Well, well, well. Spring is in full bloom, and so is Keep Writing! If you’re new here, warm welcomes to you: Help yourself to our deviled egg bar and take a merry turn around the maypole of our archives.
Some happy news: The lovely folks at Bellevue Literary Review have put that essay of mine from their spring issue online. You can read my essay, “71 Grams,” here.
Can I ask you something? When did we all collectively decide that shortcuts were a bad thing?
Don’t get me wrong, shortcuts in the hands of the wrong people—those who don’t think rules, common sense, or basic human decency apply to them—are a very bad idea. And a shortcut that leads to a terrible destination is never worth taking. (Laying off your writing staff to replace them with AI is a shortcut to a publication’s grave, for example.)
But ordinary, common-sense shortcuts? When did taking the longest, hardest route become the automatic moral high ground?
I am a fervent and obsessive home cook whose freezer is stuffed to its literal brim with slow-simmered stocks, home-grown vegetables, and fish we’ve caught ourselves. I also worship at the altar of brownie mix and Better Than Bouillon. I once delivered a rabidly enthusiastic PowerPoint presentation on the glories of boxed stuffing. I am constantly delighted to live in a world where pre-cut leafy greens and hardy vegetables exist. Someone else on this planet has done battle with a butternut squash so I don’t have to! I am eternally grateful for their service!
If Point A is a weary weeknight with a five-month-old and Point B is dinner in my belly, I am thankful for every single shortcut that gets me from here to there with minimal tears. This particular season of my life does not allow for much slow simmering—or slow anything, period. Time is my most precious resource these days. I need every trick in the book to help me wring abundance from each fleeting second.
And it’s these same kinds of shortcuts I rely on when I steal away to write these letters to you, and I feel zero shame about leaning on them. Because our brains are so marvelously complex and so blessedly simple at the same time. We humans are so easily distressed and confused and rattled and yet still so easily trainable. When I play a certain playlist, sit in a certain chair, or pull up the comforting blue-white blankness of a new document, my brain automatically shifts into Writing Mode. A song as old as time, a bell as loud as Pavlov’s.
To brag about never using shortcuts is to concede you have the luxury of unfurling time at your disposal. That is fine. But if you are a person who does not currently have that luxury, I see you, and I deeply relate.
If Point A is not writing and Point B is putting words on the page, I say we should use whatever hacks we can in order to proceed to our final destination. With that in mind, here are some shortcut ideas to help us both arrive a little quicker.
Inspired by Pavlov, every time we sit down to create we can:
Put on the same playlist, artist, or soundtrack.
Burn the same candle or spritz the same scent.
Write at the same time of day.
Indulge in the same flavors—a certain variety of tea, perhaps, or ordering the same beverage from our coffee shop of choice.
Carve out a dedicated spot in our homes and do all our drafting there. (No more writing-from-bed, writing-from-dining-table, or writing-while-hunched-like-a-little-goblin-on-the-couch.)
We can also try to remove distractions that pull focus, such as:
Leaving our phones in another room.
Using a distraction blocker app (like Freedom) or device (like Brick).
Leaving the house to write.
Or we can choose to maximize our time with the page by having the bulk of our brainstorming legwork done up front, such as:
Outlining before we begin.
Utilizing talk-to-text to draft out ideas while we’re otherwise occupied (Driving! Cleaning! Cooking! Taking a walk! Taking a shower!).
Embracing the art of the placeholder to leapfrog ahead when we’re stuck on minute details ([LONGER DESCRIPTION GOES HERE], [INSERT WITTY CONVERSATION], [TURN THIS DRIVEL INTO SOMETHING GOOD WHEN I HAVE A BRAIN AGAIN AND NOT A SKULL FILLED WITH SENTIENT CUSTARD], etc.).
Of course, the catch is that learning which shortcuts work best for us and remembering to use them takes time—the very resource shortage that pushes us to use shortcuts in the first place. I wish there was a way around this, I really do. It’s exhausting to feel like we’re always swimming upstream.
But from one struggling salmon to another: It will get easier. Less floundering is on the horizon. Sometimes the only way forward is to muddle through the confounding mess of today in order to get to an easier tomorrow. The only certainty of seasons is that they change. The only certainty of time is that it passes.
So I know that easier tomorrow is there, waiting for us both. We just have to keep stumbling forward to seize it.
Until next month—
Keep writing,
Nicki
Upcoming calls for submissions
Remember the summer literary season is often a slower one thanks to many university-linked journals taking a hiatus; expect things to pick back up in August/September.
Spotlight Pick
Southern Humanities Review: Poems of witness
For its annual Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, Southern Humanities Review will award $1,000 and publication to a winning “poem of witness.” The prize was created in honor of poet Jake Adam York, who died of a stroke at age 40, “leaving behind a body of work that bears witness to our difficult past, and, as all great poems of witness do, lights a way toward understanding.” The prize will be presented in person in October at an event that includes a conversation between the recipient and judge as well as a workshop; travel expenses for the winning poet will be covered. The guest judge for 2024 is Victoria Chang. Send up to three poems. The entry fee is $15, and all entrants will receive a copy of the issue in which the winning work appears. A small group of finalists will also be selected for publication. The results will be announced in August.
Deadline: June 1
Fuente Fountain Books: Feminist progressive manuscripts
Send a one-page query letter for your feminist progressive book-length manuscripts in fiction, nonfiction, memoir, or poetry “that help folks visualize and emotionally experience the wonder of life while critically analyzing the gaps we need to bridge to help raise the level of happiness for everyone, including All Our Relations” to new indie press Fuente Fountain Books. Cited examples of books “we wish we could have published” include The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich and Educated by Tara Westover. Query letters only; no manuscripts.
Deadline: June 1
The Gilded Weathervane: Submissions on rural living
This literary journal from FarmGirl Press publishes “poems, stories, essays, artwork, and photography that is grounded in the beauty and experience of rural living in its variety of expressions.” Send four to six poems or prose up to 6,000 words; flash-length stories and essays are also welcome. No submission fees, no payment that I can find.
Deadline: June 1
Parabola: “Grief & Gratitude” submissions
Parabola, “a quarterly journal devoted to the exploration of the quest for meaning as it is expressed in the world’s myths, symbols, and religious traditions,” is calling for submissions for its fall issue, which will have a theme of “Grief & Gratitude.” Send “well-researched, objective, and unsentimental” articles or translations (1,000 to 3,000 words) or up to five poems. No submission fees.
Deadline: June 1
Quartet: Poetry from women over 50
Quartet, an online poetry journal “designed by women over fifty to highlight the creativity of women fifty and over,” welcomes submissions of one to three poems. “We want to read poems that tackle difficult themes, that bend or honor traditional forms, that surprise and illuminate, that are genuine, that have momentum and play with language,” editors explain. No submission fees, no payments.
Deadline: June 1
Superpresent: “Zing!” submissions
Superpresent, a quarterly magazine of the arts, welcomes poetry, short story, and essay submissions for its summer issue, which will have the theme “Zing!” No other information or guidance on this theme was provided, but authors should send prose between 500 and 2,000 words or up to three poems. No submission fees, no payment that I can find.
Deadline: June 1
Heart on Our Sleeves Press: “Blood Pressure” submissions
The first issue from new literary magazine Heart on Our Sleeves will have the theme of “Blood Pressure.” “‘Blood Pressure’ does not actually refer to the medical measurement you may be familiar with, but in fact, the pressure we as humans feel to make our countries, families, and even ourselves proud,” editors explain. “Do you feel personally victimized by your ancestors? Did you pick a career path your parents might not approve of? Do you have a deep-seated desire to succeed that torments you daily? Then we want to hear from you!” Send only one piece for consideration, either poetry (max five pages) or prose (max 2,000 words). Note that the press states that “[we] will not and do not own any rights to your pieces if you are chosen for our magazine. Your art is your own, and you may do with it what you see fit.” AI-generated content is forbidden, but “AI-assisted content” is fine as long as “it constitutes less than fifty percent of the total product.” No submission fees, no payment that I can find.
Deadline: June 16
Gold Man Review: Submissions from U.S. West Coast writers
Gold Man Review seeks poetry and prose submissions from residents of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. Prose should be no longer than 5,000 words, and poetry can be either three short poems or longer poems up to three pages. Note that the journal is “generally not interested in genre heavy work.” No submission fees, no payment that I can find.
Deadline: June 24
Kinsman Quarterly: African Diaspora Awards 2024
Writers of African descent are welcome to submit to Kinsman Quarterly’s African Diaspora Awards. Winners will receive up to $1,000 as well as publication in both the magazine and the 2025 anthology Black Butterfly: Voices of the African Diaspora. Entries should “feature themes related to African culture or subculture; including, but not limited to, a cultural history, past/present family dynamics, customs, spirituality, myths and/or beliefs, cultural art, community challenges, etc.” Maximum lengths are as follows: 1,000 to 5,000 words for short stories, up to 1,000 words for flash fiction, up to 1,000 words for creative nonfiction, and one to five poems (up to 10 pages).
Deadline: June 30
Congratulations on the posting of your essay, 71 grams, in Bellvue Literary Review.