revisiting old loves: words
i've been reading and writing
a month or so ago i picked up some books i’d ordered from powell’s. the glass of my smartphone kissed the storefront’s glass to reveal a QR code, which is how a human on the inside matched me with my order, then swiftly set my bag of books outside on a table. bittersweet feelings: i miss going inside bookstores the way i miss going inside restaurants and bars, but take-away certainly does the job.
this is a newsletter update about the written word. reading them, writing them, appreciating them, being eluded by them, deciphering them in dreams, submitting them for publication, having them be rejected, and having them find a home alongside other words. rinse, repeat.
included below: links to some of my writing published this year, writers and publications worth checking out, and all the books that kept me sane in 2020.
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i de-prioritized my own writing for so many years that it didn’t even occur to me that years (decades?) had passed. editing and ghostwriting projects had been like taking the motorcycle around the block so that the engine still runs: not optimal but better than nothing.
sometime last year i started researching and working on a book project. if you’re highly creative and/or have ADHD you might recognize that “working on a novel” is code for research rabbit holes and mood boards, but also suddenly very interested in writing poetry and flash and cnf.
then came the pandemic. i was underemployed for most of 2020, and all i had was time. i kept busy researching, reading, and writing—my days were amorphous blobs of time with so many tabs, so many google docs, and so many beverages. i also started submitting to publications—my surge capacity a byproduct of pandemic anxiety and my complex relationship to productivity—and nine months later, i’m humbled to see my byline and words in publications i admire.
SUBMISSION STATS FOR 2020
in another lifetime, i was an undergrad intern at a literary journal in central florida. we received submissions via mail in envelopes with handwritten notes—words written on typewriters, or print outs (sometimes even dot matrix) from computer files. we kept logs of our activities with a clipboard and pen and paper kept in the office. i’m very old.
submitting to publication now is a whole different beast—submittable and duotrope incredible easy and accessible tools i use regularly. because i’m me, i still manually keep track of my publications and submissions outside of these tools in two personalized ways: one, i keep a trello board to track all my pieces (genre, drafts, feedback) as though writing is an agile sprint, and two, a spreadsheet that logs submission/publication details (submit date, acceptance/rejection/withdraws/method, stats, links, etc).
according to my publication tracker spreadsheet for 2020:
current active submissions: 167
total submissions: 325
acceptances: 33
rejections: 154
withdrawals: 45
PUBLISHED STUFF
it’s kinda a glass half full/empty exercise to look at submission stats and extract a meaningful story out of it: lots of rejection, ghosting, but also a fair amount of acceptances (especially for what started out in earnest only a year ago). a shortlist of the pieces that i’m most proud of published this year:
PROSE
“the caterwauls,” a flash fiction piece that’s not not about quarantine and isolation for HAD; a two humor-ish pieces i delighted in writing—one, “your confirmed registration for pet shop boys’ upcoming webinar: let’s make lots of money,” and two, “the bell in hell” about helsinki’s taco bell grand opening; an essay for empty mirror exploring richard siken’s poetry and ann gale’s paintings; “underline it like you mean it,” a cnf piece about distant relatives and (il)literacy that received a 2020 pushcart prize nomination (!); and “what i didn’t take,” the first draft of which i wrote in grad school at portland state.
POETRY
“sweat from the steam,” in print issue #2 the uk publication fourteen poems; “half blood / dual coasts,” a collaboration contest finalist written with my half brother for sundog lit; two poems about disaster planning + transportation for no contact mag; “summer ghosts”; and forthcoming, the poem i’m the most in love with of anything i’ve written, “first the grasshopper,” which will appear in print issue #12 of GS this spring.
SOME RECOMMENDATIONS
if you’re looking for new writing and pleasing graphic design, i recommend the following indie literary journals/pubs that are putting out terrific work: always crashing, x-ray, triangle house, reality beach, commuter/electric lit, taco bell quarterly, sibling rivalry, no contact, visual editions.
writers and online pieces i’m particularly fond of: this and other hybrid poems; a diet mountain dew poem; all of katherine fallon’s poetry; tuck woodstock’s journalism/essays; kevin latimer’s poetry; all things alexander chee or tommy pico; the stellar essay “for a good time call”; the brief and magical history of fast-food buffets, and probably many, many other things i’ve read/shared online this year. (not included, though forthcoming: a list of noteworthy newsletters.)
BOOKS READ IN 2020
flesh and blood - michael cunningham
tinderbox - robert fieseler
west of yesterday, east of summer - paul monette
the heaven of animals - james poissant
my new orleans: ballads to the big easy by her sons, daughters, and lovers
bluets - maggie nelson
other voices, other rooms - truman capote
gumbo ya-ya: 70th anniversary edition of original and unabridged louisiana folktales
a confederacy of dunces - john kennedy toole
the melancholy death of oyster boy & other stories - tim burton
beyond the dark veil: post-mortem and mourning photography - thanatos archive
haunted air - ossian brown
saint monkey - jacinda townsend
pachinko - min jin lee
on photography - susan sontag
mad men carousel - matt zoller seitz
a girl is a half-formed thing - eimear mcbride
house of the spirits - isabel allende
how to do nothing - jenny odell
mostly dead things - kristen arnett
something bright, then holes - maggie nelson
blue earth review #20
leadbelly - tyehimba jess
bird by bird - ann lamott
falling awake - alice oswald
against creativity - ali mould
the hours - michael cunningham
cajun women and mardi gras: reading the rules backward
mcsweeney’s no. 57 quarterly
so you wanna talk about race - ijeoma oluo
pass with care - cooper lee bombardier
daily rituals - mason currey
close range - annie proulx
the best american nonrequired reading (2010) - collection
the best american short stories (2013) - collection
in the company of my solitude: american writing from the AIDS pandemic - collection
the beautiful ones - prince
mcsweeney’s no. 55 quarterly
the nib - issue 5 animals
the nib - issue 6 power
war of the foxes - richard siken
the poisonwood bible - barbara kingsolver
the best short fictions 2019 collection
her body and other parties - carmen maria machado
two or three things i know for sure - dorothy allison
modern nature - derek jarman
southern spirits: four hundred years of drinking in the american south - robert f. moss
verge - lidia yuknavitch
mcsweeney’s no. 56 quarterly
lust & wonder - augusten burroughs
the moviegoer - walker percy
shit, actually - lindy west
florida review issue no. 41
hollow kingdom - kira jane buxton
gulf coast volume 33
gravy no. 76
the best small fictions 2019
do you know what it means to miss new orleans? collection -broken levee books
the great believers - rebecca makkai
the great house - nicole kraus
the cajuns: americanization of a people - shane k. bernard
around the world in 80 trees - jonathan drori
book of delights - ross gay
blood meridian - cormac mccarthy
YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS?
i’m reading a lot of short stories and collections and novels these days and would love your recommendations. i have a soft-spot for any/all of the following: southern writers/southern stories, historical fiction, narratives weaving multi-generations or spanning large swaths of time, anthologies or collections, or anything you think i’d like given the list above. send your favorites via email or on substack:
hey, thanks for reading. i’m grateful to have a place to share these little triumphs with you, and hope you enjoy at least one thing i’ve linked out above.
to more words,
rhienna