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”
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”
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of April 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 April 2023!
Continue reading “April 2023 Publication Roundup”
by Erica Frederick
Originally published March 10, 2023 in Salt Hill Journal
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu’s debut short story collection, Drinking from Graveyard Wells, glimpses into the lives of African women, be they goddesses or ghosts, broke college student or town gossip. This is a collection of blood-boiling big ideas, asking: what if life and death are simply unfair? What if the white boy gets to become a millionaire by building a rideshare app based on Zimbabwean customs? What if the patriarchy persists, even in the afterlife? Ndlovu, a real-life sarungano, writes to make us rage right alongside the women in these stories while still insisting that the lessons we learn from storytelling are remedies, but not in the way we might expect.
A real triumph and delight of Drinking from Graveyard Wells lies in its fearless condemnation of the powers that be—even the gods themselves. “When Death Comes to Find You” envisions a capitalist hellscape: a world where debt in life transcends to debt in death and diamond miners must participate in an immortal toil. The story asserts that “even the afterlife is made for the rich.” In “The Soul Would Have No Rainbow,” a granddaughter receives a letter from her late grandmother revealing that “in the heavens all the gods were arrogant bastards.” Ndlovu forces us to reckon with the possibility of cosmic inequity, that omnipotent power still corrupts.
Despite the seemingly hopeless conception of an unjust afterlife, Ndlovu does seem to offer up the antidote. “The Carnivore’s Lollipop” introduces us to ngano, fables and fairytales from the Shona tradition that, in this collection, often work as warnings of divine justice.
Ngano about reparations are interspersed throughout this story as the narrator is duped into a multi-level marketing scheme, buying and breeding boxes of ants to sell back to a drug company. When the company gets dissolved by the CEO, we realize what reparations look like when people who are in possession of ants (raised on a carnivore diet) decide to show up to the protest. So often, marginalized people are asked to turn the other cheek in the face of injustice. But, in these stories, Ndlovu offers an alternate solution: revenge. In “Red Cloth, White Giraffe,” a woman must remain on earth until her former husband pays off the rest of her bride price to the men in her family. The threat on the other side of this is that the woman might become a ngozi, an avenging spirit, capable of levying a visceral justice.
In “Plumtree: True Stories,” we receive a series of vignettes, many of which introduce new iterations of ngano and Black spirituality. The title reads as a radical act, casting Black spirit as true, as fact, and as essential, placing Ndlovu firmly in the midst of Black writers like Akwaeke Emezi and others whose work gives credence to the divine.
Drinking from Graveyard Wells explores what it means to grapple with those in power by allowing us to imagine the gods as absolute bastards. The collection insists, too, that storytelling and oral histories serve as reminders that justice isn’t freely given, it’s taken. Kicking and screaming, Ndlovu’s debut collection demands to be seen.
Erica Frederick is a queer, Haitian American writer and MFA candidate in fiction at Syracuse University. She currently serves as the fiction coordinator for The Best of the Net Anthology. Her work has appeared in Split Lip Magazine and was selected for Best Microfiction 2023. You can find her work at ericafrederick.com.
The end of a wet and wild March is upon us, which means it’s time to celebrate the hardworking Women Who Submit members who have published their work.
The WWS members included in this post published their work during the month of March. 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 March!
Continue reading “March 2023 Publication Roundup”
By Cecilia Caballero
Dear Beginner Writer,
It’s never too early to think about creating a marketing plan, but how to begin? Although learning about marketing can initially feel overwhelming, this blog will empower you to set your literary career up for success by creating a simple marketing plan in three easy steps using no and low-cost strategies and tools. In light of the historical and ongoing racial and gender disparities in publishing, it is more important than ever to create your own system of success.
What are your short and long-term writer goals? Which genre(s) do you write? Which literary venues do you want to publish your work in? Are you planning on writing a book or multiple books? Do you want to self-publish or go with an indie or traditional press? What are your dream fellowships, grants, and residencies? Also, consider how your values (such as community-building, social justice, feminism, anti-racism, etc) inform your writer goals.
Identifying your writer goals and values is an empowering process because you will gain clarity on how YOU define success for yourself versus basing your worth as a writer solely on external forms of validation. And, knowing your writer goals and values will also determine your specific marketing strategy.
An example of a SMART marketing goal can be posting about your writing twice per week on social media. Additional examples of SMART marketing goals can include creating or updating your author website by a certain deadline or aiming to do writer podcasts/interviews once per month.
Tracking your progress also helps you to determine whether or not you are achieving your goals. And if you find that you’re not meeting your goals, there is no need to shame or criticize yourself. Instead, you can give yourself credit for learning a new skill. ANd then, whenever you are ready, you can take action by modifying your SMART goals. For example, instead of posting about your writing twice per week, perhaps posting once a week works better for you.
Alternatively, an author newsletter gives you 100% ownership of your email list and it is the most direct way to communicate with your supporters outside of social media. There are both free and paid newsletter providers to choose from, such as Mailchimp, Substack, ConvertKit, and more. And, with consistent action over time, more and more folks will naturally join your newsletter.
Beginner writer, remember, it’s courageous to show yourself and your art to the world. Take risks, don’t be afraid to fail, and try again. I strongly believe that writers should be celebrated for their art, and marketing is just another tool that can help us achieve that goal. I’m rooting for you!
With love,
Cecilia
Based in LA, Cecilia Caballero, PhD, is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, teaching artist, and co-editor of The Chicana Motherwork Anthology. She is an alum of Tin House, Macondo, and Roots. Wounds. Words. Cecilia is a 2023 Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow and she is finishing a memoir. Twitter: @la_sangre_llama.
This year, February flew by so quickly that I only just realized it ended. Our amazing Women Who Submit members, however, have been working hard, as always, and their efforts have paid off with more amazing publications.
The WWS members included in this post published their work during the month of February. 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 February!
Continue reading “February 2023 Publication Roundup”
It’s hard to believe how quickly the first month of 2023 has flown by. While many of us are still trying to comprehend that we’re officially one month in to the new year, these Women Who Submit members have already been out there publishing their work in amazing places.
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of January. 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 January!
Continue reading “January 2023 Publication Roundup”
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of December. 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 December!
Continue reading “December Publication Roundup”
The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of November. 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 November!
Continue reading “November 2022 Publication Roundup”
