Will I be seeing any of you at AWP in Los Angeles this year? It's a giant industry conference with representatives from all walks of the writing life-self-pub indy authors, established traditional writers, MFA programs, lit mags, agents, and editors.
There's a giant list of panels here, which you can save to a schedule and then download as a PDF. I have mine prepared as a balance between learning and socialization, with plenty of free time to do spontaneous activities and just relax. Conferences can be overwhelming. I plan to write about some of the panels I'll be attending both before and after the conference, and to share some conferencegoing tips that could be useful in any discipline in the next few days. Meanwhile, just give me a shout if you'd like to meet up.
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It's hard to submit. Not only does it take time to research guidelines and editor's preferences, but, given the number of rejections that a piece may receive, it takes a massive list of markets to find a home for your writing. After I finished my MFA program, I resolved to write short works, build publication credits, and concentrate on the professional aspects of being a writer. Part of that was finding a submission process that worked for me.
On the one hand, as someone with experience working on a lit mag, I understand how tiresome it is to wade through otherwise-valid submissions that don't meet requirements, or read something that has no place going out for publication yet. On the other, I have received rejection notices that are as unprofessional as the Comic Sans font submissions that read like someone's first time in a word processor. For writers to produce the work and struggle with it is hard enough. Then, they must wade through tons of listings, inspect the requirements, and analyze the market. It's easy to fall into the trap of writing and editing in one phase, and then searching for submissions in another. But by doing so, you lose a lot of deadlines and potential markets that won't be reading by the time you think about publication. Just like the writing process is a stream that goes through my daily life, I have made the submission process into something I should always be doing unless there's a valid reason not to (hint: there never is). Incorporating my interests as a visual artist made the process harder. It made the research I did easier, because I was ruling out markets anyway, and harder, because I had to keep track of what work I wanted to send out, and because artwork--especially oil painting, but also post-processing photography--has a different time to completion than a writing project. As I keep track of my publishable work, I start to envision a home for it. Sometimes, any home is better than no home. Sometimes, I want to aim higher with a piece, so I'll hold back from certain markets until after I've received rejections. Here are some tips:
I'm feeling very accomplished this month because I have works to submit and a list of markets to match before AWP, which means I have to submit by March 29th for the late March/early April deadlines. Good luck with your own submissions! Last week, I streamlined my web presence, uniting this blog with my personal website. Because of domain host migration, my webpage and blog redirected to a blank page--completely beyond my control. I took the time as a needed rest period, and contemplated how I've learned so much in the past five years about the web, writing content, and making a successful page/blog.
I started out with a Wordpress/Godaddy site in 2010, the first time I knew I needed a personal webpage about me. I resolved to be a whole person rather than keeping some aspects of my life private. But, Wordpress wasn't as intuitive to me as it was marketed to be, and so I stopped updated and maintaining. Once I knew that I would need a webpage, I rehabilitated my site, discovering Godaddy's native website builder application, and bought mariaspicone.com. I decided against having a blog, thinking that I would build one later if I wanted one. I tried to keep my page updated enough that people wouldn't see a dead, defunct, static site that never changed. However, there were long periods of silence. One of the most useful processes that helps me in keeping my page updated is whether I think more people will be coming to it--that is, when I submit applications for grants, residencies, and the like, or when I query for publication. But I still struggled with the idea that a web page is like a portrait without a changing expression. On the other hand, blogging has always been a process of fits and starts. I created a volunteer blog for my 2014 Cambodia trip, intending to blog my experience. However, the internet in Cambodia was sketchy, and I was tired and sick enough that I never finished blogging during the trip, and was too embarrassed to continue afterwards. Likewise, I created a separate webpage and hub for my Uganda trip, Maria in Uganda, which since has morphed into this blog. (The earliest entries deal with Uganda). I did intend to talk about my experience while in country and afterwards. Again, the internet was unreliable, and I wrote copious longhand notes about my experiences, which I still want to present to you. However, some parts of the Uganda trip required an honesty that I felt I couldn't share without alienating my fellow YPs, our YP coordinator, and our wonderful trip leader. But I felt I needed this space to start writing on a consistent basis, so I don't regret what it's become. I've written blog posts as a freelancer and as a volunteer for other organizations, so it's not that I'm incapable of producing content or a more 'focused' experience. But in this day of hashtags, categories, and the like, what I really want to have is a space to be honest with you. I don't care about people who will read this 'only' because I am one thing or another, and those people can certainly filter out whatever they want. So for now, this blog will continue being about the whole person. I'll keep doing it until I do it right. |
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