Writer | Teacher | Editor | Publisher
Remember this photo?
Me, in my “recording studio” (aka. The closet).
Now you can listen to “The Wurlitzer” online
at The Drum Literary Magazine.
Thank you, Henriette Power at The Drum, for publishing “The Wurlitzer.”
And thanks to you for listening.
It’s always a thrill (and a relief) to see a writing project come to completion. For the last year and a half, I’ve led a creative writing class once a month with a group of Senior Citizens. They bring wonderful stories to the table, two of which you can read here: Old Hat by Toshio Ninomiya and My Mother by Ted Johnson.
We talked of publishing a small anthology of their work, so, after several months of compiling and editing essays and stories written by hand or on typewriters, their words are now in print in a lovely little book.
During this process, I learned that 1) their stories do not grow old, no matter how many times I read them, and 2) the absence of technology makes pushing this kind of a project forward a bit more challenging.
The majority of my contact with the writers, including edits and reminders of due dates, happened through snail mail, as only one contributor dabbles in email. I love sending and receiving hand-written letters, always, but I’ve grown accustomed to working with other writers and editors online. In quick exchange. Incorporating the extra time to relay information via mail trucks and foot traffic made me appreciate how publishing worked back in the early days, and made the end result all the more sweet.
This Saturday, November 16th, at 2pm, the writers will give an official reading at Harwood Place in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. If you come, you’ll hear essays and short fiction–tales of community and relationship and even fashion–by Richard Borchers, Ted Johnson, Valerie Reynolds, Clyde Rusk, and Betty Sydow. There’ll be coffee and cookies and smiling faces. And, beautiful blue books.
The road to publication requires persistence, and patience. This is true whether you’re on the editing side of the table or the side of writers writing. Then, submitting. Then, biting nails, waiting and hoping and anticipating.
Last week, COMPOSE, a new literary journal online, released its first issue. As Assistant Editor, I participated in the behind-the-scenes work that comes with putting a journal together–not an easy task. As Suzannah Windsor says in From the Editor, “the challenge [of creating a literary journal] is greater than just finding some writing and publishing it. The challenge—if a journal is to be successful—is to go beyond the ordinary, to create something that stands out for its content, design, community, and professionalism.” This first issue looks amazing, and I couldn’t be more proud to be part of COMPOSE.
Just as exciting, I lived through the writer’s side of journal publication by having one of my short stories chosen to appear in the inaugural issue of COMPOSE. I worked on this particular story for a long time, and Tamara Pratt, one of the Fiction Editors, gave me wonderful feedback that helped make my work stronger. Thank you to her and Suzannah for giving my story a home.
I hope you’ll take a look at the journal as a whole. And, if you’re partial to fiction, take a peek at my short story, The Saint of Lost Things.
Then, if you like the look of the journal (and I think you will), consider submitting your own work.