I’ve been operating far outside my comfort zone and way outside my fiction-writer lane lately.
Querying a novel will do that to a writer. Fiction-writing feels a little fraught when you’re trying to woo agents and presses with your fiction. So, I turned my attention to writing essays–and even a little poetry. Here’s:
Thanks to Trampoline Poetry‘s editor Justin Lacour. And many thanks to my writing critique group–present and past members alike–who, first, told me this long poem I was working on would work best as a sestina (a what?); and, second, gave me the permission to play with the form (just) a little.
If you’re interested, you can read my bio out at Trampoline Poetry, where I explain how the idea for this poem came to be. (Thank you, YouTube comments!)
The lovely folks at Great Lakes Review published my story, “A New Nuclear,” about my favorite fictional dental hygienist Patty’s struggle to find herself during the last summer before her child leaves for college. It is a most Rust Belt-y story, and I’m grateful to editor Mitch James for giving it a fine home along my favorite Great Lake.
One of the questions writers hear most–even about fictional works–is: “Is this story inspired by your life? Is this you?” Yes and no. Do I understand Patty’s situation? Do I feel a sense of my nest emptying out? Sure, my boys are 13 now, and every day becoming more independent. But also no. Patty is not me, and is definitely not my mom (read on). But I thought I’d give a little backstory in case my followers want a peek into the real-life influences and (really weird) brain of a fiction writer.
Family might recognize Patty’s stint with the No Nukes! environmental chapter. My mom–who would have been proud to be called a tree hugger, if we used that term then–did a stint with the group that protested the local nuclear power plant. (The plant’s still in operation, btw. Planned to be deactivated in 2021, it’s now licensed to operate until 2037.) I remember my mom’s bright yellow No Nukes! shirt. She might have participated in one protest but was much more often spotted at the church basement food co-op she helped run. Also, note the spiderwort plants in my story–plants that are able to detect small amounts of radiation. My mom would have loved that fact. Maybe she knew it? I wish I could ask her.
A writer friend–hi, Jessica!–who is more perceptive than I noted that I have teeth on the creative brain as of late. She also read a prose poem of mine, recently published in the print journal, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry,” titled “Jesus, My Son’s Buckteeth.” What do they say about teeth dreams? Spurred on by anxiety, right? Should I be worried if teeth are taking over my creative mind? (Don’t tell me.)
And a note on the craft of writing and the novel process: Writer friends who’ve read my WIP–a novel set over one Ohio summer, bridging two lakeshores and three generations–will recognize Patty. Early drafts of the novel included Patty’s perspective and more time for her on the page. In later revisions, Patty’s POV–but not Patty’s character–was cut. Still, I couldn’t leave the protest scene (or the dental chair scene!) on the cutting room floor. “Kill your darlings,” they say. But, also, sometimes those darlings can make for a good story.
Mother’s Day. Memorial Day. Let’s not forget the significance of the month of May for the lowly short story!
Yes, May is Short Story Month. You didn’t know? You didn’t send a card? Well, me neither. But I didn’t want this busiest of months to pass without sharing a bit of good news with my loyal Rust Belt Girl followers–that’s you.
My short story, “The Pearl Diver” has been published in the latest issue of CutBank, the literary journal of the University of Montana. You can read the opening excerpt here–or purchase an issue if you’d like to read the whole thing (and more fiction and poetry goodness therein).
My pearl-diving main character has never been to Montana (nor have I), but I sure am glad she and her story struck a chord with the journal editors there. It probably won’t surprise you to know that this story is set in Ohio–at a fictionalized SeaWorld Ohio, in fact. The fact that this SeaWorld no longer exists makes it historical fiction, I guess, though the story takes place in the 90s, which feels like just yesterday to me.
Here are some great pics of SeaWorld Ohio in its heyday.
Where I grew up in Northeast Ohio, we were just a half hour or so from SeaWorld, and the summers we visited for killer whale (remember we used to call orcas “killer whales?”) and dolphin shows; visit the penguins; and admire the human water-skier pyramids were the best summers. Of course, that was a different time, and we look at animals in captivity differently now.
I don’t remember if my parents ever bought me a pearl from the SeaWorld pearl diving exhibit, where divers, ya know, dove for pearls in a pool. But it was fun to think about working as a diver (I can’t dive well, myself) in a pool, kept captive for a summer–much like the animals swimming around in their tanks. What trouble might an almost-sixteen-year-old girl diver get into over such a summer? (Lots, as it turns out.)
I wrote the first drafts of this coming-of-age story in grad school (ages ago) and it landed me on a couple finalist lists for contests. But “The Pearl Diver” never found a home until now. And it’s a beautiful home–check out those illustrations and cover art!
I hope you enjoy the excerpt, and many more stories, as we close out Short Story Month.
Happy reading! ~Rebecca
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Let’s chat! Comment below or on my FB page or find me at Twitter @MoonRuark. Want more Rust Belt writing, author interviews, book reviews, writing advice, and more? Follow me here. Thanks!
Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
For those of you who don’t go in for such self-flagellation, I’m talking about submitting to literary agents, entreating them to represent me and my book.
If you’re not an aspiring author, don’t back-arrow just yet–these lessons learned can be applied to many facets of our writing lives. (And, bloggers are writers, I say over and over and over.)
First, because everybody loves query results in hard-and-fast numbers, here you go: cycle one of querying, I submitted a total of 20 queries. Of those, I had:
1 request for a partial (first three chapters); and
1 request for the full manuscript (after the agent read the partial).
Not bad, really: some action from 10 percent. I feel confident I’ll do better next query cycle, beginning this fall, knowing what I now know…
Saturday, I attended Conversations and Connections, a one-day writer’s conference organized by literary magazine, Barrelhouse, chock full of practical lessons from published literary authors, editors, and publishers. Note: I said practical. (Leave your insta-agent-three-book-deal fantasies at the door.) Really, it was like transporting myself back to my MFA program for the day–complete with the insecurities and boxed wine! All right in my world.
Advice: The first of three panels/workshops I attended featured a memoirist, a novelist, a nonfiction writer, and a poet who all engage with the past–and endure much historical research–for their writing. Some of the most helpful advice suggested writers utilize first-person accounts to better instruct our characters in how to engage with historical fact. There was also an interesting discussion exposing the differences between creative nonfiction and fiction when making meaning of historical events. In fiction, the research must become a part of the narrative arc; in nonfiction, the journey to understand can become another part of the story, a knew way of knowing.
Beginnings: For my second session of the day, I attended a hands-on craft workshop on developing short story openings that grab a reader’s attention. Flash Fiction author, instructor, and editor Tommy Dean led us workshoppers using four prompts for four different story openings. All the prompts started with character/setting/conflict, then added another element to complicate the story start–like subverting the setting or flipping a normal, everyday activity. I am not a prompt person, relying instead on the ideas that fly at me and then stick–usually long about 4am–but even I came away with a few solid story starts, a real win.
Connections: MFA programs are a wealth of information on the art and craft of writing. But then what? How do we get our work out there, and just where is there? Enter the literary journal editors with hands-on experience in the world of literary publishing for a 10-minute editing session, a la speed dating. I took a flash fiction piece of mine; however, I knew going in, I wanted to use that precious time to ask advice of the editor on the other side of the desk. My question was about chapbooks (short collections of poetry or stories). But the point is I used my 10 minutes to connect with someone I could learn from. Not to leave out my fellow conference attendees, time waiting in line for the editor session was a good chance to meet local writers (shout-out to Sonora!).
Inspiration: With the growing popularity of spoken-word and oral storytelling heard on programs like The Moth Radio Hour, today’s creative writing readings are not the cure for insomnia they once were. The featured author readings at C&C did not disappoint. Going in, I knew of the work of only one of the authors, essayist Randon Billings Noble, who I connected with in an online critique group years ago (the writing world being both huge and small). I was delighted to be introduced to the poetry of Kyle Dargan and the fiction of Ivelisse Rodriguez and of Gabino Iglesias, who read their work with such passion–the highlight of my day and very inspiring.
Books…and more books: Want to make an author (and their small press publisher) happy and earn your good literary citizen card? Buy the book. I came away with autographed copies of Billings Noble’s essay collection, Be With Me Always; Iglesias’ horror/crime novel Coyote Songs; Matthew Ferrance’s memoir, Appalachia North; and the poetry collection, Haint, from Cleveland native (yes, we are all over) Teri Ellen Cross Davis, who sat on the panel for the third of my three sessions, focused on publishing and offering great advice on connecting with the local literary community. (These last two authors, I plan to talk about more here on the blog!)
For writers across genres, and for bloggers alike–there’s a conference made for you. This one was a good fit for me, and I’ll be back next year.
Do you conference? What are your top tips? Have you read any of these books? How was your weekend? Comment below–I always love to hear from you… ~Rebecca
When I first met Larry Smith in Ohio, he was sporting a Cleveland Browns cap–not an unusual fashion choice for a sports venue or bar, but we were at a literary conference. From this first impression, I could sense two things: the cap wasn’t ironical and Larry was my kind of literary people.
As it turns out, the Ohio-based author, poet, and director of Bottom Dog Press/Bird Dog Publishing and I have much more in common than rooting for the home team. There’s an abiding sense of creative responsibility, a promise to tell our own stories, that comes with hailing from a place like ours. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Larry and I try to make good on that promise. Larry has definitely made good on his.
This National Poetry Month of April, Larry was also gracious enough to take the time to answer over email my questions–about the writing life and what it means to publish poems and stories rooted in place. “There is always some blurring of identity here,” says Larry, “between Larry Smith and Bottom Dog Press.”
Though much of my life is Bottom Dog Press, my life extends beyond that, and Bottom Dog Press is more than I am, too, it’s over 210 books and about 500 authors.
Let’s learn more…
Larry, how did growing up in the Rust Belt, specifically an Ohio mill town, affect your writing sensibilities and choices?
Well, this goes to the heart of it and of myself. You can’t take out of me the Ohio Valley and the working-class world I grew up in. I was nurtured on that life and those values of hard work and character, of family and neighborhood, of just accepting and caring for each other. I write from who I am, and though I worked as a college professor and live in a middle class neighborhood now, I am still that kid getting up to deliver morning papers and watch my father pack his lunch for work on the railroad. Read more
I submitted “Scooter Kid,” a story about conception (of a couple different kinds)–of creation, chaos, and control. (Spot the nod to Stockard Channing’s character in the 1993 movie, Six Degrees of Separation? Yeah, I’m still a little obsessed.)
Many thanks to Elizabeth Varel, Editor in Chief and Fiction Editor, and all the editors of Parhelion Literary Review for publishing my story in your lovely journal. Alongside my fiction, you’ll find a trove of thought-provoking prose, poetry, and art: right here.
Happy weekend. Happy reading. What’s on tap for you?
Thanks for stopping by!
~Rebecca
*Seriously though, submitting to literary journals? Check those submissions guidelines.
I’m talking about getting the creative writing out there, into the great wide open–beyond the blog, and into news outlets, magazines, and journals–and so are a lot of other bloggers. So, I thought I might start a convo here, where we can collect some pros, cons, and lessons learned.
Sound good? I’ll start with a disclaimer. I am no expert. I have an MFA in Creative Writing under my belt (along with a lot of Xmas cheese); yet we rarely discussed in short fiction and novel-writing courses what to do with our pieces after we’d written them–past the Sisyphean process of write-edit-trash-revisit-rewrite-edit, that is. Really, a piece of writing may never be “finished,” but eventually, it’s good to let it go. How do you know if your writing might be ready to submit?
Around the house, there’s laundry prep and meal prep.
For the kids, there’s book report prep and school uniform prep (see above laundry prep), and don’t forget tomorrow’s lunch prep. If I’m really on the ball, there’ll be breakfast smoothie prep. But let’s not get too excited, kids.
That’s just today.
And that leaves out me. Yep, even pantsers require a bit of preparation.
For work, there’s interview prep and invoicing prep. For committee A, there’s spreadsheet prep; for B, there’s list prep. For this blog, there’s reading prep and photo credit prep.
For my creative writing, there’s research: that’s composition prep. There’s writing group meeting prep.
Then comes the age old litany of publication prep. In other words: revise, revise, revise before a piece has a shot at finding a home in a literary journal. And all that’s before submission prep.
The process of submitting to literary journals and magazines has changed in recent years. (I’ve talked here about how sites like Submittable are making it easier to submit your poetry and fiction.) Still, it remains a time-consuming–albeit formative–exercise to close in on the right journals to which to submit, to discover the dozen or two or three (out of the thousands) of journals and magazines that might work for your creative work: (i.e. your veritable guts on the page).
For my creative writing friends out there, here’s where the submission prep gets a little easier.
It’s called Literistic. From their website: “Every month, we collect an exhaustive list of deadlines for submissions to literary publications, contests and fellowships and send out an email.”
What sets Literistic apart, as far as I can see, is that, hailing from Canada, they collect deadlines for publications, etc., from the U.S., Canada, and the UK, so this may be helpful to some of my writerly friends across the pond.
That’s Literistic’s deal. And if you decide the deal’s for you and you subscribe to their list of literary deadlines using this link, I’ll get a little compensation.*
So, happy house-, kid-, creative-, or whatever other kind of prepping you’ve got going on, and Happy Monday!
Rust Belt Girl 