The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during February of 2026. Three of our committed members heardabout their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
The ocean is alive with themโ orcas break its shimmering surface, stretching snouts at a cerulean sky. Humpbacks and blue whales twist pleated bellies, thrust their ribs like dancers while I watch, laughing,from the tip of my own iceberg.
Somethingโs swimming beneath the precision of languageโ beautiful, dangerous, ready to tip yachts, straining, heaving, coming up for air and, for one gloriousREM cycle, consoling, pressing love into my skin through outstretched fins.
Kudos to Mahru Elahi whose creative nonfiction piece “Passing: A Softball Tale” appeared in Seventh Wave’s 2026 Community Anthology.
When I try to name where Ali and I fell along the racial spectrum, the word interstitial comes to mind. It was 1982 and we lived in the gaps, the only Iranians at our Southern California middle school. Iranians in Amrika were racializedย beforeย the 1978 Revolution, it was just that we were considered benign, exotic even, definitely not dangerous.
Aliโs skin was lighter than mine, with the blue-green cast of an abalone shellโs interior. His curly black hair, regal nose, and baby doll lashes might have made him attractive, but Aliโs mouth was a blunt weapon. He made the Science teacher cry. After that, I only saw him in PE.
Last year, as I began the query and submission process for my hybrid memoir, I knew I was going to submit directly to small publishers. Iโd heard from industry experts about the difficulties non-celebrities face trying to publish a memoir. As recently as January of this year, a Jane Friedman newsletterย referred to an articleย that notes non-celebrity memoir as the most difficult nonfiction genre in which to publish. Thus, I began my querying journey as a non-famous person knowing that agents are paid from a percentage of an advance, and the chances of securing a large advance from a big publisher were slim to nil.
I became familiar with the pitch-query-submission process after taking a series of courses from various creative writing and publishing providers. With Jane Friedman and Allison K Williams, Iโd taken a slew of courses on topics such as writing the proposal, publishing paths, and book marketing. And following Courtney Maumโs guidelines, I learned how to pitch hybrid memoir specifically. As a result of my coursework, I wrote a 26-page proposal that I submitted on occasion since not all publishers required it. Although I didnโt always use the entire proposal, it was an incredibly useful resource because I pulled out sections related to my comps, my audience, or other topics that I could use for individual submissions.ย
Shoutout to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose article “Writing a Dream Into Reality” appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The friend I invited to lunch declined, not for fear of ICE. She is not worried for herself, but for me. โCanโt make it, watch out for ICE,โ she said, fancying herself funny.
I go along with the joke as nothing will keep me from stopping by the restaurant thatโs easily overlooked with an empty dirt lot next to it, low ceiling. Thick roots give rise to spindly branches and a lush. top heavy Laurel Fig, an outstretched canopy over the world.
I tell my friend I have a strategy for defeating ICE. Say I will expose how much of a good citizen I am
Shiny sterling silver Sparkly and cool to the touch Inside soft red velvet A jewelry box reminds me of Nana’s Heart. No music, no jewelry, nor an empty find. Memories open of childhood past and love, For our matriarch, Beautiful teacher, disciplinarian, and kind.
Congratulations to Lili Lang whose fiction piece “Love and Blood” was picked up by Die Laughing Literary Magazine.
Shoutout to Joyce Loh whose fiction piece “Something Borrowed Something Blue” appeared in Pure Slush.
The WWS CERTIFIED list was first created for AWP-Los Angeles in 2025 by WWS Board member, Noriko Nakada. Of the list’s inception she said, โIn 2019, I walked into the book fair at AWP Portland and into complete overwhelm. The enormous convention space held presses big and large, writing programs both esteemed and unheard of and writers, agents, and publicists everywhere. The whole place was so big and white and male. I had no idea where I might feel welcomed, where my stories may find a home.โ The goal was to find the spaces that illustrated a clear appreciation for diverse voices. She combed through the Bookfair list of exhibitors looking for two criteria: an editorial board, board of directors, or masthead that was at least 50% women and 50% POC.
Using these same criteria, WWS Board member, Ashton Cynthia Clarke has curated a new list for AWP-Baltimore. Below are 32 (11 more than last year!) literary magazines, journals, organizations, and writing programs that have at least 50% women and 50% POC on their mastheads and/or Boards. Check them out. Chat them up, and then, after AWP, submit your words.
Each year Women Who Submit puts together a guide of all places you can find our writers, partners, and friends. See below for a list of panels, readings, and meetups where our writers are featured and use this list catch up with likeminded folks.
Features: Hosted by Kai Coggen and with readings by Ching-In Chen, Brenda Vaca, Dahlia Aguilar, Donna Spruijt-Metz, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and many others.
Location: United Methodist Church – 10 E Mount Vernon Place
Description: Start your AWP on Wednesday night at this historic former church with 32poems, Barrelhouse, and Smartish Pace a 5 min drive from AWP in beautiful Mt. Vernon. Part of the fun of this event is seeing inside an iconic historic space in Baltimore: a long-shuttered 19th-century church at the inception point of being reimagined and renovated for the future. Itโs really beautiful, but it means the venue is not ADA accessible and has quirky bathrooms. Admission is free.
Features: Amy Raasch, Emma De Lisle, Erin OโLuanaigh, Grace Gilbert, and many others.
Location: Room 323, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 9:00am – 10:15am
Description: The X in Xicana is the vital confluence of past with future marked by our present voices. Eighty contemporary Xicana writers make up Somos Xicanas, an anthology that connects those represented with future generations in a call to liberate all. โรchale tu canto al viento, paโ que llega mรกs lejos,โ writes editor Luz Schweig in the introduction. Join this panel with the anthologyโs editor, publisher, and contributors to discuss from where those songs derive and just how far they can go.
Features: Dahlia Aguilar, Brenda Vaca, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and Angela C Trudell Vasquez
Location: Room 329, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 9:00am – 10:15am
Description: Excavating the gritty literary landscape of sexual violence is scary. By sharing how we write our dark emotional terrains, this diverse panel of women will discuss how we create safe spaces to teach students ways to approach trauma such as rape, sexual harassment, and incest. What role do content warnings play? While acknowledging potential triggers and navigating Title IX requirements, how do we equip our students with the tools they need to overcome resistance, shame, and silence?
Features: Nicole Walker, Karen Michelle Otero, Brooke Champagne, Sue William Silverman, and Jill Christman
Location: Room 328, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 12:10pm – 1:25pm
Description: House of Amal is in its sixth year of community programming, teaching, mentorship, and publishing. Amid an uptick in global Islamophobia, it is vital to create spaces centered on both craft and community for aspiring Muslim writers who require a unique kind of mentorship. Bridging the overlap between the spiritual, literary, and artistic identities, House of Amal will share the lessons learned while crafting and recrafting our twelve-month Writing Residency curriculum and membership programming.
Features: Sara Bawany, Safiya Khan, Amal Kassir, and Salma Mohammad
Location: Room 301, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 1:45pm – 3:00pm
Description: Writing has remained an essential practice for Levantine peoples, even during times of war. Spoken word poets from Syria and Palestine will perform powerful political poems inspired by their personal and familial experiences with loss through war, genocide, and settler colonialism. They discuss the intersection of their Muslim and Levant identities and the impact of the diaspora on their poetry, and further, how this influences their teaching of both craft and writing identity at House of Amal.
Features: Sara Bawany, Salma Mohammad, Amal Kassir
Location: Angie’s Seafood, 1727 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21231
Time: 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Description: Butterflies Over Land is an anthology co-edited by Jen Cheng and Camille Hernandez. Readers will be reading from the book and other work.
Come enjoy the world premiere and book launch party of a new immigrant rights anthology BUTTERFLIES OVER LAND: Voices and Visions Resisting Anti-Immigrant Terror. This book includes a mix of genres, from poetry to nonfiction personal essays and short fiction. This off-site event offers a conversation about immigrant rights from Southern California and nationwide.
Location: Angeli’s Pizzeria, 413 S High Street, Baltimore
Time: 5:30PM – 7:30PM
Description: We are really excited to introduce you all to our new poets and Joel Longโs essay collection! Please join us in Baltimore for our #AWP26 offsite reading. Angeliโs is a short walk from the convention center and a chance to relax and enjoy great food in Baltimoreโs Little Italy. We have reserved this great area all to ourselves, which is fully accessible.
Features: Krissy Kludt, Holly Johnsen, Natalya Sukhonos, VA Smith, and Joel Long
Location: Chesapeake Wine Company – 2400 Boston Street, suite 112
Time: 6:00pm – 7:45pm
Description: Join Alice James and Persea for a fabu offsite reading at the lovely Chesapeake Wine Company on Thursday March 5th, beginning at 6pm. Free appetizers, cash bar, and many memorable poems from new/recent books from both presses!
Features: Michelle Peรฑaloza, Carey Salerno, Cecily Parks, Elizabeth Bradfield, and others.
Location: Room 315, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 9:00am – 10:15am
Description: As cultural touchstones, fairy tales and myths provide fertile creative ground. Leveraging their known settings, characters, and story arcs, writers can slip into ekphrasis, persona, narrative, and more. This panel will offer examples and prompts from poets and prose writers of diverse cultural backgrounds who have used tales and myths to process grief; explore emigration and culture; and question gender, power, and neurodivergence, while using the familiar as a palimpsest to write something new.
Features: Emily Perez, Oliver de la Paz, Kate Bernheimer, and Jessica Q. Stark, and Elline Lipkin
Location: Ballroom II, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 400
Time: 10:35am – 11:50am
Description: When you are active in your local literary community, how do you carve out time to maintain a writing practice? After reading from their work, the poet laureate of Wisconsin, the cofounder of a vibrant reading series in Philadelphia, and the executive director of a community-based literary organization in California will share insights on the challenges of balancing their artistic practice while also serving their local communities.
Features: Raina Leon, Brenda Cardenas, Karla Cordero, and Cloud Delfina Cardona
Location: Room 318-319, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 10:35am – 11:50am
Description: Moving off the page and through the body, five multigenre writers activate possibilities for witness, solidarity, and transformation through performance. The panel celebrates performance as a vital leap from the public literary reading, a meeting of form and content that builds community through practices of ritual, generative discomfort, and care. Panelists within and outside the academy will share and discuss their work to provoke writers toward expansive, liberatory creative practices.
Features: Crystal Odelle, Ching-In Chen, Gabrielle Civil, Joss Barton, and Ali Gali
Location: Room 315, Level 300, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 12:10pm – 1:25pm
Description: It is imperative that our social justice novels live anew on stage. This panel explores the stage adaptation of Keenan Norrisโs award-winning novel The Confession of Copeland Cane, examining social realism as an enduring genre and the systemic inequities limiting such works by Black authors. Featuring authors, playwrights, and educators and casting audience members as โspect-actors,โ this panel will model the transformative power of collective performance in bringing social justice narratives from page to stage.
Features: Tommy Mouton, Deborah Mouton, Toni Ann Johnson, Keenan Norris, and Timmia DeRoy
Location: Baltimore Brewhouse 511 W Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21201
Time: 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Description: There are moments when stories are not just read but truly shared. Where Our Voices Meet is one of those moments. Each poet carries their own rhythm and lived experience, and each voice reflects a different way of seeing the world. When they come together in the same space, something meaningful happens.
Features: Stella the Poet, Peter Lechuga, Hope Cerna, Jefferey Martin, Cherice Cameron, Donato Martinez, and Erica Castro
Location: Baltimore Convention Center – Room: 308, Level 300
Time: 10:15am – 11:30am
Description: Writerโs block is a perpetual problem. Confronted with an ominous blank page, what is a writer to do? This craft panel explores the ways in which creative practices outside of writingโfilm, painting, dance, and performanceโcan bring us deeper into writing. Books are not born from vacuum. The panel seeks to uncover how engagement with media outside of text can, in fact, be a powerful gateway into writing books and beyond. A presentation of each writerโs work concludes the craft panel.
Features: Cathy Linh Che, Elisabeth Houston, Serena Chopra, Jackie Wang, and Gabrielle Civil
Location: Bookfair Stage, Hall A-D, Level 100, Baltimore Convention Center
Time: 12:10 PM – 1:25 PM EST
Description: โItโs Not Okayโ is a poetry event featuring powerful voices speaking out against injustice. These poets will share work about the impact of immigration policies on families, the violence in Gaza, and the pain and frustration so many are feeling. Poets will read about the injustices of our current administration in order to bring light and connect with the audience regarding these issues. Published poets: Cherice Cameron, Peter Lechuga, Clara Roque-Wagner, Erica Castro, and Jeffery Martin.
Features: Peter Lechuga, Jeffrey Martin, Cherice Cameron, and Erica Lopez
Location: Wet City Brewing, 223 W Chase Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Time: 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Description: A reading celebrating FlowerSong Press authors.
Features: John Compton, Tatian Figueroa Ramirez, Eddie Vega, Michelle Otero, Luivette Resto, Sarah Browning, Natalia Treviรฑo, Genevieve Betts, and Joseph Ross
Description: Hosted by the WWS-DMV chapter, come and meet up with other Women Who Submit members throughout the nation and the world. Say hello, debrief with other writers on your conference experience, and share publication goals!
Description: Join Daxson Publishing for an essential after hours reading exploring liberation in a changing landscape. Featuring a diverse lineup of West Coast voices, this event explores the intersection of identity, geography, and the navigation of a rapidly changing world.
Features: Cherice Cameron, Donator Martinez, Erica Castro, Jeffery Martin, Hope Cerna, Peter Lechuga, and Stella the Poet
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during November of 2025. Three of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments, especially with so many writers published this month. Thank you and happy submitting!
Congratulations to Michelle Smith who published “Fireball Whiskey” and “Too Hot Isโฆ” with Four Feathers Press. Excerpt of the former available below:
Water fueling may not cool or calm me
the red dragon of Fireball Whiskey
utterances spiced, flame breathing
He is my only child, my Creative, Happy, Righteous, Intriguing, Social Soul.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, said MLK Jr.
I love you to the moon and back
Major props to Jacqueline Lyons whose poem “Fire Season: Super Perennial” appeared in Palette Poetry. It is also the winner of their 2025 Nature Poetry Prize, selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
Did the headline that read โSucculents Saved Their Homeโ end with or without a question mark
Last night, distillations beneath a live oakโs canopy a friend fantasizes a fire-proof dome over his house Crassula along the fence absorb his carbon dioxide
In one dream, a rain shower in every room, matchbook rolled into the hem of a yellow dress fountain tumbling with smoke instead of water
Who said to make someone happy, take away everything they have then give it all back
Kudos to Ronna Magy whose poem “Perhaps” was featured in SWIMM Every Day.
i will find you down basement stairs in a damp fruitroom along oilcloth covered shelves mason jarred cling peaches strawberry jam green tomatoes floating dilled stems and hard seeds bare light bulb pull chain dark earth under feet
perhaps your back will bend over wooden washboard and sink a bristled brush scrubbing out old family stains hot water murphy oil soap gnarled fingers hold a white shirt to dim light housedresses hankies pinned to the line
Congratulations to Amy Raasch whose poem “ontology of llorando” was published with Sonora Review.
feet slap dark moss soft webbed
platypusย ย ย ย plap plap plap
bump on my eardrumย ย ย ย tap tap tap
cave-wall lit like a microphone
my amoeba legs flow in and out
lightly on a lily pad lightly
to the rhythm of the white
flower blooming in the teal black
night spilt into the bright
gold pond of a stick-on tear
why ย ย ย ย ย ย (it asks whyย ย ย ย ย forever)
Major props to Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley whose memoir piece “El DesahogoโThe Undrowning” appeared in Exposition Review and was announced as an honorable mention in their Flash 405 competition.
One of the rare times that she let Papi sit with her, he called her โMi amor.โ She erupted like a faulty pressure cooker, blowing off her lid, splashing the scalding residue of everything that had been simmering inside. The pent-up rage from her shitty marriage and the injustice of why her and not him splattered all over the walls.
I resented her anger, but never let on. Not because Papi didnโt earn it but because her kids didnโt deserve its side effects. I stayed quiet and let her vent whilemy siblings talked back.
โYo tengo derecho a desahogarme,โ she said, defending her right to undrown herself.
When a beautiful, fluffy calico cat named Lucy was 12 years old, her family gave her up. Lucy was sick, and they couldnโt afford her medical care, according to Maddie Lederer, an adoption counselor at the Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center in Derwood, Maryland.
โWe looked at her records and saw she had a history of bladder stones,โ Lederer said. โWe were able to treat her and put her on prescription diet food, so she hopefully wouldnโt have a recurrence.โ
Lucy quickly became a favorite among staff and volunteers, who described her as a โpurring machineโ and a โprofessional loafer with a cute face.โ Despite those endearing qualities, though, Lucy was overlooked by prospective adoptive families because of her age and medical condition.
Shoutout to Jesenia Chรกvez whose poem “i think my mom has been grieving since she was a kid” was featured in Chillona: the zine, produced by writer Sofรญa Aguilar.
because it likes to pick a fight rattles around like the last two pills in a bottle labeled zero refills
it dims the lights and rolls its eyes when you object invites you to dinner but clears your plate before youโre done
sneers and shakes your trees bare opens your gate and lets your dog out because it likes to hear you cry for lost things in the dark
Kudos to Melissa Chadburn whose creative nonfiction piece “Tilting at Windmills” was featured in Adi Magazine and her article “The Facts of Comportment” was published by the Feminist Press’ Women’s Studies Quarterly. See excerpt of the former below:
One guy spent his childhood ducking under desks in his classroom, hiding from stray bullets from a war raging outside in his hometown in San Salvador. Another guy spent much of his adult life drenched in music. He would perform the danza de viejitos, the dance of the old men, which he later demonstrated for my students on campus, wearing a papier-mรขchรฉ mask and the infamous clankity-clank huaraches while holding a cane, his guitar nearby. He came here to make a better way for his wife and daughter. But that is another story; this is the story of day laborers.
Shoutout to Citlaly Penelope whose creative nonfiction piece “Cozy Weather” appeared in The Acentos Review.
I believed in Santa long after I probably should have. His arrival meant matching PJs in front of the fireplace and listening to the adults talk over whatever Christmas movie was playing on the tv. My momโs blonde hair bobbed up and down whenever she spoke; her infectious laugh echoed through the white picket fence house, and I questioned if whatever she heard was that funny. His presence meant peace and hopeโjust for a little while, anyway.
I donโt remember Christmas before we moved into that house. Before, my older brother’s and Iโs nights would involve making ourselves comfortable in two folding chairs with someoneโs jacket covering us as we dozed off to the blasting Spanish music and smell of tangy stale air.
Major props to Amy Shimshon-Santo who published an essay collection entitled Piecework: Ethnographies of Place with Unsolicited Press. She also wrote the introduction “Savor This Book” to Writing Braille With Chocolate, co-edited with Madalyn U. Spangler and created by the Braille Institute of America Library.
Shoutout to Meg Whelan whose poem “Backyard Blue Pine” was featured in The Banyan Review. She begins with the words: Somewhere in the basement, sealed in a black pleather book, there is evidence.
Kudos to Ashton Cynthia Clarke whose two poems “Inspired by ‘Woman of the Popo Country’ Jamaica 1770s” and “Cracked” were both published by Four Feathers Press. The latter is available below:
I glared back at the sullen reflection wondering how this split came to be stitched together from faces of others come before two-toned swaths of a father’s dutifulness bitter rage seething on the reverse pulled & torn at ragged seams.
Props to Carla Sameth whose two poems “Dethroned” and “December, 1995” appeared in Mutha Magazine. Excerpt of the latter available below:
At first we all just took that December to be the month before everything would change. Of all the mad scientist cures for miscarriage, prednisone led to gestational diabetes which led to food deprivation. Finally pregnant, yet on a diet after planning to eat whatever I wanted when I had a real being inside, at last. I held this sparkly feeling that never left no matter the taste of grey toast or dirt, the strange bright red blood at 13 weeks. This time, the baby stayed. The alchemist grew with me.
Visiting my parents recently, I attempted to clean out a drawer in my childhood bedroom when I found what remained of my stash: four Deliaโs catalogs, slightly worn and faded but otherwise preserved. One of them was the Summer 1997 issue that started my obsession, featuring the bucket hat. A thrill tingled through me. I spread them all out on the carpet and read each one cover to cover. I recognized all the models as if they had been old friends and remembered so many articles of clothing that I had lusted after. The floral-print ringer tee. The long green plaid skirt. The platform flip-flops. I put the catalogs in a Ziploc freezer bag and brought them home with me to Queens.
Congratulations to Mahru Elahi whose creative nonfiction piece “Body Double” was published in Black Warrior Review’s Issue 52.1, and they placed another creative nonfiction piece “Change of Name” with Solstice Magazine. Excerpt of the latter is available below:
Whether in its original or post-9/11 form, I can tell you that my first name is a multisensory site of racialized contention. It isnโt just the painful stutter that I have to watch out for. There has been a lifetime of dubious looks: when I stand and walk to a door held open by someone in scrubs for a doctorโs appointment, itโs there. I sense a bodily hesitation, like the door might close in my face. It happens when I press my papers to a bullet-proof glass window at passport check and wonder if the extra questions, the extra care with searching my body, is related to the name I carry.
The dubious look is followed, sometimes, by a question.
Kudos to Gina Rae Duran who edited Flowersong Press’ anthology The White Picket Fence: Stories of Individuality as Rebelliousness Collection (alongside Edward Vidaurre) where it was released just this month! They also placed a poem in the California Bards SoCal Poetry Anthology 2025, produced by Local Gems Press.
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during October of 2025. Two of our committed members heard about their publication opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
The IHOPยฎ was a big warm hug of brown linoleum. I felt instantly at peace there and could lose my mind in the mathematical swirling of the blue printed upholstery. I was a little nervous when it came time to pay for my Special Limited Time Offer which was a key-lime pie pancake so rich it made my teeth hurt. I explained the gift card away to Sheri, my waitress who looked uncannily like my Aunt Mary even wore the same perfume. I said Iโm Not Sure if This Has Anything Left On It. I Can Check For You, she said and she whisked away my check and came back with a receipt and a pen. She said it would say on the bottom of my receipt and I looked and it said: $โ.
Kudos to Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl who published “Out with the Old” and “To New Beginnings” in The Sand Canyon Review: Crafton Hills College’s Art and Literary Magazine, as well as “The Night My Forefathers and Foremothers Spoke”in Fresh Ink, the IE California Writers Club Newsletter. Her three poems “Just a Typical Day in Downtown LA in 1996,” “Como Comet / Like a Comet,” and “Noem-mames” appeared in the City of Los Angeles’ Latino Heritage Month 2025 Calendar and Cultural Guide (see excerpt of “Just a Typical Day in Downtown LA in 1996” below).
He was just an 18-year-old kid trying to do the right thing.
Un chilango was drafted to war by way of Mexico City.
He flew into LAX, arrived at his tia’s in Huntington Park.
Not a lick of English, did this kid comprehend, yet they sent him right on in.
Shoutout to Dilys Wyndham Thomas whose poem “a museum of waxwings” was featured in Chestnut Review. She also published fiction piece “Bellybutton Baby” in X-Ray Literary Magazine. See excerpt of the latter below:
I have this recurring nightmare in which I swim through amniotic fluid. Poppies litter the fluid, and a baby is lost somewhere amongst all the falling flowers, out of reach, beyond my thrashing hands.
To keep the nightmare at bay, I lay awake in yet another hotel room, avoiding sleep. The man in bed with me has his back turned, constellations of freckles scattered on sunburnt skin. Itโs obvious from the way his body teeters on the edge of the mattress that he has decided I am a one-night stand. I run my fingers along the map that is this new back, find a replica of Cassiopeia on his shoulder. I will remember his skin long after I have forgotten everything else about him.
Slowly, I reach for the discarded condom on the floor, cup it in my palm. It is satisfyingly heavy. I tie another knot into the latex and slip out of bed.
Huge congratulations to Elline Lipkin whose poetry collection “Girl in a Forest” was recently released by Trio House Press.
Kudos to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose creative nonfiction piece “How to Write a Love Poem” appeared in Cleaver Magazine.
My first poem was a love poem.
To write a love poem, one must be brave enough to speak directly to a โyou.โ Itโs not easy work. It takes vulnerability and the threat of humiliation. Society likes to say that such endeavors are trivial, childish, and girlish. bell hooks writes in About Love: โWhenever a single woman over forty brings up the topic of love, again and again the assumption, rooted in sexist thinking, is that she is โdesperateโ for a man.โ When I was teen, all my poems were about boys and heartbreak. When I became a โserious poet,โ my inner critic said such things were silly. It didnโt stop me from writing them, but I did worry, why would anyone care?
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during August of 2025.ย Four of our committed members heard about an opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments this last stretch of summer. Thank you and happy submitting!
Congratulations to Tanzila Ahmed whose creative nonfiction piece “Eavesdropping as a Solidarity Tactic” was published in the imprint We Are Civic Media by Northwestern University Press.
Big kudos to Donna Spruijt-Metz whose poetry collection Wu Wei Eats an Egg was published with Ben Yehuda Press.
Shoutout to Dinah Berland whose poem “Between the Lines” was featured in Van Spuk Art Books.
I heard Leonard Cohenโs โHallelujahโ sung in Spanish at a funeral last week, twice โ Processional and Communion. Stained glass shook loose & boomeranged rose-gold sharps into tall-boned Jesus till he swayed between stone femurs like a receiver in a phone booth waiting for his last phone call from God. Your last call went to voicemail, then you hung up on yourself.
Kudos to Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin whose chapbook As Mexican as a Nopal was selected as a shortlist finalist in Four Feather Press’ Chapbook Prize.
Shoutout to Dรฉsirรฉe Zamorano whose novel The Amado Women was republished with Lee & Low Books.
Congratulations to Lisa Eve Cheby whose poem “Witnessing” appeared in Cultural Daily.
last night I dreamt I was interrogated by I.C.E.
they knew about how I ghosted Esteban after one date, about the small, behind the scenes disputes in our non-profit writersโ group of women who refuse to submit.
I only wanted to imagine a world of liberation and joy, not how to integrate the mundane with the horrific.
on the 4th of July with the day laborers in the Home Depot parking lot we ate mango and piรฑa cream paletas from Salโs cart.
Kudos to Heather Pegas whose creative nonfiction piece “Family Lore: A Semi-History” was featured in The Muleskinner Journal.
Maybe Connie made her special soup at the diner, maybe she saves one bowl to bring home.
Perhaps she intends it for her father, or maybe she was keeping it for herself after shopping, vacuuming, washing, drying and folding the family laundry. My beautiful aunt, the one they only half-jokingly call โthe maid,โ puts her soup in the icebox, I imagine, saving it for later.
It is not to be. Her brothers come home all at once, and they encounter the soup.
I want that, says George, the eldest. Iโm going to eat it.
Not so fast, says Manny, the second son, muscling in. I want it too.
And lastly, shoutout to Dilys Wyndham Thomas whose poem entitled “Titan[ic]” was published in Mslexia Magazine’s 107th Issue.
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during July of 2025.One of our committed members heard about an opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments this summer. Thank you and happy submitting!
From his balcony, the night sky is a portal to a pinhole of other livesโsome barely visible. As if what is remembered grows far away. This is the way life is: You are always here on hard soil and what you want is north or south of you. Sometimes I think death is a sky so black we leave all our lives behind.
Shoutout to Mary Camarillo who wrote a book review entitled “Locals Only, The Golden Women of Orange Countyโ in Citric Acid of Women in a Gold State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond, an anthology collection which features many WWS members’ work.
Iโve been an Orange County woman since 1966 when I was fourteen and my fatherโs aerospace job transferred him to Santa Monica from Charlotte, North Carolina. The Beach Boys sang about โCalifornia Girlsโ on the radio as we drove across the country. I couldnโt wait to be one, but when we settled in Fountain Valley, California, I realized I didnโt quite fit the profile. I wasnโt blond, my skin never tanned, and I wasnโt allowed to wear a French bikini.
Iโve never felt like a true California girl, but almost sixty years later, California is still my home. And now, as โa woman of a certain age in youth-obsessed California,โ Iโm delighted to be included in a new anthology from Gunpowder Press, Women in a Golden State, California Poets at 60 and Beyond.
It was boiling hot in Simi Valley on the day I first visited Bottle Village. I was not yet twelve years old and wore cotton, shortie pajamas, the only clothes that didnโt scrape like sandpaper against the sunburn Iโd acquired the day before at Will Rogers State Beach. For close to ten days, weโd been travelling the back roads from Albuquerque, New Mexico to the Golden State with dad at the wheel of a brown Chevy pick-up heโd dubbed โDaedalus.โ My grandmother, Rose, rode shotgun, and, in the back, under the camper shell, me, my brother, and our three best friends from school nestled in sleeping bags, loose as popcorn. Weโd been to Disneyland and Knottโs Berry Farm, but Dad was never content with only the main tourist spots. He ballpoint tattooed the pages of his Rand McNally road atlas with alternate routes, and drew stars to mark roadside attractions, artistsโ homes, and miscellaneous wonders.
Move-in day at UC Santa Barbara in the fall of 1998 was quick. We packed up my momโs gray dodge van. My older sister would drive, my things were in the back and some girls from Latinas Guiding Latinas de UCLA would join us. My stuff fit in a couple cardboard boxes, and we had plenty of room. I would never again have such little stuff to move and pack.
Mom and dad could not come, it was only my sister, like always she was taking care of me. My parents had to hustle and work. But I had my sisters, so that comforted me.
Shoutout to M. Anne Kala’i whose poem “Emancipation” appeared in Hawai’i Pacific Review.
I.
Mother didnโt teach me how to garden. She taught me to pack up a house after the water turned off, then the lights. Well-labeled boxes swallowed our things and spit out new cities. I learned you can change your heart and name after a hand in marriage and divorce, marriage and divorce. I canโt fix cars or build shelves and Iโve never been able to save money, but I run like her and I always get away.
In a blog post published last month, PRSAโs Los Angeles Chapter President Marisol Barrios Perez, APR, wrote, โI urge our PR community to do what we do best: Raise our voices. Because when we speak together โ with purpose, with clarity and with courage โ we shape the narrative. And we stand on the right side of history.โ
Indeed, these are unprecedented times that call for unprecedented measures. Just a glimpse at the last six months in Los Angeles, where I live, is telling. January started with the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in the stateโs history. In early June, the president sent the National Guard and Marines to our streets, exchanging insults and accusations with California Gov. Newsom in the process. With a softening job market, an uncertain economy and a fragile geopolitical climate, itโs enough to make you want to hide under the covers and wait for calmer days.
Shoutout to Mahru Elahi whose creative nonfiction piece “Summoning” was picked up by Multiplicity Magazine.
In my dreams, I am dressed in loose clothing and rise into the air with only a thought, guided by the warmth in my belly. Usually it is night, but sometimes the sun is out. I am alone and curious, and propel myself high above the landscape, delighting in the patterned streets and rolling hills, the geometry of buildings. When I wake from these dreams, the feeling in my belly is a reminder of where Iโve gone. I replay gauzy snatches of dream-memory throughout the day, the lightness that filled me. I want to return, to live again suspended above the earth.
I have always had dreams of flight. They come less often the older I get, and I am missing something from their absence.
Congratulations to Monica Cure who published a poem entitled “A Reading of the Seagull” in Volume 119 of Poet Lore.
Kudos to Sophie Hamel whose fiction piece “The Pythia” was featured in The Plentitudes.
From the stone bleachers of Delphiโs ancient theater, the view of the Parnassus mountains had a before-civilization-turned-everything-ugly charm we all wanted a slice of. We took pictures, crowding the frame with our friends and defiant smiles.
The cultural field trip had so far taken us from one half-column to the next with the regularity of burning sunshine. Today, we were blessed with a mostly intact theater. Unfortunately, it was about to be a stage once again. We shifted in our seats as Mrs. Perlotti marched to the orchestraโs center.
โQuiet,โ she said, the word harnessing power as it glided up to the seats Justine and I had claimed. โOne of you will read a poem to the rest of the class, who will li-sten,โ she over-articulated as if the concept couldnโt be grasped by our still-growing teenager brains.
Big shoutout to Diana Radovan who published a poetry collection entitled Seasons of Change with Outpost Press.
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during April 2025. Five our committed members heard about an opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take a moment to extend congratulations to our members who had their work published this month. Thank you and happy submitting!
Let’s begin by congratulating Amy Raasch who placed two poems โWhy I Am Not a Gravediggerโ and โAshesโ in the anthology Angel City Review: Ten Years of Poetry in L.A. Excerpt of the the former is available below:
I like to go to the diner, drink coffee, and listen to Barbara talk shit. Barbara doesnโt work the graveyard shift. I tell her, church basement flooded so we held the reception at the house. I tell her nobody will sit in my motherโs kitchen chair; the air is too thick with her unanswered questions.
Kudos to Romaine Washington who published a poem in Cholla Needles 100 produced by Cholla Needles Publishing.
Shoutout to Ronna Magy who published a poem entitled “Ode to the Female Body” with Sinister Wisdom 136: Icons.
Congratulations to Natalie Warther whose flash fiction pieces “Four Dads” and “Even the Horses” were featured in Had Journal. She also published fiction piece “Outside Husband” in Xray Literary Magazine (see excerpt of the latter below).
The survivalist stuff started as a hobby for my husband. An attempt to disconnect from the tech-dependent modern world. But quickly, our renovated backyard started looking more like a trash dump than a place to entertain the neighbors. He just kept making โtools.โ Dental floss snares. Crayon candles. Pantyhose fishing nets. Dryer lint tinder. Maple syrup mouse traps. He used every single trash bag in the house for the water collection system.
Huge shoutout to Elizabeth Galoozis whose book Law of the Letter has been published with Inlandia Institute.
Please join me in congratulating Jacqueline Lyons whose hybrid creative nonfiction piece “Dialogic: Except the Rain” appeared in Eastern Iowa Review.
Dear John, ย A new year, and time to dialogueโthe opposite of breaking upโwith the elements. Especially water. The elements speak with such singularity and purpose, ferrying blue glyphs as the crow flies, while human nerve bundles shoulder a mix of fear and longing, more list than image. All of us, most of the time, of at least two minds. Giant Sequoia, Sparrows, and Sharks too. ย Except for the taco truck near the intersection of Los Angeles Avenue and Somis Road that concentrates its powers inward and births an illuminated island,ย anย horchataย oasis, a candle in the window radiant after 9 pm. Committed, they do not offerย combinaciรณnย plates.
But my story differs from others you may have read regarding African American homeowners in Altadena, who were devastated by the Eaton Fire.
Twenty-five years ago, the arms wrapped around mine, which were wrapped around my own shivering frame, belonged to my soon-to-be husband, Phillip. โWhere are we?โ I asked. I hadnโt seen my breath hang in the air since my last camping trip to the Angeles National Forest.
I, too, have known the dark chocolate thrill of a kiss against the wall of a mausoleum. Our hunger pangs caused us
trouble โ the semiotics of leather jackets, animal prints. Night smudges the lines, sexual and otherwise. I know how lonely it is
to grow beside a lover who remains dead inside the narrative he chose. You think I donโt watch
Kudos to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo whose poem “Motherless Mothers and the Daughters They Bear” was also featured in in Mayday Magazine.
I mother myself gentle because my motherโs hands were rough, cracked, and ruby ringed.
When her mother died, she kept all the jewelry and left me nothing. Maybe when your mother never mothers you,
it makes you a hoarder. Motherโs Day commemorative plates from the 70s to the 90s collect dust on the family piano
that never feels fingers along its keys. A behemoth stand for porcelain plates mocking images of mothering
she never saw.
Congratulations to Michelle Y. Smith who published poems “Windows of My Soul” and “Peace” with Four Feathers Press. Her poem “There is a Sunflower” was also featured in LA Art News’ April Poets Place (excerpt of the latter available below).
His brown coffee Countenance Of disk florets Is framed with maize petals Cheery and happy-go-lucky Spirit pollinates Where he goes He laughter contagious
Happy spring and post-AWP festivities! I greatly enjoyed building community and connecting with so many of you at AWP. It is my honor and pleasure to present this publication roundup featuring so many wonderful writers. The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during March 2025. One member heard about an opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member. Thank you and happy submitting!
Iโve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take a moment to extend congratulations to our members who had their work published this month.
Let’s begin by congratulating Danielle Lauren for her fiction piece “Mya Ditches School” being published in Funny Pearls.
โMr. Sinclair, get to class.โ
I still remember Mr. Andersonโs voice that day. High-pitched and dripping with impatience. Uptown rolled his eyes so hard I thought they might stick. I nudged Uptown and he fixed his face before turning around.
โMy bad, Mr. Anderson, we was just trying to find my math book.โ
โAnd what does your math book have to do with Ms. Monroe?โ Mr. Anderson said.
Big kudos to Donna Spruijt-Metz who published her book entitled To Phrase a Prayer for Peace with Wildhouse Publishing.
Congratulations to Sara Ellen Fowler whose poem “Good Mare” appeared in Poetry Daily.
That I was
your simple bit
a bride of pressure and prayer you ground
grinding down
The one who taps your teeth to get you to open
โto be led be led
Shoutout to Anais Godard who published a creative nonfiction piece “How to Cremate your Pet Squirrel” with The Letter Review, which won their prize for nonfiction.
Albert was no ordinary squirrel; he was more like a surrogate child to me, a hairy one who didnโt require a college fund. I had found him at a particularly dark time, right after my first miscarriage and long before the twins came along, at the foot of a giant sequoia. A tiny, shivering ball of fur that looked more like a discarded fetus than a woodland critter. It was love at first sight.ย
Apple TV+โs Spanish language seriesย Las Azulesย (Women in Blue) is set in 1971 and depicts Mexico Cityโs first female police force.1ย Itโs stunning to look at with the delightful โ70s wardrobe, the vintage-inspired color intensity, the midcentury architecture.ย Las Azulesย shares the aesthetic of crรณnica roja, a Latin American branch of contemporary literary journalism. Narratives with blood running through it. The red chronicle searches for ways to express the despair and political frustration of the time, the grittier side of documentarian work. But whereย Las Azulesย really shines is in how it moves beyond prior genres and narrative tropes in its interrogation of intergenerational cycles of violence, how it tries to provide an account of violence against women that is neither sentimental nor noir, but something more like analysis.ย
Kudos to .CHISARAOKWU. whose creative nonfiction piece “A Brief History of Painโ was featured in midnight & indigo.
My origin story begins with pain, or, at the very least, an attempt to avoid it. I was born by cesarean, the doctor believing my size too painful for my mother to push through. Since then, Iโve lived to avoid painโno diving into a lake or pool for fear Iโd hit the bottom and break both legs, quitting volleyball because the ball jammed my piano-playing fingers, staying away from action films because every punch or crash would send intense pain sensations through my body. Avoiding pain was a preoccupation; not wanting to cause pain or discomfort to anyone became a skill.
Shoutout to Jay O’Shea who published a fiction piece entitled “An Unchanged History” with 96th of October: Tales of the Extraordinary.
It doesnโt trouble me when my mother forgets my name. Sheโs 83 and has been in the nursing home for months. A battery of health problems brought her in, but cognitive decline was right up there. The doctors recently switched to calling it dementia.
Her face brightens when I arrive. Then comes a stumble: she calls me Leslie, the name of a cousin long dead. A terrified look crosses her face.
โLorna,โ I offer.
She bounces back, diving into a story Iโve heard dozens of times about a road trip we took when I was in fourth grade, about the locks on the Erie Canal and how I turned cartwheels on the dock. Thatโs not that odd. Old people live in the past. The rest of us live in the future. The present is where none of us want to be.
Big congratulations to Andy Anderegg whose fiction book entitled “Plum” was published with Hub City Writers Project.
Big shoutout to Michelle Smith whose poem “Escalate & Elevate” was published by Four Feathers Press. Her other poem “There’s a Sunflower” was also chosen as their print poetry awards nominee.
Itโs almost time! LA will play host to the iconic writerโs conference, AWP from March 26 – 29th, 2025. So many panels, readings, and off-site gatherings, itโs a lot for a group not especially known as extroverts. Iโm looking at you, fellow writers. But donโt worry, weโve got you covered.
Weโve put together a list to help you connect with other members of Women Who Submit. Itโs a way for you to support old friends and to make new friends. There are a ton of events featuring members. Check them out below. From book signings to readings to moderating, WWS will be representing at AWP.
Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of the conference.
First, we know you want to do all the things. So many sights to be seen, but remember you canโt do it all and to give yourself grace. Plan the events you want to attend and be sure to schedule some downtime in between. If you need to chill out, rooms 506 and 507 in the convention center are designated quiet spaces. Hit up room 511C if you need low lighting.
Second, stay hydrated, bring snacks, and for the love of all things holy, wear comfortable shoes. Bonus points, dress in layers because you never know what the air conditioning temps will be like. The days will be long, so pack a phone charger.
Third, have fun and be inspired! So inspired, maybe, that you will be ready to meet up on Sunday, March 30 for a WWS Submit All party (see below).
Anywho, enjoy and hope to see you at the conference!
Description: Join us for an unforgettable evening of powerful words and vibrant voices, a celebration of Los Angeles-based Latine poets who carry the legacy of resilience, identity, and cultural renaissance. This event brings together poets from the city that inspires them with resistance, justice, and action.
Poets: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Luivette Resto, Matt Sedillo, Jose Hernandez Diaz, William Archila, Angelina Sรกenz, Melinda Palacio, Vickie Vรฉrtiz, Antonieta Villamil, Luis J. Rodriguez, Hosts: Rey M. Rodrรญguez and Jorge H. Rodrรญguez
Location: Location: 1642, 1642 West Temple Street Los Angeles, CA 90026
Description: Seven literary luminaries perform their creative nonfiction work, at this benefit reading for LA fire relief. Audience donations on the night will go towards six local authors from the literary organization Women Who Submit, who lost their homes in the recent fires.
Speakers: Vanessa Angรฉlica Villarreal (Magical Realism), Annie Liontas (Sex With a Brain Injury), Shze-Hui Tjoa (The Story Game), Grace Loh Prasad (The Translatorโs Daughter), Jackson Bliss (Dream Pop Origami), and Minelle Mahtani (May It Have a Happy Ending). Hosted by Katie Lee Ellison, organizer of the Nonfiction for No Reason Series.
Location: Room 408B, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: How can creative writers bring their expertise to the composition classroom? This panel will discuss how women of color/genderqueer creative writers challenge โtraditionalโ white supremacist frameworks in college-level composition courses.
Location: Booth T3358 Cรญrculo de poetas and Writers Booth, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description:Conversaciones con los difuntos / Conversations with the Dead is Diosa Xochiquetzacรณatlโs 5th poetry collection, her first fully bilingual book, and first collection to be published and artisanally handcrafted in Mexico by Editorial Desierto Mayor.
Location: Room 408A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: This multigenre, intergenerational panel focuses on a working-class literary Los Angeles that makes the glint possible, tasking us to rewrite our cityโs imaginings or get written out. Through fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and nonfiction, these writers craft a diverse, gritty, tangled city, capturing the complex interchanges of Los Angelesโs cultural and social history.
Panelists: Moderator: Vickie Vertiz Presenter: Steve Gutierrez Presenter: Joelle Mendoza Presenter: Jenise Miller Presenter: Tanzila Ahmed
Location: Room 402AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: This panel will discuss how emerging TV writers and screenwriters can establish a community of writers, producers, development executives, managers, and agents who can support and mentor them throughout their careers.
Location: Room 515A, Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two
Description: How can writers cultivate a sustainable creative practice while paying the bills, growing a career, and accounting for domestic responsibilities? Award-winning authors with multiple books and diverse lived experiences discuss their ongoing journeys to do soโwhile also taking into consideration the roles of culture and institutionsโas well as their best advice for tending to the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of the writing life.
Panelists: Presenter: Amanda Churchill Moderator: Lorinda Toledo Presenter: Karen Connelly Presenter: Janet Fitch Presenter: Reyna Grande
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
BOOK SIGNING: West of the Santa Ana and Other Sacred Placesby Diosa Xochiquetzalcรณatl
Location: Concourse Hall 153 ABC, Level One, Convention Center
Description: What do a queer undocumented immigrant, a former packinghouse worker, an organizer around issues of extrajudicial killings of Black people, a Korean adoptee, and a lawyer by training have in common? They are all poets laureate from various parts of California. These poets celebrate California but also challenge positions of power and privilege. The laureates will discuss their roles, read from their books, and engage in a Q&A with the audience.
Speakers: Moderator: Lee Herrick Presenter: Tongo Eisen-Martin Presenter: Yosimar Reyes Presenter: Joseph Rios Presenter: Lynne Thompson
Location: Room 408A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: This panel explores aspects of erasure, evanescence, and loss, as in the erasure of oneโs identity and subjectivity through racial and historical lenses, as in the extinction of 150 species in an average day, and how poets can โknock on silence,โ in the words of Chinese poet Lu Ji, so as to give voice to those rubbed out by ideology, history, and time, to reach across the void instead of staring into it and becoming monsters.
Panelists: Moderator: Tony Barnstone Presenter: Angie Estes Presenter: Mark Irwin Presenter: Douglas Manuel Presenter: Lynne Thompson
Location: LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, 501 N Main St, Los Angeles 90012
Description: Come celebrate the launch of our 30รฑera: Thirty Years of the Macondo Writers Workshop in Los Angeles! The night will be filled with poetry, stories, and the spirit of Macondo, accompanied by light refreshments and snacks. Bring your friends and celebrate with us as we honor 30 years of the workshop LA style! Speakers: Monica Palacios, Pat Alderete, Camilo Loaiza Bonilla, Ofelia Montelongo, Lori Anaya, Amelia Montes, Jonathan Ayala, Melissa Hidalgo, Natalia Treviรฑo, Denise Tolan, Renรฉ Colato Lainez, Lesley Tรฉllez, Mona Alvarado Frazier, Adela Najarro, Sebha Sanwar, Karina Muรฑiz-Pagรกn, Jennifer Nguyen, Alex Espinoza
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm FUNDRAISER: The Offing’s 10th Birthday and LA Fire Recovery Fundraiser Location: The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA-LA), 1717 East 7th Street Los Angeles, CA 90021 Description: Come celebrate a decade of creativity, community, and culture. Join us for birthday cake, a toast, and the release of The Offing’s anniversary anthology! We will donate all proceeds from our $5 ticket sales to rebuilding the Palisades Public Library and repopulating books burned in Pasadena Unified School District libraries. Cost $5 – $20
Location: Truly LA, 216 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Description: Exposition Review is turning 10! You are officially invited to Expoโs in-person, off-site, literary citizenship extravaganza. Letโs party, seltzer-style!
Location: Japanese American National Museum, 100 North Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Description: Join poets Brynn Saito and traci kato-kiriyama for a reading celebrating the forthcoming April 2025 release of The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration. Edited by Saito and Brandon Shimoda, this poetry anthology explores the afterlife of the historical yet enduring injustice of World War IIโera prisons and camps. Featured readers include David Mura, Heather Nagami, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, James Fujinami Moore, and others, with a special tribute to poet, educator, and activist Amy Uyematsu and Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan.
Location: Room 404AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: This panel represents distinct literary voices of several contemporary essayists from California who are drawn to re-envisioning โthe spirit of a placeโ in ways that challenge and fulfill the literary imagination.
Location: Room 503, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: This session investigates how we can adopt inclusive, socially responsible approaches to creative projects. Presenters steeped in how writing inspires change will explore creative freedom and cultural sensitivity.
Location: Room 411, Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two
Description: Can a handful of established institutions serve the communities of a sprawling desert properly? Should BIPOC talent and labor be used to fight for access to PWI, or are we better served by creating and building our own spaces? Four writers, publishers, teachers, and community builders from the Los Angeles area discuss who benefits from inclusion into historically white spaces and whose work gets co-opted and ultimately wasted when BIPOC communities donโt build their own institutions.
Panelists: Hiram Sims, Peter Woods, Romeo Guzman, Sarah-Rafael Garcia, traci kato-kiriyama, moderated by Chiwan Choi
Location: Concourse Hall 152, Level One, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: This panel features cross-genre authors of color as they examine how to navigate the publishing industry on their own terms while alchemizing a code of belonging.
Location: Room 404AB, Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two
Description: The panelโwhich includes editors, reviewers, professors, and scholarsโoffers insight and advice for those working on or trying to publish story collections; trend observations; and thoughts on how and why reading for the contest altered their own work.
Panelists: Moderator: Lori Ostlund Presenter: Jenny Shank Presenter: Hasanthika Sirisena Presenter: Michael Wang Presenter: Toni Ann Johnson
Location: Room 502A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center Description: How can hauntings be used to illustrate larger human stories? How can our own personal hauntings create and inspire stories that will haunt readers? From cities haunted by displacement and erasure, to haunted battlefields, to family ghost stories, five writers discuss how hauntings, real and metaphorical, have inspired their poetry and fiction. Panelists: Presenter: Xochitl Bermejo Moderator: Kate Maruyama Presenter: Latoya Jordan Presenter: Tanzila Ahmed Presenter: Chiwan Choi
Location: Los Angeles Convention Center, Hub City Booth #730
5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
READING: House Party, a Tin House Prose Reading Location: Other Books, Comics, and Zines, 2006 East Cesar E Chavez Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90033 Description: Come hear nine authors from Tin House perform โlightning readingsโ in fiction and nonfiction! Author chats and a book-signing session available afterwards. Speakers: Alisa Alering (Smothermoss), Myriam J.A. Chancy (Village Weavers), Talia Lakshmi Kolluri (What We Fed to the Manticore), Cleo Qian (LETโS GO LETโS GO LETโS GO), Shze-Hui Tjoa (The Story Game: A Memoir), Lena Valencia (Mystery Lights), Elissa Washuta (White Magic), Jane Wong (Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City), and Ghassan Zeineddine (Dearborn)
Location: Echo Park Writing Lab, 1714 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Description: This event welcomes all 826LA community members, Angelenos, and visiting writers to engage with us during this pivotal moment. Whether you want to perform or simply listen, all are welcome to be part of this gathering.
Location: The Count’s Den1039 South Olive Street Los Angeles, CA 90015
Description: Poetics of Liberationย is an intersectional feminist reading and community gathering celebrating radical and queer writers whose work inspires social transformation. Hosted at The Count’s Denโa stunning, vampiresque theater in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.
Speakers: Amanda Johnston, heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, mรณnica teresa ortiz, m. mick powell, Lily Someson, Stephanie Niu, Cloud Delfina Cardona, Jae Nichelle, Tala Khanmalek, Ari Kelly, Em Palughi, andย Anel I. Flores
Location: Pieter Performance Space, 2701 North Broadway Los Angeles, CA 90031
Description: โAll of us live in unruly bodies that weโre all trying to take care of as best we can.” โRoxane Gay Readers will share a story about their relationship with a body that refuses to act โas it should.โ In a world that controls and punishes bodies that are queer, trans, disabled, mad, sick, fat, and/or racialized, how can we begin to celebrate our unruly bodies?
Description: What craft techniques, including storytelling styles from our own culture, can we utilize to write into and around truth(s)? How can nonfiction subvert or defy expectations imposed on us as women and nonbinary people in underrepresented communities? Filipino women and femme nonfiction writers discuss the complexities and nuances of sharing their experiences, while confronting the uncomfortable truths of a culture that hasnโt always looked favorably on the act of public disclosure.
Speakers: Jen Palmares Meadows, Anna Cabe, Melissa Chadburn, Laurel Flores Fantauzzo, and Anna Cabe
Location: Room 405, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: Celebrating titles that feature the color pink on their covers, poets will read work that highlights the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and identity, and discuss how pink came to be a prominent element of their book, and what the color means to them and their writing.
Location: Room 403B, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: In this panel, five award-winning fiction and nonfiction authors and screenwriters discuss the perils and rewards of writing around family secrets.
Panelists: Moderator: Aimee Liu Presenter: David Francis Presenter: Elle Johnson Presenter: Toni Ann Johnson Presenter: Colette Sartor
Location: Room 411, level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: These five poets representing LAโs diverse identities, including city poet laureates, examine queer community organizing through poetry. This combination discussion panel and reading will pair poems exploring poetryโs ability to hold space where trauma is prevalent and joy and delight are desperately needed.
Panelists: Moderator: Brian Sonia-Wallace Presenter: Jireh Deng Presenter: Jose Rios Presenter: Carla Sameth Presenter: Victor Yates
Location: Room 515B, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Description: Our panelists will offer insights on literary activism, identity complexities, collaboration pitfalls, and best practices. We hope to acknowledge the work of women and femmes and ignite a new cohort of community leaders, hosts, teaching artists, and organizers.
Panelists: Presenter: bridgette bianca Presenter: Danielle Mitchell Moderator: Kelsey Bryan-Zwick Presenter: Natalie Graham Presenter: Jessica Wilson
Location: Room 410, Level Two, LA Convention Center
Descriptions: This multigenre panel of writer-librarians will share their knowledge, strategies, and best practices for how writers can connect with libraries and librarians for research, community, workshops, and book promotions.
Panelists: Moderator: Elizabeth Galoozis Presenter: Lisa Eve Cheby Presenter: Cybele Garcรญa Kohel Presenter: Lauren Salerno
Location: LA Convention Center, Room 405, Level Two
Description: Contemporary writers of the Salvadoran diaspora use the speculativeโthe imaginativeโto parse through the urgent sociopolitical issues affecting the US and El Salvador. If much of El Salvadorโs past was documented by outsiders, its future will be written by these speculative writers and their contemporaries.
Location: LA Convention Center, Level 2, Room 515B
Description: What does it mean to write about and from an unruly body? In a world that controls and punishes bodies that are queer, trans, disabled, mad, sick, fat, and/or racialized, writing about our unruly bodies can be an act of resistanceโbut that act can come at a cost. How do we write about our unruly bodies in a way that supports our flourishing? Is such a practice possible, and if not, what is needed to make it so?
Panelists: Moderator: Margeaux Feldman Presenter: Amanda Choo Quan Presenter: Carolyn Collado Presenter: Fariha Roisin Presenter: Kai Cheng Thom
Location: Espacio 1839, 1839 1st St, Los Angeles, CA 90033
Description: Join us for a community reading and discussion across all 15 issues of the New York War Crimes during Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) week.
*Accessibility notes: Masks are required for this event. Masks will be provided for those without one at the event.
Limited metered street parking is available. Espacio is one block away from the A-line. (formerly Gold line) Mariachi Plaza metro station.
Free but (if you can) please bring cash for donations.
Location: Beyond Baroque 681 Venice Blvd. Venice, CA 90291
Description: Close out your stay in L.A. with an event at the iconic Beyond Baroque with the Inlandia Books Road Show! Inlandia Books authors will share their work and you can meet and mingle and pick up signed copies of their books. Doors open at 5:30 pm and the event will begin promptly at 6 pm.
Speakers: Will Barnes, Elizabeth Cantwell, Lewis deSoto, Tiffany Elliott, Ellen Estilai, Elizabeth Galoozis, Stephanie Barbรฉ Hammer, Jennifer MacKenzie, and Angelica Maria Barraza Tran. Emceed by Cati Porter.
Location: Bar Franca,438 Main Street Los Angeles, CA 90013
Description: A star-studded lineup of local poets read their life-giving work, in conjunction with the LA-based literary journal Exposition Review. Audience donations on the night will go towards 3 organizations aiding with fire relief: World Central Kitchen, Octavia’s Bookshelf, and the Tongva Nation Eaton Wildfire Recovery Fund. Author signings and chats afterwards.
Location: Figat7th Food Court, 925 W. 8th St. DTLA
Description: In celebration of the AWP Writers Conference being in Los Angeles, and with support from the California Arts Council, WWS is hosting an in-person submission drive. Join us with your computer, your list of journals and open calls gathered from the AWP Book Fair, and your drive to “hit send”!
WWS CERTIFIED AT THE 2025 AWP LOS ANGELES BOOK FAIR
In 2019, I walked into the book fair at AWP Portland and into complete overwhelm. The enormous convention space held presses big and large, writing programs both esteemed and unheard of and writers, agents, and publicists everywhere. The whole place was so big and white and male. I had no idea where I might feel welcome me, where my stories my find a home.
So, for those of you heading to AWP LA, here are 21 WWS vetted presses tabling at the book fair. They show an appreciation for diverse voices in their spaces by having at least 50% women and 50% POC on their mastheads. Check them out. Chat them up, and then, after AWP, submit your words.
Saturday, September 14, 2024 Women Who Submit (WWS) hosts our 11th annual SUBMIT 1 Submission Drive & Fundraiser. This marks the one day a year we encourage woman-identifying and nonbinary writers across the globe to send one of their most beloved pieces of writing to tier one journals as one community.
As an act of solidarity, SUBMIT 1 dares to connect marginalized writers to top tier editors and publishers, widening the spectrum of voices reaching audiences and influencing arts and culture across the world. And you can help!
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
1. Before September 14th, study this list of โTop Ranked Journals of 2024โ with current open calls to find a good fit for your work. BE SURE TO READ AND FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES.
2. On September 14th, 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. Join one of the following SUBMIT 1 Meetups to submit as a community:
WWS-Los Angeles Saturday, September 14, 2024, 11am-2pm Highland Park Brewing: 1220 N Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Bring computers and money for beer and snacks Masks recommended & provided Contact: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (admin@womenwhosubmtilit.org)
WWS-Long Beach Saturday, September 14, 2024 10am-12pm The Hangar at LBX: 4150 McGowen St, Long Beach, CA 90808 Contact: Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley (lucy@lulustuff.com)
WWS-West Los Angeles Saturday, September 14, 2024, 2pm-4pmย West Hollywood Library: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood Contact: Angela Franklin (afrankone@gmail.com)
WWS-Bay Area Saturday, September 14, 2024, 1-3pm Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94104 Contact: wwsl.bay.area@gmail.com
WWS-Austin, TX Saturday, September 14, 2024 at 9:30am Central market Cafe, Austin, TX Contact: Ramona Reeves (ramona.reeves@gmail.com)
4. Tag @WomenWhoSubmit on Twitter (or X) and Instagram and use the hashtag #SUBMIT1, to share when youโve submitted, so we can celebrate with you!
5. After submitting, log your submissions with THIS FORM to help WWS track how many submissions were sent out as a community.
HOW TO SUPPORT:
In conjunction with SUBMIT 1, WWS is raising $5,000 to support projects like purchasing new technical equipment to ensure our hybrid workshops and panels are offering the best quality of online programming making professional development accessible to any writer in need and growing writers funds to help more writers offset the costs of starting and maintaining a writing career.
By donating to the SUBMIT 1 Submission Drive & Fundraiser, and by sharing the fundraiser link and flier on social media and with your communities, you help spread the word on WWSโs mission to push the needle in publishing toward equity and inclusion as one.
Remote community circles and online discussion boards
WWS HISTORY:
Inspired by the 2009 VIDA Count from VIDA, Women in Literary Arts, which published quantitative evidence illustrating the dearth of womenโs voices in top tier publications, Women Who Submit was founded in 2011 to empower women writers to submit work for publication and help change those numbers. In September 2014, a group of writers gathered at Hermosillo Bar in Highland Park, CA for a day of beers, cheers, and literary submissions. It was the first time we called on our WWS community to submit to tier-one literary journals en masse as a nod to the original VIDA Count. SUBMIT 1 continues today as an annual event and call to action for equity and wider representation in publishing with submission drives hosted at public places across Los Angeles. From 2020-2023, we moved our annual gathering to the @WomenWhoSubmit Instagram, and this year we return to a focus on public meetups with online support.