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Breathe and Push: My Humble Submission

By Hazel Kight Witham

It comes in nerve-frizzling, stomach-turning uncertainty. I scour every sentence, every phrase, triple second-guess myself. I ask my trusted readers to give me thoughts and cuts and end notes and validation before I submit.

It takes me months sometimes to craft and hone and spit-shine a piece until I deem it ready for world. I imagine the world will judge all the micro-choices, the thin premise, the overwrought vines of ideas I could not prune back. And so I draft, and revise, and put aside, pick up again, add some, cut more, trim, reorder, cut the opening, extend the ending, carve, whittle, sculpt. I workshop myself weary.

And even then, I am unsure, doubting, wondering: who will read, what will they think, is it as perfect as I can make it to be beyond reproach, likeable, no—loveable—to all. I want to engage with the world, and my people-pleasing bones make it very hard to do so without worrying what others will think of this collection of words.

My first published essay took a sizeable lifetime and an MFA program to create, excerpted from a still unpublished memoir I had spent years writing and revising. I loved that piece (“The Storm Between Us” at Bellevue Literary Review), but the work that went into chiseling it into diamond-sharp focus was months and months in the making.

a collection of notebooks with handwriting

I wonder if the chiseling was my worry. It was hard stone to handle. All the revising was procrastination of a sort. It was nerve-wracking offering this story to the world: a braided piece about the DNA I inherited from my grandmother, her hospitalization in Galveston, a dip back into the hurricane history of that seaside town that mirrored the storm of mental illness that threatened to crush us both.

When I told my father that I was writing about my own hospitalization a decade after the hell of it he said, “Why? Why would people want to read about that?” I want to say that he was trying to protect me, this man who talks about everything but the stories I most want to hear. I want to say he was not saying my story does not matter. That he was trying to shield me from criticism perhaps, or a lack of regard. I want to be generous in the face of his disregard.

But his question echoes across the years still. Even though I know now and knew then that my story matters—our stories matter—and are worth being well-told. Worth something not just to the heart of the listener or reader, but to the heart of the teller, the writer.

And yet. The question still dogs me as I try to help manuscripts years in the making find the light. As I become the advocate for my own story because sometimes your queries go unanswered, and emails from contests all start in apology and sometimes the agent shops a work and there are no bites and they quit the literary world for another one a bit more kind.

Still: I am learning to breathe and push the work out. I am learning to submit. Poems are easiest, bite-sized, not so demanding of working and reworking that prose and longer works require. Perhaps not so vulnerable to judgment. But still there are those jitters when I know a piece will go up, and someone might read it, maybe even my father, and I do not know how or if it will be received. I do not know what I am blind to in my own work, what I say that might offend. I do not know if you are even here with me still, holding on to the end, giving this a few minutes of your precious time.

There are many worthy words out there, and claiming space for my own is part of the writing life I have the hardest time with. But the words are worth it. And so: to submit is the precise word for this process. I submit despite the fear, I submit despite certain rejection, I submit despite the echoes of my father and the self-doubt and the uncertainty. I submit, I submit, I submit and every time, there is less apology and more clarity.

Hazel Kight Witham is a writer, teacher, activist, and artist whose work can be found in Bellevue Literary Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Rising Phoenix Review, Angels Flight, Sixfold, Zoetic Press’s NonBinary Review, Lunch Ticket and Lady/Liberty/Lit. She lives and breathes in Los Angeles with her family. www.hazelkightwitham.com

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A WWS Publication Roundup for February

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

Congratulations to all the women who were published in February – a wonderfully long list!

From Carla Sameth‘s “Making Love to My Toes” at Anti-heroin Chic:

Girl glares sullen for a moment, thinks: this shit job, this hotel, these people make
so much noise about nothin’ and I bet no tip gonna be left 

in my room tomorrow. 

Also from Carla, “Mourning Morning” at Entropy Magazine:

I remember her breath quickening, holding her breast while she touched herself; I was too selfish to make love to her because I was already off and running, ruminating. As if I was on the ride: Soarin’ over California in Disneyland, California Adventure. I take notes like I’m already remembering the embrace I’ll never feel again when she’s gone. Something will take her away; I’ll think about how far away I floated, as she stroked my body in the morning, just behind me, as she leaned into my labia, my clit (I write these words as if I always had, but they come out awkwardly).

From Ava Homa, “Theatre review: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts,” at Signal Tribune:

It is only in a musical that brings to life caricatures of British snootiness that the horror of several consecutive murders can turn into jolly entertainment.

One of the best examples of this comic portrayal of ignorance, in this reviewer’s opinion, was the lofty lady Hyacinth D’Ysquith, who was desperate to find “a place so low that hope itself has been abandoned.” 

From Antonia Crane‘s “Secret Life of a Stripper Who’s Also a Social Worker” at narratively:

It’s slow as shit at Showgirls. Summer in the Coachella Valley is a sadistic blow-dryer you can’t turn off, and business comes to a screeching halt because all my regulars leave for their other houses in colder places or go on fancy European vacations with their wives. I’m “Candy” here but my regulars call me “The Lady in Red.” Riley and I always work on Tuesdays, waiting for the rare drifter to pop in for a happy hour beer and a quick blast of AC so we can talk him into a twofer and pay our bills. Riley’s the best pole dancer here by a long shot — she can do the Running Man while suspended in midair. Right now, she’s a superhero perched to fly, but there’s no one to dangle upside down for, so she leans on her fists with her elbows on the bar and talks, while her long, toned legs drip off the barstool. She tells me about her recent relapse and her anxiety disorder while our buns stick to the vinyl barstools.

From Diane Sherlock‘s “The Inedible Footnote of Child Abuse” at The Manifest-Station:

There was no bodily autonomy in the house I grew up in. No privacy, no warm baths without ice water dumped from above, no agency over my body, and my brothers and I had no say in what we ate. Three seemingly random vegetables were force-fed.  Why those three? Why not? They were the favorites of the reigning narcissist of the house. They were our mother’s favorites. Reject them, reject her. The essence of narcissistic abuse.

From “Water Tank” (and other poems) by Sehba Sarwar at Paper Cuts Magazine:

we are fish
swimming
below the surface

in our aquarium
beneath broad
banana leaves

From Janel Pineda‘s “In Another Life” at wildness:

The war never happened but somehow you and I still exist. Like obsidian,
we know only the memory of lava and not the explosion that created

us. Forget the gunned-down church, the burning flesh, the cabbage soup.

From Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo‘s “‘A While’ Means January,‘” at The Acentos Review:

“It’s like you fell from the sky,”
he said mystified, but he didn’t know
I conjured him in a new moon.
Bees buzz in his ears ordering
him to work till callouses grow
into houses for their dreams.

From Soleil Garneau‘s “Shaking the Magic Eight Ball” at catheXis:

i went out lookin’ for something
like i go out every day
i walk
the broken concrete
and think of what else won’t be fixed

Congratulations to Ryane Nicole Granados whose “Kids Gym Provides Inclusion for Children – and Its Owners” was published at L.A. Parent!

Congratulations to Toni Ann Johnson whose story, “The Way We Fell Out of Touch,” was published at Callaloo!

Congratulations to Lituo Huang whose story, “The Climb,” was published at Bosie Magazine!

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Behind The Editor’s Desk: Janice Lee

When new WWS members ask, “Where do I even start? Where do I find magazines, journals and websites that might publish my writing?” I always direct them to Entropy Magazine’s Where To Submit list, which compiles a huge selection of presses and journals that are seeking submissions. Entropy is a community-centered online journal that has been really hitting the high notes for several years. From fiction to longform essays, from astrology to a series about the weather, they curate a unique and vibrant space for a diverse range of authors.

I spoke to founder and executive editor Janice Lee about how Entropy started, where it’s going, and why you should submit.

As founder and executive editor of Entropy, what was your mission in beginning the journal and community space? How did you build a masthead, readership, and a pool of contributors?

Peter Tieryas Liu and I started Entropy in 2014 seeking to create a new kind of community. We wanted it to be built on trust and diversity, and at first, that meant we wanted people involved that weren’t in our immediate circles. So I didn’t ask my close friends and collaborators and grad school buddies initially. We used intuition and sense and gathered a diverse group of literary citizens that we were in touch with through social media, and at AWP Seattle, we asked a bunch of them to be involved in this crazy project, and they said yes.

Peter and I too, by the way, didn’t know each other well. He had submitted reviews to me when I was Reviews Editor at HTMLGIANT and we immediately trusted each other but were also drawn to the fact that we were really different from each other in terms of the communities that we participated in and our own artistic and aesthetic inclinations.

This diversity was important. The people we initially asked to be editors were also scattered. Different genres, communities, geographic regions, interests, etc. Having diverse editors meant that we knew they would bring on contributors that were diverse and that we didn’t already know about.

Since then we’ve worked hard to build Entropy more of as a community than as a magazine. We take submissions and have features and sections and make curatorial decisions and publish work, so yes, we operate like a magazine. But part of the impetus of its creation was to have a community space for writers. When we started, many other literary sites that had acted as these kinds of community spaces had ended or were winding down, or were moving on to different projects.

There are tons of amazing magazines and journals publishing super high quality content that is highly curated and selected. Entropy is not that. We’re super proud of what we publish, but we don’t want to be an elite platform. It’s meant to be an inclusive space. All of our editors (over 50 of them now) all have direct access to the website and can schedule and publish content directly. They don’t need my approval. It’s a model built on trust and compassion. We want this to be a safe space. A welcoming one. A place for dialogue and collaboration.

What are some of the ways that Entropy has evolved over the years and have you seen your day-to-day work as editor change along with it?

Entropy has grown in a way that I never could have predicted. Its reach still surprises me, and it means so much to me when contributors come say hi at events like AWP and thank us for publishing their work. A lot of these contributors are students, for many it is their first publication. We also hear from writers who have careers who appreciate the support that Entropy has shown them, and the important community space that it creates.

In this way, I’ve learned more about the capacities for intimacy through editing. Both in my writing and editing and publishing, I’m interested in asking questions, I’m interested in the vulnerability of language that allows for an honest attempt at expression and a way to investigate complex questions. This might be about life, seeing, existence, race, gender, politics, love, depression, relationships, food. I believe that writing exists because language fails. Because language fails, we keep doing what we do. That is the exciting part. Writing is an attempt to articulate the inarticulable. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of new people or hear from people because of things I’ve personally written or pieces I’ve published or books we’ve put out. Writing and editing and publishing and reading and sharing and dialoguing and thinking, all of this is about existing together as part of a larger community, and this larger community is where the work exists. It allows us to share what we see and to see what others see.

This is also a political act. How marginalized voices get to articulate their everyday, their reality, how all these realities can exist. An exchange. Various levels of intimacy are important for radical change. I’m constantly asking in both my writing and editing: how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy?

What distinguishes an excellent submission from an okay one? What are you looking for?

We look for honesty, we look for diversity, we look for sensitivity, we look for thoughtfulness, we look for engagement. We are open to almost everything. We keep creating new sections as people take the initiative to create them. Readers are welcome to write and pitch their own ideas for a series to curate or column to contribute. What we’re looking for is what benefits our readers or the community in some way.

Speaking of submissions, I’m really interested in the new Subversions section in Entropy and I think a lot of interesting perspectives about the submission process will come out of it. What was the inspiration behind starting that section?

Justin Greene, our Where to Submit editor, dreamed up that new series. He wanted to complement the Where to Submit list and create a larger dialogue around the logistics of submissions, and look at everything from the questionable power dynamics implied in the term “submission,” and the practice of submitting as it intersects with identity. We want to make the submission process easier and more transparent, but we also don’t want to buy into the commodification of writing and publishing. We provide the lists as a resource for the community, but wanted to be more open in creating dialogue around different vantage points and perspectives, including taking into account the problematic hierarchies that submission systems create. At the same time, it’s an opportunity to feature non-standard publications like zines or experimental publications.

Entropy is doing something unique and exciting in partnering with Civil Coping Mechanisms and Writ Large Press to form The Accomplices. Can you talk about anything that partnership has planned for this year?

Yes! So The Accomplices LLC is a literary arts partnership and media company dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices and identities, particularly writers of color, through traditional and new media publishing, public engagement, and community building. It consists of the entities Civil Coping Mechanisms, Entropy, and Writ Large Press. We wanted to combine our various strengths (Civil Coping Mechanisms: publisher & promoter of kick-ass independent literature, Entropy: a magazine and community of contributors that publishes diverse literary and non-literary content, and Writ Large Press: an indie press that uses literary arts and events to resist, disrupt, and transgress) to work towards creating more resources for marginalized writers, and doing this by more than just traditional publishing.

We just launched our new website and we have a whole bunch of new books slated for this year. I’m especially excited about Entering the Blobosphere: A Musing on Blobs, a book of speculative theory by Laura Hyunjhee Kim that is coming out this summer. We’ll be at AWP for the first time as a single entity and have a huge event planned for Thursday March 28, called Center Justify (and are partnering with AAWW, The Operating System, De-Canon, White Noise Project, and PSU Indigenous Nations Studies for an extravaganza of readings and lots of delicious food.) We have lots of new events planned in LA and elsewhere. We’ll be announcing some more partnerships. There are also rumors of a new podcast series and other new projects. We’ll be announcing updates on our website and our Twitter (@the5accomplices).

Janice Lee is the author of KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011), Damnation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015), and The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016). She writes about the filmic long take, slowness, interspecies communication, the apocalypse, and asks the question, how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy? She is Founder & Executive Editor of Entropy, Co-Publisher at Civil Coping Mechanisms, Contributing Editor at Fanzine, and Co-Founder of The Accomplices LLC. After living for over 30 years in California, she recently moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon where she is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Portland State University.

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A WWS Publication Roundup for January

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

Happy New Year! And happy Women Who Submit publications! Congratulations to all the writers who were published in January.

From Ryane Nicole Granados‘ “Course Offers Specials-Needs Moms a Mindful Return to Work” at LA Parent:

Having a baby is a transformative experience, bringing intense physical changes and engulfing emotional ones due to the pending needs of this new human. The mind races from nesting to nursing to concern over who will care for this bundle of joy once parents return to work. These concerns are heightened when a child is born with a disability of medical condition.

From Noriko Nakada‘s “People Don’t Strike for 6%; We Strike for Justice” at United Teacher:

…this weekend was not like all the others, because I’m an LAUSD public school teacher, and like every other year, I had many papers to grade and many students on my mind as I made my way through the weekend, but unlike other years, this year held an added stress. All weekend I carried the weight of a looming work stoppage and very
public contract negotiations that put my colleagues and me in the crosshairs of public conversation on the sidelines of sporting events or gathered around a table waiting for the cake to come out.

Also from Noriko, “Lessons from the Picket Line,” at Cultural Weekly:

We are both UTLA members and we had been bracing for this day since December 19th when our winter break was interrupted by the setting of the strike date. Over the holidays we talked with friends and family about the strike and made plans for our kids during the work stoppage. Then, we worried and waited. After the new year, we went back to work at our school sites, and the strike was postponed, and maybe wouldn’t even happen, but that Sunday night, when the strike was definitely happening, new levels of anxiety rose to the surface: Would all of the teachers who had committed to strike show up to the picket? Would the lines hold? Would the community support us?

From “Yesterday Small Voices” by Donna Spruijt-Metz at Poets Reading the News:

whispered to me through the day
slick-nosed, nudging
demanding my elusive attention

I looked up from my
busy ephemera, startled,
as if caught in mid-slaughter

From “The Promotion” by Karin Aurino at Literary Orphans:

His eyelids fluttered. There was a ringing in his left ear. He didn’t think he would be nervous, but maybe he was.

It was the fifth city in six days. The audience had settled into their seats. It was a large crowd, maybe a hundred and fifty people at the Westfield Mall. He had done these over a hundred times before. He could do it in his sleep.

Congratulations to Anita Gill whose essay, “Hair,” was published this month in the Iowa Review!

Congratulations to Nina Clements whose poem, “Our Mother of Sorrows,” was published in Prairie Schooner!

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Writing Through the Storm

A huge public education crowd

By Noriko Nakada

Even as I sit here writing this column, I’m not sure how it will be written.

I missed writing the last Breathe and Push post of the 2018. I had every intention of writing a summary of this column’s first year, of this Women Who Submit community willing into publication essays about the labor of writing, about Stephon Clark and Black Lives Matter, about teaching while breathless, and the refugee crisis, about writing while mothering, and creating poetry in the midst of tragic news, about gentrification, and Mr. Rogers, and finally, about the upcoming LA teacher strike.

And then, on December 19th, the day I was supposed to publish that column about Breathe and Push’s first year, the UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles) set a January 10th strike date and the words for that last column were lost in a sea of text messages and emails.

Winter vacation for our two-teacher household revolved around strike preparations, getting our heads around the work stoppage and organizing our family and school communities. Then we waited, wondering if and when the strike would come, until all of a sudden, after all of those days, it was here. 

If you were in Los Angeles during the strike, you might have seen us. We wore red and carried pickets. We chanted on neighborhood streets and on major thoroughfares. We accepted donations of umbrellas, coffee, and doughnuts. We carried beautiful handmade signs that disintegrated in the wet, and then we remade them. We danced on sidewalks and onto computers, and we screamed and sang until our throats grew hoarse. We moved through rain and wind all week in numbers that surprised even us: 30,000 teachers out on strike, rallying crowds of 40,000; 50,000; 60,000.

public ed rally in LA
Thousands rally for public education in Los Angeles.

We stood shoulder to shoulder in awe of the collective power of our city pulling in the direction of a common good: quality public schools for kids and families and communities. We pushed: a whole city, in rain and wind and finally into sunlight, and by the start of the second week of the strike, an agreement was reached, members cast votes, and small victories were won.

These were not the glorious victories you might think 60,000 people in the streets would win. The contract teachers won was not glamorous, but all of those teachers, and students, and families breathed and pushed public education in the right direction.

And guess what. I barely wrote a word about it.

But now the column is almost done, on the night after my first day back teaching, when I wasn’t sure I would be able to write at all.

Neil Gaiman says of writing “You write. That’s the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”

So keep those words coming. Keep on breathing, pushing, and writing because that is what matters. We might not always win. Every draft won’t be pretty or perfect, but we have to keep moving forward. Keep going. Keep writing.

Noriko Nakada headshot in black and white

Noriko Nakada is a public school teacher and the editor of the Breathe and Push column. She writes, blogs, tweets, and parents in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

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Behind The Editor’s Desk: Megha Majumdar

At Women Who Submit, we encourage our members to submit their writing to journals that value their writers, journals that publish excellent writing from new and established authors, and who have a clear mission statement. Many of our members have submitted prose to Catapult, a relatively new but widely respected online magazine and press that publishes dynamic fiction and nonfiction. Catapult also offers classes for writers looking to hone skills such as writing personal essays, humor writing, and finding an agent.
I corresponded with associate editor Megha Majumdar about her work at Catapult.

Continue reading “Behind The Editor’s Desk: Megha Majumdar”

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2018 Report and What’s to Come in 2019

A woman standing before a room of women writers speaking.

In 2018, WWS hosted five public career development workshops led by local professionals, which were livestreamed and archived on our public Facebook page. At these free, public events we orientated 66 new members into our community and granted nearly $900 to existing members to help with submission fees. In September, we hosted our 5th Annual Submission Blitz at The Faculty Bar in East Hollywood where those in attendance racked up 35 total submissions in four hours.

On our blog, we celebrated 131 publications and awards in our monthly WWS Publication Roundup edited by Laura K. Warrell, and we brought two new series: “Breathe & Push,” essays focused on the strength and space to breathe through bleak circumstances and push our creative works into the world, edited by Noriko Nakada, and “Writing on Budget” edited by Lisbeth Coiman. Nakada also published the original essay, “Why LAUSD Teachers Might Strike” on our site, and we are happy to support LA teachers. Another piece of advocacy we are proud of is, “WWS statement against the Trump Administration’s racist immigration policy,” a collective piece led by blog editor and leadership team member, Lauren Eggert-Crowe.

On our leadership team, we wished farewell to long-time team member, Ramona Pilar Gonzales who is taking a step back from WWS planning to focus on her career goals, and we welcomed two new members, Noriko Nakada and Ryane Granados.

Black and white photo of three women sitting in a lounge and in mid discussion.
Kit Reed facilitating a writing workshop at Wesleyan University.

In 2019, we have many exciting things in store starting with the announcement of The Kit Reed Travel Fund for Women-Identifying & Non-Binary Writers of Color. Two $340 grants will be awarded in 2019 to writers seeking advancement through participation in a conference, workshop or residency. Kit Reed was a prolific novelist and short story writer who advocated for her marginalized students, colleagues, and writer friends. This fund was made possible by a donation from Reed’s family in honor of her work as a writer, feminist, professor, and mentor. 

Our first ever, anthology is also in the works. More details on the open call to come at AWP19 where we are hosting a WWS Happy Hour on Thursday, March 28th at Nucleus Portland from 3pm-6pm.

Lastly, be sure to join us for our WWS Workshop & New Member Orientation series beginning Saturday, February 9, 2019 at 10am with “You Need a Website! A Practical Guide to the What, Why, and How of Building (or Strategically Updating) Your Author Website” with Li Yun Alvarado.

If you would like to support our programming and help fund speaker honorariums and submission fee grants, you can now donate here.

From the WWS Leadership Team: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Lauren Eggert-Crowe, Ryane Granados, Ashaki M. Jackson, Noriko Nakada, Ashley Perez, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, and Rachael Warecki.

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Writing on a Budget: Support Fellow Writers

By Lisbeth Coiman

For a cost-conscious person, I have little self-control when it comes to books. I browse bookstores inhaling the sweet aroma of the unread pages; then, I bring out my credit card at the counter to pay for two or three books. At literary readings, I listen to the writers carefully, and then choose one or two books to bring home with me. It’s my way to support fellow writers, but also a form of self-indulgence. As the cost of my rent increases, and the stack of unread books keeps piling up on my bedside table, I am aware that I need to do something about my book-buying habit.

Because it is that time of the year when we set goals and decide, mostly without success, to break old habits, I’ve resolved to find a solution to this conundrum: how to support emerging writers while minding my small writing budget. Observing my peers at readings and bookstores, I noted some writers using one of the following three strategies

1. Request and borrow books from the library.

My friend Shelly never buys books despite expressing a life long love for words and all things lit. I used to see her at readings, in the city where we met, her eyes closed to recreate in her mind the stories or poems she heard. She took time to chat with the writers, and then left without spending a cent.

“It’s not for you. We must support each other,” I told her once.

“I don’t have space, and I move frequently. Instead of buying, I request the book at the local library, then borrow it.”

“Clever and inexpensive,” I admitted.

2. Exchange books with fellow writers

At one particular reading, I observed another friend, Cruz, approach another writer and ask if she was interested in exchanging books. “What a creative notion,” I thought. Both women are well-known and respected in their own communities and were interested in reading each other’s work. They signed copies, promised to read, and presented their business cards. The whole experience lasted a few minutes, with pleasantries and all. And they saved at least $20

3. Look out for review requests

Mary never buys books either. She browses FB groups searching for review opportunities. Mary submits the reviews to magazines and journals. When she can not land a submission, she posts a shorter version of her review in Goodreads, and Amazon, helping the writer with the promoting efforts. Not a bad idea if the reader is also trying to build her own name.

Submission Calls
The new year is bursting with submission opportunities. These are only a few for writers on a budget.

1. Waxwing Magazine
Genre: Poetry, short fiction, literary essays, translation of poetry or prose, and art.
No payment
Submission Fee: 0
Deadline: May 1
Word count: up to five poems, 3 short-shorts, or micro-essays, up to three images
Submission Guidelines

2. Brain Mill Press: 2018 Driftless Unsolicited Novella Contest
Genre: Fiction
Prize: $250 and Publication
Submission fee: $0, but they appreciate $12 will give the writer a copy of the winning novella.
Deadline: 01/23/19
Word count: 20 to 45,000 novella or novella-length collection of short stories.
Submission Guidelines

3. City Lights Booksellers and Publishers
Genre: Memoir
Submission fee: $0
Word count: Sample of 10-20 pages, book proposal, outline and table of contents, letter with summary and resume.
Submission Guidelines

Writer Lisbeth Coiman from the shoulders up, standing in front of a flower bush

Writer Lisbeth Coiman from the shoulders up, standing in front of a flower bush

headshot of Lisbeth CoimanLisbeth Coiman is an author, poet, educator, cultural worker, and rezandera born in Venezuela. Coiman’s wanderlust spirit landed her to three countries—from her birthplace to Canada, and finally the USA, where she self-published her first book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017). She dedicated her bilingual poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento, Finishing Line Press( Sept. 2021) to her homeland, Venezuela. An avid hiker, and teacher of English as a Second Language, Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA.

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A WWS Publication Roundup for December

A laptop computer with an article titled "Submissions Made Simple" on the screen and a stack of literary journals sits on top of the laptop base, titles facing out

2018 comes to a close with another impressive roster of publications from the writers of Women Who Submit. Congratulations to all!

From Noriko Nakada‘s “Not Your Job” at Mutha Magazine:

When the doctor went to pierce
the flap of skin under your nose
with his sterile silver hook
I told you to squeeze my hand
and said, “You are so brave”

From Mahin Ibrahim‘s “Hollywood and Representation” at Nina Sadowsky:

I would not be Muslim if it weren’t for my father.

To combat “intellectual” Islamophobes, I’d like to say it is science and my own rigorous search for the truth that keeps me a believer, but it’s not.

It’s my father.

From Antonia Crane‘s “California Barbers Are on the Front Lines in the Fight for Labor Equality” at Mel Magazine:

In short, the ruling allows millions of workers — from barbers to Lyft drivers to strippers — legal protection and clout where they previously had none or were considered disposable. After all, for employers, the economic incentives to misclassify workers is colossal. 

Also from Antonia, “The Sign Flashes ‘Girls, Girls, Girls,’ and It Reminds Me that I Exist” at The Establishment:

I never told anyone about the man who punched me on the 22 until now. This is the quiet violence sex workers face every day because of gender discrimination, stigma and whorephobia. It’s easier if we stay silent and pretend it’s not happening. But it’s also easier for us. Because if we speak out about violence against sex workers, we will be blamed for living a “risky” lifestyle. We will be fingered the Whore.

From Julayne Lee‘s “Don’t Tell Me to Be Thankful for Being Adopted to a ‘Nice’ Country” at ILDA South Korean Feminist Journal:

What began as a humanitarian gesture had evolved into the reinforcement of the stigma of unwed mothers in South Korea and the intentional division of families. It is because of my desire to seek justice that I joined the planning committee for the Dual Citizenship Act, served on the ASK Steering Committee, joined the coalition to secure retroactive U.S. citizenship for all intercountry adoptees, co-founded Adoptee Solidarity Korea – Los Angeles (ASK – LA) and launched a writing workshop for adopted people of color. If we want equality and access, we have to create these opportunities and keep these spaces accessible.

Congratulations to Lisa Eve Cheby whose poems “Still Life” and “yoga for the too much alone” were published in the Santa Barbara Literary Journal and whose poems “Exorcism of My Father” and “Kitchen Closed” were published in Tipton Poetry Journal!

Congratulations to Mona Alvarado Frazier whose short story, “Lucky,” was published in Palabritas!

Congratulations to Andrea Gutierrez who reported and edited on the feature, “At Home,” at The California Sunday Magazine!

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Behind the Editor’s Desk: Neelanjana Banerjee

Kaya Press catalog screenshot, from kaya.com

Note: This is a reprint from an interview in 2017. Since this publication, Kaya has published several more electrifying books, including City of the Future by Sesshu Foster. We’re re-running this piece because Kaya Press is celebrating their 25th anniversary. To everyone at Kaya, congratulations on a quarter century of publishing incredible art from the AAPI diaspora!

Help them reach their fundraising goal of $10,000 by December 31st and support independent literature!

by Lauren Eggert-Crowe

Chances are you know about Kaya Press. Perhaps you recognize the name Nicholas Wong, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Kaya Press poetry title Crevasse. Or maybe you’ve heard of Ed Lin’s books This is a Bust and Waylaid. You might have listened to that 99% Invisible podcast episode about Thomassons but didn’t know that Kaya Press reprinted Genpei Akasegawa’s book on the subject. And in 2015 you might have seen all the positive press for Sam Chanse’s hybrid tour-de-force Lydia’s Funeral Video. Over the past two decades, Kaya Press has built a catalog of fresh, innovative work and has established itself as an organization at the forefront of independent publishing.

In their own words, “Kaya Press is a group of dedicated writers, artists, readers, and lovers of books working together to publish the most challenging, thoughtful, and provocative literature being produced throughout the Asian and Pacific Island diasporas. We believe that people’s lives can be changed by literature that pushes us past expectations and out of our comfort zone. We believe in the contagious potential of creativity combined with the means of production.”

Continue reading “Behind the Editor’s Desk: Neelanjana Banerjee”