready to submit.

* Orientation is limited to 20 participants and preference will be given to LA writers, BIPOC writers, LGBTQ writers, and writers who’ve tried to attend a previous orientation.

WWS is a grass-roots, volunteer organization. Though online workshops have made us more accessible to writers outside of Los Angeles, we do not have the funding or support to serve people beyond the LA area.

But don’t worry! We have chapters all across the country including three chapters in the greater Los Angeles area in Long Beach, West Los Angeles, and Pasadena. If you do not make it into our November orientation, you can connect with a chapter lead near you. And if you don’t have a chapter in your area, we can help you get one started!

Connect with chapters here.

About our workshop facilitator:

Melissa Chadburn’s work has appeared in The LA Times, NYT Book Review, NYRB, Longreads, and dozens other places. Her essay on food insecurity was selected for Best American Food Writing 2019. She is the recipient of the Mildred Fox Hanson Award for Women in Creative Writing. She is an Atul Gawande mentee with the Solutions Journalism Network. Her debut novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, is forthcoming with Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. She is a PhD candidate at USC’s Creative Writing Program. She loves your whole outfit right now.

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7 Steps to Submitting

Our 7th Annual Submission Blitz is coming Saturday, September 12th. This online event is our annual drive to submit to tier one journals as an action for gender parity in publishing.

In the summer of 2011 a group of women met together in a kitchen to share food, literary journals, and submission goals to encourage each other to submit work for publication. The idea for this first submission party came from WWS cofounder, Alyss Dixson as a response to the Vida Count. We began the Submission Blitz in the summer of 2014 to honor our beginnings and continue to push for gender parity in top tier publishing.

We’ve come to understand that submitting to tier one journals is no easy ask, so to help, check out the 7 Steps to Submitting below. And consider joining us on September 12th. It’s as easy as marking yourself going to the event, submitting to a journal, notifying us know on FB, Twitter, or IG, and letting us shower you in claps and cheers.

Images from our 2019 Submission Blitz LA meet-up at the Faculty Bar in East Hollywood.

7 Steps to Submitting:

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

1. Select a Manuscript – When selecting a piece (for poetry this may be 5-7 poems) to submit, be sure sure to choose a story, essay, or poems you absolutely love or need to see in the world. These are top tier magazines, so if you don’t love the work and need to see it published, why would you expect the editors to?

2. Research & Pick a Journal – Begin by looking through this list of tier one journals with links to guidelines curated by Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera. Some things to look into: Who’s on the editorial team? Who’s been published? What’s their mission statement? Do you like what’s been published? Does your work fit within their guidelines?

3. Read & Follow the Guidelines – the fastest way to get your work rejected is to not follow guidelines. Don’t make it easy for an editor to say no to you. 

4. Prepare your Manuscript – be sure to adjust your manuscript according to the guidelines, give it to a friend read through for any last minute notes, and read through it out loud before sending to catch any typos. 

5. Write a cover letter – be sure to personalize a cover letter with the name of the editor and a sentence about why you’ve chosen to send your work to them. Though it’s up for debate if cover letters are even read, this is a good practice for keeping open communications with editors you hope to create a working relationship with. See more about cover letters here.

6. Submit – once you’re ready, HIT SEND! And then be sure to let us know on our social media accounts so we can clap and cheer for you!

7. Record your Submission – a submission tracker is a spreadsheet and a great tool for keeping your submissions in order. What you put on the tracker is up to you, but the name of journal, name of submission, and date it was submitted is a good place to start. This is helpful for checking back on submissions that have been out for three, six, or more months, as well as keeping up communications when practicing simultaneous submissions (see the link in point 5 for more information on this). 

This is image represents the first six months of my personal 2019 submission tracker.

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It’s Time for Submission Blitz 2020!

We, Women Who Submit, want to celebrate the last eight years of submissions, rejections, and acceptances with one giant nationwide online submission party.

We are inviting all women and non-binary writers around the country to submit to at least one tier-one journal (Or maybe five!) on September 12, 2020. Let’s inundate these top journals with our best work and shake up their slush piles!

How to Participate:

  1. Mark yourself as going on Submission Blitz Facebook Event Page.
  2. Before the day, study this list of tier-one journals with links to submission guidelines curated by Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera
  3. On September 12, 2020 submit to at least one tier one magazines from where ever you are in the world
  4. Notify us on Facebook Event Page in the comments, on Twitter, or Instagram (@womenwhosubmit), so we can celebrate you with lots of claps and cheers
  5. Follow the stories on Instagram throughout the day for encouraging words and tips from members
Continue reading “It’s Time for Submission Blitz 2020!”
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Storytelling in Action: The After Party

by Ramona Pilar

From Wonder Boys – 2000

“What is the bridge from the water’s edge of inspiration to the far shore of accomplishment? [Insert laughter from a drunken undergrad] Faith. Faith that your story is worth telling.” – Q played by Rip Torn in Wonder Boys, 2000

This excerpt is taken from pretty close to the top of the film, which takes place during a very prestigious writer’s conference in New England. I assume it’s supposed to be something like Bread Loaf. (Do writer’s books get optioned at Bread Loaf?) I wouldn’t know because I’ve never attended. And I’ve only been to one AWP Conference, which, incidentally was because it took place less than 10 miles from my home.

I’ve never written an entire book, much less published one. And why? “Faith. Faith that [my] story is worth telling.” I have had challenges with that aspect of writing and creating altogether. I have faith that it’s important to me, but that it would be to anyone else enough to listen, read, or purchase that story? Infinitely less so.

Which is why I’m immediately a huge fan of anyone who finishes a complete collection of creative work – literary, musical, performance-based – all of it. Especially non-commissioned works. As a writer who hasn’t completed a novel or collection – I’ve written full length plays and songs, but not a book. And as someone who has tried via NaNoWriMo for the better part of 15 years, I have an idea about what it takes to complete a full-length work, but I don’t know. 

Something… something… something… Socratic Paradox… something… something…
Continue reading “Storytelling in Action: The After Party”
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December’s WWS New Member Orientation and Tips for Self-Care

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

unnamed-1
Andrea Gutierrez has been published in make/shift, Mujeres de Maiz, Bitch, Huizache, On She Goes, and has previously edited for make/shift, Drunken Boat, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Our next WWS New Member Orientation and Submission Party is set for Saturday, December 9th from 10am-2pm at 5481 Santa Monica Blvd 90029. We will begin at 10am with a one-hour workshop on self-care from WWS member and chingona, Andrea Gutierrez, who recently co-led a workshop on self-care at the 2017 Thinking Its Presence conference at the Poetry Center in Tucson, AZ. The workshop will be followed by breakout sessions from 11am-11:30am for a WWS orientation for new members and goal setting for current members. We will be submitting in real time from 11:30am-2pm. If you are looking for places to submit, check out this list of current open calls from Entropy.

New this month, we are gifting up to $200 worth of individual grants to WWS members to help offset the burden of submission fees thanks to the Center for Cultural Innovation selecting WWS for an Investing in Tomorrow grant. Submission fee grants will be given in $25 and $50 amounts and will be based on need. These grants are for current members, but don’t worry, to become a member, all you have to do is show up. New members will be eligible for a grant at our next public meeting in February.

Continue reading “December’s WWS New Member Orientation and Tips for Self-Care”

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It’s Blitzing Time!

by Ramona Pilar

With August gone and September already begun, we’ve reached the time of year for Women Who Submit’s annual SUBMISSION BLITZ (*pewpew*)! For the fourth year in a row, women across the country – nay, all over the world – are encouraged to flood top-tier journals with their fiction and nonfiction prose and poems.

The annual Submission Blitz is one of a plethora of actions Women Who Submit takes to work towards equity in the publishing world. These in-person gatherings give us a chance to celebrate each other and our commitment to our work, and ourselves because writing is hard. And discipline is hard. Staying the course against outer and inner obstacles is hard. So what better way to honor making it another whole trip around the sun as a writer, than to get together around food and drink, and WOO-HOO each other as we send out best work out to the mero-meros, the crème de la crème, the top-tier journals and shake up their slush pile! Continue reading “It’s Blitzing Time!”

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June WWS Orientation & Two Book Releases

Writer Desiree Zamorano presents a workshop to seven women seated at folding tables, facing her

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Saturday, June 10th from 11am-3pm, Women Who Submit will host a public orientation and submission party at Art Share LA in the Arts District with free parking for attendees. Every other month, WWS hosts a public orientation and submission party for women and nonbinary writers in order to welcome new members to join our organization and learn about our mission and submission strategies in a comfortable, supportive and open environment. We will also have a round table discussion on strategies for applying to residencies and workshops.

Continue reading “June WWS Orientation & Two Book Releases”

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WWS Poetry Submission Blitz

A coaster emblazoned with a brewery logo is propped up against a pint of stout in front of large, silver brewing kettles in the background

By Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

In honor of National Poetry Month, Women Who Submit is hosting a Poetry Submission Blitz on April 9, 2017 from 12pm-3pm at the Arts District Brewing Company. A submission blitz 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. A submission blitz is a call to action.

Continue reading “WWS Poetry Submission Blitz”