Look! The sun is back and so are you! And just in time for our fourth edition, too.
If you’re new here, warm welcomes to you: help yourself to our complimentary breakfast buffet – we have a waffle bar now! – and feel free to peruse our very first installment, which explains a little bit about what we do (and don’t do) here. If reading back issues always strikes your fancy, you can also flip through last month’s edition and January’s, too.
Recently, someone described something I wrote as having a “more maximalist style,” and I’m woefully embarrassed to admit it caught me by surprise.
Me, maximalist? The writer who in this very newsletter compared herself to a gigantic sentient blob? Who cannot suffer a sentence without tacking on an unnecessary colon, semicolon, or em dash? Whose imaginary elephant wears a spangly cravat, for crying out loud? Surely not!
But the truth is, after years spent chasing lean, hungry prose, I am very much in my maximalist era. I don’t shy away from pageantry and flourish these days. I gild my sentences to the hilt.
Even my usually neat, orderly word counts – So modest! So unified! – have ballooned out of control lately. Earlier this year, for example, I had to cut a whopping two thousand words out of a newsletter because I just had so many urgent, pressing things I wanted to say to you.
But the urgency of the writer never eclipses the needs of the reader, and no reader needs to wake up and find War and Peace: The Sequel (Now With More Peace!) in their inbox.
And that’s the problem with maximalism, isn’t it? Eventually, even the most gluttonous among us get their fill, push away their plates, leave offerings untouched. Even maximalism – swelling, shining maximalism – requires a steady hand and an eye for excess. And, of course, saying something fancily means little when you have little of actual substance to say.
I’d be lying if I said my maximalism era isn’t directly related to spending these past few years shuttered and homebound due to the pandemic.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a wary eye on you now, worried that after three years of incessant COVID-19 talk – especially with the shutdown’s anniversary approaching – you are too weary to hear more.
But here is the truth as I know it: I have read dozens upon dozens of bios these past few months, and nearly every single one mentions the pandemic. Perhaps the author began writing more as a result of being homebound, or perhaps they began writing more fiction than fact when travel was taken off the table. Maybe they discovered a new love of gardening or baking or walking in the woods; maybe they met a new love altogether or ended a longtime relationship with an old one.
Change exhausts us all, but all of us were changed, and all of us changed at the very same time. It is a global shift, an earthwide tilt of our axes. All of us, when telling the stories of our lives – as bios force us to do – will likely include these similar cleavings of pre- and post-pandemic, our narratives neatly split into befores and afters.
I am a writer who thrives in hindsight; I do my best work at a distance. When March 2020 unfolded, the last thing I wanted to do was write about the constant fear and anxiety roiling in my stomach. I wanted to write soft things and wear soft things and eat creamy, yielding foods. But with three years standing between the writer I was and the one I am today, I can see the ready differences between us.
I am now a writer who revels in linguistic excess, yes; I stuff my sentences with as much glittering humor and metaphor as they can stand. After years of standing still, I want prose that shimmies, pulses, knows how to keep a beat.
But I’m also a writer who revels in risk in a way that I never could have just three years prior. Long before I learned to shield myself against airborne infection, I learned to shield myself in my drafts, guarding against any reader who might take my meaning the wrong way. I scuttled, wary, on the page, ready to retreat into my shell at the first sign of danger.
Then I spent a few months seeing my partner don real shields to go to work at his hospital or to volunteer shifts at the COVID clinic and watched my definition of risk unmake itself in real time.
I had lost my father to another pandemic, H1N1, when he was only in his 40s. But I didn’t – couldn’t – write about his death until 2020, after my 12th straight week of swallowing my fear that what had taken my father would now take my partner.
Since that first essay about my father, I’ve scraped the courage to publish about my many griefs, my fears, my anxiety disorder, and my rapidly declining hearing; other personal drafts wait in the wings, being polished and shined for their eventual audiences. And I don’t see myself stopping. The floodgates are open, and I like them that way. I figure none of us know how much time we have to tell our truths as we know them, so we might as well get to the telling as soon as we’re able.
Maybe that’s why I’m not so worried about my maximalism era, as gilded and excessive as it may be. It’s a style that won’t please everyone; in fact, it’ll actively repel some. But I don’t mind so much. I like being a writer who doesn’t shy away from adornment. I like dreaming up new ways to sneak shining bells and whistles into my prose. I’m okay being someone who always tries to dazzle at the sentence level – that is, as long as it never obscures the beating heart I’m no longer too cowardly to show.
Until next month—
Keep writing,
Nicki
P.S. As an exercise, it might be useful to consider the writer you were in your own before versus the one you are in your after. What kind of writer were you then? What are you now? What are you steadily cocooning or careening toward in your tomorrow?
April 2023 calls for submissions
Lots of poetry calls this month, as befits National Poetry Writing Month. Speaking of poetry, my very favorite writing challenge, NaPoWriMo, will begin on the first of the month – if there’s enough interest among us to participate, I’m happy to start a thread for us so we can share our efforts and/or chat about all things verse. Either way, I strongly encourage participating even just for a day or two – the prompts are spectacular. And who doesn’t need more poetry in their lives?
And as always, it’s not too late to catch some of our March 2023 deadlines before they close – best of luck to you, you fine, brave, bold submitters!
This month’s listings in brief
Spotlight pick
riddlebird: Humorous or lighthearted submissions
Now that the light is swiftly returning to the northern hemisphere, it feels like the perfect time to showcase a more lighthearted call for submissions. Our spotlight pick this month is from riddlebird, “a seriously fun lit mag for serious writers.” For its July 2023 issue, editors “will specifically be looking for humorous work, lighthearted pieces, or works that explore the humor woven through struggles.” Send personal essays or fiction (literary fiction or “literary genre,” such as mysteries, speculative fiction, or westerns) ranging from 650 to 5,000 words. (No poetry at this time, but take heart, poets: There are several exclusive poetry calls waiting for you below.) Payment is $100 and submission (via Duotrope) is free.
Deadline: April 1
Other listings
The Other Stories: Dark magic & cryptids
This horror/sci-fi/thriller fiction podcast, billed as “a modern take on The Twilight Zone,” was featured in our very first edition, but they’ve got a rare double-deadline month coming up in April that I suspect will tempt many of the horror/sci-fi/fantasy fans among us. The first theme is “Dark Magic” (April 1) and the second is “Cryptids” (April 29). Send stories that are roughly 2,000 words (no need to record them – the podcast has their own narration team for accepted stories).
Deadline: April 1 for “Dark Magic;” April 29 for “Cryptids”
The Fabulist: Ecology and solarpunk fiction
The Fabulist is another repeat contender here at Keep Writing, but its last themed submission window of the season is approaching, so if you haven’t shot your shot yet, friends, now’s the time. The last themed submission window focuses on “ecology and solarpunk” and will run from April 2 to April 8. (If you submit very, very soon, you may still make March’s “anti-dystopianism” themed window, which ends on March 11.) All core fantastical genres, “as well as their subvariants, crossovers, hybrids and mutations,” are welcome. Stories should be less than 3,000 words. No reading fees and a flat $25 honorarium is offered to all contributors.
Deadline: April 8
iō Literary Journal: Life after COVID-19 submissions
For an open-access ebook, iō Literary Journal is looking for submissions that dwell on post-pandemic life. “How have our experiences changed how we approach our lives? What have we become desensitized to or increasingly aware of? Tell us your experiences navigating this shift,” editors write. Submit no more than 3 pieces, with up to 15 pages per piece.
Deadline: April 14
About Place Journal: “On Rivers”
Send prose, poetry, and hybrid work about rivers to About Place Journal for consideration in its upcoming “On Rivers” issue. “We welcome a wide range of perspectives and types of writing and art, including experimental and/or speculative work; interviews; graphic memoir, poetry, or fiction; scholarly, legal, or scientific prose written for a general audience; and translations (with originals). We seek work from activists, artists, creatives, environmentalists, writers, and all who are deeply engaged with rivers, regardless of academic, professional, or publication history,” editors say. In short: “We’re looking to create a collective view on rivers that is expansive and surprising.” Send up to 3 pieces for both poetry (maximum: 50 lines each) and prose (maximum: 4,000 words each).
Deadline: April 15
Arboreal Literary Magazine: Perseverance-themed submissions
This new journal is looking for submissions themed around “perseverance” for its second issue. “As we navigate a constantly evolving world, perseverance has become a crucial component of our daily lives,” editors explain. “It is through perseverance that we find the strength to overcome obstacles, pursue our dreams, and achieve our goals.” Send fiction or nonfiction (max 4,000 words) or poetry (max 4 poems).
Deadline: April 15
Pangyrus: “Choices” submissions
Pangryus is hoping to see “well-crafted, thought-provoking essays, poems, stories, and comics” that have to do with the theme of “Choices” for its 11th print issue. “Choices define us – everyday choices, life choices, choices we wish we’d made, choices that the world or country or other people don’t allow us to make,” editors explain. “The world we create on the page is different. Every writer knows choices shape our stories. Our art. Our meanings. We'd like to read yours.” Send up to 7,500 words for fiction and reported nonfiction features, 600 to 1500 words for essays, or up to 3 poems.
Deadline: April 15
Passager: Poetry from writers over 50
Passager’s annual poetry contest for writers over age 50 is in full swing. Submit up to 5 poems (40 lines max for each) for a chance to win $1,000 and publication in a future issue. Honorable mentions will also be published in the same issue. The reading fee is $20 and includes a 1-year subscription to Passager. Authors must be age 50 or older by September 1, 2023, in order to be eligible.
Deadline: April 15
Harbor Review: “Merge // Divide” poems
Harbor Review’s upcoming summer issue has a theme of “Merge // Divide.” Submitters may send one to three poems. Regular submissions are free, and expedited submissions (with a response time of 10 days) are $8; all fees are waived for BIPOC writers. Payment is $10 per published poem.
Deadline: April 30
troublemaker firestarter: “Sad Poems for Horny People”
In what already has my vote for the most memorable theme of 2023, troublemaker firestarter is seeking “Sad Poems for Horny People” for its fourth issue. Submit up to five poems. No reading fee that I can find. (The journal’s website lists May 1 as the deadline, but their Duotrope listing says April 30, so I’ve stuck with that deadline to be safe.)
Deadline: April 30