WWS statement against the Trump Administration’s racist immigration policy

Three signs above Highway 101 in Los Angeles, Union Station in the background. The signs read, "Separate Powers, Not Families," "We belong together, fam" and "Families belong together"

by the Women Who Submit Leadership Team

People in power always find a way to accuse the underserved of not being worthy of justice.

Women Who Submit was founded in response to male editors looking to justify the paucity of women authors in their publications. Those editors made excuses: women weren’t submitting enough, weren’t working hard enough, the submissions from women simply weren’t good enough. We were told it was our own fault that every Tier 1 journal in the nation disproportionately published more men.

We learned how to recognize the rhetorical acrobatics of the privileged.

Now, powerful white men (and women!) tell us that immigrants and refugees aren’t following the rules, aren’t working hard enough, aren’t “getting in line,” and aren’t worthy of citizenship (as if being born in this country means you are somehow better than). We are told they deserve to have their young children ripped from their arms and taken to detention centers several states away. We are told they deserve deportation. We are told that their families aren’t worth preserving. We have always heard this. Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and all people of color have always been told by U.S. policies and institutions that their contributions mean less, that they are expendable. We are all told to fear Black and Brown voices, instead of respecting and amplifying them.

There can be no literary justice without immigration justice. There can be no gender parity in publishing without racial justice. Breaking down submission barriers is not enough if border walls still stand, if prison walls still stand. How many rapturous, beautiful, soul-searing poems is the world being deprived of, because of racism and xenophobia? How many refugee children have dreams of growing up to be novelists or journalists, and are told, by our national policies and our shameful cultural attitudes, “You aren’t worth our time”?

Continue reading “WWS statement against the Trump Administration’s racist immigration policy”

Writing on a Budget: The Cost of a Self-Promotion Trip

Bookmockup with Blue Heron standing on green background By Lisbeth Coiman

My promotional budget began with a plan and the specific goal to take my book to several cities in North America. A book club from Mississauga, ON had contacted me at the beginning of the year to let me know they were reading my debut memoir I Asked the Blue Heron. I was elated. So I decided to start in Canada with a budget of US$1000.

Continue reading “Writing on a Budget: The Cost of a Self-Promotion Trip”

A WWS Publication Roundup for June

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

A little publishing sunshine in the midst of June Gloom. Congratulations to all the Women Who Submit who had work published this month!

From Noriko Nakada‘s  “Swing” at Thread:

The violence contained within the motion of that bat would have made more sense if he took to our world with his bat, shattering the silence and destroying the façade of sanity. In that chaos, I might have understood the kind of crazy that came home with my brother from the hospital. Instead, there was the whirl of metal cutting through thin mountain air and the rhythmic rush of his breath.

From “Passenger” by Lituo Huang at JMWW:

It was the third day. Things had begun to unravel. We’d slept poorly, and both of us had missed our breakfasts and bowel movements. I watched Ripley feel his stubble as he drove, his unwashed hand brushing over the bristles that peppered the broken vessels on his round cheeks. At eleven a.m., the shimmer already rose two feet off the road. The car’s A/C was dying, blinking its green and orange lights and spewing air the temperature of a fever.

From Arlene Schindler‘s “From Russia with Love” at purple clover.:

In a world where smart women make foolish choices, I said yes when my friend Heather told me she had a guy for me.

At dinner in a Japanese restaurant, Jim, a Sam Waterston lookalike, only had eyes for me. To be honest, I wasn’t particularly taken with him. He had a bushy, unkempt beard and pink sweater that looked like a hand-me-down. But his deep, seductive newscaster’s voice slowly began to draw me in.

Continue reading “A WWS Publication Roundup for June”

Breathe and Push: Writing While Momming

A table set up with a laptop for writingBy Jamie Asaye FitzGerald

Your identity as a writer doesn’t disappear once the responsibility of children come into your life. In fact, your identity as a writer may take on a more obvious shape, form and demand, and may give you the strength you need to deal with the challenges of being a parent.

There will be days filled with the joy and plenitude of childrearing, and days when you might feel like being a parent is, to put it bluntly, one of the nine circles of hell. As hard as it is to find the time to write, your refuge can be the page. Even if you can only write for fifteen minutes each day or fifteen minutes each week, that writing could be your lifeline—that writing could save you.

When you have a baby, you really have to take baby steps. For a baby, those first steps are huge. For a parent-writer, those baby steps to keep the writing life alive are equally huge. Give yourself credit for even the smallest effort.

To preserve your writer self, you will have to fight against forces that might not consider, value or acknowledge that part of you. These forces may be closer to you than you realize. They may even be your own loved ones. If you have a partner, you may have to contend with working things out with that person. They might be 100% supportive or 98% supportive or not supportive enough. The reality is that you will need their support and understanding.

If they’ve committed to being with you, they’ve committed to being with an artist—and an artist has needs. Getting your partner on board with you will make things much easier. Sometimes they just need to be reminded who you are and what you need.

Fighting for a writing life also means asserting it as a priority in small, achievable ways. Any parent knows that if you wait until the end of the day, after other responsibilities are taken care of, you will have very little left to offer the page—let alone the energy to brush your own teeth. If possible, write first, before you do the thousand things required of you each week, even if that means you write for just five or fifteen minutes.

I’ve found my best sustaining resources have been scheduled group activities. The literary submission parties held by Women-Who-Submit have been great ways for me to block out time to devote to my writing life and get work out into the world. I can tell my partner on this day and time, I will be away. It’s a scheduled event—it’s legit, concrete, with a beginning and an end.

On top of having time blocked out in advance, the meetings transform preparing submissions, a difficult and painstaking task for the uber self-critical writer, into a positive and uplifting experience when done in community. As Pat Schneider, in her book Writing Alone and With Others, counsels: “Find and keep in contact with other writer/artists who can provide you with an intimate community of support, give you honest critical response, strengthen you, and encourage your work.”

From time to time, I also participate in a writing accountability group called The Grind. Participants write something every day for a month and email it to an assigned group. For a time-pressed parent, this arrangement works for me. There is no comment, no critiquing, just the doing of the writing. The Grind got me in the habit of approaching writing as I do brushing my teeth—it’s just something one does every day. Forming the habit was the achievement. I found myself jonesing to write each morning like jonesing for that first cup of coffee.

I don’t always write every day, but now I know I can, and I know that jotting down any thought I may have at any moment could turn into something down the road. As a parent, you’re being pulled in many directions at once. It can be hard to concentrate. You won’t remember that pithy thought later. Record it on your phone. Jot it on a receipt. Throw it in your purse. You’ll stumble across it when you fish out a tissue for your snot-nosed kid, and it may become a poem, story or book!

Writing while momming is playing the long game. Everyone tells you your kids will grow up so fast. As writers, it often seems like that’s not the case. But it does help to put things in perspective when you can accept the limitations of your present circumstances while remembering that it won’t always be this way. Things change. Children grow up.

There is no reason why you should throw in the writing towel just because you have children to take care of, but you will need to accept the limitations placed upon you if you want to be an effective parent AND remain connected to your writing self. You have to feed your writer self and care for it to avoid despair and bitterness.

Moreover, your attentiveness to yourself as an artist is setting an example for your children, and especially for young girls, that in addition to being a mother, you are also your own person, with your own hopes and dreams, needs and desires. Following through on those needs, dreams, and desires is not selfish or taking time away from your kids. It’s good parenting.

author Jamie Say FitzgeraldJamie 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.

Behind the Editor’s Desk: Nikia Chaney

by Lauren Eggert-Crowe

As you may know, Women Who Submit received our first grant last year from the Center for Cultural Innovation. One of our projects for this grant is to compile an anthology of work submitted and published through our bimonthly submission parties. This anthology will be published by Jamii, an independent press in San Bernardino that focuses on writing by women of color who are active in the community. In light of that, we’d like to reprint last year’s interview with Jamii editor Nikia Chaney:

Early in 2017, Women Who Submit invited Nikia Chaney to one of our submission parties. It was the beginning of the year, so the room was packed with writers excited and motivated to accomplish their goals and renew their commitments to good work. We hung posterboard on the wall with goals like “Submit to Residencies,” “Get Paid For Work,” “Finish a Project,” and “Activist Writing.” We each scrawled our names in marker underneath the goals that spoke to us. Still buzzing from the spirit of the Women’s March and the inspiration of powerful intersectional feminist leaders, many of us were eager to connect our creative work to community building. Nikia Chaney, of Jamii Publishing, led new and seasoned WWS members in a great discussion about starting collaborative projects like a press or a journal, and how to best involve the community in the artistic process.

It’s safe to say Nikia knows a lot about goal setting. Jamii, an independent press based in San Bernardino, beautifully lays out its vision, mission, and goal: “Our mission at Jamii Publishing is to foster the communion of artists from all genres, foster growth in the artistic world, and to bring these arts to the community.  We strive to work with artists who are already active in the community as well as those who have a desire to reach outside of their comfort zone and share their art with the larger world. We want to gift books to these dedicated people and help them in turn help others.”

Continue reading “Behind the Editor’s Desk: Nikia Chaney”

Santa Ana’s LibroMobile: More Than Just Books

A brunette woman leans against a mobile bookseller's cart. The sign above the cart states #libormobile.

By Sarah Rafael Garcia

When I first received the rusty, planter cart from my friend and local business owner Delilah Snell, she was explaining how to garden herbs and organic veggies. Meanwhile, I was envisioning a bookmobile and planting books in gente’s hands alongside the fruteros on La Calle Cuatro.

LibroMobile is a literary project I initiated in Santa Ana, California with support from Red Salmon Arts and Community Engagement. It integrates literature, free visual exhibits, year-round creative workshops and live readings. The actual LibroMobile (a repurposed gardening cart holding an inventory of diverse books) is not only mobile but also builds community and promotes literacy. As of January 2018, after a 9-month stint in a stairway, the retrofitted bookmobile resides in a warehouse on Calle Cuatro (off 4th & Spurgeon, back alley area), travels throughout Santa Ana visiting a variety of community-based events, and on Saturdays we provide free café de olla donated by Café Calacas. The design of the LibroMobile is a tribute to the iconic paletero carts or fruit vendors that are part of downtown Santa Ana. To hear or see a paletero or frutero cart builds cultural interests (from locals and visitors) to know that something authentic and familiar is being offered, and LibroMobile has achieved the same connections through relevant literature. Continue reading “Santa Ana’s LibroMobile: More Than Just Books”

Four Contests and Belgian Lager

The emerging writer opens her refrigerator door, reaching blindly for the green bottle of Belgian lager. She lets the chilled bottle ground her in the comfort of her own kitchen. The old cabinet drawer refuses her access to the bottle opener. Undisturbed by the small inconvenience, she places the bottle lid at the edge of the kitchen counter and smacks it with her fist.

Vintage typewriter with mechanical pencils and reading glasses

The cold bottle rim touches the writer’s lips. She lets out a sigh of pleasure as the beer soothes her throat, hoarse from teaching all day. Then, she heads to her desk, where a few more hours of work await.
Continue reading “Four Contests and Belgian Lager”

A WWS Publication Roundup for May

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

May brought lots of amazing work from Women Who Submit. Congratulations to all!

From Tammy Delatorre‘s “Ticking of the Clock” at The Nervous Breakdown:

My aunt died in a car accident when I was six. We buried her, a fetus in her belly. She was only 26.

I try not to hear my own biological clock ticking.

From “Famous Negro Rapper #15″ by Ashunda Norris at Drunk in a Midnight Choir:

Kanye dyed his eyes blue & now i am uncertain
as to whether he hates him or if he is screaming

From Anna Graham Hunter‘s “How #MeToo Accusers Cope After Going Public: ‘My Hatred Has Deepened’” at The Hollywood Reporter:

Life has become more complicated since I came forward, and dating is the least of it. Six months later, I’ve been feeling kind of shitty about the whole thing — in some ways I feel worse now than I did before I went public — and it’s been hard to figure out why. Why have I been so angry? Why do I suddenly burst into tears for no obvious reason? Shouldn’t I be feeling better now that my story is out there? I wondered if I was the only one who felt this way, or if other women who accused powerful men have had similar experiences. I decided to find out by talking to as many of them as I could. Continue reading “A WWS Publication Roundup for May”

Breathe and Push: When Survivors Speak, Who Will Listen?

This week in my eighth grade classroom, five different holocaust survivors shared their stories with my English classes.

diverse groups of young people with a survivor

Two of the five survivors made it out of the death camps as young people. The other three were babies, hidden during the war. It took years of research for them to learn their own stories of survival so they could share them with us.

Those three babies were separated from their families. One, became an orphan, and was then adopted by family who had survived by fleeing Europe. Another had been hidden, along with her mother, by an entire village. The third hid with her mother until the end of the war, and then, because of American immigration laws, she was separated from her mother. Her mother immigrated to the United States, and the family this small child was left with kidnapped her. It took over several months for her mother to locate her daughter and reunite with her in America.

Leaving my classroom that day, my heart was burdened by these stories, but I was also buoyed by hope and perspective. Each of these survivors carried endless gratitude for those who helped them: for their rescuers, or the upstanders. They spoke of kindnesses, large and small, and they helped provide much needed perspective about how we treat one another today.

Maybe it was because I had read this editorial by Viet Thanh Nguyen, “Ripping children from parents will shatter America’s soul” the night before, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the survivors’ stories and of the babies and children and their families being torn apart at our borders. I couldn’t stop thinking about the most vulnerable among us. What could I do about the unforgivable lack of humanity our country is showing them?

And then we hear about lost children. Nearly 1,500. This number is unfathomable.

We lose keys.
We lose nickles.
We lose pens.
We do not lose children.

These unconscionable losses, children with mothers who are mourning, siblings still searching, families with so many questions. What do we do?

The president refers to immigrants as animals, and people go crazy.

Nearly 1,500 children are lost. These are not puppies or kittens. These are children. These are daughter and sons, brothers and sisters. What stories will they tell as adults? What will these survivors tell our children of this America?

And the rest of us?
Are we rescuers?
Are we upstanders?
Or have we become the animals?

For opportunities to help immigrant and refugee families, here are seven ways you can help. 

Noriko Nakada headshot in black and whiteNoriko 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 Lady Liberty Lit, Catapult, Meridian, Compose, Kartika, Hippocampus, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Linden Avenue.