It’s been a busy spring/summer, and now, jeez oh whiz, the one-year anniversary of my first book’s pub date is just two months away. I’ve hit a period no doubt familiar to every debut author who’s no longer so debut-ish, a period I think of as “Well, What Now?”
Well, here’s what’s now for me: I’m a writer currently unmoored from my writing community, a Northwest author living in the Southeast–if I can be said to be living anywhere, as much as I’ve been traveling over the course of the last year. I’ll spend the month of September back in Michigan, where I grew up; the month of October back in Charleston with my husband; and the month of November in back in Portland, where I’ll have a number of readings and events.
I’ll have a few author events in Michigan too, but at this point, there’s no avoiding the question of what my next real project will be–moreover, what my next publication will be, because publishing is surely as much of a drug as anything regulated by the FDA, and whether the cycle is vicious or virtuous in my case remains to be seen.
My plan is to use my time in back home in the sandy, freshwater-and-woodsmoke embrace of West Michigan to focus on revising the sequel to Hot Season, a novel I’m calling World’s Smallest Parade. But I’m also halfway through drafting a collection of stories that verge on the speculative, entitled Dream Studies (which I’ve been sharing with my fans through Patreon).
So, even as I prepare to go into the studio with my new album, so to speak, you’ll find me chasing the dragon of publication with this shorter work I’ve accrued over this past year on tour.
One of the pieces I recently sent out, I’m happy to report, has been selected as a finalist in a flash fiction contest presented by The Golden Key. (I’ll keep you posted.) I also have work forthcoming in the upcoming Portland issue of SITUATE and the 3288 Review (poetry), as well as in an issue of The Writer’s Chronicle, the magazine of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP), slated for next year (an interview).
Which may sound like a lot, but like most writers, my acceptances are just the tip of the iceburg–below them lie a large, glacial mass of rejections. So as I head into this big revision on my next book, I want to make sure I have as much work as possible sitting not just on my hard drive, but in the Submittable queues of magazines and journals everywhere.
I know a lot of my readers are also writers, so I thought I’d share some of the submissions opportunities currently on my radar.
Who knows? Maybe our pieces will wind up in some fine publication side by side.
That’s a warm thought to sustain me through some chilly Michigan nights–and over the long haul of the revision to come.
- Every Writers Resource
There are some great links to open publications here; many of them even pay.
2. Sequestrum
Sequestrum publishes some really fine work, and they accept fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
3. Erica Dreifus…
…has all the links to All The Things in The Practicing Writer, a regular newsletter. If you’re not already subscribed, get on that.
4. Cherry Tree
Pays $20 for poetry and flash prose–not a ton, but not bad for poetry.
https://cherrytree.submittable.com/submit
5. Oregon Poetry Association
The OPA is holding their annual poetry competition, and you need not be from O to submit. Deadline: Sept. 1.
https://opa.submittable.com/submit
6. Grist
A paying market with an unusual submissions window, in a field dominated by academic journals: June 15 to September 15.
http://gristjournal.com/submissions/
7. ROAR
The inimitable Anna March’s journal of all things feminist is now open to fiction and poetry. Token pay, but quality company.
https://roarfeminist.submittable.com/submit
That’s it for now. Wish me luck on the big revision!
—
Susan
