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Claps and Cheers: A WWS Publication Round Up

Over the last month, WWS members have been getting work published and some have won awards. Here is a brief look at a few recent publications.11209699_1030527333634119_5403440345070340561_n

From Antonia Crane’s essay, “In rape culture, there’s no such thing as a safe word” published this month in Quartz:

“But as someone who has spent her entire adult life working in the sex industry, I can attest to the fact that women in this business face inherent, unique physical risks. I’ve been bitten, drugged, smacked and ripped off. Years ago, a large man tried to block me from leaving a private room in a nude strip club in San Francisco. When I yelled for help, the person who came running was a stripper named Cinnamon. She yanked him by his shirt from behind. I ran.”

From The Sundress Blog, “THE WARDROBE’S BEST DRESSED: LAUREN EGGERT-CROWE’S THE EXHIBIT“:

“When she cranes her neck up at the sky, at night, she shivers. This may be because she is trying to find Scorpio. She is more afraid of falling up endlessly than gravity. The night is colder than it should be. She wonders if one of the spheres has a hole. A leak that hisses the light out like a deflated tire.”

From Ashaki M. Jackson’s poem, “Fulcrum: The Support About Which A Lever Turns; The Part Of An Animal That Serves As A Hinge Or Support,” published in Cura Magazine:

“You consider lynching mechanics and question which was raised first – the rope or the neck. You think of the ease with which dancers lift each other’s bodies at particular curves and imagine a neck hoist bringing a faceless audience to its feet. You ask who is in this audience. You are in the audience.”

From an interview with Karineh Mahdessian and Sophia Rivera, founders of Las Lunas Locas womyn’s writing circle, published last week at La Bloga:

“So, are Las Lunas Locas really locas? How did your nombre lunático come about?

We knew we wanted to name ourselves that which spoke to us, the moon is the most feminine of it all. And womyn often tend to be thought of as “crazy” and “emotional.” In this capacity, we wanted to celebrate all things that are often misjudged and ridiculed. The naming of Las Lunas Locas allows for embracing all that is wonderful and challenging about being a womyn in a patriarchal and misogynistic society.”

From Tisha Reichle’s YA fiction piece, “I want to be a Cowgirl,” published in the latest issue of Lunch Ticket:

“Mom watches from her bedroom window; I can feel her. Not ready to be wrong about my hunger, I stand on the bales of hay stacked behind the heeling dummy. It was painted brown a long time ago and Dad actually put a frayed rope tail so it looks like the skeleton of a steer’s butt. Its rusty pole legs dangle lifeless until I kick them; their squeaky rhythm breaks the morning’s silence. Mom closes the curtain. She hates when I practice roping and defy her orders.”

From Tiana Thomas’ essay, “High Hopes For Thanksgiving (And What It’s Like To Grow Up On A Pot Farm)” published last month at Role Reboot:

“Mom is sitting at the kitchen table with several bags of weed in front of her. She has taken off her jeans, and has a glossy look of heat shining off her face, as she rolls another joint. I head out the back door to the wooden water tank at the rear of the house. It’s hot and I’m thirsty. The tank sits in the shade surrounded by Ti leaves and banana trees, its sides covered in thick green-black moss and a thin layer of moisture. The rainwater that fills the tank is sweet. I slurp it straight from the spout, letting the run-off splash on my muddy toes.”

Lastly, congratulations to Melissa Chadburn and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo who share the honor of being awarded grants for nonfiction from Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

On Melissa’s project:

“This essay collection includes the title essay, a previously published piece about my experience in foster care. The other essays capture the myriad of effects of poverty—or the converse: the effects of affluence and power. I think this is the one element that binds all of my work together—I talk about class and race but what I really am speaking of are the effects of power on the human condition.”

Pssst! Fiction writers, The Barbara Deming Fund is now taking applications for fiction projects. It awards “small artist support grants ($500-$1500) to individual feminist women in the arts.” Submissions close December 31st.

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Interview with Ashaki M. Jackson

Ashaki M. Jackson is a poet and social psychologist residing in Los Angeles. Her poem “An American Paratrooper” appears in [r.kv.r.y. quarterly‘s] April 2014 issue. Noted authors and Ashaki confidants Khadijah Queen (www.khadijahqueen.com) and Kima Jones (www.thenotoriouskima.com) recently pitched a few questions to her about her work – an ongoing reflection on grief, coping, and defunct mortuary rites grounded in her grandmother’s death.

This interview is reposted with permission from the editors of r.kv.r.y. quarterly where it was first published. 

Khadijah Queen (KQ) begins a little late but gracefully: Snap! I got distracted by YouTube and middle school homework and cake and hot dogs… ​What distracts you most from your creative work, and how do you overcome said distraction(s) and/or use them to your advantage?

Ashaki Jackson (AJ): This day-to-day thing. I’m responding from bed while deep-conditioning my hair and jotting a To Do list for the next four hours.

Chicken is marinating. Dishes still aren’t going to wash themselves. This basket of clean laundry is giving me the side-eye. It is 5:30 PM.

Being swallowed by the mundane is very comforting to me. My writing revolves around personal loss — mainly that of my grandmother. I still reside in her memory and fold into my grief when I evoke her in poems. The feelings are oppressive even when I write about my broader reflection on loss as I did with An American Paratrooper. Inundating myself with a Big Bang Theory-spring cleaning-pedicure session or reading books in a loud restaurant gives me respite. It gives me spaces to tuck my grief until I’m ready to see it again.

KQ: Talk about the bodied-ness of your poems. How central, tangential, and/or inextricable are the physical and the linguistic?

AJ: I have bodies. Many bodies. Other peoples’ bodies. Loved ones’ bodies.

Sometimes it is the thought of the last state in which I saw a late loved one that pops into my mind.

This is a painful but helpful entry into my drafts. I also spent quite a bit of time studying anthropologists’ articles about mortuary rites. Cecilia McCallum, Ph.D., is a lasting favorite. She documents the care with which certain South American tribe members once treated their deceased family members’ bodies before consuming them.

I learned that mourning isn’t merely psychological; it is a ceremony, a meal, something that lingers on the palate. The language of consumption in relation to the lingering sense of loss underpins many of my pieces—devouring, preservation, and that sense of never being sate. Some of my poems read as if words are falling out of the mouth haphazardly. Others read as if I’m choking on the grief. I’m not able to articulate the craft, but thematically I might refer to it as written keening.

Kima Jones (KJ): Essentially, form is choosing skin, so I want to revisit Khadijah’s question on bodied-ness: Which form, which body do you like to take on most? And for your grandmother?

AJ: My good friend, Noah, mentioned that some of us “like to wear each other’s bodies.” We were speaking about recent travesties — Malaysian Flight 370, MV Sewol in South Korea, the Chibok girls. For all of those bodies lost, families only received apologies from officials — the emptiest gesture. Like gristle.

I think you crave a body — living or dead — particularly when you do not have one.

Bodies are tangible and to be cared for. That care is some kind of ritual.

My work doesn’t have a particular body. Forms are rare in my work. However, I allow my lines to occupy the page in non-traditional ways. One poem is written in the choppiness of a choking cry. In a different piece, the words collide at the bottom of the page – a visual homage to hopelessness in grief. The reader should want to gather words from these pieces, scrape them from the ground, and comfort them.

I spend a good amount of time thinking on my late grandmother’s passing. It aides my coping to wade through the memories, but it also gives me access to a dialect of grief that others might make use of in the future. In my manuscript, I write about her transition in various forms with the same sentiment about the body. She should be home, with us, and cared for. I don’t know if it’s the best I can do to evoke her in my pages as if my manuscript is her portable body. It is a start for me.

KJ: There is always something hiding, even in the uncovering and undoing. I am wondering how Ashaki keeps the secret things hidden during the excavation, the mining of all those graves?

AJ: I’m of the mind that the reader does not need to know me to enter, understand, experience, or relate to the work. Few books would ever be read with this requirement. What I need from the reader: trust. I might not hand you my articulated grief or reveal everything I’ve had to unearth to write a piece, but I’ll share work that will resonate in some way with the reader–that will rub the reader’s bruises just as my ache is continually touched.

KJ: It’s a question I’m turning over more and more in my head in regard to my own heart and my own good feeling, so I ask you, what is the use of the love poem?

AJ: Use of the love poem: praise for a body; idolatry; celebration of the mind’s fire; a method of serenading; to fully taste; to build a word altar to a moment; to sustain a beautiful feeling; to tuck a piece of candy in my pillowcase for later; to be reckless in my selfishness by flaunting; to maintain my warmth; to serve me.

I think that’s broad enough to comfortably fit my poems on grief and loss and loose enough to include the poems I have yet to write for the loves I have yet to know.

The-Body-of-a-Soldier

KQ: Truth & honesty– where on the spectrum when dealing with loss/grief do these consciously figure? Are they seeds or threads? Both? How much gives way to metaphor or story or construct?

​AJ: I think Kima’s question about the use of a love poem is relevant here. If I were to write a love poem — let’s say “romantic” in some way — my approach could be seen as dishonest because I haven’t known love. I’d tell you that in the poem. I’m pretty forthcoming with what I don’t know. But, it would still be a decent poem because lies are often the most interesting genre.

When dealing with loss, I am more honest about what I have experienced than what I have not. I think my feelings are evident and even resounding when I write about personal loss because I know its labyrinth. I become the omniscient tour guide. When writing others’ losses: my empathy might seem insufficient. My feelings about documenting grief are still true and perhaps a projection of my mourning. But, I don’t know others’ specific pains, which are rooted in long relationships, family, home, and hopes for the future.

The lyric fills in those hollows. The poem becomes indigenous to its characters — not me. I am honest until my imagination converts a paratrooper’s body being retrieved from Cambodia into a native stork.

Ashaki-Jackson-300x224

Dr. Ashaki M. Jackson is a social psychologist and poet who has worked with post-incarceration youth through research, evaluation and creative arts mentoring for over one decade. She is a Cave Canem and VONA alumna. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Rkvry Quarterly and CURA Magazine, among others. Miel Books will publish her chapbook, Language Lesson, in fall 2016. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

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Women Who Share: Désirée Zamorano on Daily Goals and the Power of Conferences

In 1997, more years ago than I care to admit to, I attended a Bouchercon mystery conference and listened to the writer Patricia Sprinkle speak about the “seasons” in a writer’s life. At that time I had two small children, taught 5th grade, and had committed myself to carve time out of my day to write. But, I had given myself a daily quota that I was daily unable to make. I goaded, scolded and loathed myself for not accomplishing my daily goal, day after day after day. When Ms. Sprinkle spoke, she reminded her audience of the different seasons in our lives, to recognize and honor them. I took her words in, deeply. I vowed not to beat myself up for missing arbitrary targets.

Continue reading “Women Who Share: Désirée Zamorano on Daily Goals and the Power of Conferences”

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Closing the Gap: On Confidence and Community

by Ramona Pilar

Reposted with permission from our friends at Lumen Magazine, where this article was first published on August 5, 2015.

Women Who Submit was born out of a reaction to a couple of gross injustices: a) women are not being published as often nor as broadly as men, and b) women may not be submitting or resubmitting their work as often as men. Men and women of color are published to an even lesser degree.  The founders of Women Who Submit took this information, acknowledged it, and asked themselves what could be done to change this?

The Atlantic published an article called “The Confidence Gap” which posed the idea that “… there is a particular crisis for women—a vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology.” In their research, authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman found that women will tend to psyche themselves out of opportunities if they don’t feel close to, if not perfectly suited for the opportunity while men did not have that particular issue.

While there are exceptions to generalizations, there was enough of a commonality to infer that a lack of confidence was one of the reasons why women weren’t submitting their work for publication as often as men.

Confidence is something I personally struggle with when it comes to writing, much less submitting my work for publication. There are layers upon layers of experiences that have transformed me from the bravado-fueled fireball I was in adolescence (my most prolific writing years to date) into a domesticated housecat who refuses to come out from under the bed, shiny eyes reflecting at you from the furthest corner, resigned to remain planted until I’m good and ready to come out.

I’ve been an active member of Women Who Submit for about two years. In that time I’ve submitted work to a total of maybe 10 places. Which, comparatively speaking, is a fraction of a fraction of the amount of submissions other members have followed through on. But comparison is not the point and has never been the point. What brings me closer to crawling out of the safe, uneventful, under-the-bed darkness is being around women who have navigated out of that safe crawl space. Women who have more experience submitting than I do.

The trick, I’ve learned, is to focus on what is actually within my control rather than on being accepted. I can control the content I create, the journals I submit to, the frequency with which I submit pieces. There is not one way to do anything. For example, I’ve acquired four different versions of cover letters to send with submissions. Each of them different and each of the women who shared them with me had success with her version and their reasons why they stuck by it. Hearing sometimes contradictory advice lets me know that the point cannot be about acceptance. That is a faulty, foul gauge of success. The point is to commit to submitting or getting my work ready to submit, at whatever pace feels comfortable for me. Cats don’t live under the bed forever.

The mere act of getting together with committed frequency, either in person or virtually, via Skype or checking in via email, matters. That sense of community is paramount to success, for me individually, and for the overarching goal of working towards gender parity in publishing.

Confidence isn’t some magic superpower only a chosen few are anointed with at birth. It’s something that comes from tangible practicality, from looking at a daunting task and knowing it can be broken down into easily digestible, easily completed tasks. I am inspired by and grateful to the women who have demystified submission by showing me how it’s done.

953012fc-9c9a-4fd6-a657-4393b5e68787Ramona Pilar is a writer, performer, emotional fluffer and native Californian. She is currently working on a collection of essays entitled “Darth Vader Abandoned his Daughter and Other Thoughts Along The Heroine’s Journey.” She can occasionally be found troubadouring with her band The Raveens.

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Closing the Gap: DON’T CHEAT. YOU CAN STILL GET PUBLISHED.

Back in September, The New Republic published an article entitled, “Cheat! It’s the Only Way to Get Published.” but not everyone was so convinced. Here is one rebuttal from writer, Rachael Warecki reposted here from Zoetic Press, first published October 5, 2015.

First, let me say that I’m aware I have several legs up in the literary world just by dint of being white, middle-class, over-educated, and employed in a white-collar job. My family and friends have always been supportive of my desire to write, even when they haven’t understood it; I’ve never had anyone tell me that writing is something I shouldn’t do. I have time, space, and a room of my own: in many ways, to many people, the life I lucked into could be considered its own literary cheat.

In the fall of 2011, though, I was recovering from several serious medical issues, unemployed, and in the middle of my first semester as a graduate student in Antioch University Los Angeles’ MFA program. (In the spirit of encouraging fellow emerging writers, it’s perhaps pertinent to add that I did not just sail into an MFA program; Antioch accepted me off the waitlist.) I didn’t have any literary connections to recommend my work. I didn’t have any prestige-journal stationery on which I could write my cover letters. While looking for literary magazines that might publish my short stories, I noticed a call for submissions for the inaugural issue of The Masters Review, a lit mag that—at that time—was only open to writers attending grad school.

Back then, my assets consisted of my words, my classmates’ assurance that my stories were ready for publication, and the generosity of a literary magazine truly committed to helping new writers succeed. Because The Masters Review’s author demographic was so narrow, I thought my work might have a better chance of successfully making its way through the slush pile. As it turned out, I was right: my short story “The Rites of Summer” was published in The Masters Review’s 2012 issue.

In the years since, I’ve worked to build those post-slush literary relationships. I’ve kept in touch with one of The Masters Review’s editors, and I’ve continued to submit my work to their contests and anthologies, which have now expanded to include all emerging writers—not just those in MFA programs. My most recent submission, “10:25 a.m. EDT,” earned an honorable mention and a pending review from a top literary agency, which is an amazing career opportunity for which I’m eternally grateful.

More importantly, I’ve also continued to work those slush piles. Although I had zero relationships with any of the top-tier literary magazines, once I had work I thought was strong enough, I started shooting for the moon. Out of those long-shot submissions, I’ve received personal rejections and encouragement from fiction editors at Tin House, The Atlantic Monthly, Agni, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Blackbird, and PANK. I say this not to brag, but to point out that you can submit to slush piles of top-tier magazines and, if your work is a good enough fit, editors will start to pay long-term attention to you, even if you don’t have a list of previous publication credits or a fancy lit mag’s letterhead to back you up.

Here’s the rub, though: at the most basic level, if you want to be published without “cheating,” you need to be selective about what you send. Three years later, I’m still proud of “The Rites of Summer,” as I am of every story I’ve published, but I’ve also written stories that I’ve stopped submitting for now because I know they’re not yet strong enough for the markets in which I want to be published. Of my unpublished work, I have three “powerhouse” stories making the rounds of contests and top-tier literary magazines, but I also have five other stories, all written almost two years ago, that I’m still pumping up to that heavyweight level. Beyond that, everything else is unsalvageable for various reasons. That’s one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my fledgling writing career: my work can be well-written and well-constructed, but it can still be too unoriginal, too white-bread, and/or too autobiographical to be publishable. Not everything is fit to print.

Which leads into the fact that you also need to be selective about where you send your work. If you’re an emerging writer, look for literary magazines that are committed to finding, publishing, and promoting emerging writers; that way, you won’t be competing for limited page space with the likes of Joyce Carol Oates and Adam Johnson. The Masters Review is a great place to submit since it’s only open to new voices, but many other top-tier publications, such as Glimmer Train and A Public Space, hold contests and grant fellowships specifically designed to attract new writers. If you’re working in a certain genre, submit to magazines that appreciate that genre rather than disdain it. If you think a certain publication might be a good fit for your work, get a hold of some back issues to make sure—even print journals usually have one or two stories available for free online.

The world of literary journals and publications can seem exclusive, insular, and elitist, and that reputation is in many ways deserved. But it’s not a completely impermeable membrane, and you don’t have to cheat to make inroads. Just be strategic and selective about your submissions, and don’t be afraid to cultivate relationships with other writers, wherever you may find them.

 

1091093_347757792022433_1818843801_oRachael Warecki received her MFA in Fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is also an alumna of Scripps College, Loyola Marymount University, and the 2008 Teach for America Los Angeles corps. Her fiction has appeared in The Masters Review, Midwestern Gothic, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. In her spare time, she enjoys rooting for the Cleveland Indians and the Ohio State Buckeyes. She is currently at work on a novel.

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Claps and Cheers: Toni Ann Johnson Goes Audible

by Tisha Marie Reichle

-5Remedy for a Broken Angel (Nortia Press), the debut novel of award-winning screenwriter Toni Ann Johnson (Ruby Bridges and Crown Heights) was awarded 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award Multicultural Fiction, received an honorable mention at the New York Times book Festival, won 2015 International Latino Book Award for Most Inspirational Fiction, was a Finalist for Forward Reviews 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for Multicultural Fiction, and was nominated for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author.

Johnson’s talent for setting a stage and framing a scene contribute to the book’s cinematic quality: each moment could be emblazoned in film for audiences to enjoy watching after reading the book or listening to Toni Ann read it on Amazon, Audible, and itunes.

Harmonious one minute and dissonant the next, jazz provides the resonant back beat for repeated fiascos. Johnson’s characters reveal how complicated life can become when married to a musician.

Serena, a singer, and Rico, a Latino trumpet player, have a passionate marriage and “she craved him …The way he played … the rasp in his voice, the mystery in his black eyes, his muscular arms, and tight bum.” Their heated battles followed by equally hot reconciliation reminds me of too many unfortunate loves long gone.

Unfortunately, as their daughter, Artie gets older, Rico grows distant. Serena blames Artie when she hears Rico playing her song for their daughter in a private concert. “Why’s he callin’ her his angel? That’s my bloody pet name … After fourteen years, she was having a hard time making sense of how the marriage had come to this. One thing she did understand quite clearly: she was not his angel anymore.” Johnson infuses Serena’s outbursts of agony with her lyrical Bermudian English which makes the audio version that features Toni Ann Johnson so much more memorable. If you don’t believe me, ask her family in Bermuda what they think.

A mother so broken is bound to cause her daughter’s most tangible grief, and there may be no hope for redemption. Tired of battling for her husband Rico’s attention, Serena leaves her only daughter on Artie’s twelfth birthday.

Shortly after, Papi moves them in with a distant cousin and Artie’s relationship with Kendall begins. I remember twelve-year-old love. New and clumsy, the uncertain first kiss when all I could think, like Artie, is Am I doing this right?

But all that innocence can’t last when Kendall is a jazz musician, too. A tenor sax player. They know how to use their tongues. In 2004, “Artie drove home late one night when her husband Kendall wasn’t expecting her…A spicy fragrance wafted out the window into her face. Opium. Her mother’s scent. … Artie hadn’t seen the monster in years, so she was shocked to find her reclining in the passenger seat with her dress hiked above her waist. Kendall was upside down; the six to her mother’s nine, his face buried between her thighs.”

Johnson alternates between Artie’s and Serena’s point of view conveying each woman’s discomfort with relationships and constant longing for love. Moving seamlessly from 2004 to 1990, from New York to Los Angeles Johnson explores the boundaries of familial love, creating characters whose pain and joy is palpable.

While some of Johnson’s earlier work focused on social injustices, Remedy for a Broken Angel concentrates on personal problems, resonating with all readers who have faced familial betrayal. Infused with the melodies of heartache and chords of pure loneliness, Johnson focuses on themes of fidelity and forgiveness, chaos and karma, all leading to an unexpected crescendo.

wwspanelglasses_258Weekdays Tisha Marie Reichle engages high school students with socially conscious literature. On weekends, she writes. Her stories have appeared in 34th Parallel, Inlandia Journal, Muse Literary Journal, Santa Fe Writers Project, and The Acentos Review. For 25 years, she has lived in Los Angeles and earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University. She is currently submitting her YA novel to agents and working a new book about cousins who struggle with cultural and sexual identity in Los Angeles. She was recently selected as fiction editor for Border Senses – submission will be open in January 2016.

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Claps and Cheers: “Put Your Name On It”: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo on Writing, Submitting, and Honoring Our Creative Work

WWS member, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo was recently interviewed for La Bloga by Olga García Echeverría. She speaks about honoring her parents, hosting a reading series, finding time to write, and Women Who Submit. Here is an excerpt where she shares submission advice for writers of color and all writers looking to stay true to their work.

From: “Put Your Name On It”: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo on Writing, Submitting, and Honoring Our Creative Work

Finding a “home” for a literary piece can be challenging, especially when we are bilingual and write in mixed languages. There is always so much negotiation (between the self and the page) that happens prior to sending something out. Should I even send this there? If I do send it out and it’s not a Latino journal, how much of the Spanish do I have to take out? etc. What advice can you give women writers out there who are grappling with some of these issues and questions?

I think my advice would be to make the best piece you possibly can, and try not to worry about who will take it. I know this is hard. I’m trying to do it right now with a YA novel I’m working on. My heroine is the daughter of migrant farm workers, and I’m always thinking, Is that too much Spanish? But I think we have to fight to stay true to who we are, and fight to stay true to the piece. Each piece is different and there is never one answer.

What I hope other poets do is write their hearts out, and make something that makes them proud, something they are proud to have their names on (like my father says), and then send it out. If you do that, I think you will find the right home for your work. I have an essay up at The James Franco Review right now where large chunks of dialogue are in Spanish. I definitely worried no one would take it, but then I found out about The James Franco Review. Based off of their mission and the work they had previously published I thought, if anyone is going to take a chance on this piece it’s this place. And then they did, which was amazing! So I think being true to yourself, and looking for those places who are open to what you are doing is key.

I think that even when we do make efforts to submit, though, it can be pretty discouraging, and it can also be expensive. Although it’s exciting to see more people of color presses and journals, it’s still a very White and very male-dominated literary world. We’ve made many gains, but the racism is institutionalized.

This is true, but we have to keep pushing ourselves into these spaces. I spent a month this summer at a residency that was very white, and it wasn’t always comfortable, but as one mujer told me recently, “So what’s our option? To not go? No!” Being there made it possible to finally write a first draft of a book I’ve had in my mind for years, so no, we can’t stop doing it. But this is something I’ve been thinking about with Women Who Submit. We want to support women trying to move up into these prestigious spaces, which tend to be white and male. I’m curious about what we can do to help arm them before they go. I’m curious to figure out how we can support them from afar.

Money is also a big issue. To apply for prestigious awards and accolades is not cheap. Reading fees and application fees are no joke, and it only helps keep the writing world classist. One dream I have is to start some kind of scholarship fund just for application fees. If we could help women submit their work to places they normally wouldn’t because of fees and financial concerns, that would be huge.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo’s debut poetry collection, Built with Safe Spaces, will be published by Sundress Publication in Winter 2016.

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Women Who Crawl: Laura Warrell on Reading at Lit Crawl L.A.

by Laura Warrell

Women Who Submit rocked this year’s Lit Crawl L.A., an annual street festival where thousands of book lovers hustle from one North Hollywood venue to the next to hear local authors read their work. As a new member of WWS, I was honored when group co-founder Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo invited me to read at the event this year, a feeling that deepened as I listened to the powerhouse line-up of women writers with whom I shared the stage. Lit Crawl gave me the opportunity to once again hear Lisa Cheby read from her chapbook, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, including a poem nominated for a Pushcart prize. Iris De Anda’s delicate delivery of her poems only heightened their intensity, while Ashaki M. Jackson’s poems were as bracing as they were profound. The prose writers, Tisha Reichle and Vicki Vertiz, rounded out the line-up sharing poignant and compelling stories that captivated the audience. I read a brand-new essay–one I had never shared–but knew the safest place to make a debut was among friends of WWS.

In an effort to emulate WWS meetings, each reader began by listing the publications to which she had submitted her work and was immediately cheered on by the audience (at meetings, each member announces the moment she presses “send” and submits her work to literary journals and contests as everyone in the room applauds). Unlike WWS meetings, we cheered with plastic hand clappers, which made a normally subdued event feel more like a celebration. Though the reading took place on the patio of the Eclectic Restaurant, the noise from the busy dining room and street could not overpower the readers’ voices or the audience’s applause. Passersby stopped to listen, snap pictures and join an already packed house.

The Lit Crawl reading was one of the best of my writing life. At first, I was nervous to take part because my essay explored one of the most difficult moments in my failed marriage. Not only did I feel vulnerable sharing such a personal story, especially a painful one, but I also worried whether the new piece was “working.” The rousing applause after I finished reading was encouragement enough. But even more fantastic was the support I received from my fellow WWS members, like Tisha who beamed at me when I walked off the stage and said, “You killed it.”

Which brings me to what is most special about Women Who Submit: community. All writers need places where they can feel supported to take chances in their work and brave the challenges of an artistic life. But for women writers, who tend to be less assertive in building their careers, the support may be even more crucial. For that, WWS is priceless.

-1A recent transplant to Los Angeles from Boston, Laura Warrell has been published in Salon.com, Racialicious.com, The Writer and other publications. She spends most of her days hustling to one of three adjunct teaching positions to fill amazing young minds with literature and writing prompts. The other days, she thanks God for never having to endure another New England winter.

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Celebration Blitzes

by Ramona Pilar

Submit!

Who: Women Who Submit
Where: ONLINE In the comfort of wherever you, your computer and wifi wanna be.
L.A. METRO AREA:  The Little Easy – 216 W. 5th Street, DTLA, CA 90013
What: Women Who Submit’s 2nd Annual SUBMISSION BLITZ (and L.A. Meetup)
When: Saturday September 12, 2015
ONLINE: Beginning at 12:01am – 11:59pm
L.A. METRO AREA: 12:00pm – 4:00pm

Why?

The channeling of writing is done in solitude. Whether alone in the quiet before dawn – a soundtrack of scattering the only rush hour you hear – or squished into a seat on a light rail train or subway at rush hour, a veritable contortionist, angling your writing arm, wrist and fingers however you can in order to transmute those stories, verses, and images into a collection of words.

Purple Lady Metro
La Viejita Morada – 2013

But that channeling – that creativity – isn’t necessarily the whole of what it means to be a writer. As a storyteller, one is urged, pushed, cajoled or challenged by something inside of you to pluck those passing thoughts from the din of the thousands that flow through your mind on a daily basis and  give them form, genre, emotion – voice. As a writer, you are further compelled to share these stories and contribute to the larger story of your community – however many you claim – tells about itself to itself.

Women Who Submit is just one of several groups of writers who have organized around supporting and amplifying the stories of people who have been bit players at best in the story contemporary literature and publishing tells about itself to itself.

WWS’s First Submission Blitz took place in a bar/restaurant at the deadest part of the day: early afternoon. As patrons trickled in and saw a group of women sitting around a table with laptops, they were curious. The more they drank, the bolder they got until they asked what we were doing. Each time we explained, the response was, “Oh, wow! That’s such a good idea!” And as each writer submitted her work, we cheered, and they cheered along with us.

1st Annual Submission Blitz - 2014 Somewhere in Northeast L.A.
1st Annual Submission Blitz – 2014

This year’s Submission Blitz will take place at The Little Easy in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s reminiscent of a speakeasy, Parisian parlor and Disney’s Blue Bayou restaurant (without the old water smell from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride). There’s a wooden fenced mezzanine with ivy-strewn awnings and a gazebo-ed fountain in the main part of the restaurant. It’s the best kind of whimsical a restaurant/bar could be.

Writing can be serious work. Sharing that writing doesn’t have to be. At a submission party, your submission receives the amount of fanfare and hoopla your hard work deserves. At our annual Submission Blitz, we target the top five Top Tiered journals currently publishing work. Hell yeah it deserves a venue that features a 3 foot painting of the general manager dressed as Napoleon. Sharing your stories and celebrating your community(ies) sharing theirs is just as much a part of being a writer as the words on the page.

* * * * * * *

TO SUBMIT

Let’s inundate these top journals with our best work and shake up their slush piles.

Here are five tier 1 journals with current open readings. Be sure to check out their guidelines.

Agni
http://www.bu.edu/agni/submit.html

Georgia Review
http://garev.uga.edu/submissions.html

Gulf Coast
http://gulfcoastmag.org/submit/

Iowa Review
http://iowareview.org/content/writers-guidelines

Zyzzyva
http://www.zyzzyva.org/about/submissions/

TRANSPORT

TAKE METRO: to Pershing Square Station, exit 5th and Hill street side, walk one block east. Destination will be on the South side.

PARKING: There are some $5-$7 lots on Spring between 4th and 6th streets.

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Claps and Cheers: Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero

by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

productsprimary_image_233Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (Cinco Punto Press), the debut YA novel from Inland Empire poet, Isabel Quintero, reminds me of myself at 17; Gabi is too fat, watches too much “I Love Lucy,” and has too many feelings she can’t seem to make go away. But armed with her journal, a canon of poets including Michele Serros, Sandra Cisneros, and Pablo Neruda, and her special beef jerky she has flown in from Mexico, she is determined to fight the injustices of the world starting with the “boys will be boys” double standard.

We meet Gabi at the opening of her senior year of high school just as she discovers one best friend is pregnant and the other has been kicked out of his house for being gay. We follow her through a year of self-discovery that includes a couple of satisfying smack downs before she is able to find inner-strength and self-acceptance.

Laugh or cry, it’s hard not to be charmed by Gabi’s mix of self-deprecation and humor, and it is no surprise she has earned Quintero quite a few accolades over the past year. Gabi a Girl in Pieces is the 2015 Winner of the William C. Morris Award for YA Debut Novel, and continues to make “best of” reading lists. The latest, “Ten must-read YA novels you’ve probably never heard of” from The Guardian said, “Told through Gabi’s diary, the book is tragic, hilarious, and always whip-smart. It’s also, I’m sure, one of the most diverse and all-encompassing YA novels out there.”

Congratulations to Isabel Quintero on a debut novel that is smart, honest, and full of teenage passion. If I took one thing away from Gabi, it was that I’m not the only one. Even as a 35 year-old, the life of a poet can feel lonely and without much understanding or appreciation (not unlike the life of a 17 year-old). But when Gabi gets a crush on a boy in her poetry class and proclaims, “I think I love Martin Espada,” (named after the famed poet), I beamed with excitement and thought, I love Martín Espada too! In that moment, it was like Gabi was a book meant for me, another Southern California gordita poet. I have no doubt that many other “gorditas, flaquitas, and inbetween girls” will discover Gabi and feel less alone too.

To the gorditas y flaquitas! To the poets! To Gabi! To Isabel Quintero!

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo has work most recently published in Lumen Magazine, Lunch Ticket, and The James Franco Review. She is a co-founding member of Women Who Submit.