Tag Archives: submitting your work

Make Friday Write

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I seem to be having one of those days where the day is going ZOOM. In any case I have really enjoyed blogging this week so I wanted to make sure to poke my head in first thing and get my favorite blog of the week posted.

I do have a few items to share before my poem of the week. The first is an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education yet I think it has something to say to anyone who lives their life with a curious nature, which is most writers I know.

I also want to give a shout out to my poet-artist friend Amy Bagwell as she has this great new website that shows how she puts poems and art together. You’ll love this!

And from just the other day a reader of this blog reminded me of the resource The Review Review if you are looking for literary magazines to read and submit to.

My poem for this week was actually typed on my phone while I was waiting before one of the various meetings I had this week. This is the original version I think. I haven’t had any time to work on revising. This poem started from a title prompt I had for myself for my painter poem chapbook project but it morphed away from the title so I’ll hold that prompt to myself – for now – and work on it again later.

–off for revision!

Please share, in comments, anything you have been working on and I’ll take down any works in progress next week. You can also post links if you are posting on your blog.

Besides a busy week at the computer writing and revising (and let’s face it procrastinating by doing things like “research” on other projects) I also found some time to submit work this week.

Next week I’ll spend most of four days at a local conference sponsored by the UNCC branch of the National Writing Project.I plan to attend the conference digitally so I’m hoping to be able to blog, tweet, facebook etc while at the conference. I won’t take any paper with me! I’ll have to report in how that goes :)

Literary Magazines

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As you guys know I’ve done quite a few presentations/blog posts etc recently about starting to submit your work. One of the places most writers start is with literary magazines, especially the poets. These are, of course, in print and online. I’ve mentioned quite a few of the online ones I’ve read (like the issue of decomP I’m reading right now), but I also mention some of the print magazines I read and subscribe to. When a participant (or responder) can’t tell me even one magazine they read then I know they are going to have problems joining the literary conversation.

Over the weekend I finished two literary magazines (back issues) that I was not as familiar with so I thought I’d do some mini-reviews here and discuss what, perhaps, we can do to get ourselves more exposed to other magazines out there. First up I finished an older issue of Passages North. I absolutely loved the prose in the issue I read, but I wasn’t as in love with the poetry although I did enjoy the work by Emma Bolden whom I’ve known virtually for a few years now. So, I realized that I enjoyed the literary magazine but it wouldn’t be one I’d submit to in the end.

On the other hand, the back issue of Mid-American Review was right up my alley. This would be a hard one to get into as they publish some really great names (including one of my MFA mentors in the issue I read – Allan Michael Parker), but I am going to add it to my list of places to send my work to later this year. I also found some poets I’d really like to read more work from like Traci Brimhall and Valerie Bundara.

So, I thought it might be fun for anyone who wants to to participate in a literary magazine exchange. I tend to only keep one issue of a literary magazine before I pass off the other copies so I don’t have a lot in the house right now but I did just receive a new issue of Smartish Pace thus I’m willing to part with an older issue.

Why doesn’t everyone post a print literary magazine that they’d like to trade and then once we have the list we can see what everyone might want? I’ll leave this up for a week for discussion. We can also share names of online journals you hope everyone is reading. So share!

Make Friday Write

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Howdy my Friday friends! Have you been writing? Did you send any of your work out? Try any reviews? Here’s some recapping for me:

  • Recently a “back story” blog I wrote for Rose & Thorn Journal appeared. Love this idea of giving the story behind the poem they previously published.
  • I did submit my first set of poems for the year!
  • My once (and future?) publisher Sibling Rivalry has several shout outs in the terrific Tuck Magazine. Ya’ll remember Val B Russell who used to stop by here? That’s her baby! The shout outs included a review of Fat Girl.
  • I managed to draft one poem – which is below. Not sure why I am being so provocative lately?
  • Also finished the print issue of UCity Review’s summer issue. I had two poems in the issue but big shout out to Jim Valvis who was a featured poet for the issue. I especially liked his poems “The Grindstone” and “The Golden Age.”
  • Andrea Beltran (who sometimes stops by here as well!) wrote a short review for Goodreads after picking up the eVersion of The Wait of Atom.
  • If you haven’t been reading Hippocampus Magazine, you should! Hippo . . . is an online non-fiction publication with terrific stuff.
  • And last in this list is a poem I read in Poetry Daily.
  • Otherwise – gearing up for the start of the semester on Monday. Hoping I have more time to write, submit my work, and promote my work this semester!

Here is my poem for the week.

–and that poem is down so I can revise it :)  

As always, I want to hear what you guys have been doing and I’m always open to comments on what I post here. All poems posted (my own and those in comments) will be taken down one week from today.

Happy poeming!

Make Friday Write

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I feel like I should do some grand recap of the year, but I don’t really feel that drive to do so.  Instead I just have a few things to mention in my final Friday post of the year.

One thing that you’ll notice I am working on at the end of the year is creating an archive for Referential (complete!) and moving over any long lists of things like 2011 Appearances etc to their own posts. I’m leaving non-fiction, fiction and photography just under their headings because I don’t have enough that warrant starting a new heading. Or I don’t think they do. I also left the Self-published heading up by itself, but since I publish the most in poetry, that needs a new page.

Just a few additional notations for today. I was thrilled to be mentioned not once, but twice! on Karen Weyant’s blog. I’m looking forward to picking up her award winning chapbook in 2012. She mentions me in a best of list (wow!) for 2011 and in a list of books coming out in 2012.

The second item I want to mention is also shown in the included picture. Many of you know that my husband gave me a Kindle Fire for Christmas. I have a whole other post I want to do later on about using it, but I wanted to share Folded Word’s appeal, and terrific offer, of 99 cent chapbooks for e-readers! You don’t even have to have an e-reader but I want to show you how good an excerpt from The Wait of Atom looks on the e-reader.  So why not finish off the year with some 99 cent chapbooks? There are also fiction ones.

Now, for a poem to share. I didn’t have much to work with as I haven’t written a great deal lately, but little ideas are coming to me in bursts. I also have several essay ideas. Guess that Pushcart Nomination got the juices going again for essay writing. On the fiction front? Nada. Unless you want to count all the poems I fictionalize . . . Like the one below? Do you think it is?

–and the poem is gone!

Look forward to seeing what you guys might have to show as you finish out 2011. Comments welcome on my work and on anything you post. As always I will take down any pieces of writing posted in comments (including my own poem above) one week from today.

Here’s to 2012!

What the Friday!

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Yay, Friday! This is my last weekday before I have to report to campus. Monday we have meetings and such starting and then classes start the next Monday. I imagine I’ll be running around a bit like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. Although, I don’t want that to be anymore literal because I kind of like my head :)

As an example of why I am happy to be transitioning into full time academic work (although, like any work it has its issues) I am going to self-publish another essay that I’m calling On a Boat. Oh that old office job. Oy! This also only leaves me with two pending essays to self-pub since I’m not sending them around anymore.

I did, however, send poems out this week! And, I wrote a few more. Feels good to be “back in the saddle.”

After my weekend in the mountains, this week was  lot of catch up for all areas of my life, but I feel like I’m in a pretty good place today that might even allow me to go out for lunch in the possible rain. Oh PLEASE rain – so sayeth my very brown front yard.

Working on sending out some of the prizes from pre-order week. Whew. Today is Facebook and then I’ll wait till Monday to do some tweeting about the pre-orders. I have a busy Monday but I’m also still planning to make a video of one of the other poems from “Fat Girl” as promised!

Love to hear what everyone has been up to this week and/or plans they have upcoming. Here she comes: the weekend!!

Have a great one :)

Cleaning a Sort of House

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As this summer clips along at an alarming rate, I find myself thinking of all sorts of random things. Like the other day, I found myself trying to organize office supplies that were in sundry places around the house because I know I will have an office no later than sometime in August (although I’m probably sharing one, which is fine) and I I will need to gather my favorite things to take to work. As I worked on that, I began thinking: can I reorganize my work again? Is it time to do the monthly “all over” house cleaning (note waiting for this three day weekend to do that!). Sometimes, I just get in the mood to “purge.” Although, as I say in a poem that will be in Fat Girl, I never seem to purge food, well, at least not food I have eaten. I have been known to go crazy with the freezer, fridge and pantry trying to get rid of “bad” food.

Now for the next item on my cleaning house agenda is submitting work. I’m not really doing the weekly report in, but I did decide I’d work on this blog in conjunction with submitting my work today. So here goes!

  • First note is that I’m not sending my 2nd full length collection around. It doesn’t have a contract but I think it has a future home for 2013 so we’ll just leave it at that for now!
  • I want to start submitting some poetry, but I’m in a sticky situation where I have no more magazines on my list that I want to submit to! I did, however, say I’d submit to places I sent fiction/non-fiction/photos to 6 months after I submitted that work and well, some of those are up on 7-4 so maybe a bit early… So I did submit a set of poems to one of those..
  • Then I was interrupted by Jehovah Witness’ at the door.
  • Side note is that I am confirmed to work with John Hartness to present a seminar from 9-1 on Sat 8-6 for the Charlotte Writer’s Club on self-publishing and marketing. He has the former and I’ll do the latter. More on that as info becomes available but let your Charlotte area people know!
  • Now I’m pulling another one from my list where I submitted fiction back in January. Here come some poems instead little journal! Although I can’t send them the one long poem I have . . .
  • My stomach tells me it is lunch time, but it is only 10:25am!
  • Pulled another I submitted photos to early in the year and I’m sending them 3 poems.
  • Gave in and took an allergy pill: hack, cough, hack
  • Then sent 5 more poems to another publication where I sent fiction earlier this year and where I have had non-fiction published before
  • Uh oh! Up next on my sent work earlier this year list is one of my favorites! Do I have 5 poems that are perfect for them?
  • Next up was the one micro super short flash fiction piece I’ve had pending for a while. It is now off and I think, if I have time this week, I’ll see if I can write some more in the series to which that short fiction piece is attached. All prepositions.
  • And for the last one I think I’ll tackle today, a non-fiction piece I really like. I think the home I’m picking is a potentially perfect fit so…wish me luck!
  • wait photos… well, no where to send this week on that either. Sometimes I wonder if I need to rethink trying to also send photographs out!

Sorry this is a bit longer than I normally post, but I thought it would be a bit fun. I still have 7 poems in the “tube” for submitting later, but I just revised them today so they can wait another week. I also need to spend some time with my various documents where I store poems that aren’t officially in a book yet and see where on earth I’m heading!

So hope everyone is continuing to have a great week and I’d love to hear what you are doing with your work :)