Once again, like a flock of birds sailing toward the horizon with the wind at our wings, airplane engines roaring in our ears, stars clenched in our teeth and all-seeing wisdoms afforded by our spectacular view…we have arrived at the end of another month.
Yes, indeed!
It’s the last weekend of the month and you know what that means. It’s time to celebrate you—your hard work, your unrelenting drive, your passions, your persistence, your dedication to your craft and the challenges you’ve overcome.
Did you have something published this month? Share the link!
Tell us all about it.
Why did you choose this magazine?
How did you find this particular journal?
What was your experience with the editors like?
Are you pleased with the final result?
Did you edit this piece as you submitted it, or was it published in its original form?
How long did it take for this story to find its happy little home?
Don’t be shy. Step right up!
It’s your time now, so come on out and brag your lit mag!
My short story "The Body" came out in Cleaver Magazine yesterday: https://www.cleavermagazine.com/the-body-isabel-christina-legarda/. This was the story I was sure was unpublishable but that I also didn't want to give up on, despite its strangeness. I'm so excited it's out there. The EIC at Cleaver has been wonderful to work with. Here are some story stats, for those who might be interested:
Story started: 9/10/22, then abandoned for SEVEN MONTHS
Story resumed and finished: April 10-May 6, 2023
Word count: 3163
First sent out: 4/30/23
Sent to: 9 lit mags between 4/30 & 7/8/23
Rejected by: 2 (form rejection from Craft, high-tier rejection from One Story)
Accepted: 8/14/23 (by the last lit mag I'd submitted to as of then)
Withdrawn from: 6 lit mags that hadn't replied yet as of 8/14/23
Published: 9/29/23, over a year after I first started writing it
Sep 30, 2023·edited Sep 30, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
I hate doing this brag thing because I was raised not to brag, but I'm going to reject my upbringing this one time. My father will forgive me... my mother will love me still.
My full length book of poems entitled The basement on Biella was published in September by Canadian publisher DarkWinter Press (https://www.darkwinterlit.com/). It is available at Amazon.com or .ca. I'm very proud of the result and kudos to DWP for their design, editorial suggestions and ongoing support. DWP does not charge a reading fee or any fees. They (and me) kept the original poems intact but for one or two tiny tweaks they picked out and I agreed to. I could not be happier with DWP. It took a while for this book to find a home and it is gratifying to me that it found the right one.
I wrote a piece about my mother and how I came to understand some of her choices over time. It was deeply personal and published in the literary journal You Might Need to Hear This. https://www.youmightneedtohearthis.com/stories/in-her-coat
I'm thrilled to have a quirky prose poem in this week's miCRo series at the Cincinnati Review. I've been writing a collection of short, surreal pieces about the spaces we inhabit, and I'm really buoyed by the support from CR. https://www.cincinnatireview.com/micro/micro-blue-yarn-by-jackie-craven/
I actually pitched it to about five different publications and Huffpost wrote back the next day. It was my very first published essay. The editor was very kind and gently directed me to parts that needed to be rewritten or cut. I'm so grateful for that!
It took about two and a half months before it was published....but it felt like a lifetime. Ha ha! Thank you for letting us all brag!
Sep 30, 2023·edited Sep 30, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
I'm in! I have a poem in Canary - A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis in their autumnal equinox issue! https://canarylitmag.org/
I also have a few coming out soon, but not yet, and I'm not sure yet but the acceptances have brought me joy: Spoon River and Poet Lore (Traditional Forms Issue) as well as museum of americana!
Editing to add that all of the editors have been so great to work with! Professional and kind at all the journals mentioned.
I published a personal essay about whiteness in a very cool, smart online zine called JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEARS, edited by Susan Zakin. Their motto: Literary, Journalistic, Irreverent, Yet Oddly Serious. Essay took more than two years, on and off, to write. JPY was first place I sent it to (not counting earlier drafts which simply were not ready) as I had a bit of a connection with the editor and knew her tastes.
September was a good month for me: four poems published in MacQueen's Quinterly (minor editorial changes, love working with the editor, Clare MacQueen, yes the poems are better), two poems published in Verse Virtual as submitted (Jim Lewis also is great to work with). Like Bill I cringe a bit at posting successes, but summarizing a month's accomplishments is okay.
I had three pieces published in a week this month!
On this Substack, Becky encouraged us to make a summer’s resolution. Mine was to submit every week and write an essay a month. I basically wrote the same essay three times, but that’s what it took and this is the payoff:
Flash on a Newark scotch story that cost less than $78
I turned the 100 word piece into a longer flash I’m still working on. I did the same with a 300 character post I did on Bluesky - hoping to get the extended pieces published!
My poem "Grief" was accepted and published by hotpoet.org for their Fall Edition of Equinox: Into the Thicket: https://www.hotpoet.org/equinox. The poem is on page 66. I am grateful for this acceptance and the journal includes beautiful poetry, prose, and art. In this poem, I wanted to share the process of grief and my personal experience of losing my brother. I submitted the first stanza as a poem. It was declined multiple times. Then I expanded it into a longer piece "Grief in Five Acts" and continued to submit - about 30 journals overall.
Allium published this poem of mine earlier this month: https://allium.colum.edu/fall-2023-poetry/m-f-drummy. It was published in its original form. It took over six months from acceptance to publication. The editing team at the journal were very responsive and helpful. I can’t remember even submitting to the magazine nor how I found out about it because I submit to hundreds of journals. But I’m very pleased with the final result here - quite gratifying.
I had a piece accepted by a new zine, Speakeasy, within hours (!) and the editor wrote a gorgeous acceptance note. It's a reprint that has now appeared first online, then will be in print: "Cold Marble/Hot Memories." https://www.speakeasymag.org/post/cold-marble-hot-memories
"My Brother is Toast'' appeared in The Smart Set with lovely artwork. I had so much going on personally and professionally that I lost track of late Spring/Summer pub dates. It actually appeared at the end of May, but I just discovered it at the very end of August, so that's why it's here. https://www.thesmartset.com/my-brother-is-toast/ It was rejected nine times and that's a good thing because it was accepted by a great lit mag which pays well.
An essay that was featured in Fifth Wheel in 2022 was accepted as a reprint in The Literatus.
And the editor of Halfway Down the Stairs accepted one of my favorite family essays of the last two years almost as soon as I sent it. Her email was so laudatory it made me glow. That essay will be out in December.
Sep 30, 2023·edited Sep 30, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
My micro “Uplift” was published by Visual Verse earlier this month. I came across the lit mag through a “200 + Lit Mags” Twitter post by The Flash Cabin (a website itself an amazing resource).
The constraints of Visual Verse (an online anthology) intrigued me. 👇
“One image, one hour, 50-500 words.
The picture is the starting point, the text is up to you.”
I’m pleased the work was included alongside such incredible writers and poets and also enjoyed reading the responses to the image.
I'll let my ego [that damn little dictator!] get his 2 cents in so I can relate something of this grand 'Llt Game' that has been played at least since Homer. I know a lot of people get nominated for these, but I never really figured I'd be one-- so last year I was nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net and just in the past fortnight twice again for Best of the Net [the last one for not a poem but my 'memoir-essay 'The Day I Remembered My Soul']. Like the lottery, not much chance of winning [hey, is there money involved?] but to get a free ticket is pretty cool....
Now for a bit of lamenting, for the lit mags I've been fortunate enough to have been published in the past 6 years who have thrown off their mortal coil, in this case, ceased publication: FREEMAN MAGAZINE; HARBINGER ASYLUM; HALCYON DAYS & FOUNDER'S FAVOURITES (final issues coming out soon); EVENING STREET REVIEW and a few others I suspect are on life support.
I find this sad and I'm sure most of you do too, but then like us, lit mags have an immortal aspect , and will wait patiently in the Cloud for a reader or on a bookshelf somewhere. Nothing of spirit can ever die.
Autumn has certainly been fruitful in my case as I have had 5 items published. My poem The Human Condition According to Cardinale Lotario de’ Conti di Segni, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), which includes phrases and words in italics taken from the English translation of the Cardinal’s original treatise was included in HST’s Summer 2023 anthology. The poem can be found online here.
A piece of flash fiction called Death of a Plumber was published by Strider Marcus Jones who, by the way, writes the most wonderfully heart-warming and flattering acceptance emails I have ever received.
Roderick Bates of Rat’s Ass Review has published my poem Prologue to the Governor’s Tale. It takes Chaucer’s The Summoner’s Prologue as its model. Chaucer satirizes friars, who end up literally in the bowels of Satan. I use my poem to excoriate the appalling Tory government in the UK. The Rat’s Ass Review is here, https://ratsassreview.net/?page_id=4242
but as the poems appear in alphabetical order of each author’s surname, you have to scroll down quite a way to find mine.
My short story, "After School Special" appeared in the journal/online community gallery "On the Seawall", edited by Ron Slatehttps://www.ronslate.com/. I was in the company of incredible writers, translators and poets. This one was a real boost! The story was a many-times rewrite of an excerpt from an unpublished novel, "The People in Tubes Motif" from 2010-2015. The same novel has gone on to new life/lives as multiple (unconnected) excerpts rewritten as short stories, that have appeared in The Collagist, The Rupture, Your Impossible Voice, Always Crashing and somewhere else I can't remember, (after numerous submission-rejection tries). Take-away: if something doesn't fly as a novel, it may have parts that are meant to be short stories. Don't feel bad about carving up stuff. Think of a cut diamond, or a collage!
This one had an absurdly long journey. Over 30 rejections, the oldest goes back to 1999. The basic story, a dual, alternating narrative, is about a performance artist making a comeback and her teenage son. Some mags over the years didn't think the dual stories connected well enough; some got confused by the son's name being Bride (changed eventually); and some perhaps were not pleased with the artist's signature move with oysters (alluded to but not actually described).
Who knows why it rook so long? Bad targeting by me? I always liked it, so when I thought I found a mag that would too, I sent it out.
It's been awhile since I've had something published, but September broke the pattern. My essay "Position" was published this week at The Offing. https://theoffingmag.com/enumerate/position/
I wrote the piece as hermit crab essay, in the form of a job posting. I didn't start out with that in mind, but it seemed to be the best way to tell my story. When I saw a call for The Offing's Enumerate column, my list of job requirements seemed a good fit. The editors commented on the humor (which I didn't even realize was there) and published it quickly.
Congratulations everyone! Skyway Journal published two of my poems this month-- https://skywayjournal.wordpress.com/2023/09/08/two-poems-by-la-felleman/. I selected this journal because it has an Americana section, which felt like a good home for the five poems I sent them. The editor got back to me within a few days, and the 2 poems he accepted out of the 5 were posted a couple of weeks later. The Station Wagon poem was rejected 7 times and went through many, many re-writes. The Jack O'Lantern poems was rejected 17 times and I re-wrote a few lines and gave it a new title on its road to acceptance.
My essay, "Anderlecht," was accepted by Collateral, a journal focused on war beyond the combat zone. In this essay I describe my experience this past June in re-tracing the steps of a colleague and friend who was a hidden child in Belgium. Anderlecht is where he first lived and was hidden in 1941. I followed his journey from the church where he hid in the basement back to his flat where his mother shooed him away for his own protection. I only sent the piece to two journals, Collateral and Consequence, since both focused on consequences of war. I received the acceptance from Collateral a little over a month after submission. I will be recording the essay and learned all the French and Flemish pronunciations from my friend. I'd tried Collateral before and this time found success. I've had one other piece, a short story, in Consequence in 2022, I think, and it was nominated for a Pushcart. "Anderlecht" will be published in the spring.
Sep 30, 2023·edited Sep 30, 2023Liked by Becky Tuch
After nearly four years of non-stop 'immersion' in writing, submitting, publishing.....in late summer, I came to a great pause. :) It was time to step back from my work, reflect, and just be. I am still on this hiatus of sorts, a well-deserved rest. However, I did have one joyful and hard-earned acceptance in September! My first haibun will be published in Haiku Canada Review next month. It will also be my debut in the journal, although I've been a member for several years....I just never seemed to have enough quality haiku to submit!
My haibun evolved over the past year. It started as a flash CNF, then at some point a haiku emerged (triggered by a nature memory, connected to the piece)....and finally editor Michel Montreuil of HCR made a few gentle edits, and took a chance on me. If any of you poets read HCR, please watch for "Winter Augury" in the next issue, and let me know what you think!
My story “Re-Feeding” is out in Unleash Lit, and my poem “Cold Cloth of Sentience” appears in Bulb Culture Collective. I found Unleash Lit through Submittable, Bulb Culture because its editor and I follow one another on Twitter. “Re-feeding” got a semi-tiered rejection from Narrative (“Overall, we really liked it, but it doesn’t fit the needs of our issue) which prompted me to keep going. “Cold Cloth of Sentience” was supposed to have been published in February, but the original journal folded before the issue came out.
My speculative poetry chapbook "A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness: Poems of a Fabled Universe" was just published with Red Ogre Review. Not only have they published my chapbook, but they have a series of speculative chapbooks they are rolling out this fall. I've enjoyed working with them on the edits and formatting of this collection. The cover art was created by one of Red Ogre Review's own artists, Janis Butler Holm!
A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness is a bilingual English-Spanish collection of Latinx Futurist poetry. Celebrate the dailiness of multilingual and divergent Latinx futures while seated around a campfire. The 26 poems and 6 translations in this speculative chapbook travel from the Solar System to Andromeda to envision coming of age rituals, companionship, and the responsibilities of work and daily life around distant stars.
This book is published by Red Ogre Review via a grant from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.
My short story, Barbie Girls, was published in word west revue this September. It’s inspired by my childhood with my sister and has a nostalgic feel. I’m proud of it! https://www.wordwestrevue.co/items/barbie-girls
I wrote this poem last month and it appeared today in the journal Feral: https://feralpoetry.net/polvadera-creek-by-mf-drummy/. The team at Feral are looking for really cutting-edge stuff so I was thrilled when they accepted this poem. A friend suggested Feral and I checked it out and submitted. Couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. Hats to off to Beth and the rest of the editorial team at Feral.
I used to feel the same way as Shelby mentions earlier, but learned decades ago when I had a very young child that there's a big difference between bragging and sharing successes. Where did I learn this? From the fabulous and then audio-cassette-only series that included MR. BACH COMES TO CALL. I think of bragging as an "I'm better than you" tone; sharing with the world is what we want to do, and I think how we phrase it makes a huge difference.
This month, I'm pleased to have several new poems up at The Dirigible Balloon, a fabulous online "library" of children's poetry. A favorite one, "One Star, One Hill" is the third one in line on my DB "shelf":https://dirigibleballoon.org/writer/carolcoven-grannick
I will forgo a brag about my own successful submissions in favour of announcing the delight I've had this month in launching my own online litmag, Witcraft. https://witcraft.org/
Yes, I know, another litmag, just what the world needs. However, frustrated by the lack of outlets for true wit, humour and satire (not the snarky, frat house, sledgehammer type), I decided to launch my own. Early signs are good, with submissions arriving daily via email and Duotrope (reprints accepted, no fees, no pay at this stage) and 16 stories published already. So, please submit if you have stories that fit that brief and tell your funny friends there's hope at last. :-)
PS - I take back 90% of my moans about publishers and editors in the past. :-)
I learned about this newer mag in a post from Chill Subs about very beautiful online magazines, and it doesn't disappoint (I strongly recommend clicking around the main page, which is formatted like a night sky: www.astrolabe.ooo.
I had a great experience working with the editors, Joel and Jae. I heard back from them a month after submitting, and then the story was published about two months after that (June sub, July acceptance, Sept pub). By that point the story had been rejected from 11 other magazines, with a few personals, and I withdrew it from another spot upon acceptance. There was no editorial feedback, and I got paid very quickly! A great experience overall -- would recommend! They are still in a free submission period till Oct 22.
Also, Becky, it was nice to meet you at Barrelhouse's conference this last weekend!
School dances, puberty, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (4 versions) all make an appearance in this new essay, There Will Be No More Tears in Harpur Palate.
"Maybe you see where I’m going here. I'm trying to understand how the men of my generation became so fucked up. We’re fucked up partly because we could be—no one stopped us. We became who we thought we were supposed to be; geniuses were fucked up, artists were fucked up. Brilliant men were supposed to rage and demand. They did violence to the world in service to their vision; it was their job."
Hello all, is it really the end of another month again? I was in fairly intense proof edit phases for 2 pieces with 2 journals: an ekphrastic hybrid poem for "Exist Otherwise" & a shape prose poem for "Antithesis" journal. The latter is due out in October. "On the Fluidity of Gender in Flotsam" in Exist Otherwise was released mid-September. I wrote this as "an ekphrastic imagining" from the photo prompt - especially for this journal & am glad it was accepted. I revised the content (slightly) & the formatting (radically) between submission and final published version. Initially, it was a "block" prose poem (single paragraph).
The proof process was challenging - we had serious formatting issues. It took numerous email exchanges & finally a screenshot identified the glitch. Although the PDF journal replicates my font & lay-out, the online version shows a "code box format". I politely expressed disappointment in the lack of aesthetic. I note he's managed to change background colour from grey to white & modified the clunky HTML text to more readable font (thanx Eric). Readers can download the free PDF version.
This isn't a criticism about the editor, but I've never exerted so much effort to have formatting accurately reproduced, so this may discourage me from experimental formatting in future! (Says the writer whose next publication is a prose poem shaped like a "Cosmic Egg"). Display issues aside, I'm pleased with my poem. I think (hope?) it marks a slight shift in my writing style (perhaps spurred by more lit journal reading & reading the work of wonderful writers here). The formatting is intended to visually reflect flotsam "strewn" randomly on a beach, & the fragmentary nature of the narrator's experience of identity & memory. Comments here (or in the online journal) are immensely appreciated.
The editor at FULL STOP has been most helpful in advising me on how to enlarge a review I'm writing on a non fiction work: a translation of Nors's A LINE IN THE WORLD. I expect the review to be published, and am delighted to be in a publication new to me. The editor made specific suggestions which were most helpful to me.
Later in the day, I'll enjoy reading other brags from you-all.
In another achievement of sorts, I've been asked to do more critiques at The Ocotillo Review. Working on critiques challenges me to be as observant as I can, and as kind as I can in making suggestions for improvements. It's an important learning process for me. As Poetry Editor for the review I am now on the other side of the fence, with regard to submissions. Oddly, this has made it harder to do my own submissions to magazines. (I'm more aware, I find my own work less worthy.)
Hank Jost, editor of A Common Well Journal, accepted my story "34 Starts for All the Rest of My Novels and Stories," though he trimmed the piece by five sections, so it's now "29 Starts for All the Rest of my Novels and Stories." It will appear in the November issue. Hank is a sensitive and generous editor. He rejected a group of poems I submitted earlier but made encouraging comments on each one. I'll submit more material to him.
I had a micro called "Cheap Talk" published in the dreamland anthology from fifth wheel press! It is currently free to read online and will be published in print later this year. It's a very short, nostalgic piece about those liminal summers in high school when you're first starting to get a sense of adulthood, but you're ultimately still a kid.
I had an idea a long time ago to do a poem series inventorying my tea collection, so to speak, where I'd do a piece about every one of my teas and the memories associated with each. But I couldn't really get any of them to work---might go back to it eventually. This piece was salvaged from the remains of the poem about apricot tea!
I would like to thank Becky Tuch for helping me to find a home for my nonfiction prose essay "Sexual Harassment in the Synagogue: A Case Study and Recommendations," which was published by Tikkun in September online at https://www.tikkun.org/sexual-harassment-in-the-synagogue/ I had been sending this essay out for about six years, so I asked Becky whether she had any ideas for journals that I had not tried already. She suggested Tikkun. Great idea!!
I also published the poem “Pamela Brown Thomas” in Panoply #25 (September 8, 2023) online at https://panoplyzine.com/pamela-brown-thomas-by-janet-ruth-heller/ My poem concerns a real woman in the 1800s who helped the Underground Railroad in Schoolcraft, Michigan, and hid African Americans trying to escape slavery. This poem is a dramatic monologue from the perspective of Pamela Brown Thomas. The piece is based on Pamela's short autobiography. My husband and I had toured her small home in Schoolcraft, which still stands! She and her husband Nathan, who was a doctor, were very active in the Underground Railroad.
I am happy to debut another Latin American author in English: This time, it's Mexican writer Teresa Icaza whose original story in Spanish and my version in English appear side-by-side in the new issue of Latin American Literature Today.
I have published in LALT before and it is always a joy to interact with Translation Editor Denise Kripper and the LALT staff. While it's not a paying venue, LALT always publishes work in a respectful and beautiful way, making this a terrific (and prestigious) venue to debut new authors in English.
This gorgeous collection of 12 stories is entitled "De regreso" (Homeward) and all the stories are about women who, in various ways and stages of life, come home to themselves. I am currently seeking a publisher for it.
I was published in Write or Die, the literary magazine arm of ChillSubs, earlier this month with an article on why even bother teaching creative writing anyways (or at least that's how I pitched it to them, not necessarily what they ended up naming it!)
I had the idea bouncing around in my head since last November, when I wrote a first draft of it and thought I might pitch it to Brevity. I didn't do anything with it though, and when I was pitching a class to WoD, I figured what the hell and pitched this, too.
Thanks to Chris Devoe and all the editors, my story "The Knife" appears in The Whistle Pig Journal V 15, available at Amazon.com. Set in the desert near Boise, the plot reveals the trauma of a young woman as she helps her father homestead in the sagebrush desert. The piece was finished years ago and waiting for a publisher, so to have it come out in the nearby town of Mountain Home is like a georgraphic miracle. Whistle pigs are denizens of the desert where my character Winnie, patterned after my grandmother, lived. I had not submitted the story before although I wrote it years ago, because there are few publishers interested in a woman's experiences portrayed in "western" fiction. A second Winnie story can be read at at https://underwoodpress.com/truechili/2020/06/15/winnies-trial/
Dear poetintheOR, your story of persistence and success is enough to spur me on! I congratulate you for continuing to try for publication even though you say you initially thought the story might be unpublishable. This makes me think about the question of how the levels of confidence within us keep vacillating. One day we think "this piece is worthy" the next day we question our abilities. (I think what happens is, our abilities don't change that much from day to day, but our confidence in ourselves changes.) When I think I have no talent I try to remind myself that two publishers thought my chapbook and my collection were worthy of publication. From then on, it's up to me to do what I can in sharing my work.
Anyway, congratulations on your success at Cleaver Magazine!
Rockvale Review nominated a poem of mine they published for a Best of the Net award. And 4 journals with a total of 6 poems of mine came out in the last week.
(I am late to post this and the story was published in August, but I missed the email for last month's brag! It's ok if you choose not to put this up or take it down.)
I wrote this very fast, almost like a journal entry. I have a date of 2007 on an early draft, so I think that's when I started it. I let it sit for years and then worked on it over the last two for flash fiction. I sent it out 6 times, starting in 2021. I learned of this journal from WRITERS PUBLISH email. It was published as I sent it. They have a question/answer component to their site, which was interesting to do. They were easy to work with but I was informed of acceptance and it was published within a day or two. That was pretty fast, and I had to answer the questions as well.
My first published short story, "War Wounds,"is in the Reversals issue of The Fieldstone Review (published online on September 15, 2023), an annual virtual literary journal from the University of Saskatchewan. I'm proud of the story and very pleased with the appreciative, respectful and skillful editing it received from TFR's fiction editor for this issue, Josiah Nelson, and its editors-in-chief for this issue, Dawn Muenchrath and Walker Pityn. I'm also grateful for the excellent mentoring I received from Nance van Winckel when I wrote a series of early drafts of this story twenty years ago. I sent it out to one publication then and when it was rejected set it aside (I didn't yet know to keep going). This year, I resolved it was high time to dust it off with a modest edits and send it out again. I submitted to five lit mags, including The Fieldstone Review. I found TFR on a list of themed calls for submission and decided their theme fit my story very well. Also, I associate Canada with the Vietnam War era, because many American men fled there during the Viet Nam war to escape the draft. It was declined by three lit mags over a six-month period before acceptance. I submitted it to THR in February 2023 and it was accepted in July 2023. https://thefieldstonereview.ca/
I know I'm late to the party (poetry retreat in Taos - perfect time of the year for that). An excerpt from my memoir-in-progress came out in Persimmon Tree on September 15. https://persimmontree.org/fall-2023/apocalypse/
Peggy Wagner (lightly) edited the excerpt for clarity, including for having it be a standalone piece. I couldn't have asked for a better editor - quick, responsive, thoughtful, a great experience all around.
My short story "The Body" came out in Cleaver Magazine yesterday: https://www.cleavermagazine.com/the-body-isabel-christina-legarda/. This was the story I was sure was unpublishable but that I also didn't want to give up on, despite its strangeness. I'm so excited it's out there. The EIC at Cleaver has been wonderful to work with. Here are some story stats, for those who might be interested:
Story started: 9/10/22, then abandoned for SEVEN MONTHS
Story resumed and finished: April 10-May 6, 2023
Word count: 3163
First sent out: 4/30/23
Sent to: 9 lit mags between 4/30 & 7/8/23
Rejected by: 2 (form rejection from Craft, high-tier rejection from One Story)
Accepted: 8/14/23 (by the last lit mag I'd submitted to as of then)
Withdrawn from: 6 lit mags that hadn't replied yet as of 8/14/23
Published: 9/29/23, over a year after I first started writing it
Take-home: keep going, keep going, keep going!
I hate doing this brag thing because I was raised not to brag, but I'm going to reject my upbringing this one time. My father will forgive me... my mother will love me still.
My full length book of poems entitled The basement on Biella was published in September by Canadian publisher DarkWinter Press (https://www.darkwinterlit.com/). It is available at Amazon.com or .ca. I'm very proud of the result and kudos to DWP for their design, editorial suggestions and ongoing support. DWP does not charge a reading fee or any fees. They (and me) kept the original poems intact but for one or two tiny tweaks they picked out and I agreed to. I could not be happier with DWP. It took a while for this book to find a home and it is gratifying to me that it found the right one.
I wrote a piece about my mother and how I came to understand some of her choices over time. It was deeply personal and published in the literary journal You Might Need to Hear This. https://www.youmightneedtohearthis.com/stories/in-her-coat
And then I wrote a piece about my father's manic depression and how our family dealt with it. I pondered the question of who exactly he was. I published that in Sad Girl Diaries Literary Magazine. https://www.sadgirldiaries.com/post/the-chemistry-of-identity-anne-e-beall
Both took me a while to write.
I'm thrilled to have a quirky prose poem in this week's miCRo series at the Cincinnati Review. I've been writing a collection of short, surreal pieces about the spaces we inhabit, and I'm really buoyed by the support from CR. https://www.cincinnatireview.com/micro/micro-blue-yarn-by-jackie-craven/
A few months ago, I wrote an essay about a sensitive issue in my life: adoption and learning I was a twin separated at birth. It's an insane story and 13 years, I was finally ready to really talk about it. Here's the link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/adoption-korea-parents-dead-email_n_64f906c4e4b02eee30c3b095
I actually pitched it to about five different publications and Huffpost wrote back the next day. It was my very first published essay. The editor was very kind and gently directed me to parts that needed to be rewritten or cut. I'm so grateful for that!
It took about two and a half months before it was published....but it felt like a lifetime. Ha ha! Thank you for letting us all brag!
I'm in! I have a poem in Canary - A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis in their autumnal equinox issue! https://canarylitmag.org/
I also have a few coming out soon, but not yet, and I'm not sure yet but the acceptances have brought me joy: Spoon River and Poet Lore (Traditional Forms Issue) as well as museum of americana!
Editing to add that all of the editors have been so great to work with! Professional and kind at all the journals mentioned.
I published a personal essay about whiteness in a very cool, smart online zine called JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEARS, edited by Susan Zakin. Their motto: Literary, Journalistic, Irreverent, Yet Oddly Serious. Essay took more than two years, on and off, to write. JPY was first place I sent it to (not counting earlier drafts which simply were not ready) as I had a bit of a connection with the editor and knew her tastes.
https://www.journaloftheplagueyears.ink/blog/freetown?categoryId=116493
September was a good month for me: four poems published in MacQueen's Quinterly (minor editorial changes, love working with the editor, Clare MacQueen, yes the poems are better), two poems published in Verse Virtual as submitted (Jim Lewis also is great to work with). Like Bill I cringe a bit at posting successes, but summarizing a month's accomplishments is okay.
I had three pieces published in a week this month!
On this Substack, Becky encouraged us to make a summer’s resolution. Mine was to submit every week and write an essay a month. I basically wrote the same essay three times, but that’s what it took and this is the payoff:
Flash on a Newark scotch story that cost less than $78
https://theamazine.com/2023/09/23/newark-penn-station/
Personal Essay on the Writing Life- s/o to the LMRC
https://thrivingwritersmag.com/pathfinding-and-new-years-resolutions-david-nash/
!!!Thriving Writers editors were an awesome help and suggestions and their site is an excellent resource!!!
100 Word Micro on sibling rivalry
http://entropy2.com/blogs/100words/2023/09/15/a-ladder-to-the-stars/#disqus_thread
I turned the 100 word piece into a longer flash I’m still working on. I did the same with a 300 character post I did on Bluesky - hoping to get the extended pieces published!
https://bsky.app/profile/davenashlit1.bsky.social/post/3kaabtk2lzl2o
You can fill #mpotd on BS for daily prompts
My poem "Grief" was accepted and published by hotpoet.org for their Fall Edition of Equinox: Into the Thicket: https://www.hotpoet.org/equinox. The poem is on page 66. I am grateful for this acceptance and the journal includes beautiful poetry, prose, and art. In this poem, I wanted to share the process of grief and my personal experience of losing my brother. I submitted the first stanza as a poem. It was declined multiple times. Then I expanded it into a longer piece "Grief in Five Acts" and continued to submit - about 30 journals overall.
Allium published this poem of mine earlier this month: https://allium.colum.edu/fall-2023-poetry/m-f-drummy. It was published in its original form. It took over six months from acceptance to publication. The editing team at the journal were very responsive and helpful. I can’t remember even submitting to the magazine nor how I found out about it because I submit to hundreds of journals. But I’m very pleased with the final result here - quite gratifying.
The Wave published "Pancake Fantasy" which is twice as long as the draft they originally accepted and much more detailed. The editor's notes were truly inspiring. https://www.kelpjournal.com/post/essay-pancake-fantasy-by-lev-raphael
I had a piece accepted by a new zine, Speakeasy, within hours (!) and the editor wrote a gorgeous acceptance note. It's a reprint that has now appeared first online, then will be in print: "Cold Marble/Hot Memories." https://www.speakeasymag.org/post/cold-marble-hot-memories
"My Brother is Toast'' appeared in The Smart Set with lovely artwork. I had so much going on personally and professionally that I lost track of late Spring/Summer pub dates. It actually appeared at the end of May, but I just discovered it at the very end of August, so that's why it's here. https://www.thesmartset.com/my-brother-is-toast/ It was rejected nine times and that's a good thing because it was accepted by a great lit mag which pays well.
An essay that was featured in Fifth Wheel in 2022 was accepted as a reprint in The Literatus.
"Haunted?" in Paranormal Magazine is my true-life double ghost story, and the illustration couldn't be more fitting. Check out the artwork for my story on the contents page--it's terrific. https://www.paranormalzine.com/product-page/nationwide-usa-september-october-2023-issue
And the editor of Halfway Down the Stairs accepted one of my favorite family essays of the last two years almost as soon as I sent it. Her email was so laudatory it made me glow. That essay will be out in December.
I had three prose poems come out in A Velvet Giant! Love the corresponding art for these pieces: https://www.avelvetgiant.com/
My micro “Uplift” was published by Visual Verse earlier this month. I came across the lit mag through a “200 + Lit Mags” Twitter post by The Flash Cabin (a website itself an amazing resource).
The constraints of Visual Verse (an online anthology) intrigued me. 👇
“One image, one hour, 50-500 words.
The picture is the starting point, the text is up to you.”
I’m pleased the work was included alongside such incredible writers and poets and also enjoyed reading the responses to the image.
Thank you, Visual Verse and Flash Cabin!
Links:
https://visualverse.org/
https://www.flashcabin.com/200-lit-mags
Short story "Services" (on Rosh Hashanah during the Korean War) rejected 20x until published by The Short Story Project:
https://shortstoryproject.com/stories/services/
Short story "I Pity the Fool" (about a fuckup in the 80s) rejected 30x until published in Bodega:
http://www.bodegamag.com/articles/623-i-pity-the-fool
Another piece coming out next month in Necessary Fiction. All three websites are on my list of "places that publish good work."
I'll let my ego [that damn little dictator!] get his 2 cents in so I can relate something of this grand 'Llt Game' that has been played at least since Homer. I know a lot of people get nominated for these, but I never really figured I'd be one-- so last year I was nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net and just in the past fortnight twice again for Best of the Net [the last one for not a poem but my 'memoir-essay 'The Day I Remembered My Soul']. Like the lottery, not much chance of winning [hey, is there money involved?] but to get a free ticket is pretty cool....
Now for a bit of lamenting, for the lit mags I've been fortunate enough to have been published in the past 6 years who have thrown off their mortal coil, in this case, ceased publication: FREEMAN MAGAZINE; HARBINGER ASYLUM; HALCYON DAYS & FOUNDER'S FAVOURITES (final issues coming out soon); EVENING STREET REVIEW and a few others I suspect are on life support.
I find this sad and I'm sure most of you do too, but then like us, lit mags have an immortal aspect , and will wait patiently in the Cloud for a reader or on a bookshelf somewhere. Nothing of spirit can ever die.
Autumn has certainly been fruitful in my case as I have had 5 items published. My poem The Human Condition According to Cardinale Lotario de’ Conti di Segni, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), which includes phrases and words in italics taken from the English translation of the Cardinal’s original treatise was included in HST’s Summer 2023 anthology. The poem can be found online here.
https://horrorsleazetrash.com/2023/06/19/tony-dawson-5/comment-page-1/#comment-6107
Then there’s the poem, What’s in a Name? published by Lighten Up Online.
It’s a humorous take on Apollo’s infatuation with Daphne and based on Bernini’s sculpture:
http://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/index.php/issues/issue-63-september-2023/tony-dawson-whats-in-a-name?highlight=WyJ0b255IiwiZGF3c29uIl0=
A piece of flash fiction called Death of a Plumber was published by Strider Marcus Jones who, by the way, writes the most wonderfully heart-warming and flattering acceptance emails I have ever received.
https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2023/09/death-of-plumber-flash-fiction-by-tony.html
Roderick Bates of Rat’s Ass Review has published my poem Prologue to the Governor’s Tale. It takes Chaucer’s The Summoner’s Prologue as its model. Chaucer satirizes friars, who end up literally in the bowels of Satan. I use my poem to excoriate the appalling Tory government in the UK. The Rat’s Ass Review is here, https://ratsassreview.net/?page_id=4242
but as the poems appear in alphabetical order of each author’s surname, you have to scroll down quite a way to find mine.
Finally, a poem entitled Foreboding, indicative, I suppose, of my awareness of being in the final stages of life, appears at https://cajunmuttpress.wordpress.com/2023/09/21/cajun-mutt-press-featured-writer-09-20-23/
Despite “September Song”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou2J-e3rXek
let’s hope I don’t drop off the twig just yet!
My short story, "After School Special" appeared in the journal/online community gallery "On the Seawall", edited by Ron Slatehttps://www.ronslate.com/. I was in the company of incredible writers, translators and poets. This one was a real boost! The story was a many-times rewrite of an excerpt from an unpublished novel, "The People in Tubes Motif" from 2010-2015. The same novel has gone on to new life/lives as multiple (unconnected) excerpts rewritten as short stories, that have appeared in The Collagist, The Rupture, Your Impossible Voice, Always Crashing and somewhere else I can't remember, (after numerous submission-rejection tries). Take-away: if something doesn't fly as a novel, it may have parts that are meant to be short stories. Don't feel bad about carving up stuff. Think of a cut diamond, or a collage!
My short story "Stages" was published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety. It's the second story of mine that the editor Cody Sexton has accepted this year. http://www.athinsliceofanxiety.com/2023/09/fiction-stages.html
This one had an absurdly long journey. Over 30 rejections, the oldest goes back to 1999. The basic story, a dual, alternating narrative, is about a performance artist making a comeback and her teenage son. Some mags over the years didn't think the dual stories connected well enough; some got confused by the son's name being Bride (changed eventually); and some perhaps were not pleased with the artist's signature move with oysters (alluded to but not actually described).
Who knows why it rook so long? Bad targeting by me? I always liked it, so when I thought I found a mag that would too, I sent it out.
It's been awhile since I've had something published, but September broke the pattern. My essay "Position" was published this week at The Offing. https://theoffingmag.com/enumerate/position/
I wrote the piece as hermit crab essay, in the form of a job posting. I didn't start out with that in mind, but it seemed to be the best way to tell my story. When I saw a call for The Offing's Enumerate column, my list of job requirements seemed a good fit. The editors commented on the humor (which I didn't even realize was there) and published it quickly.
September was a good month for me. I had a short story published in 50-Word Stories (http://fiftywordstories.com/2023/09/12/jacqueline-seaberg-arizona-territory-1883/) and a poem in tiny wren lit (https://www.tinywrenlit.com/5/jerusalem).
Congratulations everyone! Skyway Journal published two of my poems this month-- https://skywayjournal.wordpress.com/2023/09/08/two-poems-by-la-felleman/. I selected this journal because it has an Americana section, which felt like a good home for the five poems I sent them. The editor got back to me within a few days, and the 2 poems he accepted out of the 5 were posted a couple of weeks later. The Station Wagon poem was rejected 7 times and went through many, many re-writes. The Jack O'Lantern poems was rejected 17 times and I re-wrote a few lines and gave it a new title on its road to acceptance.
My essay, "Anderlecht," was accepted by Collateral, a journal focused on war beyond the combat zone. In this essay I describe my experience this past June in re-tracing the steps of a colleague and friend who was a hidden child in Belgium. Anderlecht is where he first lived and was hidden in 1941. I followed his journey from the church where he hid in the basement back to his flat where his mother shooed him away for his own protection. I only sent the piece to two journals, Collateral and Consequence, since both focused on consequences of war. I received the acceptance from Collateral a little over a month after submission. I will be recording the essay and learned all the French and Flemish pronunciations from my friend. I'd tried Collateral before and this time found success. I've had one other piece, a short story, in Consequence in 2022, I think, and it was nominated for a Pushcart. "Anderlecht" will be published in the spring.
My piece on mothering my neurodiverse teen during a red hot challenge:
https://www.muthamagazine.com/2023/06/report-from-a-neurodiverse-universe/
I submitted b/c of great journals & edited multiple times in process with the generous kind editor there--Jen Bryant!
Two stories published in September. "A Ring for Rosie" was published by Guilty Crime Story Magazine - a love story of sorts: https://www.amazon.com/Guilty-Crime-Story-Magazine-Summer-ebook/dp/B0CH3XYY9X/
And Mystery Tribune published one of my favorites, "Footwork" a retro noir, San Francisco 1950, that I just love! Give it a read, it's online and free - https://mysterytribune.com/footwork-retro-noir-short-fiction-by-m-e-proctor/
Not a bad month....
After nearly four years of non-stop 'immersion' in writing, submitting, publishing.....in late summer, I came to a great pause. :) It was time to step back from my work, reflect, and just be. I am still on this hiatus of sorts, a well-deserved rest. However, I did have one joyful and hard-earned acceptance in September! My first haibun will be published in Haiku Canada Review next month. It will also be my debut in the journal, although I've been a member for several years....I just never seemed to have enough quality haiku to submit!
My haibun evolved over the past year. It started as a flash CNF, then at some point a haiku emerged (triggered by a nature memory, connected to the piece)....and finally editor Michel Montreuil of HCR made a few gentle edits, and took a chance on me. If any of you poets read HCR, please watch for "Winter Augury" in the next issue, and let me know what you think!
My story “Re-Feeding” is out in Unleash Lit, and my poem “Cold Cloth of Sentience” appears in Bulb Culture Collective. I found Unleash Lit through Submittable, Bulb Culture because its editor and I follow one another on Twitter. “Re-feeding” got a semi-tiered rejection from Narrative (“Overall, we really liked it, but it doesn’t fit the needs of our issue) which prompted me to keep going. “Cold Cloth of Sentience” was supposed to have been published in February, but the original journal folded before the issue came out.
My speculative poetry chapbook "A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness: Poems of a Fabled Universe" was just published with Red Ogre Review. Not only have they published my chapbook, but they have a series of speculative chapbooks they are rolling out this fall. I've enjoyed working with them on the edits and formatting of this collection. The cover art was created by one of Red Ogre Review's own artists, Janis Butler Holm!
A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness is a bilingual English-Spanish collection of Latinx Futurist poetry. Celebrate the dailiness of multilingual and divergent Latinx futures while seated around a campfire. The 26 poems and 6 translations in this speculative chapbook travel from the Solar System to Andromeda to envision coming of age rituals, companionship, and the responsibilities of work and daily life around distant stars.
This book is published by Red Ogre Review via a grant from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CJLLLTZN
My short story, Barbie Girls, was published in word west revue this September. It’s inspired by my childhood with my sister and has a nostalgic feel. I’m proud of it! https://www.wordwestrevue.co/items/barbie-girls
I wrote this poem last month and it appeared today in the journal Feral: https://feralpoetry.net/polvadera-creek-by-mf-drummy/. The team at Feral are looking for really cutting-edge stuff so I was thrilled when they accepted this poem. A friend suggested Feral and I checked it out and submitted. Couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. Hats to off to Beth and the rest of the editorial team at Feral.
I used to feel the same way as Shelby mentions earlier, but learned decades ago when I had a very young child that there's a big difference between bragging and sharing successes. Where did I learn this? From the fabulous and then audio-cassette-only series that included MR. BACH COMES TO CALL. I think of bragging as an "I'm better than you" tone; sharing with the world is what we want to do, and I think how we phrase it makes a huge difference.
This month, I'm pleased to have several new poems up at The Dirigible Balloon, a fabulous online "library" of children's poetry. A favorite one, "One Star, One Hill" is the third one in line on my DB "shelf":https://dirigibleballoon.org/writer/carolcoven-grannick
I will forgo a brag about my own successful submissions in favour of announcing the delight I've had this month in launching my own online litmag, Witcraft. https://witcraft.org/
Yes, I know, another litmag, just what the world needs. However, frustrated by the lack of outlets for true wit, humour and satire (not the snarky, frat house, sledgehammer type), I decided to launch my own. Early signs are good, with submissions arriving daily via email and Duotrope (reprints accepted, no fees, no pay at this stage) and 16 stories published already. So, please submit if you have stories that fit that brief and tell your funny friends there's hope at last. :-)
PS - I take back 90% of my moans about publishers and editors in the past. :-)
My flash story "The Unicorn in Captivity" came out in Astrolabe: https://www.astrolabe.ooo/sheffer-the-unicorn-in-captivity!
I learned about this newer mag in a post from Chill Subs about very beautiful online magazines, and it doesn't disappoint (I strongly recommend clicking around the main page, which is formatted like a night sky: www.astrolabe.ooo.
I had a great experience working with the editors, Joel and Jae. I heard back from them a month after submitting, and then the story was published about two months after that (June sub, July acceptance, Sept pub). By that point the story had been rejected from 11 other magazines, with a few personals, and I withdrew it from another spot upon acceptance. There was no editorial feedback, and I got paid very quickly! A great experience overall -- would recommend! They are still in a free submission period till Oct 22.
Also, Becky, it was nice to meet you at Barrelhouse's conference this last weekend!
School dances, puberty, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (4 versions) all make an appearance in this new essay, There Will Be No More Tears in Harpur Palate.
"Maybe you see where I’m going here. I'm trying to understand how the men of my generation became so fucked up. We’re fucked up partly because we could be—no one stopped us. We became who we thought we were supposed to be; geniuses were fucked up, artists were fucked up. Brilliant men were supposed to rage and demand. They did violence to the world in service to their vision; it was their job."
https://tinyurl.com/352en8ju
Hello all, is it really the end of another month again? I was in fairly intense proof edit phases for 2 pieces with 2 journals: an ekphrastic hybrid poem for "Exist Otherwise" & a shape prose poem for "Antithesis" journal. The latter is due out in October. "On the Fluidity of Gender in Flotsam" in Exist Otherwise was released mid-September. I wrote this as "an ekphrastic imagining" from the photo prompt - especially for this journal & am glad it was accepted. I revised the content (slightly) & the formatting (radically) between submission and final published version. Initially, it was a "block" prose poem (single paragraph).
The proof process was challenging - we had serious formatting issues. It took numerous email exchanges & finally a screenshot identified the glitch. Although the PDF journal replicates my font & lay-out, the online version shows a "code box format". I politely expressed disappointment in the lack of aesthetic. I note he's managed to change background colour from grey to white & modified the clunky HTML text to more readable font (thanx Eric). Readers can download the free PDF version.
This isn't a criticism about the editor, but I've never exerted so much effort to have formatting accurately reproduced, so this may discourage me from experimental formatting in future! (Says the writer whose next publication is a prose poem shaped like a "Cosmic Egg"). Display issues aside, I'm pleased with my poem. I think (hope?) it marks a slight shift in my writing style (perhaps spurred by more lit journal reading & reading the work of wonderful writers here). The formatting is intended to visually reflect flotsam "strewn" randomly on a beach, & the fragmentary nature of the narrator's experience of identity & memory. Comments here (or in the online journal) are immensely appreciated.
https://existotherwise.cc/on-the-fluidity-of-gender-in-flotsam/
The editor at FULL STOP has been most helpful in advising me on how to enlarge a review I'm writing on a non fiction work: a translation of Nors's A LINE IN THE WORLD. I expect the review to be published, and am delighted to be in a publication new to me. The editor made specific suggestions which were most helpful to me.
Later in the day, I'll enjoy reading other brags from you-all.
In another achievement of sorts, I've been asked to do more critiques at The Ocotillo Review. Working on critiques challenges me to be as observant as I can, and as kind as I can in making suggestions for improvements. It's an important learning process for me. As Poetry Editor for the review I am now on the other side of the fence, with regard to submissions. Oddly, this has made it harder to do my own submissions to magazines. (I'm more aware, I find my own work less worthy.)
Hank Jost, editor of A Common Well Journal, accepted my story "34 Starts for All the Rest of My Novels and Stories," though he trimmed the piece by five sections, so it's now "29 Starts for All the Rest of my Novels and Stories." It will appear in the November issue. Hank is a sensitive and generous editor. He rejected a group of poems I submitted earlier but made encouraging comments on each one. I'll submit more material to him.
I had a micro called "Cheap Talk" published in the dreamland anthology from fifth wheel press! It is currently free to read online and will be published in print later this year. It's a very short, nostalgic piece about those liminal summers in high school when you're first starting to get a sense of adulthood, but you're ultimately still a kid.
I had an idea a long time ago to do a poem series inventorying my tea collection, so to speak, where I'd do a piece about every one of my teas and the memories associated with each. But I couldn't really get any of them to work---might go back to it eventually. This piece was salvaged from the remains of the poem about apricot tea!
https://fifthwheelpress.com/anth4backend/ball1
Dear Friends,
I would like to thank Becky Tuch for helping me to find a home for my nonfiction prose essay "Sexual Harassment in the Synagogue: A Case Study and Recommendations," which was published by Tikkun in September online at https://www.tikkun.org/sexual-harassment-in-the-synagogue/ I had been sending this essay out for about six years, so I asked Becky whether she had any ideas for journals that I had not tried already. She suggested Tikkun. Great idea!!
I also published the poem “Pamela Brown Thomas” in Panoply #25 (September 8, 2023) online at https://panoplyzine.com/pamela-brown-thomas-by-janet-ruth-heller/ My poem concerns a real woman in the 1800s who helped the Underground Railroad in Schoolcraft, Michigan, and hid African Americans trying to escape slavery. This poem is a dramatic monologue from the perspective of Pamela Brown Thomas. The piece is based on Pamela's short autobiography. My husband and I had toured her small home in Schoolcraft, which still stands! She and her husband Nathan, who was a doctor, were very active in the Underground Railroad.
Best wishes to everyone!
Sincerely,
Janet Ruth Heller
My website is https://www.janetruthheller.com/
Two poems were published in The Marbled Sigh on September 14th. Here's a link:
https://themarbledsigh.com/2023/09/14/julie-allyn-johnson-cimarron-more/
I am happy to debut another Latin American author in English: This time, it's Mexican writer Teresa Icaza whose original story in Spanish and my version in English appear side-by-side in the new issue of Latin American Literature Today.
I have published in LALT before and it is always a joy to interact with Translation Editor Denise Kripper and the LALT staff. While it's not a paying venue, LALT always publishes work in a respectful and beautiful way, making this a terrific (and prestigious) venue to debut new authors in English.
You can read Teresa' beautiful story "The Aroma of Crunchiness" in my translation here: https://latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/2023/09/the-aroma-of-crunchiness/
This gorgeous collection of 12 stories is entitled "De regreso" (Homeward) and all the stories are about women who, in various ways and stages of life, come home to themselves. I am currently seeking a publisher for it.
I was published in Write or Die, the literary magazine arm of ChillSubs, earlier this month with an article on why even bother teaching creative writing anyways (or at least that's how I pitched it to them, not necessarily what they ended up naming it!)
https://www.chillsubs.com/writeordie/features/an-unexpected-journey-into-teaching-creative-writing
I had the idea bouncing around in my head since last November, when I wrote a first draft of it and thought I might pitch it to Brevity. I didn't do anything with it though, and when I was pitching a class to WoD, I figured what the hell and pitched this, too.
Thanks to Chris Devoe and all the editors, my story "The Knife" appears in The Whistle Pig Journal V 15, available at Amazon.com. Set in the desert near Boise, the plot reveals the trauma of a young woman as she helps her father homestead in the sagebrush desert. The piece was finished years ago and waiting for a publisher, so to have it come out in the nearby town of Mountain Home is like a georgraphic miracle. Whistle pigs are denizens of the desert where my character Winnie, patterned after my grandmother, lived. I had not submitted the story before although I wrote it years ago, because there are few publishers interested in a woman's experiences portrayed in "western" fiction. A second Winnie story can be read at at https://underwoodpress.com/truechili/2020/06/15/winnies-trial/
Dear poetintheOR, your story of persistence and success is enough to spur me on! I congratulate you for continuing to try for publication even though you say you initially thought the story might be unpublishable. This makes me think about the question of how the levels of confidence within us keep vacillating. One day we think "this piece is worthy" the next day we question our abilities. (I think what happens is, our abilities don't change that much from day to day, but our confidence in ourselves changes.) When I think I have no talent I try to remind myself that two publishers thought my chapbook and my collection were worthy of publication. From then on, it's up to me to do what I can in sharing my work.
Anyway, congratulations on your success at Cleaver Magazine!
Rockvale Review nominated a poem of mine they published for a Best of the Net award. And 4 journals with a total of 6 poems of mine came out in the last week.
(I am late to post this and the story was published in August, but I missed the email for last month's brag! It's ok if you choose not to put this up or take it down.)
My short story "Prayer" was published in SHOWCASE: OBJECT & IDEA. https://theshowcase.substack.com/p/showcase-july-2023.
I wrote this very fast, almost like a journal entry. I have a date of 2007 on an early draft, so I think that's when I started it. I let it sit for years and then worked on it over the last two for flash fiction. I sent it out 6 times, starting in 2021. I learned of this journal from WRITERS PUBLISH email. It was published as I sent it. They have a question/answer component to their site, which was interesting to do. They were easy to work with but I was informed of acceptance and it was published within a day or two. That was pretty fast, and I had to answer the questions as well.
My first published short story, "War Wounds,"is in the Reversals issue of The Fieldstone Review (published online on September 15, 2023), an annual virtual literary journal from the University of Saskatchewan. I'm proud of the story and very pleased with the appreciative, respectful and skillful editing it received from TFR's fiction editor for this issue, Josiah Nelson, and its editors-in-chief for this issue, Dawn Muenchrath and Walker Pityn. I'm also grateful for the excellent mentoring I received from Nance van Winckel when I wrote a series of early drafts of this story twenty years ago. I sent it out to one publication then and when it was rejected set it aside (I didn't yet know to keep going). This year, I resolved it was high time to dust it off with a modest edits and send it out again. I submitted to five lit mags, including The Fieldstone Review. I found TFR on a list of themed calls for submission and decided their theme fit my story very well. Also, I associate Canada with the Vietnam War era, because many American men fled there during the Viet Nam war to escape the draft. It was declined by three lit mags over a six-month period before acceptance. I submitted it to THR in February 2023 and it was accepted in July 2023. https://thefieldstonereview.ca/
I know I'm late to the party (poetry retreat in Taos - perfect time of the year for that). An excerpt from my memoir-in-progress came out in Persimmon Tree on September 15. https://persimmontree.org/fall-2023/apocalypse/
Peggy Wagner (lightly) edited the excerpt for clarity, including for having it be a standalone piece. I couldn't have asked for a better editor - quick, responsive, thoughtful, a great experience all around.
Thanks, Dave. Much appreciated. Please help spread the word.
Cheers
Doug
I had a poem titled "Art History" come out in Hearth & Coffin.
If found them on Chill Subs and appreciated their clean website.
They were great to work with.
https://www.hearthandcoffin.com/post/art-history?fbclid=IwAR3J7xoKabbKZzXzpG6-vDQSoSbLmPB-WwRVW73Nl4LCRlLQSwbb75BdfdE