Posted on by Laura Lee

Submitted a Poem about BAD Summer Jobs–GeekyPress.co

motel                   Submitted a new, raw poem here:http://thegeekypress.com/

to their BAD SUMMER JOBS open call for poetry, fiction, and short plays.  I’ve sure had bad summer jobs!

 

This one had dogs, blood, and me running away from that motel job as fast as my 14-year old self could.  I don’t normally swear, but this poem called for it to be true to life.

If I were honest, this writing would be even more raw and awful, for it was an unsafe difficult job–but paid $4 an hour! A fortune we thought back then. I literally ran out of the motel, terrified.  Had I been older, I might have been amused, but I was working when (illegally) very young there.

I’m old enough to remember when most places didn’t care to check on your age. They really didn’t.  If some “official” wanted to see birth certificates, I’d just quit and go back in a week or so.

Did that at a fast food place, but that’s another story too. WHAT I LEARNED THERE! That I was not cut out for manual labor.  That work was very hard for very little money. That you needed to be strong to work in many fields.  That I would need an education to become something other than one who was burning self all day on fryers or fighting off men in motels…

Now back to the issue:

The call for submissions to the BAD SUMMER JOBS ends at end of day tomorrow, so if you are interested, check it out and get writing! They are accepting poetry, fiction, and plays about this theme.

Oh–a positive aspect about this publication? It splits all profits from sales of their print publications and e-books.

Thanks for reading.

Posted on by Laura Lee

“Ink and Voices,” a Mini-Review

cropped-be-creative-creative-creativity-256514     Perhaps my skepticism about poetry being ALIVE was too skeptical?  I am finding many fine literary magazines and communities, online and in paper, if I just take the time to look about a bit.  What’s different for me, however, is how many of the publications are online only or mainly online.  For an oldster like me who loves to learn and use technology, that’s fine.  I am just happy that literacy in all its forms appears to be thriving.

One publication I just found is Ink & Voices, which can be found here: Ink & Voices.

Ink and Voices acknowledges that the internet is full of places to share writing and art, but states they are different in that:

   Ink & Voices is an online publication and community for artists and writers. We are all about original and unapologetic voices, and providing a space for you to express your originality and humanness. We love pieces that are honest, raw and original.

This publication has three main sections, one for Mind, one for Body, and one for Soul.  Yes, they are brave enough to use those terms in this sometimes snide and toocooltoshowemotions society.   I found mainly fiction and artwork there, but liked what I saw and liked what I read.  Perhaps I just couldn’t find the poetry, but I did look. Nevertheless, Ink and Voices is accepting submissions or writing and art and has a separate category for poetry, all through Submittable.com.   The positive aspects here are that your work is read or viewed “blind,” and judged on its merit rather than your bio or name, or lack of a name in publishing.

I didn’t see a May or June issue, but they are still accepting submissions on a no deadline basis through Submittable.com, meaning they are paying to keep submission coming in.

I am going to investigate this new site more and consider submitting some poetry.  I know I’ll be viewing the artwork there.

If you create “honest, raw, and original” artwork, including written work, why not give Ink and Voices a view?  I personally like to support new literary ventures as well as the more-established ones.

Thanks for reading!

Laura Lee

Posted on by Laura Lee

Fourteen Pieces of Writing Out for Submission and…

woman-typing-writing-windows   Thirteen poems and one piece of nonfiction are “out” for consideration.  I’ve submitted to established literary journals as well as journals about to publish their FIRST issue!

My goal, however, is to read and write more.  That’s how I can learn and grow as a writer and a person, I believe.  While it’s fun to submit, it can overtake the important activities of actually reading good literature and writing more.

Do you find submitting pieces of writing helps your writing or hinders it?

Good luck to those who are submitting!  I’ll keep posting links to new sites I find.  I have found the “Discover” feature of Submittable.com to be helpful in finding new (to me) sites, and then those sites lead to more sites.

Thanks for reading.

Laura Lee

Posted on by Laura Lee

HerStory Literary Magazine

                  HerStory Literary Magazine swomentates it is “empowering women through storytelling” and publishes fiction, nonfiction, interviews, poetry, and personal essays. In addition, the site sponsors a “monthly theme” for writing.    I particularly enjoyed the magazines mission, which is ” HerStory wants to get every woman writing, talking, and sharing her story because
Every Story Matters.”

Every story matters, what a great motto.

The monthly themes for the rest of the year, as noted one their website, are:

july:
dear past me

august:
handle with care: stories about grief

september:
role models: stories about the women who shaped us

october:
spooky stories

november:
what you don’t know: stories about our secrets

december:
dear someone: letters to the people who changed our lives

 

Why not read some of the writing there and consider submitting your own writing?   The literary magazine is trying to go, it notes, and there could be as long a delay as six months in hearing back about submissions.

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

Twin Cinema Poetic Form

whitman-2033-5e85a780991cf80bddfa412174d63cf9@1x       Rattle Literary Journal

published a winning poem today, “DRPK   US” written in a Twin Cinema poetic form.  While I have read poems before that can be read horizontally or vertically, I’ve not seen such a structuring before nor seen a label for this form.

In The Straits Times, writer Olivia Ho writes that a Twin Cinema poem is:

It is a poem written in two columns. Sometimes, the columns are meant to be read individually, running line by line in counterpoint.

But I find it at its most compelling when the poet achieves not just two, but three ways of reading it, not just top to bottom, but also across, a poem at once broken and unbroken, reaching across the gaps to put a new twist on opposing meanings.

In a blog about Southeast Asian Poetic Forms (find it here: Southeast Asian Poetic Forms

notes that:

In its original form as developed by Yeow Kai Chai, the twin cinema consisted of two discrete columns of poetry. The columns were separate and did not read as a coherent line across both columns. Each individual line of a column contained imagery that could correlate or contrast to the opposing line of the other column.

I love this playing with both the oral aspects of poetry and the physical/ white space aspects.

I’ve written specular poems, or sometimes called mirror poems that read as poems from the first to the last line and then from the last to the first line.  That was tricky and worthwhile; both versions of the poem need to make grammatical, syntactical, and poetic sense.

What verse forms have you tried? What’s your favorite?

Thanks for reading.

Laura Lee

Posted on by Laura Lee

Submissions this Week and Writing Outside my Usual Genre

marketing-man-person-communication   I do enjoy tracking my submissions via submittable.com.  If you are a writer, this site makes it quite easy to submit your writing and to track it: Submittable

If you don’t yet have an account, you can set up a free account and enter your author bio in a matter of minutes.

Yesterday I wrote outside of my genre and submitted a peace poem and a short nonfiction piece written totally in dialogue.  Six submissions this week, three rejections.

It was fun to try writing entirely in dialogue; good thing I’ve listened to teens talk over the years!

How are your submissions going?

Thanks for reading, writers!

Laura Lee

Posted on by Laura Lee

Link to Two Published Poems at Tuck Magazine

tuck magazineI am pleased to have had two poems published here, in Tuck Magazine.

I am particularly happy to be published here since Tuck Magazine tries to bring social justice issues to light, while helping its writers publish.  Perhaps you want to get a more global look at issues; Tuck Magazine does that.

Where have you been submitting?  How is writing and publishing going for you?

Thanks for reading!

Laura Lee

Posted on by Laura Lee

Writers: a nice feature of submittable.com

typewriter-vintage-old-vintage-typewriter-163116     Writers!  Perhaps you knew about this great feature of Submittable, but I did not until today.   Submittable.com is a site where some publishers collect submissions to journals and contests, reply to the writers,  accept submissions, reject submissions.  It’s a way to read submissions “blindly,” without seeing an author’s name.

I like using Submittable, since it also helps me keep track of what piece of writing I’ve submitted where.

What I just discovered, however, is a great find: the “discover” section of the website.  There I found many journals listing their requirements, deadlines, etc.  All in one place.

I also found sites I now like to read from (is that the term…read from? Read there?)

So, writers, if you haven’t discovered the DISCOVER feature of Submittable yet, here you go: Discover Opportunities Submittable.  If you don’t have an account there yet, you will need to create a free account.

What are some useful writing tools you have discovered?

Thanks for reading!

Laura Lee

Posted on by Laura Lee

Coffin Bell Journal, a mini-review

Another interesting site.  This is not my genre, dark literature, but I realize many of my writings contain very dark elements–just not supernatural.  With some editing, they could fit the genre.  In any case, here is a journal that has an interesting premise.  From scary housetheir website:  Coffin Bell

Coffin Bell is a new quarterly online journal of dark literature seeking poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and creative nonfiction exploring dark themes. When we say “dark themes,” we don’t necessarily mean traditional horror. Send us your waking nightmares, dark CNF, dystopian flash, cursed verse. Surprise us. Make us think in a new way. Give us a new fear. Make our skin crawl.

If you write flash fiction or dark verse, read here  and consider submitting.  The site is attractive, the care given to writers evident in their bios.  What an interesting group of writers published there already, from lawyers to ghost writers.

Yesterday I changed the speaker of a poem from human to animal, something I’ve not done before.  Have you considered writing outside of your genre?  If so, what was your experience?

Thanks for reading!

Posted on by Laura Lee

Of Coyotes, Babies, Macduff, and Strangers. (Five poems Submitted Tonight)

coyote    I submitted five persona poems to a favorite journal tonight, written in the voices of five distinct others: a coyote, a baby, Macduff from Macbeth, Simon from Lord of the Flies, and two strangers. It was fun to find and edit the poems, as well as working on a few others I just could not include at this time.

I love writing persona poems; I am both a a daughter of storytellers and a current poet, and persona poems combine poetry and stories.  It’s tricky for me to write in a persona not female, not human, not me at all, but I love to try doing this.

Now I wait many months to find out if any of these poems will be published.  In the meantime, I know I will be writing more persona poems, since I am taking a writing class this summer.

What’s the most interesting voice you have written in?