Building Back My Broken Writing Routine
Interview with 2024 Q3 Creative Nonfiction Essay Runner Up, Emily Gates Prucha
Emily Gates Prucha teaches English and writes about education, active travel, and multicultural family life in the Czech Republic—the land of beer, castles, and Krtek (The Little Mole). Her “Half 'n Half” column ran for more than a decade at The Prague Daily Monitor. Her personal essays have been published on Motherwell, Entropy, The Keepthings, and other international outlets. When she's not teaching or drafting a story, she loves baking chocolate chip cookies and mountain biking with her Czech husband and three teens. Find her online at www.halfnhalf-life.com or @halfnhalfprague on Instagram.
Banned Book Week 2024: Freed Between the Lines
September 22 to September 28 is Banned Book Week. Despite my own recent experiences with the challenge against my own book, there is some good news.
In the last week, Publisher’s Weekly reported that between January 1 and August 31, 2024, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 414 challenges. Because so many challenges involve many books, the total number of challenged titles was 1,128. How is this good?
For the same period in 2023 the numbers were 695 cases and 1,915 titles. These numbers look pretty good when you realize that the 2023 total (1,247 cases and 4,240 titles) represented a 65% increase over the 2022 numbers. Trending down is huge!
But why are the numbers dropping? PW listed a number of factors, and I went in search of information. The magazine's number one reason was the fact that successful lawsuits have overturned bans. For example, earlier this month, Nassau County Florida schools returned 36 books to their libraries. Parents, students, and authors brought the federal suit against the district because there had been no public review – a part of the district’s stated review policy. As part of the suit, school officials admitted that one of the books, “And Tango Makes Three,” a picture book about a penguin family at New York’s Central Park Zoo, contains no obscene material and is suitable for students. Obscenity is one of the buzz words used in many book challenges.
Another reason for the drop is that teachers and librarians are fighting the bans. This means educating themselves not only on book selection but on how to explain book selection to non-librarians. They are also educating themselves on students’ rights. This includes the US Supreme Court’s Pico Case. This ruling calls school libraries a space for ‘voluntary inquiry’ in which students have a right to read. Materials cannot be prohibited based on viewpoint or doctrine.
Another factor mentioned by PW is the work of advocacy groups which is an excellent segue into the news, or lack thereof, in my own challenge. For those of you who don’t remember, my book Black Lives Matter with Duchess Harris, is part of a 30-book challenge in Lehighton, Pennsylvania. So what about my challenge? As is the case with so many things that have to do with books and publishing, it is all moving very slowly. The only news that I’ve had since the initial challenge is an email from Gianmarco Antosca with the National Coalition Against Censorship to tell me that they are reaching out to those who are against the challenge to offer support and guidance. It is wonderful to know that someone big is paying attention.
It feels like you are alone when your book is challenged. But you aren’t. And as bad as the numbers still look, things are getting better.
--SueBE
- To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.
- Click here to find her newsletter.
Interview With Claudine Wolk, Co-Instructor for Sit & Write: Begin
Interview with Jennifer Thomas, 2nd Place Winner in the WOW! Spring 2024 Flash Fiction Contest
My Year of Casual Acquaintances by Ruth F. Stevens: Blog Tour & Giveaway
Interview with Shawna Irvin, Runner Up in the WOW! Q3 2024 Creative Nonfiction Contest
Friday Speak Out!: Journal Submissions as a Path to Success
When I publish a book or chapbook, people are often curious about how I built the collection, got the confidence to send it out and built an audience interested in reading it. My answer is by submitting to journals and getting work published there. I’ve used literary journals as a training ground, as motivation, to market test my work, and as a stamp of legitimacy and a way to build my reputation as a writer.
There’s so much I’ve learned reading journals. The more I’ve read, the better I’ve become at reading like a writer, with a critical eye on how a story comes together. When a story really works for you, ask why. How has the writer used word choice and imagery to illuminate character and drive plot? Did they pull you in at the beginning and leave you with a satisfying ending?
When you read like a writer, your journal subscription can become a mini-MFA illuminating craft and showing you new ways to write. Be sure to read the editor’s letter at the beginning of each issue because they often comment on why they picked the stories in that issue. You can get a feel for what editors are looking for at various journals. While styles may vary you can begin to see what published stories have in common, and gain insight into elements of craft and style and where your work might fit best.
Journals can also be a wonderful place to read new work, exciting work. You will see certain writers published over time, see their prose develops and get ideas about which writers you might want to take classes with.
Lit journals can be great motivators. Finding calls for submission and answering those has helped me get to work. Use submission deadlines and calls for themed submission as “assignments” to help fuel your writing. I even keep notes in my calendar about which journals are open when and work to have new material to share when submissions open.
Getting published in journals has offered much needed encouragement as my skills have grown. I began writing as a poet, taking classes, reading a lot of good poetry, and letting myself write badly before I got better. When I got a number of poems together, I mustered the confidence to send my work to journals. I started with smaller journals and got a big boost when one of those lit mags published a poem and nominated it for a Pushcart Prize.
I also “test market” my work through submission. When I think a piece is ready, I send it to five or six journals. If they reject the story, I will take another look and work to re-vision the story. In that way I was able to build enough short stories to develop my 2020 collection Lost Girls. The publisher at my small press could see from my journal publications that I was a serious writer.
Now that I have added novels to the mix, I seek out stories that might be best told in an expanded form. My novel Beware the Tall Grass began as a short story “Landing Zone Albany” published in the journal Upstreet in 2016. I greatly expanded the story and added a second point of view character. Many revisions and eight years later, the novel won the Donald L. Jordan Literary Prize and was published by Columbus State University Press. I am sure my list of journal publications helped me when it came to judging whether I was a serious writer.
Writing is hard, and submitting your work and facing rejection can be painful. Let literary journals educate you, motivate you, deepen your work and cement your reputation as a writer.
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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Time Management with Tomatoes
Jodi M. Webb writes from her home in the Pennsylvania mountains about everything from DIY projects to pretzels to butterflies to treehouses. Sadly, the groundhogs have eaten all her garden's tomatoes. She's also a blog tour manager for WOW-Women on Writing. Get to know her @jodiwebbwrites, Facebook and blogging at Words by Webb.
Interview with Jenna Tico, Author of Cancer Moon: How I Survived the Best Years of My Life
Interview with Tabbie Hunt: Spring 2024 Flash Fiction Contest First Place Winner
Tabbie Hunt is a children’s book-packager turned freelancer. She writes in the small cracks between life and is particularly interested in failings, feelings, and funniness, with a side order of fantasy.
When she’s not pretending to be an adult, she rescues and fosters cats and dogs, who in turn rescue her right back. She lives up a hill with her husband, two sons, and a pile of beasts. She dreams of quietly going round the bend in the wilderness.
You can find her work in Daily Science Fiction, Gingerbread House, Alice says go Fuck Yourself, The Melting Pot, and Witcraft, among others.
She can be found at www.facebook.com/tabbie.hunt.9
WOW: Congratulations on winning first place in our Spring 2024 Flash Fiction competition. What prompted you to enter the contest?
Tabbie: I hadn’t submitted any writing in a while, thanks to life getting in the way, so was really just looking for friendly places to test out my vulnerable courage. A few fellow writers mentioned WOW and when I checked you out there was such a lovely positive vibe that I just went for it. I won’t say it took away my fear entirely, but I felt able to submit and survive.
WOW: Can you tell us what encouraged the idea behind your story, “Broken Yesterdays?” It’s such an interesting, thought provoking piece, and leaves a lasting impression.
Tabbie: Thank you, that’s so kind. I really wish I could say that the story sprouted from prestigious seeds, but in fact it was an episode of Dr Pimple Popper that inspired me! There was a particularly effective drainage – sorry if that’s a little graphic - which left the patient sobbing with relief and gratitude, and I thought how brilliant it would be if negative feelings and experiences could be removed in a similar fashion. I wanted to build a little humor in, so that it wasn’t an entirely grim reader experience, but I also wanted to show that trauma isn’t always something we can let go of easily, particularly if it has been part of us for a long while and feels almost too familiar to forsake. Also, whilst writing, my black cat was being an utter pain, squeaking and pawing at me, which is how the ‘Broken Yesterday’ spirits were given form. Don’t worry, I’ll never put my cat in a jar!
WOW: Why do you write flash? What makes it different for you?
Tabbie: I really struggle to complete longer pieces of writing, although I continue to work on my various unfinished novels. Flash is a lovely way for me just to have fun, and gain satisfaction from having a complete piece of writing fairly quickly. I guess what makes it different is how stripped back it needs to be in order to deliver enough plot, dialogue, setting and character details, in a small space, for a satisfying story. I absolutely love the torture of cutting words and forcing myself to get to the point!
WOW: What advice would you give to someone wanting to try writing flash fiction for the first time?
Tabbie: It’s really helpful to read the work of other writers, plus there’s a ton of useful information online which is well worth diving into. Ultimately, you should write something that you love, in the way that only you can. And don’t be afraid to let yourself be tugged in all sorts of unexpected directions, as you go along, as these often lead you to the story that you were somehow supposed to write.
WOW: Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Tabbie. Before you go, do you have a favorite writing tip or piece of advice you can share?
Tabbie: Thanks so much for having me, and thank you again for choosing my story. I think I’ll be delighted forever.
Yes, I do have a favorite writing tip and that’s to write a really terrible first draft. By all means start with a rough plan or idea, but just vomit out those words into a great spaghetti-tangle spew. Afterwards, you can pick out the good stuff for closer inspection and throw bleach over the rest, but if you try to write perfectly from the get go, you’ll block your brain and strangle the story.
Interview with 2024 Q3 Creative Nonfiction Runner Up, Sayantani Roy
--interview by Marcia Peterson
WOW: Congratulations on placing as a runner up in our Q3 2024 Creative Nonfiction essay competition! What prompted you to enter the contest?
Sayantani: I came across WOW on social media and saw many of my favorite writers featured there—either as contest winners or as expert interviewees. I knew I had to enter!
WOW: “Longing, Belonging” is a poignant essay and the way you formatted it worked
well here. What inspired you to write this particular piece?
Marie Wade and Brenda Miller’s book of essays, Telephone, which I was reading at that time. It
is a collaborative work of intertwined vignettes, and the style had a powerful effect on me.
WOW: Are you working on any writing projects right now? What’s next for you?
Sayantani: I am polishing a couple of old and new poems and flash pieces. I am also working on a slightly longer short story right now, which I am workshopping as part of the AWP (Association of
Writers & Writing Programs ) Writer to Writer mentorship program. I am so fortunate to have as
my mentor the writer Jennifer Savran Kelly, whose debut novel Endpapers was nominated for a
2024 Lambda Literary Award.
WOW: What are you reading right now, and why did you choose to read it?
Sayantani: I am reading “The Wheeling Year—A Poet’s Field Book” by former United States poet laureate Ted Kooser. It is a year-long chronicle of observations and insights. These are akin to short
journal entries that are “sketches and landscape studies made out of words,” as he puts it.
Some of these have appeared in magazines, but many are raw observations that make me
catch my breath. For example, the last entry in January is this—"In the long, low, ivory shafts of
drinking it in.” How lovely is that? Kooser has filled six decades’ worth of such workbooks, and
these undoubtedly give shape to his poems. I picked it up to draw inspiration from it—to learn
how to look at mundane things because they are anything but.
WOW: You've gotten me interested in Ted Kooser's work! Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Sayantani. Before you go, can you share a favorite writing tip or piece of advice?
A writing tip that has worked for me is to write a relatively strong first draft. I suppose it depends
on what you call it, but my first draft is the one where I begin writing seriously. The famous
“shitty first draft” to me is what happens in the freewriting stage. I let it all out and then sit down
to write the real thing. I may take portions of the freewrite, but at this point, I am writing afresh
from memory. I hardly look at the freewrite anymore. I don’t stop every now and then to look at
grammar and diction for the first draft, but I do write in a structured way keeping in mind its final
shape. That’s not to say that I don’t shift things around or I can create a flawless structure from
the get-go. I do revise extensively. But, if my first draft is totally different than what I have
envisioned as the final form of the piece, or if it is very rough, it takes me ages to polish it, and I
lose momentum.