May 2022 has been a month of devastating news, from the near-certain overturn of Roe v. Wade to the continued war in the Ukraine to the horrifying murder of children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas. Yet our WWS members continue to persevere, sending out and publishing their amazing creative work in fantastic markets; reminding us that creativity matters, that it uplifts us even during the most uncertain of times.
I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in May!
by Noriko Nakada for the Women Who Submit Leadership Team
This week my ten-year-old had her annual physical. Her dad took her, but that afternoon, when she came home to tell me about it, she said, “I’ve never had a man before.” In her ten years, every pediatrician she’s known has been a woman or non-binary physician. She is growing up in a world where women can be and do so much: they are doctors, they run for president, they play professional sports. In my work in a public middle school, I see young people pushing back against sexist dress codes, and exhibiting so much freedom in what they want to do with their bodies and their lives, but the leak of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade cast a long, dark shadow across any of the improvements to women, non-binary, and transgender folks’ rights, reminding us that our bodily autonomy is under aggressive attack.
We have seen this coming in the election of a blatant misogynist, in the efforts at the state level to restrict abortion access, to silence stories through book and conversation bans, and in the appointment of conservative justices to the Supreme Court. We have watched this unfold slowly, like the shifts in our planet’s climate, but with this ruling, for the first time in many of our lives, abortion will no longer be protected in the United States.
Over the course of the pandemic, chapters and memberships have sprouted up across the nation and globe, and while some of us might reside in solidly blue states where access to safe and legal healthcare remains intact, but even there, care can become precarious as clinics shut down, or voting restrictions make it more likely that the conservative minority will come to power. We watched this over the years as in so many places the reasonable availability of abortions has eroded. And for those of us living in poverty, no matter where we reside, healthcare options are often financially out of reach.
Women Who Submit supports safe, legal, affordable abortion access for all and encourages members to support and lift one another up as we navigate these hostile waters. We see you and acknowledge the range of emotions this week’s news might have triggered. We urge you to take care of yourselves and those around you as you seek out opportunities to turn the tide. We acknowledge that the ways we all push back are diverse and unique. Maybe you are grieving silently, writing a story you have about your reproductive struggles or health, or having difficult conversations with loved ones about the significance of this ruling. However you are processing, we are here, we are creating, and we aren’t going anywhere.
If you have the wherewithal to push back financially, here are some funds and resources to pass along. Most are set up to help people in areas where access to abortion and healthcare is already limited and is likely to become more challenging in the coming months.
Although April 2022 has been a quiet publishing month for our WWS members, they still are consistently sending out their work and publishing in fantastic markets.
I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in April!
March 2022 is ending here in Los Angeles with both rain and sunshine, which feels like a hopeful sign. Another hopeful sign: our WWS members are, as always, consistently sending out their work and publishing in fantastic markets.
I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in March!
It’s Halloween, which signals October’s close, and our WWS members continue to send out their work and publish in amazing places.
This month we’re celebrating the WWS members whose work was published during October of 2021. I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in October!
September has ended, bringing us even closer to the end of 2021, a year that has felt as unreal, uneasy, and unresolved as 2020. Yet our WWS members continue to send out their work and publish in amazing places.
This month we’re celebrating the WWS members whose work was published during September of 2021. I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Let’s celebrate our members who published in September!
I’ve been a musician all my adult life. Songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and front woman, I have toured with metal bands and recorded blues, rock, hard rock, and progressive and symphonic metal projects. And I’ve spent a good portion of my career tripping on, stepping over, and climbing atop boxes.
You may ask, “why not just get rid of them?,” but how could I, when they aren’t mine, they just simply- ARE. The boxes of genre, look, age, and gender, that litter the already loaded minefield of rock and roll.
When I started out in the LA scene, I was already too old, and that caused me to focus twice as hard on my appearance, as a way to “apologize” for my decrepit late-20’s condition. I got unsolicited advice from the wrong people, music managers, usually older, white men, who all had opinions on what I “needed” to do to get my songs out: Lose weight, sing pop, be blond, sing country, look more “polished,” change my name, etc., etc.
After a few years of despair and anorexia, I realized that all of them had their own agendas, and that my best shot lay in being true to myself.
That meant writing and singing in multiple genres, as my muse dictated, cultivating a look that truly felt like me, even if it was polarizing, and understanding that I was most likely cutting myself off from mainstream commercial success and being at peace with that.
To some degree, that has been a lonely pursuit. I never neatly fit anywhere, so I feel a bit like an artistic pilgrim, joining one group of nomads after another on their journeys and sharing their campfires for a few evenings of stories and camaraderie, only to reach that place in the dust where our paths diverge and once again, waving farewell – see you on down the road.
Why have I chosen this?
I could have picked a box, climbed in, and nested in it, but instead, I navigated around the edges of each. Perhaps it’s because, subconsciously, I knew that my destination lie beyond them.
Along the way, I have learned so much. I’ve spent time in the singer-songwriter community, the blues world, the hard rock and metal scenes. I’ve dabbled in musical theater and burlesque. And I’ve absorbed so much beauty from the people who lived there, understood so much more about humanity through the sound of their songs and stories. And I’ve woven that knowledge into my webs, my lyrics and poems that strive to grasp what this life holds and what it means.
For me, it has taken years to become an artist with something genuinely important to say. That’s been my calling. You see, I believe everyone has something unique to offer, something that only they can contribute to the human tapestry. My part simply took time to ripen.
Cher tells a story about how a man approached her and said, “Don’t you think you’re too old to be running around onstage, singing rock and roll?” To which she replied, “I don’t know, ask Mick.”
This year, at 45 years old, I saw myself on the cover of a music and modeling magazine for the first time. Confident, bold, and colorful, the woman I saw was the artist that took 20 years to build, and THAT story, THAT reality, is what I bring to the world.
There is no “too late,” there is no ONE WAY to do anything. In fact, when each of us creates their own way, we show the next generation what is possible, we give them wings and dreams and hope… hope that we can all grab a box and clear that path. For there is much ground to cover.
VK Lynne is a writer and musician from Los Angeles. She is a 2016 recipient of the Jentel Foundation Artist Residency Program Award for writing. She penned the award-winning web series “Trading on 15,” and she has authored the period novella “Even Solomon,” along with two poetry volumes, “Crisis” and “Revelation,” which make up the audiobook “The Release and Reclamation of Victoria Kerygma.“
Her writing has been published in Image Curve, The Elephant Journal, GEM Magazine, and Guitar Girls Magazine.
We’re headed into the sweltering heat of summer, which sometimes can wilt the resolve to do anything. Not our members. They’re still sending out their work and getting it published in wonderful outlets.
This month we’re celebrating the WWS members whose work was published during June 2021. I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Congratulations to our members who published in June!
April has been an incredibly productive month for the Women Who Submit members, who have published far and wide. I’m awed by the gorgeous writing they’ve put out there in the world, and in incredible journals. For all writers, I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) and a link to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Let’s celebrate these authors for their accomplishments in the month of April!
March has been marked by both tentative hope, with the heartening increase in vaccinations across the country, and by horrific violence, with mass shootings in Orange, California, Boulder, Colorado, and Atlanta, Georgia. The yoyoing of emotion caused by these uncertain, frightening times can make it difficult to write, much less send out work for publication.
Still, our members have kept publishing their incredible writing in outstanding outlets. So let’s celebrate the WWS members who published during the tumultuous month of March.
