Congratulations, Laura! I loved "We Were the Ambers," didn't see the reveal coming until it happened, and love the art by Patricia Shahrivar that NAR paired with your work. My piece "Why We Stole' is a few pages after your piece, so I'm also happy to share space with you in this wonderful issue.
Thank you, Jason, and congratulations to you, too! I admire your efforts to understand your father's experiences and actions, and your piece is so tense and intricately constructed!
I love North American Review. The design is absolutely gorgeous and the stories are really awesome. Many times I get a lit mag, begin to read, get bored, put it down. But with every copy of North American Review, you see the parks on the pages, maybe even grease stains or sauce, and every story has been read, savored, cherished, and admired.
For some reason I've never subscribed to North American Review even though I know and understand and believe it's a very prestigious journal. I'll have to correct my oversight. Congratulations, Laura.
Thank you, Susan! I was just talking about our workshop a couple of years back; Mauricio and I presented together last weekend at the American Literary Translators Association conference.
Ekphrastic Review Challenge: “Sacred Hoop” and “Interior Design”
Accepted this month:
Vita Poetica, “In the Shtetl, G-d Does Not Only”
First time my work has been featured in these lit mags except for Last Leaves and the ekphrasis ones. No revisions made except for the last two lines in the “Mother” poem.
Rejections keep pouring in. YTD stats: 231 subs made, mostly poetry with upwards of 30 percent acceptance.
I love Ekphrasic Review and just submitted to them for the first time. Your poem fits the evocative painting so well. I imagined the squeaking clothes lines. Congratulations.
The acceptance rate is high because of The Ekphrastic Review biweekly challenges. I'm in medical lockdown with a rare incurable disease and writing to art just makes me feel better.
Sorry to hear of your medical condition, but glad that your writing, and particularly your ability to produce such worthwhile work, brings you comfort.
Two lovely poems in the Ekphrastic Review, Barbara. I was especially touched by the ending of My Grandfather’s Arrival: so poignant, his feeling that he should choose a new name, as so many people did. I’m sorry to hear about your health, and am so glad that you are writing.
We have trouble attracting submissions from CNF writers - we prefer to have a mix of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction in our magazine - and would love to hear how to find writers like you. Any advice?
Well, I've been posting on FB that I've barely submitted anything all year. But a poem I managed to send out in August just won a first prize in Alaska, and I was a Poetry Super Highway finalist a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure the percentage of rejections will catch up to normal when I really start back up.
I'm so excited that my short story, "Feet," has just been published online at Marrow Magazine. They also publish a physical edition. https://marrowmagazine.com/feet/
I submitted this story 7 times over 7 years with reworking it each time it was rejected. I think it has found the place it was meant to be.
The conversation at your daughters Halloween party made me smile, had me nodding in agreement - and wonder! - and joy! - and nearly in tears myself. Thank you for that!
My haibun poem, an absence of sunlight scattering, was published by Sunlight Press, A Literary Journal for New and Established Voices. It was inspired by a real-life conversation, and I hope you will enjoy it!
Here’s a poem I wrote last spring, published in the midst of this glorious autumn weather we’re having! It appears in DarkWinter Lit, an independent press from Ontario, Canada. One caveat, however, is that it was not formatted as submitted which did disappoint me. The poem is daffodils and I hope you’ll like it.
I really enjoyed your haibun, Julie, with its sense of wonder that needs no explanation. It reminded me of Walt Whitman’s line: “a mouse is miracle enough…” And I love the bold sassiness of your daffodils; it feels just right. Congratulations on both publications!
I was just introduced to the concept of the haibun by rattle and felt very confused. I clicked into yours to see what it looks like and it was very helpful. I enjoyed it a lot.
Your "An Absence of Sunlight Scattering" explains perfectly well, for me, that feeling of awe and wonder that although not scientifically understood nevertheless fills us with wonderment and reverence. I don't feel so dumb now.
I’m thrilled to have a flash ghost story, “Forever Red,” in Club Plum’s ‘Literary Horror’ issue. Another ghost story is due to be published next week, in Emerge Literary Journal, so I’ll have to brag that one in November. Here is the link to “Forever Red”:
Hi Donna, what a marvelous piece. And so perfect for this Halloween edition of Club Journal. Fairy tales always made me wary… and this piece is no exception. You are a word and image master. Congrats!
Ps… my story, “The Chair,”appears in the same issue.
Thank you so much, Nancy, for your lovely words about my story. I have been shamefully slow in reading Club Plum’s entire issue, but I have now read "The Chair" and liked it so much. It is vivid, real, and poignant. I could see every season, every room, every movement and step of the characters. I was with the story every word of the way. And it leaves us with questions. Wonderful!
Beautifully-written, Donna. Loved this line in particular (but there were several to choose from): Maybe something beautiful would grow from it, in time. Things did, in stories.
Donna, what a marvelous magician you are, from the perfect title to the ending with ravenous love. Whip-smart and ancestral, as I always enjoy from you. Congratulations!
I'm still here pinching myself but somebody thought there's a (short) film and here we are.
October has been good. I'll be back piling up the rejections in no time but thanks for this little space to celebrate. New-ish reader Becky, and reading your posts is always a pleasure. Congrats on your publication, and to everybody else too.
It was surreal! I had the chance to be on set, and hearing these actors speak lines I wrote all those years ago...
Also, Brent Kinetz - the screenwriter and director - was keen on ensuring the tone and message of the story remained, and what followed was a fruitful six-months long collaboration. Never thought two people with such different narrative styles could work together, but I was pleasantly proven wrong.
But regardless of all that, I'm so grateful that him and the crew and cast spent hundreds of hours working with this story. That's the most satisfying thing. :)
Two very fine flash pieces approaching dance in two ways. The first one reminiscent of the continuing loss of women's rights and the second one pure joy. Thanks for sharing.
This month, the 20th anniversary of the bilingual magazine, La Revista Hostosiana/The Hostos Review will be launched and it contains five of my translations, among them some of the most difficult I have ever written, works by Camila Henríquez Ureña (República Dominicana), Omar Chauvié (Argentina), Oswald de Andrade (Brazil), Aurora Levins Morales (Puerto Rico), and Gustavo Guerrero (Venezuela). Translating the work of these masters is an enormous responsiblity, especially given the short turnaround time the lit mag gave me. What's more, this important Hispanic American journal based at Hostos Community College (part of the City College of New York system) is a historical document and my translations will become "the" translations of these important texts. I am proud of the work I did with my editor, Inmaculada Lara Bonilla. Please join us at the launch, October 30 at 3:30 pm EST:
Querido Luis, thank you so much for this comment. You are 1000% right! That is part of what inspires me as a literary translator. The other part is the brilliant literature being created in "Lamérica". Incidentally, my friend, Persian translator Frieda Afary, and I have just submitted an essay to LitHub entitled "Translators on the Danger of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric" that speaks to this very point. The U.S.A. is the most monolingual country in the world, despite our clamoring about diversity; and we also have the lowest rate of literarature in translation in the world. The stories we tell matter! PS: let's keep in touch.
I really like Does It Have Pockets? They are not afraid of creative formats and approaches to fiction. My story, "Crapshooter," was published there last month.
Wow! I love dis and/or-dain - it's great work. Gynecologist's minister - yes! What a way you have of showing us the whole world here, a culture steeped in poison and no where to turn as we pray to and praise it. Thank you!
Much of my life has been serendipity-- other than deciding to go to college and getting married 44 years ago, most things I've 'fallen into': careers, travel, and in my 8th decade, becoming a published writer 6 years ago when my poem won a place in free contest in a print anthology which led me to submitting my work broadly [always though refusing to pay those damn fees!]. Some 220 lit mags later, one of the most gratifying and unexpected things has been the international aspect--18 countries on 4 continents, with South Korea being the most recent. In my 20s I taught ESL overseas in Japan, Taiwan, and Cambodia [then a war zone in 1973-74] and so know how widely studied is English, but still, I'm amazed! [And glad I chose a pen name easy to pronounce for those for whom English is a second language.]
BIG CONGRATS to Becky and to all the other writers with acceptances and publications this month! I can't share precise details right now, but I can say that 12 poems of mine--composed between 1-30 years ago (yes, you read that correctly)--have been accepted for an author feature to appear in Summer, 2025. 9 of the 12 poems were consistently rejected for over 2 decades. The lesson I've learned from this situation is that: 1) first words are rarely best words; 2) never underestimate the craft validity of your work if you have been daring enough to genuinely revise to find the most organic shape of the work; and 3) never underestimate the ability of a particularly astute editor to recognize the craft validity of your work--even if it takes 30 years.
I had a story that was going to come out on October 15 in a literary publication. I worked with the Editor for a month, but when the editor sent me what would be the final version, it still had the markings from MS Word Review. I had approved some and there were things I had not approved in red. So I went back and re-read everything and came across a glaring error. Two of my characters go visit her brother in a political prison. He had been charged with treason and sent there. So I went back to her early edits and the editor combined two sentences together. It sounded good at the time for grammatical reasons, but now having the chance to read it fresh, that sentence now read that he had been charged for treason at the jail. I explained that we needed to go back to the original version and the editor kept sending me the same version. I had to explain that yes, this is fiction. But the story would lose validity and truthfulness if I combined the two. That is like saying that here in the US you were charged at the jail, not in front of a judge in a court of law.
I would not budge on that one. So there was silence. Their gorgeous issue went life, but my story was not in it. Eventually we had several back and forth and the editor fixed the issue. And the story will come out in November 15. And just as I finished with this editor, Sequestrum accepted one of my stories.
This raises a question about editors. I know that they want to make the material understandable to a primarily American audience, but sometimes they get lost and want to delete, transform, or modify without grasping the elements that are relevant to other cultures. This has happened to me several times. In one of my stories, the editor wanted to delete a passage where my protagonist knock on all the walls of the house she arrived here in the states, wondering why they were made of paper. The editor didn't see the relevance of that. To my character, a refugee, who had always lived in "safe" houses made of brick or concrete block, sheetrock felt like cardboard. Cardboard means shanties, danger and poverty, which equates with anxiety and fear. In another story, the editor wanted to remove the sound of chirping frogs that came over the phone line, because they would be outside and the character was inside. I had to explain that houses in Latin America are not sealed like houses in the United States. They are open, and that sound was important because if you grew up in that city you would be hit with a detail and authenticity intrinsic to that city. While these incidents are stressful and sometimes conflictive, I actually admire these editors for taking a chance in trying to understand other cultures, other narratives that many times are completely foreign to the American psyche. Cultures that very often are reduced stereotypes of barbarism so "they are eating their dogs, they are eating your cats, in the communities that you live. "
So thank you editors for being the bridge between the two.
Yes, I think editors, like the rest of us, sometimes assume, they are on target. I'm glad you stuck with it and didn't let your stories become diminished.
Thank you! If you happen to want to submit to us, we promise never to look at your work through an American lens 😀. (And: we're open until October 31!)
I love this post, Becky. Inspiring plus good information. And I look forward to reading your story. I, too, have a long one that's been out there rejected many times, but I love it and believe in it. I might have to give Erik Harper Klass a try. This month I get to brag about being a guest columnist for your Substack--Lessons From the Storm! Thanks again for the opportunity. I also want to give myself a shoutout for a story that was published in September; I missed the brag: https://brightflash1000.com/2024/09/05/the-green-monster/
Thrilled that my short story "We Were the Ambers" appears in the current issue of North American Review (print only: https://northamericanreview.org/issue/3093-fall-2024)!
Congratulations, Laura! I loved "We Were the Ambers," didn't see the reveal coming until it happened, and love the art by Patricia Shahrivar that NAR paired with your work. My piece "Why We Stole' is a few pages after your piece, so I'm also happy to share space with you in this wonderful issue.
Congratulations, Jason. And what are the odds that you and Laura meet up here. I love the lit community.
Thank you, Jason, and congratulations to you, too! I admire your efforts to understand your father's experiences and actions, and your piece is so tense and intricately constructed!
Wow! It is very hard to get work accepted by the North American Review! Congratulations!
Janet
Such a venerable place to publish. Mind-blowing to join that roster, right? Congratulations!
I love North American Review. The design is absolutely gorgeous and the stories are really awesome. Many times I get a lit mag, begin to read, get bored, put it down. But with every copy of North American Review, you see the parks on the pages, maybe even grease stains or sauce, and every story has been read, savored, cherished, and admired.
For some reason I've never subscribed to North American Review even though I know and understand and believe it's a very prestigious journal. I'll have to correct my oversight. Congratulations, Laura.
Congratulations!
Congrats, big time!
Wow, kudos!
Congratulations Laura! I’ll get a copy!
Thank you, Susan! I was just talking about our workshop a couple of years back; Mauricio and I presented together last weekend at the American Literary Translators Association conference.
Appearing this month:
Caesura, “Night Shade”
Last Leaves Magazine, “The Cat”
ONE ART, My Mother Could Write Lines for Fortune Cookies.”
https://oneartpoetry.com/2024/10/19/my-mother-could-write-lines-for-fortune-cookies-by-barbara-krasner/
The Ekphrastic Review, “We, the Immigrants” and “My Grandfather's Arrival, 1899”
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/two-after-george-bellows-by-barbara-krasner
Ekphrastic Review Challenge: “Sacred Hoop” and “Interior Design”
Accepted this month:
Vita Poetica, “In the Shtetl, G-d Does Not Only”
First time my work has been featured in these lit mags except for Last Leaves and the ekphrasis ones. No revisions made except for the last two lines in the “Mother” poem.
Rejections keep pouring in. YTD stats: 231 subs made, mostly poetry with upwards of 30 percent acceptance.
I love Ekphrasic Review and just submitted to them for the first time. Your poem fits the evocative painting so well. I imagined the squeaking clothes lines. Congratulations.
I especially like "We, the Immigrants." I love paintings by the Ashcan School artists. I think your poem evokes the painting perfectly.
My favorite line: The streets
vibrate with clanging pans and Yiddish.
Awesome. You're a very busy person! Congrats on the 30% acceptance. Wow. Impressive.
The acceptance rate is high because of The Ekphrastic Review biweekly challenges. I'm in medical lockdown with a rare incurable disease and writing to art just makes me feel better.
Sorry to hear of your medical condition, but glad that your writing, and particularly your ability to produce such worthwhile work, brings you comfort.
I'm sorry to hear about your health issue, but glad that writing makes you feel better.
Dear Barbara,
Very sad to hear about your health. Sending support and warm regards. Keep writing!
Marianne
More congrats to you. You are so prolific. I can only aspire!
Love the fortune cookie poem, very poignant!
I really enjoyed your 'fortune cookie' poem. Congratulations on all your October wins!
Two lovely poems in the Ekphrastic Review, Barbara. I was especially touched by the ending of My Grandfather’s Arrival: so poignant, his feeling that he should choose a new name, as so many people did. I’m sorry to hear about your health, and am so glad that you are writing.
Congrats! I especially enjoyed the fortune cookies poem.
I had a CNF piece published this month in The Bookends Review: https://thebookendsreview.com/2024/10/09/of-mice-and-mom/
Thank you for sharing this, Kate! I loved its flow. Through the SubmitIt service, I've just had a CNF piece accepted by The Bookends Review, too.
Congrats Barbara!
ditto!
We have trouble attracting submissions from CNF writers - we prefer to have a mix of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction in our magazine - and would love to hear how to find writers like you. Any advice?
What's the magazine? I'd be happy to send you some CNF pieces.
The Apostrophe - hkwcmagazine.substack.com. Submissions for this issue are closing tomorrow!
Well done!
Thanks for sharing! Nice story!
I love Bookends, nice piece
Well, I've been posting on FB that I've barely submitted anything all year. But a poem I managed to send out in August just won a first prize in Alaska, and I was a Poetry Super Highway finalist a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure the percentage of rejections will catch up to normal when I really start back up.
(Plus I had my first reading for my first chapbook!)
If you have anything else to submit, we're still open until the end of the month!
I'm so excited that my short story, "Feet," has just been published online at Marrow Magazine. They also publish a physical edition. https://marrowmagazine.com/feet/
I submitted this story 7 times over 7 years with reworking it each time it was rejected. I think it has found the place it was meant to be.
Fascinating, chilling story! Congratulations!
Thanks so much for reading my story!
Oh that was wonderful, thanks for sharing. The tension built throughout and the ending! I'm left with questions, but not in a bad way.
Also: applaud the persistence. Another reminder to us, I suppose, that a rejection only means better homes await our stories.
Thanks so much for your kind words. I really appreciate you reading “Feet.”
The conversation at your daughters Halloween party made me smile, had me nodding in agreement - and wonder! - and joy! - and nearly in tears myself. Thank you for that!
My haibun poem, an absence of sunlight scattering, was published by Sunlight Press, A Literary Journal for New and Established Voices. It was inspired by a real-life conversation, and I hope you will enjoy it!
https://www.thesunlightpress.com/2024/10/08/an-absence-of-sunlight-scattering/
Here’s a poem I wrote last spring, published in the midst of this glorious autumn weather we’re having! It appears in DarkWinter Lit, an independent press from Ontario, Canada. One caveat, however, is that it was not formatted as submitted which did disappoint me. The poem is daffodils and I hope you’ll like it.
https://www.darkwinterlit.com/post/daffodils-by-julie-allyn-johnson
I really enjoyed your haibun, Julie, with its sense of wonder that needs no explanation. It reminded me of Walt Whitman’s line: “a mouse is miracle enough…” And I love the bold sassiness of your daffodils; it feels just right. Congratulations on both publications!
Such kind words on both accounts. THANK YOU!!
Julie
I was just introduced to the concept of the haibun by rattle and felt very confused. I clicked into yours to see what it looks like and it was very helpful. I enjoyed it a lot.
It's a nifty little form. Glad to oblige!! THANK YOU for your comment. I'm so pleased you liked it!
Your "An Absence of Sunlight Scattering" explains perfectly well, for me, that feeling of awe and wonder that although not scientifically understood nevertheless fills us with wonderment and reverence. I don't feel so dumb now.
Julie, your haibun is lovely--maintaining the awe, whether articulation presents or eludes. Congratulations!
Thank you, Lisa!! The haibun is an interesting form and I had fun writing this. So glad you liked it. Thanks again!!
Julie
I’m thrilled to have a flash ghost story, “Forever Red,” in Club Plum’s ‘Literary Horror’ issue. Another ghost story is due to be published next week, in Emerge Literary Journal, so I’ll have to brag that one in November. Here is the link to “Forever Red”:
https://clubplumliteraryjournal.com/donna-shanley/
Hi Donna, what a marvelous piece. And so perfect for this Halloween edition of Club Journal. Fairy tales always made me wary… and this piece is no exception. You are a word and image master. Congrats!
Ps… my story, “The Chair,”appears in the same issue.
Nancy McAtavey
Thank you so much, Nancy, for your lovely words about my story. I have been shamefully slow in reading Club Plum’s entire issue, but I have now read "The Chair" and liked it so much. It is vivid, real, and poignant. I could see every season, every room, every movement and step of the characters. I was with the story every word of the way. And it leaves us with questions. Wonderful!
Beautifully-written, Donna. Loved this line in particular (but there were several to choose from): Maybe something beautiful would grow from it, in time. Things did, in stories.
Thank you for taking the time to read the story, Liz, and for this kind comment!
Donna, what a marvelous magician you are, from the perfect title to the ending with ravenous love. Whip-smart and ancestral, as I always enjoy from you. Congratulations!
Thank you so much for reading, Lisa, and for the lovely comment!
A great read. Thanks for sharing!! I very much enjoyed this. Congratulations!!
Julie
Thank you so much, Julie!
First ever poem publication this month, yay. The gorgeous and quirky Roi Faineant press published my sarcastic ode. https://www.roifaineantpress.com/post/the-orb-of-freedom-by-h-talichi
(I'm still looking to find a home for my very serious, very not sarcastic poetry but I'll take this.)
Also had an accept for my satirical sci-fi short story "Dopamine" from Freedom Fiction Journal. Coming out in three weeks.
Also, also had a private screening of a short film based on a short story I wrote called "Context" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33293254/?ref_=ext_shr
I'm still here pinching myself but somebody thought there's a (short) film and here we are.
October has been good. I'll be back piling up the rejections in no time but thanks for this little space to celebrate. New-ish reader Becky, and reading your posts is always a pleasure. Congrats on your publication, and to everybody else too.
My favorite line:
My sweat is but vital water
Thy gift to feed bacteria.
Thank you for reading!
My goodness, that's great to have a film made based on your short story. You must be over the moon happy.
It was surreal! I had the chance to be on set, and hearing these actors speak lines I wrote all those years ago...
Also, Brent Kinetz - the screenwriter and director - was keen on ensuring the tone and message of the story remained, and what followed was a fruitful six-months long collaboration. Never thought two people with such different narrative styles could work together, but I was pleasantly proven wrong.
But regardless of all that, I'm so grateful that him and the crew and cast spent hundreds of hours working with this story. That's the most satisfying thing. :)
Here's two short flashes by me that came out in October in Unlikely Stories Mark V:
https://www.unlikelystories.org/content/dance-of-women-and-the-wonderful-kandinsky
Two very fine flash pieces approaching dance in two ways. The first one reminiscent of the continuing loss of women's rights and the second one pure joy. Thanks for sharing.
And thanks so much for reading and for your comments, Ann!
Thanks for your dance pieces. Do you know "Airmail Dances" by the late Remy Charlip?
I hadn't, but I just looked at the site. Very interesting! Thanks!
This month, the 20th anniversary of the bilingual magazine, La Revista Hostosiana/The Hostos Review will be launched and it contains five of my translations, among them some of the most difficult I have ever written, works by Camila Henríquez Ureña (República Dominicana), Omar Chauvié (Argentina), Oswald de Andrade (Brazil), Aurora Levins Morales (Puerto Rico), and Gustavo Guerrero (Venezuela). Translating the work of these masters is an enormous responsiblity, especially given the short turnaround time the lit mag gave me. What's more, this important Hispanic American journal based at Hostos Community College (part of the City College of New York system) is a historical document and my translations will become "the" translations of these important texts. I am proud of the work I did with my editor, Inmaculada Lara Bonilla. Please join us at the launch, October 30 at 3:30 pm EST:
LAWI - Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana
https://hostos-cuny-edu.zoom.us/j/89240725084...
Meeting ID: 892 4072 5084
Passcode: 181724
This is awesome. Latino stories, are one of the most underrepresented groups in the media. So everything that breaks the stereotypes is awesome.
Querido Luis, thank you so much for this comment. You are 1000% right! That is part of what inspires me as a literary translator. The other part is the brilliant literature being created in "Lamérica". Incidentally, my friend, Persian translator Frieda Afary, and I have just submitted an essay to LitHub entitled "Translators on the Danger of Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric" that speaks to this very point. The U.S.A. is the most monolingual country in the world, despite our clamoring about diversity; and we also have the lowest rate of literarature in translation in the world. The stories we tell matter! PS: let's keep in touch.
ICYMI
http://deepvellum.com
I hope your essay is accepted.
Thank you, Ann. However, I don't think Deep Vellum has a magazine, does it? It's a publisher and bookstore, as far as I know.
They don't have a magazine but they publish translated works.
My new story is out in Does it Have Pockets.
https://www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/michael-costaris
OMG, Mike. This is an amazing, awful, wonderful story. So well done.
Wow!! Thank you!!
I really like Does It Have Pockets? They are not afraid of creative formats and approaches to fiction. My story, "Crapshooter," was published there last month.
I'll check it out!
I had a quiet October, but this poem I'd been trying to write for a long time was completed and found a home with Chariot Press: https://chariotpressjournal.com/2024/10/perspective/
And this one was nominated for Best of the Net by Cathexis Northwest Press. You have to scroll a lot to read it, so I copied it below.
https://www.cathexisnorthwestpress.com/awards?fbclid=IwY2xjawGJ0Q1leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHaRvFSz7t5Hkfn15iljUxgW-FBxN8iE7XzZe5QTSHLnM9MaVkjrLH_IVNw_aem_XxV6NLwVk6-mgc3pT5oHpw
ANIMUS
In the dream I am handcuffed, pulled into a closet
by a man, obsessed, who gropes my breasts
as I shudder, security bursts in to arrest
me, attractive nuisance, wish-ful-filled.
It doesn’t take a team of clinicians to screw
in that particular illumination. To paraphrase
a patriarch: every psychiatrist’s a gynecologist’s
minister, (and so on); it takes a narcissist to know one;
a persecutor (each a former victim) to recognize
their kin; every victim, scratched, reveals
the predator within.
The reigning pop queen’s plane imprints
like Big Foot. Her defenders and detractors brawl
like Congress as we collectively collect/project/ protect
what icons—our due—we dis and/or-dain.
I have four poems accepted to come out in November.
Congratulations! Such truth: " a persecutor (each a former victim)"
Wow! I love dis and/or-dain - it's great work. Gynecologist's minister - yes! What a way you have of showing us the whole world here, a culture steeped in poison and no where to turn as we pray to and praise it. Thank you!
Thank you! My fav poems to write are dream + something in the news or pop culture + lingering personal preoccupations... all connected by wordplay.
Thank you for sharing this! it works!
Much of my life has been serendipity-- other than deciding to go to college and getting married 44 years ago, most things I've 'fallen into': careers, travel, and in my 8th decade, becoming a published writer 6 years ago when my poem won a place in free contest in a print anthology which led me to submitting my work broadly [always though refusing to pay those damn fees!]. Some 220 lit mags later, one of the most gratifying and unexpected things has been the international aspect--18 countries on 4 continents, with South Korea being the most recent. In my 20s I taught ESL overseas in Japan, Taiwan, and Cambodia [then a war zone in 1973-74] and so know how widely studied is English, but still, I'm amazed! [And glad I chose a pen name easy to pronounce for those for whom English is a second language.]
BIG CONGRATS to Becky and to all the other writers with acceptances and publications this month! I can't share precise details right now, but I can say that 12 poems of mine--composed between 1-30 years ago (yes, you read that correctly)--have been accepted for an author feature to appear in Summer, 2025. 9 of the 12 poems were consistently rejected for over 2 decades. The lesson I've learned from this situation is that: 1) first words are rarely best words; 2) never underestimate the craft validity of your work if you have been daring enough to genuinely revise to find the most organic shape of the work; and 3) never underestimate the ability of a particularly astute editor to recognize the craft validity of your work--even if it takes 30 years.
I had a story that was going to come out on October 15 in a literary publication. I worked with the Editor for a month, but when the editor sent me what would be the final version, it still had the markings from MS Word Review. I had approved some and there were things I had not approved in red. So I went back and re-read everything and came across a glaring error. Two of my characters go visit her brother in a political prison. He had been charged with treason and sent there. So I went back to her early edits and the editor combined two sentences together. It sounded good at the time for grammatical reasons, but now having the chance to read it fresh, that sentence now read that he had been charged for treason at the jail. I explained that we needed to go back to the original version and the editor kept sending me the same version. I had to explain that yes, this is fiction. But the story would lose validity and truthfulness if I combined the two. That is like saying that here in the US you were charged at the jail, not in front of a judge in a court of law.
I would not budge on that one. So there was silence. Their gorgeous issue went life, but my story was not in it. Eventually we had several back and forth and the editor fixed the issue. And the story will come out in November 15. And just as I finished with this editor, Sequestrum accepted one of my stories.
This raises a question about editors. I know that they want to make the material understandable to a primarily American audience, but sometimes they get lost and want to delete, transform, or modify without grasping the elements that are relevant to other cultures. This has happened to me several times. In one of my stories, the editor wanted to delete a passage where my protagonist knock on all the walls of the house she arrived here in the states, wondering why they were made of paper. The editor didn't see the relevance of that. To my character, a refugee, who had always lived in "safe" houses made of brick or concrete block, sheetrock felt like cardboard. Cardboard means shanties, danger and poverty, which equates with anxiety and fear. In another story, the editor wanted to remove the sound of chirping frogs that came over the phone line, because they would be outside and the character was inside. I had to explain that houses in Latin America are not sealed like houses in the United States. They are open, and that sound was important because if you grew up in that city you would be hit with a detail and authenticity intrinsic to that city. While these incidents are stressful and sometimes conflictive, I actually admire these editors for taking a chance in trying to understand other cultures, other narratives that many times are completely foreign to the American psyche. Cultures that very often are reduced stereotypes of barbarism so "they are eating their dogs, they are eating your cats, in the communities that you live. "
So thank you editors for being the bridge between the two.
Yes, I think editors, like the rest of us, sometimes assume, they are on target. I'm glad you stuck with it and didn't let your stories become diminished.
Thank you! If you happen to want to submit to us, we promise never to look at your work through an American lens 😀. (And: we're open until October 31!)
I love those foreign details you describe that to me would certainly make the piece powerful and can understand why you fought for them. Good for you.
I love this post, Becky. Inspiring plus good information. And I look forward to reading your story. I, too, have a long one that's been out there rejected many times, but I love it and believe in it. I might have to give Erik Harper Klass a try. This month I get to brag about being a guest columnist for your Substack--Lessons From the Storm! Thanks again for the opportunity. I also want to give myself a shoutout for a story that was published in September; I missed the brag: https://brightflash1000.com/2024/09/05/the-green-monster/
I loved your guest column, Polly.
Thank you!
Great guest essay, Polly!