The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during October 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in October 2023!
Continue reading “October 2023 Publication Roundup”
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during September 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in September 2023!
Continue reading “September 2023 Publication Roundup”
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during August 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in August 2023!
Continue reading “August 2023 Publication Roundup”
by Kate Maruyama
I’ve been a fan of Submit 1 since its first year when I hosted hour one and talked about strategies for submitting and dealing with rejections. As I spoke on Instagram Live, people chimed in with questions and announced when they had made a submission and we cheered as a group! It was early and I was just getting my coffee. I was thrilled by how I had just woken up and I was already in a virtual room full of supportive writers. The Women Who Submit Community were at work that morning and throughout the day and I dipped in as other hosts shared their experiences, tips, and claps and cheers. The feeling that we were all working together toward a common goal made it a singular space.
Women Who Submit has been a huge part of my life. In the ten years since I joined, it has been a resource support, a place to keep me on task in submitting my work, and a place to ask any questions about writing, publishing, and even job opportunities. A lot of things that I’ve had published are because of attending submission parties and being cheered on as I pressed SEND.
Last year Toni Ann Ann Johnson asked me to join the hour of Submit 1 she was hosting, along with our friend and colleague Nicole D. Sconiers. I’m always happy to learn more from Toni Ann, who leads really good discussions and is always a fabulous host.
Flyer from the Submit 1, hour with Toni Ann Johnson, Kate Maruyama, and Nicole D. Sconiers.
What followed was a conversation about all the ways in which Toni Ann, Nicole, and I are intertwined with our work, mutual support, friendship, and careers. All three of us told stories about times we were so frustrated, we gave up. We were there for each other, coaxing each other back to work, to the submitting, to the myriad jobs that go into being a writer. It felt like it was the most “Women Who Submit moment ever” as we talked, comments rolled in from members who were submitting all over the country and we cheered them on.
Toni Ann and Nicole are both my first readers. We have been exchanging work for years. We met each other in different ways. Toni Ann and Nicole shared Alma Luz Villanueva as a mentor. Nicole and I met as students in our MFA workshop where I was so excited by her speculative fiction story “Here Come the Janes” that I basically started hounding her for more stories. Later, she hired me to edit her first collection: Escape from Beckyville, Tales of Race Hair and Rage. I kept on her to write and submit after that because at that time, her speculative fiction, which she described as “A Black Woman’s Twilight Zone” was rare and needed. This was 2009 and predated Black Mirror as well as Get Out.
Toni Ann’s fingerprints are all over my three novels that came after Harrowgate. She is not only my first reader, she’s the reason my upcoming book Alterations happened at all. She inspired the idea by asking why I didn’t write about old movies since I loved them so much, and she provided thorough notes on two drafts of the book. When my agent had given up on that book, Toni Ann didn’t and prodded me to believe in my characters and my story and to submit the book independently to small presses. There’s a “you can definitely do this” stalwart belief Toni Ann has in all of her suggestions. Even at my weakest, darkest moments, she encourages me to find that belief again. When the book, after ten years of support from Toni Ann, finally sold, she was the person I called first.
You can read more about our mutual support in a conversation we had for The Coachella Review “You Can’t Do This Shit Alone.” Toni Ann and I have both found similar support in WWS where there is this idea that a rising tide raises all boats and we share resources, encourage each other, and think of ways that each writer in the group can improve, submit, and promote their own work.
In an email exchange, Nicole said, “Toni Ann is not only supportive of my fiction writing but my screenwriting as well. She encouraged me to submit to the ScreenCraft script competition. I submitted my sci-fi thriller Spectacle to the 2022 ScreenCraft Sci-Fi & Fantasy competition and was named a finalist out of more than 3,000 submissions! She also provided coverage for my script Bless the Mic and shared the screenplay with a director who hired me for a writing project.”
Nicole has been a go-to for my genre short stories and for my literary novels. I know she won’t hold any punches and will be open and honest about anything I’m writing. She gave me notes on my new novella Safer (paired with Family Solstice in my new book Bleak Houses out now from Raw Dog Screaming Press) and is the queen of details.
During our Submit 1 conversation Toni Ann had this to say, “Nicole helped me refine details and elements of (fact-checked) some of my fiction, which led me to clarify or emphasize the veracity of my details. She also made helpful (and humbling!) corrections to spelling/grammar/punctuation. We have also exchanged some of our screenwriting. I’ve read at least two of Nicole’s screenplays (which I loved!) and she’s read at least one of mine. Over the years, I’ve recommended Nicole as a writer and as a manuscript consultant to multiple friends and colleagues.”
This was such a beautiful thing to recount for WWS members in our hour of Submit 1 with Toni Ann and, as we told these stories, more writers helped by this circle of friends tuned in, in the comments. We realized these stories tell the far reach of the WWS community. Some folks submitted their work while we were talking: it was peak Submit 1.
During this magical hour on IG Live, I realized that without Toni Ann and Nicole, half of the wonderful things that have come my way wouldn’t have happened at all.
All writers are out there alone, getting up our nerve to submit, but it is this kind of community, helping each other out with drafts, encouraging each other when we lose hope, and bolstering each other through tough times that makes WWS a profound group to belong to.
Toni Ann put it best when she wrote, “As you both know, this writing journey is not easy, there are good times, but when the hard times hit hard, they can be unspeakably dismal–at least for me–and I’ve been lifted in low times by each of you.”
Together we can do so much. Our upcoming Submit 1 slogan is “One community, one day, one submission at a time.” You can join our community virtually by tuning into Instagram Live on September 9 (@womenwhosubmit) or check in with this website to learn how to participate in person!
Book Review By Lisbeth Coiman
As a writer, I grapple with the immigrant dilemma of allowing contradicting parts of me to find their way in my work or isolate them and write from a specific perspective. In nature felt but never apprehended, Angela Peñaredondo navigates the intersecting paths of immigration and gender politics: A Filipino immigrant struggling to find a home while holding a permanent longing, breaks down their family’s history in search of DNA clues for gender identity.
Earth scientists, botanists, and nature aficionados all learn to read the environment for clues. A rock can tell how old a mountain is and animal behavior can warn the explorer of environmental dangers ahead. Peñaredondo’s collection nature felt but never apprehended is a field trip in search of ancestral cues in the Philipine’s mountainous landscape. Peñaredondo approaches their themes from a naturalist perspective, naming and interpreting their environment to create the paradigm defining diasporic Filipino queer identity.
This four-part collection begins by offering a life raft “I set your weight on a raft” in a ritual for the ancestors the poet is about to dissect, “steel pointed like hawk bone at your bare collar.” First, the poet confronts the lineage of colonized bodies “excavating the bedrock” of the mountain range during the Battle for Manila in 1945 and placing two male lovers at its center under the heavy weight of Catholic dogma.
The imagery in these first poems does not exoticize the tropics nor the male participants of the story. Rather it presents the Philippines in all its complex glory: magnificent nature, Catholic culture, battleground during World War II, “feminization of wage labor,” all occurring “before [the poet’s] birth, who, like a geographer, must go beyond the “excavated map” to understand their legacy. This is the “survivor’s topography.”
However, it’s in the geological analysis that the poet focuses on the women in their ancestry and where her craft shines. Here the poet sees past the exoticization of the tropical female “adorn[ed] in teknite,” “at the Tsubaki nighclub,” “bar girl in a fish tank,” to state “you are much more than others realize.” The last four poems of this first part dissect the patriarchy “lithification/”fossilization and what it means to look beyond the fetish, “love us in our deviancy.”
The poet names body parts, symptoms, and diseases to stress how internalized oppression is in the female body. As it is shown in “exigencies of layers i & ii” where the poet questions the women have assisted pathologies in the perpetuation of these patterns.
Cuticle
Upper epidermis
Epidermal hair
Substomatal chamber
Palisade mesophyll
Xylem
Air channel
Guard cell
Stoma
Phloem
Chloroplasts
Lower epidermis
Thus, Peñaredondo creates a true paradigm of what it means to see past the oppression and go beyond a painful transformation. But the poet refuses to stay in survival and ends the first part presenting the rest of the collection as a resistance story.
In the second part, the transformation takes place with blunt imagery. It’s all about the coming out Queer. The poems become longer, the spaces widen, and the overall structure shifts, patterns emerge. From scattered lines across the page, to brief prose passages, the verses compel us to read in silence, masticate every blunt image, pause, reflect. These poems turn the previously described violence against women into love.
“My fist
…
i can make love with it”
Columns and double columns appear as if grabbing the reader by the shoulders and facing them with a harsh reality.
Hunger : rain :: fever : black stone
Lexicon without apparent connection rains on the page as if words and dates fall off the poem as gender affirmations surface and become the focal point. Then, brief poetic prose passages erupt like the volcanic imagery across the entire collection to reveal the magma within:
“she’ll gulp oysters and mussels down with no desire for the palm wine, she’ll read books, floating on their side, spectral algae trickling their brain and wanted curvy fat. in that unreachable sky some human might describe as precious or turquoise, she knows paradise lives elsewhere.”
In the third part, the poet exposes the immigrant conundrum as the desire for a home while holding a permanent longing. Then exquisite poetry arises, one where imagery and reflection intertwine to create delicate passages holding powerful truths.
“how must one proceed toward potential when splintered enough, boiled down to transparent bits rendered invisible, seen as conformity.”
“exile is a river at the end … ”
“suspension & assimilation with a distant border in view
or lack– . . .”
“to classify as anything but singular is an intervention, a bridge between migration and when
trauma exposes the hybridity of the self, it exposes the multiple, often
incompatible . . .”
The fourth part “holds the contradictions” with a letter to self that gives the poet permission to be all the parts of themselves in harmony. An interesting poem written in couplets in a rhythmic composition marked with abundant spaces naming the identity “queer” “gay immigrant child raised in the 90’s” “kweens”, the origin “Bisayan princess” and their art “haranistas.” It also presents those who refuse “to awaken on the part of the subject,” the lineage that killed “femme supremacy.” Poetry forms shift again, to include lists, “Induction to Self-loyalty,” and an interesting poem written in columns, “studies in becoming prayer” which works as a contrapunto between three different voices. The collection ends with an intriguing bilingual poem titled “albularya”–the name for a witch doctor in Philippines. “albularya” suggests the poet had been subject to this ritualistic cure/cleanse to cure the child of a serious ailment. The reader can only wonder if their family tried to pray the gay away or if the child’s life had been in danger.
“for my famished body lipstick to remind me that death
although marked in shade is never monochrome.”
We are in the presence of a poet who is not afraid to explore their past in an intelligent and thorough analysis. nature felt but never apprehended stays with me for it focuses on nature to interpret the colonization of the Filipino diaspora uncovers fossilized patriarchy encrusted at different levels of the poet’s ancestry, “those before us.”
By naming body parts, diseases, and symptoms, the poet stresses how internalized patriarchy and oppression are in the bodies. New patterns indicate the bravery of breaking off tradition to allow for gender identification.
At times a geographer “excavating maps,” at times, a botanist naming plants, mostly a geologist analyzing fossils, the poet uses the lexicon of sciences to name a reality amalgamated in colonized ancestry to reveal the DNA clues that pointed at queerness for generations in a family of Filipino immigrants.
In their nature felt but never apprehended, Angela Peñaredondo embraces their gender identification while holding a longing for the homeland and all the contradictions within. This collection is a gift for those who understand longing and struggle to decipher their own past.
Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual author who has wandered the immigration path from her native Venezuela to Canada and last to the US where she now resides. Her debut book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017) explores the intersection between immigration and mental health. Her bilingual poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press, 2021) portrays the faces of Venezuela’s complex economic and political unrest.
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during July 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb (if available) if the publication is a book, along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in July 2023!
Continue reading “July 2023 Publication Roundup”
by F. Gülşen Buecher
Online learning has exploded over the last decade, and with the Covid-19 pandemic came the widespread use of online learning platforms from Zoom to Google classroom. In 2021, as a 50th birthday gift to myself, I decided it was time to dive into poetry in whatever capacity I could. This is something I had always wanted to do, but didn’t have the time, money, or logistical ability. I earned an undergraduate degree in English, but stopped there many years ago.
By 2021, opportunities for workshops and lectures had become ubiquitous within the creative writing sphere. Higher learning in creative writing, such as certificate and MFA programs, are certainly no exception to this. The options open to me were plentiful, albeit with a little digging and research.
Participating in various forms of workshops in online spaces is a good option for a variety of reasons. For many people, the cost of a traditional MFA program is simply prohibitive with the average tuition in the tens of thousands of dollars, with fully funded programs being extremely competitive. Online learning offers the flexibility to complete a degree or a certificate from home. For those of us who work fulltime, or for someone like me who is a fulltime caregiver to family members, it is simply a logistical impossibility to enroll in a multi-year degree program.
Many traditional colleges and universities have extension schools or continuing education programs where non-matriculated students can enroll in individual online classes or a certificate program in creative writing. This is a great place to start, but traditional colleges and universities are just a small slice of what is out there. In the last few years, independent writers’ workshops, collectives, and publishers have flourished online, offering countless options to choose from.
Some MFA programs are online but require a small duration of in-person attendance called “limited residencies.” These have existed long before online learning, where students could submit work via U.S. mail, also known as “correspondence learning.” The limited residency can be as short as ten days or two weeks, just twice a year. Again, even though this is a more flexible option than a fulltime two-year degree program, it’s still a financial and logistical challenge for those of us with employment and family obligations.
The types of online workshops vary in format. Let’s explore the “non-live” option first: asynchronous. Asynchronous classes don’t meet live on camera, instead interaction is limited to discussions organized in a forum style. The syllabus will update with new material on fixed dates. In other words, you don’t workshop each other’s pieces in real time. To be honest, you’ll need to be highly self-disciplined with your time to get the most out of asynchronous workshops. While a convenient option, the downside is that discussion can become anemic depending on how interactive the cohort is. The structure of the workshop is critical here. The syllabus should include mandatory participation, but this isn’t always the case. If you’re looking for lots of peer feedback and lively discussion, or if you’re looking to feel the excitement of reading your work aloud, an asynchronous workshop might not be the best option.
In that vein, it’s important to fully commit whenever you sign up for an online workshop, regardless of type. Even if it’s only for an hour. Even if it’s a free event. Be as collaborative as possible and participate to the best of your ability. As with any creative endeavor, you can only improve with collaboration and learning through critique. The journey is an evolution, and to make progress, one must share one’s work but also fully listen to and examine the work of your cohort. Think of your writing as a sculpture and with each pass through workshop, your fellow participants have all helped in their way to smooth the rough edges of your work. It’s in that spirit that we fully lean into the close reading of our peers’ writing.
It can be difficult to decide on which workshops to participate in. My best advice is to do your due diligence to find out how the workshop is structured. Learn as much as possible ahead of time. Get to know who is facilitating and research their writing background. If they’re published, consider buying their book or borrowing it from a library. Reach out to them by email if you have questions.
Let’s not forget that one of the purposes of workshops is to learn and grow through constructive critique. If at any point the critique process doesn’t stay focused or if it’s not being facilitated in a constructive way, it’s best to re-examine if that workshop is a right fit for you. I was enrolled in a multi-week workshop where the instructor would ask “what would you revise?” with no specific direction or structure. I received some of the worst, most unhelpful critique in this workshop because there were no guidelines given from the instructor. An open-ended “what did you dislike?” does not generate conversation tailored toward that piece of writing. If you find yourself in a workshop like this, do not hesitate to drop out. One of the most important things in writing is to protect your process. Anything that becomes a barrier to your creativity needs to be dealt with in a way that protects your peace of mind.
Of course, the more worthwhile and generative relationships you build in a workshop don’t have to end once it’s over. Keep in touch with your writing peers through email or social media. It’s never a bad idea to offer to swap your work outside of workshop to keep that collaborative energy flowing. You don’t need a set place or a deadline to do any of that, just a bit of extra effort and an openness to fully engage with other people’s writing.
Aside from craft workshops, it’s important to seek opportunities to do close readings of prominent authors. Be on the lookout for the plethora of lecture series available. I completed a multi-week series on W.S. Merwin through the Community of Writers collective, hosted by Victoria Chang and Matthew Zapruder. The course also included an optional break-out into small cohorts. It was a great chance to delve into poetry that is dense and not as easy to access without the benefit of some deep academic analysis and facilitated discussion.
Looking for a quick and easy drop-in class? Search Eventbrite for online creative writing events. Many of them are free and you can register the same day. I’ve had the luck to discover many generative events for poetry using this free event search tool. You don’t have to commit a lot of money or time to get your writing life going and fully energized. Another great free option is using Meetup to search for online group writing sessions. These sessions can include prompts and sharing work, but they don’t always. The atmosphere and structure is usually casual.
Finally, always be mindful of proper online etiquette. Be a good student by following some commonsense guidelines. Get acquainted with whatever platform is being used for live meetings, be it Zoom, Google, etc. Use the app before ever entering a live session. Get fully familiarized with its features, including using the chat and reaction functions. Test your audio and visual setup’s and make sure they’re working properly. While in a live classroom, please stay muted if you are not speaking. Lastly, direct technical issues to the chat. Don’t distract the instructor unless it’s clear they cannot see your chat. In a workshop that’s only 60 minutes long, one distraction can take up precious time.
Stay curious, and stay creative, friends!
F. Gülşen Buecher is an emerging poet who lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband, kids, and pets. She has participated in online poetry workshops facilitated all over the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Germany, including a UCLA workshop taught by WWS founder, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo.
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of June 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb (if available) if the publication is a book, along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in June 2023!
Continue reading “June 2023 Publication Roundup”
by Rosalinda Alcala
Returning to writing seemed an insurmountable task, even with my abundant energy and my supportive husband. My twitch to write began somewhere between my children’s childhood and adolescence. Writing became my obsession in spare moments between the bedtime stories and the adolescent struggle for independence. Online spaces fit my busy lifestyle by providing rabbit holes of information and a burrow of my own.
I loved spending time with my children. Meanwhile balancing laundry, meals, and homework created a fog. In a parallel universe, I was devoted to creating and executing lessons for students. I was giving of myself. My time. My heart. In time, my soul craved a creative outlet. An expression in art.
In the classroom, writing was a trouble spot for my then sixth graders. So, I began searching for lessons outside our curriculum. My keystrokes for writing lessons opened a world of rabbit holes. An endless freefall. One article led to another. Then triplicate. Down I spiraled.
The free fall increased with each click. I grabbed and pulled at roots during my downward spiral until I landed firmly in the Writer’s Digest world. Like any good rabbit, all twitching aside, I was careful to examine my surroundings. Carrot seeds in the form of books dotted my underground burrow with promises: how to write a better novel, character development, and setting.
In the Writer’s Digest burrow, I took my first online writing class. One on character development. The instructor’s comments were so gentle, yet filled with savvy writerly advice. She provided beginning seeds of character, novel growth, and development. My high school newspaper writing days were decades in the past and I was now writing fiction–she fit my needs.
The experience provided me with so much confidence that I began writing the next great novel. One hundred pages later, I discovered information on common beginner mistakes. I made every-one.
I scratched out a new journey. Yet comparable to visiting a former neighborhood, I would return to the Writer’s Digest burrow for an occasional class or webinar.
Soon, I pulled back the spiny roots for a better view of the other tunnels and burrows. I considered an MFA, but some universities prohibited employment while enrolled in their program. Local commuter schools offered MFA programs without employment requirements. When I considered my predawn wake up, my children’s activities, my husband’s work schedule and our cooking–the thought of driving even fifteen minutes tired me. In the end, I couldn’t justify the cost or time. I tunneled through the universities, clicking and scratching.
Soon I found the perfect burrow, UCLA Extension. The program offers online writing certificates taught by published instructors. My classes taught conflict, novel elements, structure, and provided workshops. Graduating from the certificate program was bittersweet because I had left built in friendships and critique partners. Once again, I was on my own and I missed the comradery and comments from classmates about something writing related.
I worked on my novel or wrote short stories in bursts. My work remained on my desktop for months. Occasionally, I returned to the stories between life. One day during my time exploring new rabbit holes, I discovered Women Who Submit. I became a member while the pandemic still loomed and met with the Long Beach chapter virtually. Conversations entailed literary magazines, novel releases, and readings. The ladies in my chapter also suggested specific literary magazines for my stories. Upon further digging, I realized some of my amazing UCLA instructors inhabited this burrow. I had found my people.
As the world reopened from the Pandemic, I kept my predawn rising ritual to write before my students stumbled into my classroom. Weekends were filled with our children’s sports and my own workouts. At times, I would pop into Zoom meetings with Women Who Submit in my workout gear with my nose twitching, ready to visit and write. In this burrow, I have harvested the carrots of publication and workshop acceptance. Once again, despite my full life, a virtual burrow allowed me to find a writing community and flourish.
Rosalinda lives with her husband and two teenagers. A family of cottontails live in a burrow among the backyard flowers. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t pose for a photo. Rosalinda’s home is located where suburbia kisses the chaparral trails.
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of May 2023. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb (if available) if the publication is a book, along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in May 2023!
Continue reading “May 2023 Publication Roundup”