As part of our ongoing effort to encourage women to submit to top tier literary journals, Women Who Submit has put together a monthly submission call round up, hoping women writers find it useful and come back to it again and again. For our first list, we have included 19 publications with under $20 submission fees, and one publication with a slightly higher fee.
General
The Indiana Review
Reading Period: Opening date not listed – March 10
What They Like: They’ve received a ton of stories about cancer, so he could do without seeing any of those for a while and would prefer to see stuff that’s “different.”
What They Like: Emerging fiction from new writers. They run year-round New Voices online editions and additional contests judged by the magazine editors and other writers.
Canadian publication. Recommended to read a couple of issues to get the feel of what they publish @ www.roommagazine.com/magazine. They are interested in poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction by women. They pay from CA$ 50 up to CA$120 depending on the number of pages. They accept one submission per genre per quarter and publish 80 to 100 pieces from a 2000 submissions slush pile.
Editorial Department The Sun
107 N. Roberson St.
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
They publish personal essays although they also accept interviews, fiction and poetry. Your immaculate personal essay competes against thousands of other great essays in the slush pile every month. They take up to six months to reply. The nicely printed rejection letters make for a good keepsake too. They pay from $100-200 for poetry up to $2000 for interviews. SASE required.
It is highly recommended to read at least a couple of issues to get a feel for the magazine content and what the editors expect.
Genre: Poetry, prose, and art for events and for the magazine.
Editor: Jennifer Lewis
Submit to:Jennifer@redlight.com also
Oakland based reading series and quarterly journal since 2013 publishes emerging writers and artists who delve in the senses with sophistication, humor, and wit.
Short Fiction Only
The Paris Review
Reading Period: All year, but do not accept more than four submissions per year
Submission guidelines What They Like: I’ve seen a little bit of everything, but they seem to prefer realism
11. The New Yorker
Reading Period: All year
Submission Guidelines: http://www.newyorker.com/about/contact What They Like: I’ve seen a little bit of everything, from realism to magical realism to a few other types of fiction, but not too much “genre” Responses; If you haven’t heard from them within three months, you’re just supposed to assume you’re rejected
Glimmer Train
Reading Period: Open year-round, but with general submissions in January, May, and September
What They Like: I’ve read everything from the fantastical to the dystopic to the realistic to the WTF-how-did-this-get-published, so they seem rather eclectic
The Missouri Review
Reading Period: Open year-round, as far as I can tell, but don’t quote me on that
This yearly anthology is composed of 10 stories by emergent writers. Last year, the Masters Review won the Silver Medal for Best Short Story Collection through the INDIEFAB Awards. (Among the past judges: Lauren Groff and Lev Grossman; current judge is Amy Hempel.)
Our most expensive publication on the list. This contest is seeking emergent fiction writers who have yet to publish a novel. The award honors the cultural and social values exemplified by late James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity. Contestants can’t have previously published novels, but are eligible with published short fiction and non-fiction work.
Judge: Literary Agent, Hilary McMahon of Westwood Creative Artists
Award: Publication on WCSC website and
$500 and commentary by Ms. McMahon
$250
$100
Solstice, A Magazine of Diverse Voices
Solstice is a tri-quarterly magazine, with a response time of two to four months. It publishes fiction, non-fiction (essays and memoirs), poetry, and photography. It publishes both emergent and established writers of diverse backgrounds.
Winners will be published in the Summer Award Issue in early August.
This is all for now. Hope to see you back next month, when we will try to compile another list of journals with plenty of details to help you plan and budget your submissions.
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer standing (unbalanced) on a blurred line between fiction and memoir. She has wandered the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada, to the US, and now lives in Oakland. Her upcoming memoir The Shattered Mirror celebrates friendship among women and draws attention on child abuse and mental illness. She also writes short fiction and poetry, and blogs “irregularly” at www.gingerbreadwoman.org
I’m not brilliant, or inspired, or awake enough every day to write something meaningful, and with Low Stakes Daily Writing I don’t have to be. Each day I connect with the page. Each day I promise a few moments—however brief—to my writing. To myself.
From Melissa Chadburn’s “On Kitchens of the Great Midwest: Why We Read Books” published at LA Review of Books:
Kitchens of the Great Midwest transported me to a place I longed for. A place that was warm. The protagonist Eva Thorvald had so much of what I was lacking. She was tall. So to me she had a backbone. A backbone and a discerning palate. We’re talking about a palate that lusted for heirloom tomatoes at three-and-a-half months old.
From “Melissa Chadburn interviews Carmiel Banasky” published at LA Review of Books:
This is a side people don’t get to see of women too often. Women who don’t merge or women who merge and then don’t. Women who are fickle in love.
Or women who love each other so much they think they are in love, or vice versa — who say they are in love, but it turns out to be just a beautiful, if sexless, affection. (I think we see portrayals of that dynamic between heterosexual duos on TV and whatnot, but not between female friends.)
One of my closest female friends and I certainly have had some sexual tension — but I think this is an extension or offshoot of a really lasting, big love for each other.
Muslims didn’t invent terrorism
It has always existed since
Humanity created gods. No
Muslims didn’t create fear today
But we want to believe it’s true
When they hear car speakers blasting so loud that their tiny feet and swaying car seats move in a musical jamboree, I hear a radio rewind of the Watts Prophets, West Coast Hip Hop, G-funk and that wanna-be-b-girl in me. Friday nights at the Good Life Café, schoolgirl crushes cemented by a Fatburger and a meticulously made mix-tape.
Congratulations to Tammy Delatorre for the winning Slipper Elm’s2015 Prose Prize for her essay, “Driving Lessons,” which can be read in the latest edition out this month!
When setting your reading and writing goals for 2016, consider the work being done by other women writers and editors – people like you! Think about subscribing to one or more of the journals listed below. Make a conscious effort to read print and online journals edited/curated by women writers. Submit your work regularly to the journals and magazines that address themes you are writing about. As we move towards being more responsible literary citizens in the upcoming year, keep our sister writers in mind. (Information below is edited from each journal/magazine website information.)
If there are publications that have not been included on this list, please add a brief description and a link in the comments below so others can learn about it and we can update our information.
13th Moon: A Feminist Literary Magazine
Founded in 1973 in the ferment of early second wave feminism, as a home for women writers and their readers. Because the surrounding culture has tended to erase women writers from history, their work has needed rediscovery, preservation and its own dedicated space each generation.
Adanna Literary Journal: a journal for women, about women
A name of Nigerian origin, pronounced a-DAN-a, is defined as “her father’s daughter.” Women over the centuries have been defined by men in politics, through marriage, and, most importantly, by the men who fathered them. Today women are still bound by complex roles in society, often needing to wear more than one hat or sacrifice one role so another may flourish. Submissions must reflect women’s issues or topics, celebrate womanhood, and shout out in passion.
Adrienne
This is an intermittently published literary journal featuring poetry by self-identified queer women. Work need not be lesbian themed. The definition of “queer women poets” is also a flexible term; they welcome work by women who identify as queer, lesbian, dyke, bisexual, and trans* as well. Each issue is built around a small number of poets and showcase the variety within the queer poetry community. They are not looking for any one style or form; each issue will represent multiple poetic forms, including traditional poetry, prose poetry, spoken word poetry translated to the page, and experimental poetry.
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture
A nonprofit, independent, feminist media organization dedicated to providing and encouraging an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture seeks to be a fresh, revitalizing voice in contemporary feminism. They are uniquely situated to draw in young readers who are at a critical moment in their lives—a moment when they are discovering feminism and activism, finding answers to who they are, and questioning the definitions of gender, sexuality, power and agency prescribed by the mainstream media.
Blackberry
A magazine devoted to sharing the literary voices of black women. This online journal is run by women who strongly believe in its mission to showcase a new generation of writers as well as illuminate voices from the past that may have been ignored.
Bluestockings Magazine
A feminist multimedia publication with a gender-aware perspective and an anti-oppression framework. Their feminisms are rooted in opposition to all forms of oppression with an understanding that feminism links together the political, the structural, and the personal. They aim to center voices from marginalized and historically resilient communities across intersections of color, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, immigration status, disability, gender identity, sexuality, class, substance use, status of incarceration, experience of violence and trauma, and other identities not listed here. They accept work from every genre and medium, and highly encourage work from people of color with intersectional identities. They also welcome work from first-time contributors, who can expect a hands-on editing process from the team.
Bone Bouquet
A biannual online journal seeking to publish the best new writing by female poets, from artists both established and emerging. They aim to highlight the important work of female poets, who are often underrepresented in the writing community and popular media. Rather than personal politics, their criteria are excellence and vibrance. Rather than segregating the poetry of ‘women’s issues’ from ‘regular’ creative work, their goal is to provide an additional arena to make work more visible to readers, building their reputations as artists.
Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women
A forum for women’s creative work—including work by women of color, lesbian and queer women, young women, old women—CALYX Journal breaks new ground. Each issue is packed with new poetry, short stories, full-color artwork, photography, essays, and reviews.
damselfly press: A gathering of women’s voices
The name is derived from the tenacious damselfly, a unique and highly independent insect whose remarkable compound eyes allow her the advantage of examining many aspects of her environment. They value writing that soars beyond common perceptions and seek to promote exceptional writing by women. They welcome fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from female writers of all experiences. They are interested in work that is honest and explores human nature; there is truth even in fiction.
The Fem
It is a literary journal that publishes feminist, diverse, and inclusive creative works and interviews with writers, artists, and creators twice a week. They practice intersectional feminism, and seek to act as a safe space for both readers and writers from marginalized groups.
Feminist Formations
It is a forum where feminists from around the world articulate research, theory, activism, teaching, and learning, thereby showcasing new feminist formations. An interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, they publish innovative work by scholars, activists, artists, poets, and practitioners in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies. A permanent section of the journal devoted to contemporary feminist poetry is designed to push at the bounds of academic knowledge production to make space for creative writers whose work can help us to see, learn, and experience from fresh angles.
Feminist Studies
They are committed to publishing an interdisciplinary body of feminist knowledge that sees intersections of gender with racial identity, sexual orientation, economic means, geographical location, and physical ability as the touchstone for our politics and our intellectual analysis. They welcome all forms of written creative expression, including but not limited to poetry and short fiction in all forms. They are interested in work that addresses questions of interest to their audience, particularly work that pushes past the boundaries of what has been done before. They look for creative work that is intellectually challenging and aesthetically adventurous, that is in complicated dialogue with feminist ideas and concepts, and that shifts readers into new perspectives on women/gender.
The Feminist Wire
It is a peer reviewed online feminist publication. They welcome essays, interviews, op-eds, stories, poetry, plays, and visual art that explicitly deploy a feminist lens, and define feminism very broadly. They are also committed to anti-racist and anti-imperialist approaches.
Hip Mama
This is the original alternative parenting magazine, covering subjects from weaning to home schooling with humor and political edge. It is a forum for single, urban and feminist mothers. And the December 2015 issue features WWS member Lisbeth Coiman!
Iris Magazine: for thinking young women
After more than 30 years of publication, they continue to celebrate and empower young women through provocative pieces. Their mission is not only to showcase women’s achievements at the University and within Charlottesville, in support of the women’s community and in conjunction with the Center’s mission to creating change, but to also underscore the relevance of women’s issues throughout the community to foster change and highlight accomplishments.
Lavender Review
Born on Gay Pride Day, June 27, 2010, it is an international, biannual (June & December) e-zine dedicated to poetry and art by, about, and for lesbians. This e-zine is free, and open to everyone.
Lilith Magazine
Independent, Jewish & frankly feminist since 1976, it charts Jewish women’s lives with exuberance, rigor, affection, subversion and style. Their work includes bold reporting and memoir, original fiction and poetry, and a lively take on tradition, celebrations and social change.
Literary Mama
Since 2003, they have featured writing about the many faces of motherhood, including poetry, fiction, columns, and creative non-fiction that may be too raw, too irreverent, too ironic, or too body-conscious for traditional or commercial motherhood publications. They honor the difficult and rewarding work women do as they move through motherhood by providing a smart, diverse venue to read, publish, and share mama-centric stories.
Lumen Magazine
It is a project for (and by!) women and nonbinary people. They are interested in poetry, fiction, personal essays, and interviews that examine how people move through the world, both as complex individuals and as members of larger communities. The conversations they are interested in are those that shed light on our stories—our struggles, our triumphs, and all the in-betweens.
Luna Luna Magazine
It is the dreamer’s lifestyle diary where readers can indulge their good and bad sides in the quiet conversations, the confessions, the uncomfortable, the indulgent and the beautiful. They aim to capture everything that makes our world so powerful: beauty, light, nuance, oddities, opulence, magic and desire. They consistently profile brave, unapologetic, feminist and creative thinkers from all walks of life. They focus heavily on the personal, intimate, literary, artistic and occult.
Minerva Rising
It is an independent literary journal celebrating the creativity and wisdom in every woman. They publish thought-provoking fiction, non-fiction, photography, poetry and essays by women writers and artists. It has grown out of a love of literature and the knowledge that when women come together, we flourish. Just as the Goddess Minerva represented creativity, wisdom, medicine, commerce, arts and education, the journal provides the opportunity for and the evidence of that bounty.
The Mom Egg Review: Literature & Art
An annual literary journal by and about mothers and motherhood. Celebrated writers and new talents explore the experience of motherhood from diverse perspectives and examine the nexus of motherhood with other identities, cultural and personal. Multi-ethnic and multi-generational, it tells important stories ignored or marginalized by other publications, and nurtures exciting literary talents.
MP
It is an online, peer-reviewed, international feminist journal. Their goals are to provide an intelligent forum for feminist discourse in cyberspace and provide space for a variety of voices on issues of gender and power. They believe that words can change the world!
Mslexia: for women who write
It tells you all you need to know about exploring your creativity and getting into print. No other magazine provides their unique mix of debate and analysis, advice and inspiration; news, reviews, interviews; competitions, events, courses, grants. All served up with a challenging selection of new poetry and prose.
Ms. Magazine
A brazen act of independence in the 1970s, the authors translated a movement into a magazine. It is the first national magazine to make feminist voices audible, feminist journalism tenable, and a feminist worldview available to the public. Today, the magazine remains an interactive enterprise in which an unusually diverse readership is simultaneously engaged with each other and the world. It continues to be an award-winning magazine recognized nationally and internationally as the media expert on issues relating to women’s status, women’s rights, and women’s points of view.
Mutha Magazine Mutha explores real-life motherhood, from every angle, at every stage, including the ways Moms looked in the 50s and 60s and 70s and the way Moms look now. It explores how people stay creative and vital while raising kids. This is a place online to hang out with all of it, without having pink flowers or digital sprinkles of fairy-baby dust assaulting the aesthetics.
Persimmon Tree
This online magazine is a showcase for the creativity and talent of women over sixty. Too often older women’s artistic work is ignored or disregarded, and only those few who are already established receive the attention they deserve. Yet many women are at the height of their creative abilities in their later decades and have a great deal to contribute. They are committed to bringing this wealth of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to a broader audience, for the benefit of all.
Pheobe: a journal of art and literature since 1971
They support up-and-coming writers whose style, form, voice, and subject matter demonstrate a vigorous appeal to the senses, intellect, and emotions of readers. They choose work that succeeds at its goals, whether it is to uphold or challenge literary tradition. They insist on openness, which means they welcome both experimental and conventional prose and poetry, and they insist on being entertained, which means the work must capture and hold their attention, whether it be the potent language of a poem or the narrative mechanics of a short story.
PMS: poemmemoirstory PMS proudly features the best literary writing by emerging and established women writers. While a journal of exclusively women’s writing, the subject field is wide open. First published in 2000, the editors seek to include compelling, intellectually rigorous writing that represents a diverse range of women’s voices and experiences. Simply put, they want to be riveted.
Quaint Magazine: a women’s quarterly literary magazine Quaint publishes dynamic, arresting, and transgressive poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction by female and gender non-binary writers. They are trans-inclusive and are strongly committed to publishing work from traditionally marginalized writers, giving voice to the strange, the weird, and the unsettling.
ROAR Magazine: A Journal of The Literary Arts by Women ROAR is a print literary journal that exists to provide a space to showcase women’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We are committed to publishing literature by emerging and developing writers and we aim to support the equality of women in the creative arts. ROAR accepts work that represents a wide spectrum of form, language and meaning. In other words, don’t worry if your work isn’t specific to feminist issues. If you’re a gal, we just want your point of view.
Room: literature, art, and feminism since 1975
Room to read. Room to write. Room to converse across our many differences. Canada’s oldest literary journal by and about women showcases fiction, poetry, reviews, art work, interviews and profiles about the female experience. Each quarter they publish original, thought-provoking works that reflect women’s strength, sensuality, vulnerability, and wit.
Sinister Wisdom
It is a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal that seeks to open, consider and advance the exploration of lesbian community issues. They recognize the power of language to reflect our diverse experiences and to enhance our ability to develop critical judgment as lesbians evaluating our community and our world.
So To Speak: feminism + language + art
They publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art that lives up to a high standard of language, form, and meaning. They look for work that addresses issues of significance to women’s lives and movements for women’s equality and are especially interested in pieces that explore issues of race, class, and sexuality in relation to gender. They are committed to representing the work of writers and artists from diverse perspectives and experiences and do not discriminate on the basis of race, class, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, culture of origin, political affiliation, disability, marital or premarital status, Vietnam-era status, or similar characteristics.
Torch Journal
They publish and promote the work of black women by publishing contemporary poetry, prose, and short stories by experienced and emerging writers alike, to archive contributor’s literary work for posterity and educational purposes, provide resources and opportunities for the advancement of black women writers.
Weird Sister
An online community that makes people laugh, and maybe cry, and always think a lot. One that resonates with our lives as writers and artists and activists and teachers and curators and moonlighters. A website that speaks its mind and snaps its gum and doesn’t apologize. It explores the intersections of feminism, literature and pop culture, featuring essays, interviews, comics, reviews, playlists, secret diaries, and love letters written in invisible ink.
WomenArts Quarterly
They aspire to nurture, provide support, and challenge women of all cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and abilities and seeks to heighten the awareness and understanding of achievements by women creators, providing audiences with examples of historical and contemporary work by women writers, composers, and artists.
Women’s Review of Books
They provide a forum for serious, informed discussion of new writing by and about women and a unique perspective on today’s literary landscape, featuring essays and in-depth reviews of new books by and about women. Their goals include advancing gender equality, social justice, and human well-being.
Women’s Studies Quarterly
It is an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of emerging perspectives on women, gender, and sexuality. Its thematic issues combine psychoanalytic, legal, queer, cultural, technological, and historical work to present the most exciting new scholarship on ideas that engage popular and academic readers alike. It is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal published twice a year that along with scholarship from multiple disciplines, showcases fiction and creative nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, and the visual arts.
Word Mothers
It is dedicated to showcasing women’s work in the literary arts around the world, featuring female author interviews and women in the book industry discussing what they’re really passionate about. They embrace diversity; minority voices and genderqueer artists are especially encouraged to contribute.
Tisha Marie Reichle is a Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen. Her stories have appeared in 34th Parallel, Inlandia Journal, Muse Literary Journal, Santa Fe Writers Project, The Acentos Review, and The Lunch Ticket. She earned her MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and is the fiction editor at Border Senses magazine.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rachael 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.
Molly Sutton Kiefer, is an essayist and poet with numerous publications including the lyric essay, Nestuary (Ricochet Editions 2014) and two chapbooks. She edited for dislocate and Midway Journal before co-founding Tinderbox Poetry Journal with her friend, Brett Elizabeth Jenkins. She is now happily tackling the role of publisher for her newest project, Tinderbox Editions. In a submission call I picked up through the yahoo! listserv CRWROPPS (Creative Writing Opportunities List), Kiefer announced Tinderbox Editions’ latest open reading period will have a fee-free option until August 31st. As a poet who struggles with innumerable pay-to-play contests and open readings, I was excited to learn about reading fees from the publisher’s perspective and to hear more on running a journal and press. Here is what she had to share.
by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
WOMEN WHO SUBMIT: In Tinderbox’s most recent submission call, it stated, “Due to an enlightening conversation in a private Facebook group, I’ve decided to open up submissions to my press, Tinderbox Editions, with a donation or fee-free option.” What point or comment from this private conversation inspired you to take action?
MOLLY SUTTON KIEFER: It was definitely the moment when, I think it was Margaret Bashaar of Hyacinth Girl Press, reminded us that the fee is prohibitive for some writers, and she mentioned that the poetry world can be classist in this way. In another thread, another smart editor pointed out how when people who have to relinquish a certain amount of money, it brings them closer to making absolutely certain they are sending out the tightest manuscript they can. I think both points are valid.
I might have to rethink our model as we grow, and that’s OK. Running a press is an adaptable experience. But for the time being, I don’t want to limit the manuscripts I read and consider to those I have a connection to or those who can afford to pay out the fee.
WWS: In offering a fee-free option, what are you hoping to achieve with your submission call?
MSK: What I’m seeing already is a wide range of manuscripts—that diversity of style and voice is so important to me. I’m mostly hoping the fee-free means we’re opening to those who might not otherwise be able to send out that book, but [I] also [hope it] will turn up some manuscripts that are taking more chances.
And I hope that those who can donate, do. Every time I pay a fee to a contest, I do think of it as a donation to said press, but I know that isn’t the case for everyone.
WWS: Do you think it will change the amount or quality of work you will see?
MSK: It’s our first open reading period, so it’s hard to tell! I know a lot of the bigger contests average in the hundreds, and we’ve already seen fourteen in the week that we’ve been open. Fortunately, I was able to gather a team of four volunteers to help with the reading of the manuscripts, which I think is important for the slush—this gives the book a better chance of having a champion who might point out something I missed. I’m reading everything, though, so everything will be considered carefully from that final editorial perspective.
At the journal, it’s become important to me to always have open reading. I am so greedy for good poems, I hate to imagine turning some talent away because we are closed.
WWS: In “The Persistence of Litmags”—an article published in The New Yorker last week—Stephen Burt details the hardships of putting together a litmag such as no money, the hours are terrible, and you’ll never get famous. Yet people continue do it. Why? What drove you to start Tinderbox Poetry Journal and now Tinderbox Editions?
MSK: Brett Elizabeth Jenkins and I set out to start [Tinderbox Poetry Journal] a year and a half ago. We were both editing poetry at other mags that combined CNF and fiction and sometimes art with poems, and both of us loved the work. I wanted to start something though, I wanted it to feel more like mine, more of a connection to my own aesthetic, or formation and evolution thereof, and I wanted a partner in this enterprise, so I asked [Brett]—one of my poet-friends with the keenest eye and biggest drive—and TPJ was formed.
I love the editorial process so much; I discovered I was a unique bird when I told others how much I enjoyed the slush. I love finding a beautiful poem and championing it!
I started Tinderbox Editions separate from Brett. What I’ve found as I’ve been working on these books with these stellar poets, and one essayist, and as I’ve begun collecting for a lyric essay anthology…is that I want to publish the work I have a slight bit of envy for…This isn’t the destructive sort of envy, but a woah kind of admiration and desire. If I can’t have written the piece or the book myself, then I want to do all the work I can in finding it a home in this world and getting it as many readers as I can. In many ways, becoming a book publisher has allowed me to hide behind a mask of legitimacy, when I’m really just a fangirl!
WWS: Stephen Burt writes, “Still, having a crack production team, elegant pages, and a balanced budget isn’t enough to get those sentences in front of readers: for a literary journal to succeed…you have to do something that hasn’t been done well before.” What makes TPJ and Tinderbox Editions different or special?
MSK: I want Tinderbox, both journal and press, to give home to work that expands the definition of poetry, to build on the community of readers, to be transparent in our process, to be supportive of our writers, to be the kind of home many, many people would love to see their own work live in. [The press is] so new, we haven’t even put the sign up on the office door, but I think publishing books in the poetry world can be a ping pong game, and I admire the presses like Graywolf, Milkweed, Copper Canyon, etc., who stick by their authors and bring out book after book, supporting the career of the writer, as opposed to this one fleeting moment in their stardom.
I have grand plans for this, like finding a way to include a grant from Tinderbox Editions offered to its poets and essayists who might need some funding help on the next book. I hope to find ways to help fund a reading tour and ways to creatively spread the world about their newest book.
I’m banking on quality and dedication to keep us going…and earnest desire to do right by the people whose work I am helping bring into the world.
MSK: Oh, I am giddy about this reading period. (To be fair, I’ll be giddy about the winter poetry reading period too. I’ve found a way to make my childhood dream come true, which is to become a professional reader). I did my undergraduate thesis in non-fiction and my MFA in poetry. I’ve been pulled between both genres like taffy, and I love that stretch in between. I am ridiculously swoony over personal essayists such as Leslie Jamison, Jo Ann Beard, the like, and those that creep towards lyric essay like Eula Biss and Joni Tevis and those that are more into the poetry end of things like Claudia Rankine and Maggie Nelson. I love Gretel Erlich and Lidia Yukinovitch. I love so many books that are in this nebulous category: Rachel Zucker’s MOTHERs, Christine Hume’s Ventifacts, Bhanu Kapil’s Humanimal, Sarah Vap’s End of the Sentimental Journey. Poets who have written memoir that is also rooted in research and essay: Sarah Manguso’s Two Kinds of Decay and Christine Montross’ Body of Work.
I love the possibilities in this call. I love the ways the written word can interact with art object and artifact, can explore established form and break apart expectations.
WWS: As an editor and publisher, what is the biggest mistake you see from submitters? Or what is your biggest pet peeve?
MSK: There has been one thing that makes my nose wrinkle, and that’s the very small handful of submissions that have read “Dear Sirs.” We’re all ladies. Not on purpose, but by default. Both editors, our journal reader, and the four press readers. (And our first four poets are female, but we have nabbed a book of essays by a very talented male.)
I’m grateful to every submitter who tells me they’ve read a recent issue or admire one of our writers’ work—it tells me that there’s an exchange going on. Spreading the word! I have a feature I’m starting on the press’s blog where people can share something wonderful they’ve read (you can submit at our Submittable page) and that becomes a part of literary citizenship too: here’s this beautiful thing and I want to share it with you.
WWS: Finally, what is one piece of advice you would like to share with women submitting their work for publication?
MSK: You know, one of the best things I did for myself as a writer was to become a reviewer. I did it more in earnest when my first full-length came out—if I expected others to review my work, then I ought to pay it forward in some way. But by reviewing books, particularly ones that are difficult or aren’t in your own writing wheelhouse, strengthens you a great deal, not just to make you a smarter reader and allow you to appreciate you more, but lets you take your own risks in your own work. You never know what will appeal to you. My first review ever was Sun Yung Shin’s Skirt Full of Black for CutBank. I remember getting the book, opening it up, and thinking, “I’ll never have anything smart to say about this!” But I read it to the end and fell in love and read it again and again—with a book and a style I might not have otherwise been open to.
If you believe in yourself and your work and you keep at it (and keep reading—I can’t emphasize that enough!), things will happen.
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo has work most recently published in The American Poetry Review, The Nervous Breakdown, and Lunch Ticket. She is a co-founding member of Women Who Submit.
Does poetry have value? This is a question all poets have asked themselves in the dark of night when they think no one is listening. Shakespeare killed his poets or likened them to lunatics in his plays and Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One’s Own, “[The world] does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care…Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want,” so how do we move forward when seemingly no one values our work?
Poet Jessica Piazza, inspired by Dena Rash Guzman’s personal challenge to send her poetry to paying markets in 2015, began the Poetry Has Value project. Here Piazza explores questions about the value of poetry by writing about her experience in submitting to only paying markets, creating a spreadsheet and public resource of Poetry Journals that Pay (which includes submission fees, open reading periods, and average response times), and interviewing editors from these paying journals. Her interview series has most recently included interviews with Kelly Davio, poetry editor of Tahoma Literary Reviewand Barbara Westwood Diehl, senior founding editor of The Baltimore Review.
Over the last couple of years, I have been working on finding a publisher for my full-length manuscript, and more than once, I have had my guts ripped out from my body and slapped across a table when an editor told me, “We don’t publish poetry anymore. It doesn’t make money.” I questioned the point and value of my work, but thanks to Piazza I now have a place to go to quiet those dark fears.
Besides creating a remarkable resource, one of the best aspects of Piazza’s project is how earnest she is in her journey. As she says in the introduction to her interview with Tim Green, editor of Rattle, “writing these blog posts…has helped me explain more clearly and more precisely my own point of view…which, to be fair, is still developing and always growing.” It’s the exploration that I love, and that she is so open and honest with her findings, makes her worthy of much appreciation.
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer standing (unbalanced) on a blurred line between fiction and memoir. She has wandered the immigration path from Venezuela to Canada, to the US, and now lives in Oakland. Her upcoming memoir The Shattered Mirror celebrates friendship among women and draws attention on child abuse and mental illness. She also writes short fiction and poetry, and blogs “irregularly” at www.gingerbreadwoman.org
have value? This is a question all poets have asked themselves in the dark of night when they think no one is listening. Shakespeare killed his poets or likened them to lunatics in his plays and Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One’s Own, “[The world] does not ask people to write poems and novels and histories; it does not need them. It does not care…Naturally, it will not pay for what it does not want,” so how do we move forward when seemingly no one values our work?