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.
It’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of February, but here we are. And, as usual, the members of Women Who Submit continue to publish their remarkable work in outstanding publications.
So let’s celebrate the WWS members who published during the month of February!
This year started off with tumultuous national events, but as January ends, hope shimmers in the air. With that shimmer in mind, let’s celebrate the accomplishments of our amazing membership. Despite tough times, the members of Women Who Submit have kept sending out their work and getting it published.
Congratulations to everyone who published this month!
I believe in the power of intentions. When we decide the path we are going to take, the length of the stride, the weight of each step, we commit ourselves to follow that path. So often we get lost in the minutiae of our lives that we tend to step out of the trail even when we have spoken to the universe what we want to do.
During the past years, I have understood that writing down those intentions, in whatever form an artistic or analytic mind can find, sets a visual reminder of where we want to go and how we plan to get there. The more artistically inclined will create vision boards. Others write their goals in terms of projects, with specific deliverables, time lines, and a break-down of costs. Whatever form it takes, the vision is the starting point of the upcoming year’s journey: growth, value, recognition, promotion, or survival. Meditation is usually necessary to express this vision in a single word and define the path to take. Some writers I know burn candles and sage at this stage of the planning process
During this ridiculously difficult year, Women Who Submit has offered hope. Our members have supported each other during accountability sessions and publication parties and virtual community readings. We have extended a warm, virtual hand to people when they receive rejections—“motivation letters” as our wonderful member, Hannah Sward, has encouraged us to dub them. And we cheer loud and hard when our members publish their work.
So three cheers for the following WWS members who published across all genres and venues during December, the final month of this long year!
As 2020 draws to a close–and never have I wanted more to see a year end–I am yet again awed by the publication prowess of our members, who have had work appear in numerous venues across all genres. Congratulations to the following WWS members who published work during the month of November!
