The end of January is here, my dears. Time to officially put away the champagne flutes and goofy 2023 New Year’s glasses and bust out the heart-shaped candies and “I Love You” teddy bears.
Or something like that.
Anyway, around here, you all know what the end of the month means: It’s time to wag flag tag your magical lit mag snag.
"Rendezvous in Bruxelles" was recently published in Memoirist and got a few hundred views pretty quickly (I haven't checked lately). I liked the website and what I read there so it seemed like a good choice. This is one of five new essays about my late Holocaust survivor mother published in the last year+. I was in Bruxelles, where she lived after WWII, to research her life and meet students from the school she taught in. The whole experience was mind-blowing for me. https://www.memoirist.org/post/rendezvous-in-bruxelles-by-lev-raphael
Thank you so much for the link to this magazine. I'm pretty blown away this morning. I submitted a piece yesterday and they published it this morning! That's incredibly fast! As I thanked her I asked the editor if they ever sleep!! Thanks again for the shout out to this one! Only odd thing is they changed the title of my piece from Three Women...One Life to this but well published is published! https://www.memoirist.org/post/ronnie-bertha-zia-by-maddalena-beltrami
Yay! Maybe the editor liked their names and also wanted a more personal feel? But you can always change it for a collection. I had stories change titles published in magazines or newspapers and then back again when they appeared in my first collection of stories (St. Martin's Press) and then a compendium of 25 years of my fiction (Leapfrog). And sometimes the story would have a brand-new third title. :-)
yes doesn't bother me in the least especially since I did ask her how she published me to quickly in less than 24 hours and her answer well, it blew me away let's just say..quite the compliment. Well thanks again for the hook up. I'm usually just stuck in Submittable land for places to publish
well I'm way too old to mind rejections at all. Other than the one magazine who raved about me piece and then rejected it.. I made him explain why actually and he did. LOL! I just throw them into a nice folder!
Lev, can't wait to read this. My doctorate is in Holocaust & Genocide and one of my projects is a novel in verse about a hidden child in Brussels. Thanks for sharing the link!
Lev, what a wonderful piece! I hope you're going to go ahead with the book. Also, I'm so happy you were able to connect with people from your mother's life right after the war. I look forward to your book!
Glad you liked it! I actually did write the book. It's a memoir/travelogue and I ended up with two tours in Germany where I even did some readings in German. My multi-lingual mother would have been proud. It was published by the trade arm of The University of Wisconsin Press, Terrace Books. They had wanted to work with me for awhile and they did a great job of production and publicity. https://www.levraphael.com/mygermany.html
Thanks! I look forward to reading it. Last night we saw Tom Stoppard's play "Leopoldstadt" in New York. If you have a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.
My favorite playwright. I was lucky to see "Arcadia" in London and again in NYC (the British cast was better). Saw it the night I signed with St. Martin's Press to launch my mystery series: https://www.levraphael.com/mystery.html
My essay “Queer Elegies and Climate Mourning: Marc Swanson's Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco" won the Gulf Coast Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing. I was definitely very surprised to win, and very grateful. You can find the essay here (and it’s also coming in the Spring print issue of the journal):
This is a lighting-in-a-bottle moment, I think. I wrote a review of the art exhibition for Sculpture Magazine (630 words) but didn’t feel done with it, there was more to say from my own personal standpoint about growing up queer in a small town in the shadow of the Klan and other historical and contemporary violence. Plus climate change. So I kept writing and wound up at 1450-ish words. I think the very timely topics plus the personal combined with the historical and the current art lead to a win in a very specific contest. I want to stress that: the contest was very niche. I’ll take the win all the same.
I'm happy to share that I was a finalist in Iron Horse Literary Review's annual PhotoFinish contest (short, ekphrastic pieces based on a photo prompt). My flash fiction entry appears in the contest issue: https://issuu.com/ironhorsereview/docs/ihlr_2022_photofinish
First, congratulations to everyone who continues to have the unmitigated chutzpah to keep writing and submitting in a world that seems to have little time for our art. You are my heroes.
Five days ago, Sojournal: One Image One Story published a piece I wrote especially for this Australian digital mag. I saw the call for travel writing and black and white photos and took it as a challenge to finally write about a graffito I photographed last August in La Candelaria, Bogotá. The title, "Rescátame del olvido" (Rescue me from oblivion) haunted me after this trip during which I learned much about the traumatic violence Colombians have endured for well over fifty years. It's the first time I have ever written specifically for a call for submissions. You can read it here: https://www.sojournal.com.au/post/resc%C3%A1tame-del-olvido?postId=cc681754-0ac7-42db-9bef-d69f31cd4086
Also, my second book-length translation, Arrhythmias by Mexican Jewish writer Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, was launched this past Thursday (Literal Publishing and Hablemos, escritoras 2022). 32 essays ponder memory, philosophy, exile (the author’s family fled the Spanish Civil War and the Holocaust), and the horrible, beautiful 20th century. I think you all will like it. https://literalmagazine.com/arrhythmias-2/
With regrets that I am not able to continue my paid subscription due to severe limitation of discretionary funds this coming year, I'm happy to share my most recent publication in POETRY NI+ (Northern Ireland)'s Holocaust Remembrance Day online 'pamphlet'. Pleased to have "Klezmer" among other respected poets' work. https://rancididols.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/9/7/2697541/poems_for_hmd2023_ordinary_people.pdf
I had three poems accepted in this same anthology: "I Scour the Face of an Elderly Gentleman," "Ordinary People," and "Bosnian Village, 1995." It was important to me, as the director of a Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center here in New Jersey, to be included in this anthology to commemorate January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. https://rancididols.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/9/7/2697541/poems_for_hmd2023_ordinary_people.pdf
Same here, Carol. I gave up agenting in 2021 when I was appointed to become director of this Holocaust Center. I received my doctorate in 2022 and teach in the graduate program in Holocaust & Genocide at Kean University and the undergraduate program also in Holocaust & Genocide at The College of NJ.
Excited to get "We Owned the Night" published in MUTHA Magazine! I chose the magazine because they published pieces about all things "Mutha"-- families, dysfunction, children, etc. So impressed with their editorial staff and absolutely love the photos they added to my piece. Publishing there led to an invite on a podcast and a paid keynote speaking engagement, which are all SUPER helpful in building my author platform as I query lit agents. The piece has been read far and wide and gotten more comments than most pieces on their platform!
MUTHA is willing to publish pieces from your blog, which is also wonderful because you can get some mileage out of all the hard work you've done in publishing on your own site! Check them out!
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for reading it! It's the first time I've been published so feels incredibly special, and I've been shocked at how many people have connected with it and, of course, the wonderful consequences that have followed w/podcast and all. Agents have complimented my writing but not offering to rep because they say publishers won't buy memoir if you're not a celeb...ugh...but this is at least encouragement to continue my journey to get the memoir published! Appreciate your kind words :)
Why did I choose them? They seem respectable, and their guidelines indicated they might be sympathetic to this story, with its themes of work, class, race, development, and comradeship.
A bonus I did not know of till the issue was released is that they chose a photo to illustrate it that was taken near the setting of the story. Nice touch.
This month was an exceptional one, with publications ranging from 260 word prose poems to single sentence poems. Communalities, One Sentence Poems, January 4
2023 - Sketchy Old Man, Moss Piglet January p.57
2023 - When You Stood There, The Journal of Radical Wonder, January 15
2023 - Fountain Pens Will Improve Your Life, The Journal of Radical Wonder, February 2
2023 - Trout Fishing Warwoman Creek, Georgia, The Journal of Radical Wonder, February 9
2023 - Ambivalent About Crows, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Colonoscopy, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Clicking on the Heart, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Lessons From the Zen Poet, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
Terrific news! Isn't it wonderful when you have a run like this? After I published my 27th in the spring of 2021, I turned back to essays and short stories and have had 37 publications, with two more due in February. A lot of the work was written early in the morning.
I'm happy to report that my short story "The Universe Is So Amazing" was published in the November, 2022 issue of Drunk Monkeys. https://www.drunkmonkeys.us/issue-711-november-2022 It started out as a simple exercise in voice and grew from there.
Initially, I responded to a Drunk Monkeys' call for submissions for a culture issue. They responded rather quickly, saying it didn't suit for that call but liked the story and asked to save it for a future issue. I agreed and, about ten months later, here it came.
Also just saw in your bio w/your piece on WOW that you worked with/published with SheWrites Press?!?! I've been so curious about them and figure it must've been a great success if your novel is coming out in a couple of months so CONGRATULATIONS! SheWrites is stacked, so anything submitted now won't be published until at least Fall 2024, but with the way agents are snubbing memoirs not written by celebs, I'm thinking 2024 is not sounding too bad! haha! My email is writer@bridey-thelenheidel.com if you have any wisdom to share about that press :)
Getting so many ideas from all of you about new places to submit! I posted that I had a piece accepted to MUTHA Magazine...sounds like your writing might be a great fit for them, too!
After a long and winding road of "We really like this, but..." style responses, my story "All God's Children" was published this month by Necessary Fiction. While it features different characters, it was a first take on a story idea that eventually became my second novel A Better Heart, published by Black Rose Writing.
Though it's still not out in the world yet, I saw the cover for my book on Kurt Vonnegut. Talking Vonnegut: Centennial Interviews and Essays is due soon from McFarland.
Thanks to all of the writers who shared below. I've added several new things to my reading list.
This year, I was pleased when Prairie Fire Magazine published a short story of mine, "man in a white car redux", which I'd been struggling to write and publish for at least twenty years. One of those had-to-get-it-out stories that finally got out in a way that connected with others. I chose Praire Fire because they were having an Uncharted Territory issue and also because they publish out of my birthtown of Winnipeg. It felt a bit like going home to a place I haven't been since I was five. Getting this story published by Praire Fire changed my life. I'll always be grateful.
"Dodo," my poem published by Common Ground Review: https://www.cgreview.org/magazine/dodo in January 2023's online issue (Fall/Winter 2022) will appeal to writers, so I encourage you to read it, please and thank you!
My other writing published last year: "Log Cabin," a short story published by Bridge Eight Press; "SELF," a poem published by Porcupine Literary; and "Plasma," a CNF piece published in Ruminate's 'At Sea' issue are linked here on my website: https://www.dianamullins.com/
I invite you to read posts in my Substack: 'Diana Says...'
Congratulations, Diana! Lovely piece in Porcupine Literary. How was your publishing experience there? I just had an acceptance from them. lisakb@pobox.com
Thank you, Lisa! I am grateful for your reading and praise.
Porcupine Literary communication was smooth. Timeframe: it took a couple of months for them to let me know the date of publication, and they stuck to their target. Four months passed from acceptance to publication.
Congratulations on your acceptance! Let us know when we can read your piece.
I haven't had any journal or book publication news this month, but I think of equal merit (for me and all of you) is the putting-stuff-out-there stats: twenty journal submissions, book proposals, contest entries so far for 2023. Also a new substack-supported, serialized story with drawings, called "Explosion in a Mask Factory."
1. I am now a volunteer editor at 101 Words https://101words.org/ Check out this great site. Free to enter and feedback guaranteed, which is a rarity indeed.
2. I have launched my own 250 word prompt response page called Min Min, providing a community for fearless and fun writers. Find out more at https://sixcrookedhighways.com/about-min-min/
My January brag (sans publication) is placing as a semifinalist for the North American Review's Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize for a second straight year with "Terrafir," my 2023 submission.
I've chosen to submit to NAR each year because a) I'm a fan of Vonnegut's work, b) I, too, went to Cornell, and c) it's one of the few speculative fiction prizes I've identified in non-genre literary journals.
I'll be working on resubmitting my piece to other journals after a thorough revision. Read more at https://robertwalikis.com
I submitted to Moot Point Magazine because their About page said their poetry editor liked the gothic and weird. After reading the poems on their website, I decided one of mine might be a good fit. They promise a quick response and it was. Their poetry editor was excellent to work with. A five-star experience-- https://www.mootpointmagazine.com/post/unrepentant-confessions-of-mammals-consuming
My poem "Losing the Fog" was published this month in Heimat Review's second issue: https://heimatreview.weebly.com/losing-the-fog.html . This is a new online journal; I liked the content and the layout of the first issue. The editor, Hannah Cole Orsag, was friendly and collaborative. It's clear she wants authors to be pleased with how their work appears in her journal.
I had some negative experiences in the past, with line breaks being changed in one poem and another piece being right-justified, without asking me about the changes. Another journal placed my poem on a page next to someone's else's work that was not a good fit. So I am taking a careful look before submitting, and I appreciate how Orsag handled things.
I have two poems published in December 2022’s Indigenous EcoPoetry edition of Under a Warm Green Linden. They’re called “Constellation and Aurora” and “The Fern Yard.” https://www.greenlindenpress.com/issue14-shantell-powell
Asking my ego to 'brag', Becky, is like letting some wild untamed beast out of its cage-- but since you asked: I have been fortunate enough in my golden--o.k. more like rusting years, to have been published in 132 different lit mags the past 6 years, in 11 countries [including unexpected ones like Sweden and Turkey]. Even more amazing [truly], my trade publisher in December put out a 3rd book of my poems, titled 'Soul Songs' and he let me end it with a mini-memoir on the NDE I had after I jumped into a Vermont river 52 years ago to try to escape a clinical depression, and discovered that what poets have called the 'soul' for thousands of years--was real. Hence the title of the book, and the previous two: The Enormity of Existence [2020] and Of Ether and Earth [2021]. Why it's taken me a 1/2 century to share this, and create the words evoking a sense of ourselves as both mortal and immortal beings, I can't say.
I published my first "real" reported article in Thrillist, a publication I've been reading for years and years, so definitely a win in my book. Right after publishing, I received an email that they are no longer running the food section, so mine may've been one of the last. They still run travel.
Getting our work out there is important. I made more money than I expected publishing new essays this past year and a half, but my income as a writer/editor is from royalties and work done via https://writewithoutborders.com.
The journal Five Points recently published my poem "Spanish Moss." I submitted it last February and heard from them exactly two months later. I sent it to Five Points because they're based in South Carolina and that is where I saw Spanish moss for the first time. It was that experience which inspired the poem. It's not online, otherwise I would share it. Seeing it in print helps to make up for the sea of rejections.
Becky, I really enjoyed your interview with Sacha Idell from The Southern Review. He helped reinforce the idea that writers just have to persevere!
Salvation South is the new-ish magazine by Chuck Reece, co-founder of The Bitter Southerner who has a weekly podcast on NPR featured on All Things Considered and Morning Edition, in Georgia.
I sent Keith Hoerner the founder and editor several dribbles based on photos and he chose this one to publish. I've published with him before—he's fast and supportive and puts out a terrific publication plus highlights different writers and nominates for awards. The dribbles that he turned down are under consideration at other pubs & I hope they soon find homes.
Congrats to everyone writing, submitting, and publishing. I've got your links and look forward to a lovely week of reading!
My flash suite “South Florida” was published this month by Moot Point Magazine. After reading the lit mag, it seemed the perfect home for a nostalgic Florida story. The editors actively promoted the work on social media and I was most impressed by their use of Insta story. It’s a gorgeous lit mag!
A poem in Triggerfish Critical Review 29 https://triggerfishcriticalreview.com/issue-29/ in which my spouse, artist and poet Diane Corson, also has three poems and is the featured artist. Most of the images in the issue are hers and her interview is in the issue, as well. I'm so proud of her art and poetry! Two poems in Heimat Review Issue 2, https://heimatreview.weebly.com/issue-2-winter.html.
. One month ago I got a message from Musenewspaper, an online with mag place. They apologized for being late, two years late, then said a flash fiction I'd sent( 497) had won a prize and woulld be published on and in print and I'd get a copy . Last week I saw it on line with a dynamite graphic. The story, "The Dream of A Nothing Special Kid" is part of a pointillstic about growing up in a Brooklyn project during the McCarthy period in the nineteen fifties when hundreds of people lost their jobs and/or were blacklisted as Elvis Presley sang a cleaned up version of Big Mama Thornton's You Aint Nothing But A Hound Dog and Paull Anka sang You Are My Destiny and rowds on infuriated whites screamed at black kids trying to go to school and lynched one, Emest Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman and Graham Greene wrote a horror story The Quiet American about Vietnam
This comment isn't a brag -- no acceptances to brag about recently -- but perhaps an odd request. In 2015, I had a poem published in an online journal called Grapes & Cake. O.K., that was great. The problem is that Grapes & Cake went defunct and left no trace of itself on the internet. The journal didn't use Submittable; everything was done via email. Those emails are long gone. And I don't know what the poem was. I have this lingering fear that I might be sending out a poem that was already published but of which no record exists. Has anyone else encountered this sort of issue with other magazines? And does anyone have a clue as to how I might retrieve the knowledge of what the poem was in the now disappeared Grapes & Cake? Thanks....
Maybe a poem about the search for that missing poem would be in order. It almost sounds like you dreamed it. Even the name of the journal, Grapes & Cake...
J'adore Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Anvers, Gand et Bruges. Ik hou van deze steden.
The macarons in the main train station in Bruxelles are wonderful--myriad varieties. The Swan restaurant in the Gran' Place is amazing. I've eaten there twice. And the Métrepole has a lovely brasserie. The hotel is an Art Nouveau palace.
I spent the entire covid period gathering poems Ive written since the holiday season of 1964. It is a collection of sections: familyy Holocast memories, family portraits, bedpan briigade poems ( ( I worked in hospitals for 14 years (to pay bills, no altruism involved), The Middle East, nonnature haikus including The Black Lives Matters Hybrid Haikus ( egighteen published in 2021 in floweringsong press' anthology Good Cops, Bad Cop, varieties of racism unending ( for now), a small section of city poems aka aiyouwontfindamillionsiingingowllittlehouseontheprairiebighouseonthemountainmyfriendflickaoldyallerlasseletshaveyetonemorenaturepoemaboutthepurityofmountainsbeforeUnionCarbideFrackingIncGeorgiaPacific move in and here's to you Julia Butterly where's YOUR monie and better where's the movie about the victory at Standing Rock????? oooops better stop right now.. Before I leave y'all- a quick ad: BROOKLYN HEARTBASED POET SEEKS INEXPENSIVE ROOM TO RANT. CONTACT EBRILL69"GMAIL.COM. CONTACT HIM TOO IF YOU WOULD LIKE: A) An International Reading List of Fiction and Poetry, most of which most of you have not read because very few of your teachers k-IOWANYUWARRENWILSONCOLUMBIABROWN MFA plus PHDWK+ read "those" people ".
--and congratulations on all your success! Saw you teach at MSU, so I thought I'd mention this piece I submitted ended up as part of a podcast that is now being shared among students studying social work at MSU. Such an unexpected consequence and audience. I'm sure you feel the same with all your international publishing. Amazing the audiences who find us!
"Rendezvous in Bruxelles" was recently published in Memoirist and got a few hundred views pretty quickly (I haven't checked lately). I liked the website and what I read there so it seemed like a good choice. This is one of five new essays about my late Holocaust survivor mother published in the last year+. I was in Bruxelles, where she lived after WWII, to research her life and meet students from the school she taught in. The whole experience was mind-blowing for me. https://www.memoirist.org/post/rendezvous-in-bruxelles-by-lev-raphael
Thank you so much for the link to this magazine. I'm pretty blown away this morning. I submitted a piece yesterday and they published it this morning! That's incredibly fast! As I thanked her I asked the editor if they ever sleep!! Thanks again for the shout out to this one! Only odd thing is they changed the title of my piece from Three Women...One Life to this but well published is published! https://www.memoirist.org/post/ronnie-bertha-zia-by-maddalena-beltrami
Yay! Maybe the editor liked their names and also wanted a more personal feel? But you can always change it for a collection. I had stories change titles published in magazines or newspapers and then back again when they appeared in my first collection of stories (St. Martin's Press) and then a compendium of 25 years of my fiction (Leapfrog). And sometimes the story would have a brand-new third title. :-)
yes doesn't bother me in the least especially since I did ask her how she published me to quickly in less than 24 hours and her answer well, it blew me away let's just say..quite the compliment. Well thanks again for the hook up. I'm usually just stuck in Submittable land for places to publish
Being a writer is at least better than being an actor: we don't have to get rejected face-to-face, as it were.
well I'm way too old to mind rejections at all. Other than the one magazine who raved about me piece and then rejected it.. I made him explain why actually and he did. LOL! I just throw them into a nice folder!
That's a healthy attitude. I will be posting about rejections next week.
Wow! Can’t wait to read.
Lev, can't wait to read this. My doctorate is in Holocaust & Genocide and one of my projects is a novel in verse about a hidden child in Brussels. Thanks for sharing the link!
Very eager to read this—thanks for posting!
You're welcome!
I just did a talk about her at a local synagogue and read a different, shorter essay called "Mother Museum": https://writewithoutborders.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/My-Mother-Museum-in-2022-Chaffin-Review.pdf
Lev, what a wonderful piece! I hope you're going to go ahead with the book. Also, I'm so happy you were able to connect with people from your mother's life right after the war. I look forward to your book!
Glad you liked it! I actually did write the book. It's a memoir/travelogue and I ended up with two tours in Germany where I even did some readings in German. My multi-lingual mother would have been proud. It was published by the trade arm of The University of Wisconsin Press, Terrace Books. They had wanted to work with me for awhile and they did a great job of production and publicity. https://www.levraphael.com/mygermany.html
Thanks! I look forward to reading it. Last night we saw Tom Stoppard's play "Leopoldstadt" in New York. If you have a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.
My favorite playwright. I was lucky to see "Arcadia" in London and again in NYC (the British cast was better). Saw it the night I signed with St. Martin's Press to launch my mystery series: https://www.levraphael.com/mystery.html
I really enjoyed this piece. Thanks for sharing.
Glad to hear it. Sadly, my mother never lived to see my success as an author....
My essay “Queer Elegies and Climate Mourning: Marc Swanson's Memorial to Ice at the Dead Deer Disco" won the Gulf Coast Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing. I was definitely very surprised to win, and very grateful. You can find the essay here (and it’s also coming in the Spring print issue of the journal):
https://gulfcoastmag.org/contests/the-beauchamp-prize/
This is a lighting-in-a-bottle moment, I think. I wrote a review of the art exhibition for Sculpture Magazine (630 words) but didn’t feel done with it, there was more to say from my own personal standpoint about growing up queer in a small town in the shadow of the Klan and other historical and contemporary violence. Plus climate change. So I kept writing and wound up at 1450-ish words. I think the very timely topics plus the personal combined with the historical and the current art lead to a win in a very specific contest. I want to stress that: the contest was very niche. I’ll take the win all the same.
Bravo! Since you write about art, you might enjoy my piece from GLR that appeared online and then in the print issue slightly expanded: https://glreview.org/cold-marble-hot-memories/
Fine piece. May he live long in your heart.
Thanks!
Thanks Lev! I’ll add to my reading list today. Cheers and congrats.
Well done!
Thank you!
Congratulations—sounds like a fabulous piece of work!
Thanks!
I'm happy to share that I was a finalist in Iron Horse Literary Review's annual PhotoFinish contest (short, ekphrastic pieces based on a photo prompt). My flash fiction entry appears in the contest issue: https://issuu.com/ironhorsereview/docs/ihlr_2022_photofinish
Congratulations!
Dear Becky and fellow Lit Maggers:
First, congratulations to everyone who continues to have the unmitigated chutzpah to keep writing and submitting in a world that seems to have little time for our art. You are my heroes.
Five days ago, Sojournal: One Image One Story published a piece I wrote especially for this Australian digital mag. I saw the call for travel writing and black and white photos and took it as a challenge to finally write about a graffito I photographed last August in La Candelaria, Bogotá. The title, "Rescátame del olvido" (Rescue me from oblivion) haunted me after this trip during which I learned much about the traumatic violence Colombians have endured for well over fifty years. It's the first time I have ever written specifically for a call for submissions. You can read it here: https://www.sojournal.com.au/post/resc%C3%A1tame-del-olvido?postId=cc681754-0ac7-42db-9bef-d69f31cd4086
Also, my second book-length translation, Arrhythmias by Mexican Jewish writer Angelina Muñiz-Huberman, was launched this past Thursday (Literal Publishing and Hablemos, escritoras 2022). 32 essays ponder memory, philosophy, exile (the author’s family fled the Spanish Civil War and the Holocaust), and the horrible, beautiful 20th century. I think you all will like it. https://literalmagazine.com/arrhythmias-2/
With regrets that I am not able to continue my paid subscription due to severe limitation of discretionary funds this coming year, I'm happy to share my most recent publication in POETRY NI+ (Northern Ireland)'s Holocaust Remembrance Day online 'pamphlet'. Pleased to have "Klezmer" among other respected poets' work. https://rancididols.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/9/7/2697541/poems_for_hmd2023_ordinary_people.pdf
I had three poems accepted in this same anthology: "I Scour the Face of an Elderly Gentleman," "Ordinary People," and "Bosnian Village, 1995." It was important to me, as the director of a Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center here in New Jersey, to be included in this anthology to commemorate January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. https://rancididols.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/9/7/2697541/poems_for_hmd2023_ordinary_people.pdf
I read and loved them, Barbara. I have regrets about our disconnection years ago, and admire and respect your work!
Same here, Carol. I gave up agenting in 2021 when I was appointed to become director of this Holocaust Center. I received my doctorate in 2022 and teach in the graduate program in Holocaust & Genocide at Kean University and the undergraduate program also in Holocaust & Genocide at The College of NJ.
Mazel tov, Carol!
Excited to get "We Owned the Night" published in MUTHA Magazine! I chose the magazine because they published pieces about all things "Mutha"-- families, dysfunction, children, etc. So impressed with their editorial staff and absolutely love the photos they added to my piece. Publishing there led to an invite on a podcast and a paid keynote speaking engagement, which are all SUPER helpful in building my author platform as I query lit agents. The piece has been read far and wide and gotten more comments than most pieces on their platform!
MUTHA is willing to publish pieces from your blog, which is also wonderful because you can get some mileage out of all the hard work you've done in publishing on your own site! Check them out!
https://www.muthamagazine.com/2023/01/we-owned-the-night/
Wow, Bridey, this is beautiful and powerful writing.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for reading it! It's the first time I've been published so feels incredibly special, and I've been shocked at how many people have connected with it and, of course, the wonderful consequences that have followed w/podcast and all. Agents have complimented my writing but not offering to rep because they say publishers won't buy memoir if you're not a celeb...ugh...but this is at least encouragement to continue my journey to get the memoir published! Appreciate your kind words :)
Congratulations!
Gorgeous work! I find the thrill of seeing my work appear continues even years after my first publication.
The Arlington Literary Journal just published my short story, "The Deep Blue Sea," at https://www.arlijo.com/post/issue-170#viewer-cidul.
Why did I choose them? They seem respectable, and their guidelines indicated they might be sympathetic to this story, with its themes of work, class, race, development, and comradeship.
A bonus I did not know of till the issue was released is that they chose a photo to illustrate it that was taken near the setting of the story. Nice touch.
Thanks for introducing me to Arlijo. I wasn't familiar with it before. Congrats on the publication!
This month was an exceptional one, with publications ranging from 260 word prose poems to single sentence poems. Communalities, One Sentence Poems, January 4
2023 - Sketchy Old Man, Moss Piglet January p.57
2023 - When You Stood There, The Journal of Radical Wonder, January 15
2023 - Fountain Pens Will Improve Your Life, The Journal of Radical Wonder, February 2
2023 - Trout Fishing Warwoman Creek, Georgia, The Journal of Radical Wonder, February 9
2023 - Ambivalent About Crows, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Colonoscopy, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Clicking on the Heart, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Lessons From the Zen Poet, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - Off Blue Sky, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
2023 - The Couch, Medusa's Kitchen, January 25
Terrific news! Isn't it wonderful when you have a run like this? After I published my 27th in the spring of 2021, I turned back to essays and short stories and have had 37 publications, with two more due in February. A lot of the work was written early in the morning.
Wow, Gary, outstanding! I so admire that you send out your work in this way!
I guess publishing is kind of addictive for me...
Amazing and fabulous! Congratulations!
HOT DIGGITY! Congrats!
Thanks for your kindness.
I'm happy to report that my short story "The Universe Is So Amazing" was published in the November, 2022 issue of Drunk Monkeys. https://www.drunkmonkeys.us/issue-711-november-2022 It started out as a simple exercise in voice and grew from there.
Initially, I responded to a Drunk Monkeys' call for submissions for a culture issue. They responded rather quickly, saying it didn't suit for that call but liked the story and asked to save it for a future issue. I agreed and, about ten months later, here it came.
I wrote a short essay for WOW-Women on Writing, and they picked it up. It came out yesterday, in fact.
https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2023/01/friday-speak-out-this-is-how-it-begins.html
Also just saw in your bio w/your piece on WOW that you worked with/published with SheWrites Press?!?! I've been so curious about them and figure it must've been a great success if your novel is coming out in a couple of months so CONGRATULATIONS! SheWrites is stacked, so anything submitted now won't be published until at least Fall 2024, but with the way agents are snubbing memoirs not written by celebs, I'm thinking 2024 is not sounding too bad! haha! My email is writer@bridey-thelenheidel.com if you have any wisdom to share about that press :)
Hi there -- I'd be happy to talk with you about my experience. I'll email you....;-)
Getting so many ideas from all of you about new places to submit! I posted that I had a piece accepted to MUTHA Magazine...sounds like your writing might be a great fit for them, too!
Congratulations. And thank you. I'll check that magazine out. ;-)
After a long and winding road of "We really like this, but..." style responses, my story "All God's Children" was published this month by Necessary Fiction. While it features different characters, it was a first take on a story idea that eventually became my second novel A Better Heart, published by Black Rose Writing.
http://necessaryfiction.com/stories/all-gods-children/
Also in January, "Pool Party at Captain Jack's" was published in the debut issue of Wrong Turn Lit.
https://wrongturnlit.substack.com/p/pool-party-at-captain-jacks
Though it's still not out in the world yet, I saw the cover for my book on Kurt Vonnegut. Talking Vonnegut: Centennial Interviews and Essays is due soon from McFarland.
Thanks to all of the writers who shared below. I've added several new things to my reading list.
My bilingual short story "May We Be Named" was selected as an honorable mention for the 2022 Somos en escrito Extra-Fiction Contest and is now available to read here: https://www.somosenescrito.com/fiction-ficcioacuten/so-they-sold-their-names
Congratulations—heading over to read!
This year, I was pleased when Prairie Fire Magazine published a short story of mine, "man in a white car redux", which I'd been struggling to write and publish for at least twenty years. One of those had-to-get-it-out stories that finally got out in a way that connected with others. I chose Praire Fire because they were having an Uncharted Territory issue and also because they publish out of my birthtown of Winnipeg. It felt a bit like going home to a place I haven't been since I was five. Getting this story published by Praire Fire changed my life. I'll always be grateful.
https://www.prairiefire.ca/shop/spring-2022-volume-43-no-1/
"Dodo," my poem published by Common Ground Review: https://www.cgreview.org/magazine/dodo in January 2023's online issue (Fall/Winter 2022) will appeal to writers, so I encourage you to read it, please and thank you!
I delve into my process of writing 'Dodo' in my Substack post: https://dianamullins.substack.com/p/dodo
My other writing published last year: "Log Cabin," a short story published by Bridge Eight Press; "SELF," a poem published by Porcupine Literary; and "Plasma," a CNF piece published in Ruminate's 'At Sea' issue are linked here on my website: https://www.dianamullins.com/
I invite you to read posts in my Substack: 'Diana Says...'
Congratulations, Diana! Lovely piece in Porcupine Literary. How was your publishing experience there? I just had an acceptance from them. lisakb@pobox.com
Thank you, Lisa! I am grateful for your reading and praise.
Porcupine Literary communication was smooth. Timeframe: it took a couple of months for them to let me know the date of publication, and they stuck to their target. Four months passed from acceptance to publication.
Congratulations on your acceptance! Let us know when we can read your piece.
Thank you, Diana--generous and helpful! Will brag here when the time comes.
I haven't had any journal or book publication news this month, but I think of equal merit (for me and all of you) is the putting-stuff-out-there stats: twenty journal submissions, book proposals, contest entries so far for 2023. Also a new substack-supported, serialized story with drawings, called "Explosion in a Mask Factory."
Two big highlights for this month:
1. I am now a volunteer editor at 101 Words https://101words.org/ Check out this great site. Free to enter and feedback guaranteed, which is a rarity indeed.
2. I have launched my own 250 word prompt response page called Min Min, providing a community for fearless and fun writers. Find out more at https://sixcrookedhighways.com/about-min-min/
In other news, I've had 4 poems accepted for February by the quirkily named 'Rejection Letters' https://rejection-letters.com/ and two by the Shotglass Journal https://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/index.html . I've also had a piece published in 50 Word Stories http://fiftywordstories.com/2023/01/12/doug-jacquier-out-here/ and, of course, a CNF story on the inestimable LitMag News itself. https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/the-poet-who-wasnt-there-but-became?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=165591&post_id=96133423&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
My January brag (sans publication) is placing as a semifinalist for the North American Review's Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize for a second straight year with "Terrafir," my 2023 submission.
https://northamericanreview.org/open-space/awards-2023-kurt-vonnegut-speculative-fiction-prize
I've chosen to submit to NAR each year because a) I'm a fan of Vonnegut's work, b) I, too, went to Cornell, and c) it's one of the few speculative fiction prizes I've identified in non-genre literary journals.
I'll be working on resubmitting my piece to other journals after a thorough revision. Read more at https://robertwalikis.com
I submitted to Moot Point Magazine because their About page said their poetry editor liked the gothic and weird. After reading the poems on their website, I decided one of mine might be a good fit. They promise a quick response and it was. Their poetry editor was excellent to work with. A five-star experience-- https://www.mootpointmagazine.com/post/unrepentant-confessions-of-mammals-consuming
Hello, I've just subscribed.
My poem "Losing the Fog" was published this month in Heimat Review's second issue: https://heimatreview.weebly.com/losing-the-fog.html . This is a new online journal; I liked the content and the layout of the first issue. The editor, Hannah Cole Orsag, was friendly and collaborative. It's clear she wants authors to be pleased with how their work appears in her journal.
I had some negative experiences in the past, with line breaks being changed in one poem and another piece being right-justified, without asking me about the changes. Another journal placed my poem on a page next to someone's else's work that was not a good fit. So I am taking a careful look before submitting, and I appreciate how Orsag handled things.
I have two poems published in December 2022’s Indigenous EcoPoetry edition of Under a Warm Green Linden. They’re called “Constellation and Aurora” and “The Fern Yard.” https://www.greenlindenpress.com/issue14-shantell-powell
Asking my ego to 'brag', Becky, is like letting some wild untamed beast out of its cage-- but since you asked: I have been fortunate enough in my golden--o.k. more like rusting years, to have been published in 132 different lit mags the past 6 years, in 11 countries [including unexpected ones like Sweden and Turkey]. Even more amazing [truly], my trade publisher in December put out a 3rd book of my poems, titled 'Soul Songs' and he let me end it with a mini-memoir on the NDE I had after I jumped into a Vermont river 52 years ago to try to escape a clinical depression, and discovered that what poets have called the 'soul' for thousands of years--was real. Hence the title of the book, and the previous two: The Enormity of Existence [2020] and Of Ether and Earth [2021]. Why it's taken me a 1/2 century to share this, and create the words evoking a sense of ourselves as both mortal and immortal beings, I can't say.
Bravo!
I published my first "real" reported article in Thrillist, a publication I've been reading for years and years, so definitely a win in my book. Right after publishing, I received an email that they are no longer running the food section, so mine may've been one of the last. They still run travel.
https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/what-is-chinese-chorizo
I also published a flash nonfiction essay-- lots of trigger warnings, so read with discretion.
https://www.dorothyparkersashes.com/crime/noose
well a lit mag of sorts, all music. Today they published my sixth piece for them and well now they call me 'their writer'. Yes, there is no shortage today of online mags that will let you write for them for free! LOL! https://www.botheringtheband.com/blog/bothering-the-band-the-next-doors-pasadena
Getting our work out there is important. I made more money than I expected publishing new essays this past year and a half, but my income as a writer/editor is from royalties and work done via https://writewithoutborders.com.
The journal Five Points recently published my poem "Spanish Moss." I submitted it last February and heard from them exactly two months later. I sent it to Five Points because they're based in South Carolina and that is where I saw Spanish moss for the first time. It was that experience which inspired the poem. It's not online, otherwise I would share it. Seeing it in print helps to make up for the sea of rejections.
Becky, I really enjoyed your interview with Sacha Idell from The Southern Review. He helped reinforce the idea that writers just have to persevere!
Hi all- I'm new to this group. At the beginning of this month Memoir Monday was kind enough to feature my essay, "Ghost Stories, Master Race," first published in Salvation South: https://www.salvationsouth.com/ghost-stories-master-race-virginia-eugenics/
https://memoirmonday.substack.com/p/fifteen-personal-essays-to-ease-you
Salvation South is the new-ish magazine by Chuck Reece, co-founder of The Bitter Southerner who has a weekly podcast on NPR featured on All Things Considered and Morning Edition, in Georgia.
I have a 50–word story in The Dribble Drabble Review 2023, Issue VII on pg. 41, "Five Hours After Annie Leibowitz's Portrait, John's Shot Dead" https://www.flipsnack.com/AB7B77BBDC9/the-dribble-drabble-review-2023-issue-vii.html
I sent Keith Hoerner the founder and editor several dribbles based on photos and he chose this one to publish. I've published with him before—he's fast and supportive and puts out a terrific publication plus highlights different writers and nominates for awards. The dribbles that he turned down are under consideration at other pubs & I hope they soon find homes.
Congrats to everyone writing, submitting, and publishing. I've got your links and look forward to a lovely week of reading!
My flash suite “South Florida” was published this month by Moot Point Magazine. After reading the lit mag, it seemed the perfect home for a nostalgic Florida story. The editors actively promoted the work on social media and I was most impressed by their use of Insta story. It’s a gorgeous lit mag!
https://www.mootpointmagazine.com/post/south-florida
A poem in Triggerfish Critical Review 29 https://triggerfishcriticalreview.com/issue-29/ in which my spouse, artist and poet Diane Corson, also has three poems and is the featured artist. Most of the images in the issue are hers and her interview is in the issue, as well. I'm so proud of her art and poetry! Two poems in Heimat Review Issue 2, https://heimatreview.weebly.com/issue-2-winter.html.
So it's been a good month for both of us.
. One month ago I got a message from Musenewspaper, an online with mag place. They apologized for being late, two years late, then said a flash fiction I'd sent( 497) had won a prize and woulld be published on and in print and I'd get a copy . Last week I saw it on line with a dynamite graphic. The story, "The Dream of A Nothing Special Kid" is part of a pointillstic about growing up in a Brooklyn project during the McCarthy period in the nineteen fifties when hundreds of people lost their jobs and/or were blacklisted as Elvis Presley sang a cleaned up version of Big Mama Thornton's You Aint Nothing But A Hound Dog and Paull Anka sang You Are My Destiny and rowds on infuriated whites screamed at black kids trying to go to school and lynched one, Emest Till for allegedly whistling at a white woman and Graham Greene wrote a horror story The Quiet American about Vietnam
This comment isn't a brag -- no acceptances to brag about recently -- but perhaps an odd request. In 2015, I had a poem published in an online journal called Grapes & Cake. O.K., that was great. The problem is that Grapes & Cake went defunct and left no trace of itself on the internet. The journal didn't use Submittable; everything was done via email. Those emails are long gone. And I don't know what the poem was. I have this lingering fear that I might be sending out a poem that was already published but of which no record exists. Has anyone else encountered this sort of issue with other magazines? And does anyone have a clue as to how I might retrieve the knowledge of what the poem was in the now disappeared Grapes & Cake? Thanks....
Try the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine":
https://archive.org/web/
It's not as comprehensive as it claims, but it does have tens of thousands of old, redesigned, or defunct web pages preserved for view.
Maybe a poem about the search for that missing poem would be in order. It almost sounds like you dreamed it. Even the name of the journal, Grapes & Cake...
Really, who haven't you interviewed, Becky? It's impressive. Trish is now managing editor and I have taken her place.
I didn't get anything published, but I became the fiction editor at Philadelphia Stories.
Oh awesome! I interviewed Trish Rodriquez in Nov 2021, shortly after moving to Philly.
I would like to know how much you all respond to themed calls for submissions vs. general submissions.
Wow. The students in my mother's school in Bruxelles were all hidden children. Good luck with your novel.
I am planning a visit to Brussels this summer. Antwerp, too.
J'adore Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Anvers, Gand et Bruges. Ik hou van deze steden.
The macarons in the main train station in Bruxelles are wonderful--myriad varieties. The Swan restaurant in the Gran' Place is amazing. I've eaten there twice. And the Métrepole has a lovely brasserie. The hotel is an Art Nouveau palace.
Bon voyage/goede reis!
Thanks so much, Lev! I have forwarded your essay link to a friend of mine who was a hidden child in Brussels.
Wow. I wonder if I met her in 2003? And if she knew Floris...
His name is Albert Hepner.
If he went to the Yiddish-language school run by Lehrer Katz, I likely did meet him with a group of students from her school.
I spent the entire covid period gathering poems Ive written since the holiday season of 1964. It is a collection of sections: familyy Holocast memories, family portraits, bedpan briigade poems ( ( I worked in hospitals for 14 years (to pay bills, no altruism involved), The Middle East, nonnature haikus including The Black Lives Matters Hybrid Haikus ( egighteen published in 2021 in floweringsong press' anthology Good Cops, Bad Cop, varieties of racism unending ( for now), a small section of city poems aka aiyouwontfindamillionsiingingowllittlehouseontheprairiebighouseonthemountainmyfriendflickaoldyallerlasseletshaveyetonemorenaturepoemaboutthepurityofmountainsbeforeUnionCarbideFrackingIncGeorgiaPacific move in and here's to you Julia Butterly where's YOUR monie and better where's the movie about the victory at Standing Rock????? oooops better stop right now.. Before I leave y'all- a quick ad: BROOKLYN HEARTBASED POET SEEKS INEXPENSIVE ROOM TO RANT. CONTACT EBRILL69"GMAIL.COM. CONTACT HIM TOO IF YOU WOULD LIKE: A) An International Reading List of Fiction and Poetry, most of which most of you have not read because very few of your teachers k-IOWANYUWARRENWILSONCOLUMBIABROWN MFA plus PHDWK+ read "those" people ".
Yay!
--and congratulations on all your success! Saw you teach at MSU, so I thought I'd mention this piece I submitted ended up as part of a podcast that is now being shared among students studying social work at MSU. Such an unexpected consequence and audience. I'm sure you feel the same with all your international publishing. Amazing the audiences who find us!
Thank you so much. Feels good to put work out thee that is helping others, too.
Mazel tov, that's quite a run too. I have trouble publishing essays/short stories but will keep at it!
Thanks so much!
I'd love to talk sometime...