Category: Uncategorized

It has been a pleasure doing this publication roundup for the last 4.5 years. It’s allowed me to stay connected to this amazing community and inspired me to keep trying to publish. Though this will be my last roundup, I look forward to seeing all of you virtually and in the real world soon. Happy writing! Laura

Congratulations to T.M. Semrad who had 4 poems published at isacoustic! From “Absent Affirmation, a selfie, my mother’s doppelganger, deleted:”

I celebrate father, hold up
his present, my face an aching grin
to give him a gift who gifted me. Later,
when I am grown,
he and I will walk together
alone

From Lituo Huang‘s “Lake View” at Malarkey Books:

I had heard other trains on other nights—as a child in Indiana when the house our rented room was in abutted the track, I’d be jolted awake by the train passing by the open window until the child I was grew used to the sound and added it to a dream—a black crow overhead would open its beak and out came the shriek of the train, first louder and louder and then diminishing with a distorted pitch as it taxied away on the physics of the air.

Check out Lituo‘s poem, “The 101 at Benton” at Dust Poetry!

From Janel Pineda‘s “Rain” at LitHub:

the first time I ask Tana why she left El Salvador,
me dice: porque allá llueve mucho. its waters too vast and devious,
too quick to wash away everything she’s worked for.

From Cybele Garcia Kohel‘s “Acknowledgement: On Race and Land” at Cultural Weekly:

Our country is burning. Again. There is so much happening, it is difficult to find a place to start. The news is constantly turning, cycling. The protests, which give me hope, illuminate the stories of America we have for too long denied. Perhaps I could begin with the election of a tyrant, the subsequent wave (or resurgence) of fascism and racism, and finally a pandemic, which instead of becoming a great equalizer or unifying force, has served to magnify the inequities in America. 

From “June 24, 2010” by S. Evan Stubblefield at Past Ten:

The hills I drive past are as red as heat. The sky is muddy, and there are few cars on the road. The coolant in my air conditioning is low and my windows have to be cranked down by hand. That was my dad’s idea. “If your car ever ends up in the water,” he said. “You can just roll down the glass and get out.” But I-5 is all almond trees, citrus groves, gas stations, and cows. No ocean anywhere.

From Hazel Kight Witham‘s “The Power of Story:” Interview with Jared Seide On How Listening To Each Other Can Restore Our Humanity at The Sun:

Seide: We knew the twenty-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide was going to be a big one, so Bernie Glassman [co-founder of Zen Peacemakers] asked me to help support a Bearing Witness retreat, which would be an opportunity for people from Europe and the U.S., as well as Rwanda and other African nations, to come and participate in five days of bearing witness to the atrocities. Bernie had been leading similar retreats to Auschwitz for two decades.

From Elline Lipkin‘s “Remembering Eavan Boland: ‘I Was a Voice’” at The Los Angeles Review:

When I picked up Boland’s first book of prose, Object Lessons: The Life of The Woman and the Poet in Our Times, I didn’t devour this book so much as I inhaled it.  Here was a woman writing eloquently about unnamed issues I knew were real, articulating the ambitions of many other female poets who were also stymied by invisible barriers, the press of tradition, and the need to know their voices mattered.

From “For All the Girls: On Jaquira Díaz’s Ordinary Girls,” a book review by Anita Gill at Entropy:

Memoirs play with time. Through narration and reflection, the past meets up with the present, allowing the writer to give a closer eye to why what happened still remains so vivid. Díaz utilizes this manipulation of time and takes artistic license. She identifies several moments and brings them together like an accordion. “There was a time, before my mother’s illness, before my parents divorced, before we left Puerto Rico for Miami Beach, when we were happy. It was after Alaina was born, after Mami had gone back to work at the factory, after I’d started school and learned to read.” In an equal amount of befores and afters, she uses just the right moments to capture a lifetime.

Congratulations to Tanya Ko Hong who translated 4 poems by Na Hye-Sok at Lunch Ticket! From “The Doll’s House:”

Playing with my doll
makes me happy and later
I become my father’s doll
and later my husband’s
I make them happy
I become their comfort

Congratulations to Dinah Berland whose Fugue for a New Life came out in June!

Congratulations to Desiree Kannel whose book Lucky John was released this month!

Check out Ann Tweedy‘s 3 poems published in Golden Handcuffs Review!

We hope you and your loved ones are well during these challenging times, and that these literary successes from women in our community bring some hope and joy.

From Anita Gill‘s “Banghra” at The Offing:

As laughter echoed in the lobby of the Katzen Arts Center, I began to ponder collective nouns. If a group of crows is a murder and a group of owls is a parliament, what would the term be for a group of undergraduates? No word came to mind, so I christened the gathered American University students a “headache.” 

From Toni Ann Johnson‘s “The Megnas” at Vida:

We knew about the Arringtons before they got here. Irv Silverman tap-tapped on our back door the day the moving truck driver refused to venture up his black diamond-run driveway. Irv asked if the guy could use ours. Of course we were accommodating. We were good neighbors. Ours stretched down from Oakland Avenue in the back, instead of up from Stage Road in the front, and it was a bunny hill compared to his. So, the driver came that way and the truck pulled onto Irv’s property from ours. There was never a “for sale” sign and Irv waited until then, when it was obvious, to tell us he was moving.

From “Avenging Angel” by Désirée Zamorano at the Los Angeles Review of Books:

When we first meet Lily Wong, the protagonist of Tori Eldridge’s The Ninja Daughter, she is in an empty, desolate building, hanging from a platform, sardonically addressing her Ukrainian tormentor in a bid to extend her life and interrupt the pain of his swinging rope.

Congratulations to Désirée whose story, “Habia Una Vez,” was published at Crab Creek Review!

Congratulations to Noriko Nakada who had two poems, “Family Haiku” and “Meditation on the Morning Spent at the Soccer Field,” published at The Tiger Moth Review! From “Family Haiku”:

Our Family Name / translated into English / means in rice field, to
flee Okinawa’s / smattering of rocky isles / overrun with pests.
Sail amber waves for / land in America where / anything will grow.

Congratulations to Lituo Huang who had two poems, “Prize” and “05.09.2020,” published at Decameron Writing Series. From “Prize”:

The first time I saw the claw machine, I was at a guy’s birthday party. The guy was someone my sister had dated a few times. The party was at Dave and Buster’s because the guy was turning twenty-one. I went even though I was thirty-one and hadn’t been invited.

From Carla Sameth‘s “What to Read When You Need to See Someone Else’s Light and Darkness” at The Rumpus:

Already imperfect, memory is often fragmented and fragile with trauma, making telling our stories more elusive. Just as life does not usually move in a straightforward, organized narrative, my stories were not always moving toward a linear, traditional format. In fact, while I was working on my manuscript, I found that its main characters kept messing up my story arc. Sometimes writing in alternative forms can help to excavate this material, so this is one of the things I looked for in my reading.

The books below were my friends on the road to publishing One Day on the Gold Line, waiting on my bookshelves whenever I needed their company.

More congrats to Carla whose poems, “Each Day” and “Not Hand in Hand,” were published in Sheltering in Place at Staring Problem Press!

Congrats to Karin Aurino who had two poems, “My Name is Wife” and “My Man Stayed with Me,” published at North Dakota Quarterly!

Check out Sarine Balian‘s “1840” at The Coachella Review!

Congrats to Lauren Eggert-Crowe whose poem “I Have Not Taken Proper Advantage of Scorpio Season” was published in Gigantic Sequins!

A personal note this time around: I hope this post finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe during these trying times. I’m glad to be able to share this roundup and to be part of such a supportive community. Congrats to the published writers and be well to all! Laura

From Lisa Eve Cheby‘s “Taking Stock” at Verse-Virtual:

I conduct inventory: 
Chad and Ed are sick, Priya is better, 
Doug is improved, Jon is still healthy. 
A friend’s father died, 
as did a stranger’s. 
Widows forced to grieve alone. 

From “Modern Archaeology” by Lituo Huang at Mineral Lit Mag:

Modern archaeology’s been around for 100 years, give or take.
When I die, my bones might be preserved for
 
the future to find. But let’s face it, my chances
are slim: The bodies on Everest will outlast mine.

Congrats to Carla Sameth who had three poems – “​LA Stories: Urban Mountain Lion, South African Transplant,” “Bruised Arms” and “Dreaming Sobriety” published at Anti-Heroin Chic. From “LA Stories: Urban Mountain Lion, South African Transplant”:

You didn’t want to come here. Los Angeles took you. Down to the basement, near Parker
Center and the Deja Vu Strip Club, next to the new marijuana mall. Where tourists take
photos and buy souvenirs while freshly tatted dazzling dispensary girls sell them strains
with names like “Flying Monkey” and “Ganja Goddess.”

From Stephanie Abraham‘s “In the World to Change It” at the Los Angeles Review of Books:

[LINDA SARSOUR’s] new book, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance, maps her journey from growing up as an outspoken oldest child of immigrants to former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and national co-chair of the Women’s March.

From Helena Lipstadt‘s “Speaking to the Dead; my mother didn’t whistle; Not Asking” at Cathexis Northwest Press:

Let me not be thief of your story   let me paint a still life 
of names you stand over me and below me I inhale the shimmer
of your breath I will not betray your blame

From Désirée Zamorano‘s “Death in the Neighborhood” at Terrain:

As I write I am sitting in my front yard patio, a tiny courtyard well-defined by a surrounding low stucco wall. The wall reminds me that I am good at boundaries, from years of struggling with an over-identifying, tiny and close-knit family of origin, from years spent “individuating,” as a young woman, carving out my private life, my secrets. In this shaded area I can hide under the camellia trees, watch people walk their dogs, listen to the chirruping of the birds, follow a pair of hummingbirds as they build their discreet nest, be both simultaneously public and private. It’s the same patio where my reclusive friend Liv, once and only once, shared a pitcher of Manhattans with me.

Also from Désirée, “Census 2020: A Quiz,” at Lady/Liberty/Lit:

Quizzes can be a way to get to know yourself better. Please self-identify to the best of your ability.

1. During apartheid in South Africa these would be your choices. Choose the one that best describes you:

a) White
b) Black
c) Coloured
d) Indian or Asian

From Noriko Nakada‘s “California” at The Nasiona:

Every second of the drive to California for summer vacation feels heavy, weighted down just like our car, packed tight with the six of us, suitcases stretching at their zippers, and the big cooler stuffed full of snacks. Dad drives the station wagon along cool mountain passes, past Lake Shasta, and into a desert valley where the sky is clear and the hot sun pounds through the windows. There is nothing to see except hills that look like blankets thrown over sleeping giants. I watch for something to change, but nothing has looked different for hours.

Also from Noriko, “How Do We Count Our Dead?” at bitter melon:

By breaths lost
loved ones left behind
accomplishments in life
shades of acquired fame?

Congrats to Noriko whose essays, “Vegas Indulgences” and “At Home in America” were published in Lady/Liberty/Lit and in Mom Egg Review!

From “A Relative Stole the Baby Name I Wanted to Use, but in the End I Was Thankful” by Rachael Rifkin at Good Housekeeping:

When my mom died a year and a half before I got pregnant, however, the names we’d chosen no longer seemed relevant. We knew if I eventually got pregnant, we’d name our child after my mom.

From Ryane Nicole Granados‘ “Peter Harris and Adenike Harris: This Father and Daughter Confronted Pain and Healed Together” at LA Parent:

They say it never rains in Southern California, but on a recent day clouds hovered over the hotel lobby where I sat in a corner booth sipping hot chocolate and eating breakfast sandwiches with Peter Harris and Adenike Harris, the father-daughter team behind Popsn’Ade, a project they started in 2016 to help others heal through creativity and call-and-response dialogue.

From Melissa Chadburn‘s “The Forgotten Babies” at Alta:

It was the summer of dead babies. At night I sat drowning in coroners’ reports and case files. Coyotes frolicked in the wash behind my house. Dry by summer, it held remnants of snow play—bright yellow and electric-blue plastic bits of toboggans. Brittle palo verdes littered with refuse from teenage parties, things like bottle caps and empty bags of chips. The hour of molting. The wildlings came in groups of three and four—clearing the mean ash-green pincushions and devil’s fingers in gleeful jumps. They danced, silhouetted against the black. Bats twisted above.

From Ashunda Norris‘ “On Watching Surviving R. Kelly” at Trampoline Poetry:

you understand nothing if you do not
have to imagine your own abuse replay
every time another blk girl opens her mouth
upturned & over complete

Congrats to Ashunda, who had two poems “Grandma’s Hands” and “The Book of Generation(s) of the Negress,” published in La Presa Issue 9!

Congrats to Rachel Sona Reed for her review of “Sociolinguistic variation in children’s language: Acquiring community norms” at Cambridge University Press!

Congratulations to Janel Pineda who had three poems, “English” “Rain” and “In Another Life,” published in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext published by Haymarket Books!

Check out Tanya Ko Hong‘s National Poetry Month 30 days project on Youtube!

We hope this roundup finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe! To ease the stress of these unsettling times, please enjoy this lengthy and exciting list of publications from Women Who Submit members. Congrats to all!

To begin, we’d like to invite you to check out Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology that includes writing from Women Who Submit members!

Congratulations to Aruni Wijesinghe, whose poem “Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick, Crème Color #640, Blackberry: Part I and Part II,” was published in Making Up: Poems!

From Anita Gill‘s “What We Can’t Do: A Father and Daughter’s List” at Citron Review:

On that trip, I would ask you for the millionth time why you never taught me your native tongue and your answer would be the same, “What use would it have been?”

Also from Anita, “Coronavirus Forced Me Home from Spain Where I Was a Fulbright Scholar,” at the Baltimore Sun:

On March 12th, I woke up in my apartment in Spain to discover the president of the United States had announced a ban of all travel between the U.S. and Europe on account of the ever-growing cases of coronavirus patients.

From Kate Maruyama‘s “Not Yet” at Barren Magazine:

This was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention when his arm went around my throat. I tried a back kick, an elbow to the ribs, I tried to turn to face him. But I couldn’t move. I visualized a knee strike to his head—but apparently all of those years watching my boy do karate and jujitsu didn’t pay off, because I blacked out.

Congratulations to Bonnie S. Kaplan who had a piece published in Closet Cases – Queers On What We Wear edited by Megan Volpert!

Congrats to Tanya Ko Hong who had three poems published in Cultural Weekly. From “Yang Kong Ju”:

Koreans called her
Yang kalbo
Yankee’s whore

Korean men say
No thanks—
even though it’s free

Check out this interview of Tanya and this book in which Tanya’s work is featured!

From “Parenting Through An Apocalypse” by Liz Harmer at The Walrus:

The day we got the keys to our new house in California, the so-called Holy Fire was blazing a few kilometres away. The sky rusted a kind of brownish orange, and on the piled boxes and half-dismantled furniture on the patio of our newly purchased home, ashes collected lightly, like dry snow. I had not been sleeping well and did not appreciate this omen.

Congrats to Helena Lipstadt who had her poem, “First Light June,” published in Undeniable: Alternating Current Press!

From Lituo Huang‘s “My Beautiful Sister” at VIDA:

My beautiful sister is eating a slice of watermelon. It tastes so good she shows me the whites of her eyes.

My slice is old. All the cells have gone dark.

My slice is old, I say.

Also from Lituo, “DO NOT CONTACT YOUR EX DURING THE PANDEMIC,” at Bitter Melon:

Do not call and ask him to hold your hand at the end of the world.
Do not email him to get your things back.
Do not drive by his house, slash his tires, slash your wrists.
Do not confess.

Also from Lituo, “My Small Press Writing Day,” at my (small press) writing day:

My writing day begins at 4:00 a.m., or sometimes 5:00 a.m., or 6:00 a.m., or 7:00 a.m., or 8:00 a.m., when I wake up with anxiety. The first writing I do is in a notebook where I write down when I went to bed. When I woke up. If and when I fell back asleep and woke up again. How tired I am.

From Angela M. Sanchez‘s “Bucking the Danger of a Single Story with the Power of a Multitude – A Review of Tales from La Vida: a Latinx Comics Anthology,” at solrad:

A single story, fortunately, is not what readers get in Tales from La Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology. Edited by Dr. Frederick Luis Aldama, Distinguished Professor at The Ohio State University, Tales from La Vida offers a panorama of Latinx narratives, featuring seventy unique vignettes and over eighty contributors. With eye-catching artwork, some pieces harken to fotonovelas (Leighanna Hidalgo, Fernando Balderas Rodriguez) while others, like Zeke Peña’s fleshy heart pulsing with nopales, are stand-alone striking. 

Congratulations to Li Yun Alvarado whose poem, “Hechizo Para Congelar,” was published in Accolades: A Women Who Submit Anthology!

Happy Leap Year and congratulations to all the Women Who Submit who were published in February!

From Jenise Miller‘s “How Compton’s Communicative Arts Academy Rebuilt the City for Artists and Community Life” at KCET:

Before NWA, there was the CAA. Decades before young rap artists blasted a tough city image onto the world stage, a group of artists in Compton established the Communicative Arts Academy (CAA), a vital arts program in the era of the Black Arts Movement in Southern California in the 1960s and 70s. During the height of their operation from 1969 to 1975, the CAA invigorated Compton with art inspired by life and possibility in California’s first majority black city.

Congratulations to T.M. Semrad who had 2 pieces published at Nightingale & Sparrow – “A Wedding” and “Toward the Unfinished.” From “A Wedding:”

The groom sketches a self-portrait. He begins with the feet. They are practically shod. His feet ache. The shoes are black lace-ups with rubber soles. They are planted wide. He erases and begins again. He starts with the feet. He wears socks: nubby, cream, and thick. His feet get cold walking across the bare floor. He erases and begins again. He starts with the feet. They are bare, wide, the toes short. The big toes curl slightly up. He erases. He brushes the pale pink crumbs and pencil dust from the page, now smudged gray.

Check out T.M.‘s poem, “Virtual Realized,” published at Pomme!

Congratulations to Angelina Sáenz who had 2 poems published at Acentos Review – “Humidity” and “Estoy Sola.” From “Humidity:”

Humidity transports me

                  to musty brick homes along dusty roads
                  moist sunrise rooster calls
                  ragged dogs roaming on roofs

                  to Tepic, Nayarit

Neighbors in my Tia’s living room tiendita call

                  ¡Quiero! 

Also check out Angelina‘s, “I Come From a Place Where All We Knew Was to Be Ghetto Fabulous and Together,” at every other!

Have a listen to Lituo Huang‘s “Something to Remember” at Manawaker!

Congratulations to Donna Spruijt-Metz whose “Devil’s Fair,” a translation of Lucas Hirsch from the Dutch, was published at Copper Nickel!

Congratulations to Helena Lipstadt who had 3 poems published in February – “From Kalisz, Air, Earth” in The Midwest Quarterly, and “Doina in the Studyhouse” and “It Could Happen” in the Blue Mountain Review!

Congratulations to S. Pearl Sharp, who had a poem featured in the City of Los Angeles’ 2020 African Heritage Month Calendar and Cultural Guide!

Happy New Year and happy writing! Congratulations to all the women who were published in January 2020!

From Mia Nakaji Monnier‘s “Netflix’s New ‘Goop Lab’ Needs More Normal People and Less Gwyneth Paltrow” at The Lily:

It’s easy to dislike Goop.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand sells a kind of self-care that appears effortless but actually requires a lot of effort and money. The contradiction makes even browsing Goop’s Instagram account — a grid of fresh produce, lush landscapes, and happy-looking white women with loose waves — an irritating exercise.

From “Stargazer” by Alana Saltz at Yes Poetry:

I roll my eyes back
to watch my personal astronomer
make marks in my sky
with clicks and lines.

From a review of Alana‘s book of poems, The Uncertainty of Light, published in Blanket Sea:

The Uncertainty of Light explores how it feels to inhabit a body that is misunderstood. Through lenses of the natural world, astronomy, science fiction, and pop culture, this evocative collection captures snapshots of a life with chronic illness while tapping into universal experiences of searching for meaning, seeking acceptance, and falling in love.

From Sakae Manning‘s “Michiko’s Waltz” at Blood Orange Review:

I knew about people touching me without asking long before the dry lipped, gap-toothed lizard man swooped around the corner of Coalman and Edgewater in a blue El Camino, all chrome and shine. I’d nearly cleared the half-way mark to the sidewalk. Two blocks from the market. A half block from home. He wanted directions and beckoned me to step closer on account of he couldn’t hear me over the engine. I scooted closer, hugging the carton of cold milk perspiring in my arms. He set his claws into my crotch and held on tight. 

From Kate Maruyama‘s “The Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Power of Narrative and Community Amid Chaos” at Entropy:

There is no good way to open this. I can only try to make sense of the summer of 2017 when my mother lost her mind and the country seemed to lose its. And the stories we told ourselves to find our way through.

*

“I think everyone’s really sad and feeling weird because of Trump. Like everyone I talk to is weird.” The argument was sound, but a little strange for my mom. She was worried, afraid. Not like herself.

From Ava Homa‘s “For Me, There’s No Escaping Iran: A Toronto Novelist on Terror, the Pain of the Ukraine Plane Crash and Glimpses of Defiance” at The Star:

The plane crash was only one of the incidents in a chain of events that have demoralized those of us who can’t find solace or prospect. We are aware that a dramatic change is not plausible or desirable, but a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel could help since day after day we receive tragic or terrifying news.

Congratulations to Margo McCall whose piece, “Into the Heart of the Storm,” was published at Blank Spaces!

Happy New Year and congratulations to everyone who was published in 2019! Cheers to these writers whose work was published in December.

From “Vanishing Twin Syndrome” by Rachael Rifkin at Pulp:

IVF produced three embryos and my doctor implanted one, leaving two on ice.

When that one didn’t take, I took a couple month break from fertility treatments. I let myself become so used to the appearance of single lines, I wondered if my body could ever overcome my disbelief. I let myself believe I wasn’t a person concerned with getting pregnant, and for a couple months I was.

Congratulations to Ashunda Norris who had four poems published at Dreginald! From “My Therapist Says I’m Mourning the Loss of An Undead Sister:”

& the grief wrecks me a bride of caskets stabbing
heated cotton fields my sister’s manic curses slice through
my father’s prayers mid request & what else is there for god to do

From Helena Lipstadt‘s “All By Myself,” at Glint:

I am having an affair
with you

you don’t care
you don’t know
ty lubie

From Soleil David‘s “Last Transit of Venus This Century Draws Stargazers Around the World” at Sinking City:

High noon & I trek out to a Gangnam playground with you,
sit on a swing, trace larger & larger arcs & you fit
your face over the pinhole projector you made, staring into
the haloed reflection of a sun as yet unblemished. Around me

Also from Soleil, “Mt. Mayon” at Mary:

It is not Pompeii yet. 
Not the stew of magma
& rainwater.

Congratulations to Romaine Washington whose poem, “1. Nuzzle and 2. Shrinking,” was published in Is It Hot In Here or Is It Just Me?: Women Over Forty Write on Aging!

Congratulations to Li Yun Alvarado whose essay, “Literatura, Música, y (Huracán) María: A Puerto Rican Poet’s Reflection After the Storm,” was published in Boricua en la Luna, a collection of work written by Puerto Rican authors!

Congratulations to Lituo Huang whose chapbook, This Long Clot of Love, was published this month!