3 Poems up at Wraith Infirmity Muses

“Upwell,” “Transit, en masse,” and “Pompeii, A Documentary of Me,” plus a featured interview with yours truly are now live in the inaugural issue of Wraith Infirmity Muses. This links to the full poetry section — browse all content there or scroll down to read my poems. The issue also includes fiction, visual art and creative nonfiction.

WIM features work by and for those living with “invisible illness.” From the Word from the Editor note included with issue 1.1:

Wraith, when used in literary terms, is a wisp or faint trace of something. It can also mean ghost.  Infirmity, is a physical or mental weakness. This simply meaning an illness, disease, disorder, or frailty. Lastly, muses are sources, personified, as inspiration for an artist or writer. That illness that burdens some, burdens many, in which only traces are seen in rare circumstance by others or is invisible altogether. It is a ghostly, ghastly presence in some people’s lives. It creates a need to purge, becomes a muse and life is born. 

Many thanks to Pat for kindly including my work in this journal! Hope you enjoy.

❤

Samara

Advertisement

“Walking the Bone Path” up at Razor

This journal does a “Before the Razor” feature that allows artists to share their creative process, specifically about the pieces that have been published in the issue. There is a lot of latitude given to the authors, who may interpret “essay” in a variety of ways. This is definitely worth digging into the Razor archives for! Some amazing and entertaining pieces there, and an interesting concept I haven’t seen offered anywhere else.

I was very excited to receive Razor’s acceptance of “Walking the Bone Path,” which included an invitation to participate in this series (you can read mine here). Many thanks to Baker and the editing team for including me in this great issue!

#100rejections — May Totals

Accountability check-in! But first, what is #100rejections anyway?

I have decided to set the literary goal of accumulating 100 rejections this calendar year to facilitate sustained efforts toward publication. Submitting multiple poems to one market and having them all rejected counts as one rejection. Having any number of poems in the packet accepted means that submission counts as an acceptance. I’m aiming for 120 submissions by September 30 to accomplish this.

May, 2017 — 14 Rejections, 0 Acceptances, 16 New Submissions
Year to Date, 48 / 6 / 64

• Sutra Press, Rejection
• Brittany Noakes Poetry Award, Rejection
• concīs, Rejection
• Rattle: Poets Respond, Rejection*
• Santa Ana River Review, Rejection*
• Copper Nickel, Rejection*
• Third Coast Fiction & Poetry Contest, Rejection*
• Chroma Magazine, Ghost rejection**
• Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, Rejection
• Plume Poetry (again), Rejection
• Bellevue Literary Review, Rejection
• Hematopoiesis Press, Rejection
• The Sun Magazine, Rejection*
• Bracken Magazine, Rejection

*The journals marked with an asterisk (*) satisfy my secondary literary goal of submitting to as many top-tier journals as possible. See my January Totals post for details.

**Some markets will only respond to the authors whose work they accept for publication, meaning if your work is not accepted you will simply never get a definitive answer. With the uncertainties already inherent in the submission process (like technical issues, lost email, etc), this is a deal-killer for me in terms of where I will choose to submit. While this non-response policy is usually stipulated in the market’s submission guidelines, occasionally a market will not advertise their non-response policy, or may change their policy after I’ve submitted. With Chroma, my submission had gone well past the estimated response time according to Duotrope, and when I looked at the guidelines on the website again, the journal was no longer accepting poetry. I took this to be a so-called “ghost rejection.”

Tune in next month for June tallies!