As the summer wraps up, we are pleased to share good news from Women Who Submit members who had work published in August.
From Mia Nakaji Monnier‘s “Keiko Agena On Life After ‘Gilmore Girls,’ Her New Book, and How She Copes with Anxiety” at The Lily:
For anxious artists held back by perfectionism, “No Mistakes” provides 150 pages’ worth of interactive pep talks inspired by Agena’s experience doing improv, where there’s no such thing as a mistake, only creative choices for team members to build on collaboratively.
From Jay O’Shea‘s “Beyond Protection: Perceived Threat, Criminalization, and Self-Defense” at IMPACT Chicago:
As I approached the cash machine, another person walked up from the opposite side, a few paces before us. A slim, white woman whose expensive casual wear and designer sunglasses marked her as one of our Westside neighborhood’s more affluent residents, she turned and looked at me instead of giving her attention to the ATM. I offered a smile, acknowledging that she had reached the cash machine first and had dibs on it. When she returned my smile with a scowl, I expected the snappish disdain that well-off women in West LA so commonly project toward other women, but not the question she asked.
“Can you come back?” she said.
From Ava Homa‘s “Graduation” at apt:
I am counting the cracks on the ceiling. My lawyer is presenting some documents to the judge. It is hard to breathe here. This room stinks as if the walls were made of corpses. The judge leaves his seat and is walking to the door that convicts cannot use. It is only for him. The attached light-brown desks divide His Honor’s space from that of the non-honored ones.
Congratulations to Ava who also had her piece, “Nameless Stones,” published in Room!
From Melissa Chadburn‘s “This Wanting Business: On the Cost and Labor of Writing” at LitHub:
I often say that whenever I feel the urge to complain about the work of writing, I think about a woman who has to take five buses to work. The truth is I’m likely thinking of my younger self. She’s always at my heels. In college, I sold Herbalife, called people to refinance the mortgage on their homes, worked as a data entry clerk on campus, and telemarketed selling timeshares. Struggling to get by at school, I eventually dropped out, moved back to Los Angeles, and worked the switchboard at a large law firm in Century City.
From Tanya Ko Hong‘s “Mother Tongue” at First Literary Review-East:
Sophistication isn’t damn good to drink
So why don’t you untie my tongue
like you undress me in the dark, don’t
let my ego ruin our night, don’t scan betrayal
in your mind—life’s not so bad if you don’t pay attention.
Congratulations to Tanya who was the first winner of Run Doon-ju Korean American Literature Award and was interviewed in The Korea Daily!
From Marnie Goodfriend‘s “Finding My Unsolvable Mother in Her Left-Behind Crossword Puzzles” at Ravishly:
As a child, I remember Mom’s stack of crossword books with Velveeta-orange Bic pens holding her place on the current one she was trying to solve. A flimsy card table stood awkwardly in the middle of our living room where she sat in a folding chair carefully separating the edges from the middles of a “Mastermind Impossible to Solve” 1,000 piece puzzle. We often visited a stationery store on Main Street where I ran up and down the sticker aisle inhaling pizza and popcorn scratch and sniffs while she fingered large boxes with display photos of crayons, confetti, stars, and circles. Even at my age, I knew that she didn’t choose a puzzle for its pretty or interesting design but by which sequence of objects was more difficult to finish.
From Li Yun Alvarado‘s “Literatura, Música, y (Huracán) María: Reflections from the Diaspora” at VIDA:
My parents separated when I was twelve years old, and divorced when I was in college.
By some telenovela magic they reconciled two decades later, the summer before Hurricane María roared through their hometown, Salinas, Puerto Rico.
My one comfort during that week of silence was that they were together: through worrying about reaching my brother in New York and me in California; through negotiating with siblings and caring for their elderly parents with whom they each lived; through negotiating this post-Hurricane María world.
Li Yun also saw her poems “Momentos de Maria“and “Zika” published in Hinchas de Poesia and Acentos Review, respectively, and an essay, “Retro Row Helps New Yorker Adapt to Long Beach” published in L.A. Parent!
Congratulations to all!
In my eighth grade classroom, a distinct culture had developed. Students were challenging one another’s privilege and entitlement at every opportunity, which was important but exhausting, and I was begin to wonder if my students had learned anything in my class. My students were testing my nerves, and although we still had several weeks left, I was ready for the year to be over.
Noriko Nakada edits the Breathe and Push column for Women Who Submit. She also writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Publications include two book-length memoirs: Through Eyes Like Mine and Overdue Apologies, and excerpts, essays, and poetry in Catapult, Meridian, Compose, Kartika, Hippocampus, The Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere.
By Lisbeth Coiman
By Jamie Asaye FitzGerald
Jamie Asaye FitzGerald is a Los Angeles-based poet from Hawaii. Her poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Works & Days, Poetry Daily, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA in poetry from San Diego State University and a BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of Southern California where she received an Academy of American Poets College Prize and the Edward Moses Poetry Prize. She is also the mother of two young daughters and enjoys playing piano in the evenings as they run in circles around the couch.