Posts

Posted on

Behind the Editor’s Desk: An Interview with Siel Ju

We are reposting this interview with Siel Ju from August 2016, in celebration of her book release! Cake Time, a novel in stories, is out on April 6th from Red Hen Press. If you’re in L.A., come join Siel and special guests at Skylight Books on April 5th for the book release party. More events are listed here. Congratulations, Siel!

by Lauren Eggert-Crowe

Siel Ju is the editor of Flash Flash Click, an online lit zine for fast fiction. Subscribers get a weekly flash prose piece delivered every Tuesday. The pieces range in style, tone, and content but all have a compelling narrative driving them, no matter how short. Some veer more towards the lyrical and sublime while others give the reader a sardonic slice-of-life from a first-person narrator. Siel has featured such authors as Wendy C. Ortiz, Catherine Daly, Lisa Cheby, Maureen Gibbon and Molly Fuller. I asked Siel a few questions about her job as editor of Flash Flash Click.

Why did you decide to start Flash Flash Click? 

The impetus came from feeling there was a big, untapped population of readers out there who weren’t being reached by the current literary marketplace. I have friends who are writers, but I also have many non-writer friends who are smart and literate — who might very well enjoy reading poems and stories but are completely unfamiliar with the world of literary journals. I think a lot of people don’t even know literary journals exist! So the idea was to start a lit zine that sent a short piece a week via email — tiny bits of prose that can be read easily on a smartphone — sort of like a gateway drug to entice “regular” people to become regular readers of contemporary fiction and poetry. Continue reading “Behind the Editor’s Desk: An Interview with Siel Ju”

Posted on

Claps and Cheers: DIY Artista Gabriela López de Dennis

by Ramona Pilar

Claps and Cheers is a column dedicated to honoring pioneers and visionary storytellers who have forged their own path in their creative careers.

This month we focus on Gabriela López de Dennis, a writer, producer, artist, and Los Angeles native. A graduate of Otis College of Art and Design, López de Dennis has orchestrated a life that balances her creative career, artistic pursuits, family, and faith.

Headshot of Creative Gabriela Lopez with the 110 Freeway and Downtown Los Angeles in the background
Photo by: Keila López

López de Dennis has recently adapted her 2008 stage play Hoop Girls into a web series through Lone Stars Entertainment, a production studio of which she is Co-Founder, CEO, and Co-Creative Director. Below is an interview I conducted with her regarding Hoop Girls and other projects in which she is currently involved. 

Continue reading “Claps and Cheers: DIY Artista Gabriela López de Dennis”

Posted on

Highlight on WWS-Long Beach, CA: An Interview with Chapter Leads Desiree Kannel and Rachael Rifkin

Four women with laptops sit around a table with a pink flower centerpiece, smiling

How would you describe your city and your local literary community?

We like to say that Long Beach is a “little ‘big’ city.” We have a big and diverse population and lots of very different communities. In fact, LB was named one of the most diverse cities in the US according to the last census. A fact we are very proud of.

LB has a lot going on in the literary world. It isn’t hard to find a poetry reading, someone doing a book launch, or even a critique group. Independent businesses like coffee shops and bookstores like to support LB writers and welcome small groups to do events such as readings or workshops. Continue reading “Highlight on WWS-Long Beach, CA: An Interview with Chapter Leads Desiree Kannel and Rachael Rifkin”

Posted on

Writing and Activism: Let’s Thrive

A large crowd of protestors stretch down a city street, buildings looming in the background. In the foreground a woman holds a protest sign and other folks hold U.S. flags

by Désirée Zamorano

So many of us since Election Day have hovered over our keyboards and felt frozen.

Indeed, why shouldn’t we feel petrified, the legacy of Obama under threat, the vision of who we are, as US citizens utterly upended, the walking nightmares announced each and every day? We find ourselves playing an emotional and draining game of lethal dodgeball, and scramble to regain our footing, our equilibrium, our creative muse.

Then we find ourselves with that perpetually dissatisfied editor shrieking at the back of our skull, telling us inarticulate and inchoate ways how we’re never going to write again, the world will never right itself, nothing we’re writing now will make any difference; it’s time, the voice continues, to discard this fallacy of being a writer and instead do something that will make a difference!

Ha. Of course as writers, we fall prey to making it all about our creativity. So what can we do?

Continue reading “Writing and Activism: Let’s Thrive”

Posted on

A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP 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

February was another banner month for Women Who Submit members finding homes for their great work.  Congratulations to all the women who had work published in February.

From “September 13, 2001: How Fear United Us” by Désirée Zamorano at Catapult:

For many of us over thirty years old, September 11, 2001 is the ultimate demarcation of our experience as citizens, a pre- and post-worldview of who we are as Americans. We remember where we were when we heard or watched the news about the Twin Towers. Do you remember where you were two days later, on September 13, 2001? I do. I was with a group of anxious and excited strangers.

From Melissa Chadburn‘s “Economic Violence: On Being Skipped Over or Paraded in Front of a Crowd” at Proximity:

My saddest story is not the story of growing up in foster care, or losing a brother to HIV, or losing another brother to drug addiction. My saddest story is a simple one. One where I was a young girl, maybe around eight, and I loved everyone and everything. I loved my street, I loved my mailbox, I loved my teacher, I loved my hair, I loved clothes, I loved buses, I loved trees, and I assumed everyone and everything loved me back. But then one day I discovered that wasn’t so. Maybe someone made a crude gesture, or yelled at me, or I got skipped over in line, and there it began—the breaking of my heart.

Continue reading “A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP FOR FEBRUARY”

Posted on

Behind The Editor’s Desk: Margaret Bashaar

Cover of My Mother's Child, by Pamela L. Taylor. Art by Jolmar Miller

By Lauren Eggert-Crowe

I first learned about Hyacinth Girl Press in 2011 when I was looking for a place to submit my first chapbook, The Exhibit. I was floored and elated when HGP accepted my manuscript. That’s when I began corresponding with founder and editor Margaret Bashaar. She and I even collaborated on a poetry manuscript together that, three years later, became our chapbook Rungs, published by Grey Book Press.

From the website: “Hyacinth Girl Press is a micro-press that publishes up to 6 poetry chapbooks each year. We specialize in handmade books of smaller press runs. We consider ourselves a feminist press and are particularly interested in manuscripts dealing with topics such as radical spiritual experiences, creation/interpretation of myth through a feminist lens, and science. [. . .] The ultimate goal of Hyacinth Girl Press is to bring feminism, mysticism, and scientific inquiry together with awesome poetry.”

Continue reading “Behind The Editor’s Desk: Margaret Bashaar”

Posted on

Claps and Cheers: The Power of No

by Ramona Pilar, Editor Claps & Cheers

This past January, writer and cultural critic Roxane Gay made the decision to pull her upcoming book How to be Heard from publishing with TED Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Headshot of writer Roxane Gay in front of a black background
Noted author and “bad feminist,” Roxane Gay

The reason: not wanting to be published by the same publisher that would give Milo Yiannopolous, noted far-right writer and cultural instigator, a platform.

From a statement she gave to BuzzFeed News:

“I was supposed to turn the book in this month and I kept thinking about how egregious it is to give someone like Milo a platform for his blunt, inelegant hate and provocation. I just couldn’t bring myself to turn the book in. My editor emailed me last week and I kept staring at that email in my inbox and finally over the weekend I asked my agent to pull the book… I can’t in good conscience let them publish it while they also publish Milo.”

Continue reading “Claps and Cheers: The Power of No”

Posted on

How to Do AWP

Screenshot of the exhibition room map at AWP 2016, focused on the location of the Women Who Submit table

Please excuse this repost from March 23, 2016 as we are traveling to DC at this moment, but we felt this article can still be helpful to those nervous about how to do AWP “right.” Be sure to visit WWS at booth 975 for “I submitted!” buttons and a chance to win a free WWS tote filled with goodies. And you can find all three WWS cofounders–Ashaki M. Jackson, Alyss Dixson and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo–at the Submission as Action panel 9am Thursday, along with Kundiman’s Cathy Linh Che and moderator, Desiree Zamorano. 

For more panels and events with WWS members check out our WWS at AWP17 guide.

By Lauren Eggert-Crowe

I had no idea how to explain where I was going. “It’s this conference in Baltimore,” I told my professors when I explained why I’d be missing class. “It’s for writers, or something.” All I knew was that it was called AWP and that my creative writing professor would be presenting a panel on imaginative teaching methods. She suggested I check it out, and that’s how I ended up driving six hours from Western Pennsylvania to Baltimore one grey Wednesday evening in February, 2003. Continue reading “How to Do AWP”

Posted on

WWS at AWP17

10 women stand behind a table with a Women Who Submit logo banner hanging down the front of it. They are smiling.

Are you feeling anxious just yet about this year’s AWP conference? Not to worry because we have a guide to all events where you can find the happy, shining faces of Women Who Submit and friends. And while you are combing the bookfair, be sure to find us at booth 975 with Roar Feminist Magazine and Dandelion Review to pick up an “I submitted!” button and to add your name to the WWS daily giveaway. It will include one WWS tote with books, chapbooks, and zines from our members including copies of Posada: Offerings of Wintess and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016) by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Gent/Re Place Ing (Write Large Press 2016) by Jessica Ceballos Campbell, Surveillance (Write Large Press 2016) by Ashaki M. Jackson, Cake Time (Red Hen Press 2017) by Siel Ju, Excavation (Future Tense Books 2014) by Wendy C. Ortiz, Wrestling Alligators (Martin Brown Publishers 2016) by Diane Sherlock, Traci Traci Love Fest, a collection of poems from L.A. poets writing in support of poet, performer and community activist Traci Kato Kiriyama as she battles breast cancer and more!

L-R in clockwise order: a zine title Love Fest, Excavation, a book by Wendy C. Ortiz, a chapbook with a beige cover with a black design, Wrestling Alligators, a book by Diane Sherlock, and Posada, a book by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Plus, don’t forget to reread this piece by Lauren Eggert-Crowe for reminders on how to stay happy and healthy over the next week, and we recommend checking out Entropy’s guide if you are looking for avenues of resistance and action. Continue reading “WWS at AWP17”

Posted on

A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP 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 2017! The new year is off to an amazing start as we celebrate the following WWS members who had work published in January.

From Pamela K. Johnson‘s “We’re Out: Black Americans Leaving the Country Before Trump Takes Office” at NBC News:

As this administration draws to a close, Audrey Edwards is packing as fast as the Obamas.

By January 20, Inauguration Day, she’ll be nearly 6,000 miles away from Brooklyn not watching the festivities in Paris.

Continue reading “A WWS PUBLICATION ROUND UP FOR JANUARY”