Leila Chatti, from “The White Poet Wants to Know Why I Don’t Write More Arab Poems,” published in The Georgia Review (via lifeinpoetry)

How to Be a Contemporary Writer

1. Read diversely.

2. Write.

3. See items 1 and 2.

4. Accept that there is no one way to make it as a writer and that the definition of making it is fluid and tiered.

5. Accept that sometimes literary success is political and/or about who you know and that’s not likely to change. Yes, celebrities are going to keep publishing terrible books. Yes, Lisa Rinna’s Starlit is an actual thing. I read the book and… I’m scarred. But. You’re not getting better as a writer, worrying about the system. 

5a. If you’re a woman, writer of color or queer writer, there are probably more barriers. Know that. Be relentless anyway. Strive for excellence. Learn how to kick the shit out of those barriers. Don’t assume every failure is about your identity because such is not the case. 

6. Accept that sometimes cream actually does rise to the top and hard, consistent work will eventually get noticed, maybe not in the way you envisioned, but some way, some how. 

7. Understand the actual odds and learn to love the slush pile. The slush pile is not your enemy. It’s actually one of your best friends.The truth is that a significant percentage of the slush pile, which I prefer to call the submission queue, is absolutely terrible because people are lazy and will submit any old thing. If you can write a good sentence you are already heads and shoulders above most of what is found in submission queues. You’re not competing against 10,000 submissions a year a magazine receives. You’re competing against more like 200.  Those are still intimidating odds but they’re also far more reasonable.

8. Be nice. The community is small and everyone talks. Being nice does not mean eating shit. Being nice does not mean kissing ass. Being nice just means treating others the way you would prefer to be treated. If you’re comfortable being treated like an asshole, then by all means. 

9. Know that more often than not, editors have your best interests at heart. Stand up for your writing but be open to editorial suggestions. A good editor is giving you feedback in service of your writing.

10. Ignore most of the atrocious writing advice that proliferates at such an alarming rate. 

11. Stop listening to conspiracy theories about publishing. 

12. Stop listening to doomsday predictions about publishing. 

13. Don’t talk yourself out of the game by listening to conspiracy theories, doomsday predictions, and bad advice.

14. Make note of the distinction between writing and publishing. They are two very different things.

15. Know that you can get an agent through the mystically fearsome slushpile. It may be hard. It may take more time than you want but it can and does happen. I found my first agent through the slush pile. She’s great. My second agent found me because of essays I wrote. Sometimes people find agents at conferences, or through friends of a friend, or other such connections but you absolutely can go the old fashioned route.

15a. Do your research. Know what agents are interested in. Spell their names correctly. Have a book you give a damn about and make sure it shows. Know how to talk about your book.

15b. If you want to see a sample query letter, just ask a writer who successfully signed with an agent through the slush pile. They will probably share.

15c. This is an interesting take on navigating the business of agents. 

15d. But don’t be so discouraged! 

16. You do not need to live in New York to be a writer, though New York is great (dirty bathrooms aside) and it might be better if you live elsewhere and visit New York for a few days at at time. 

17. Perspective is everything. Someone getting a book deal is not taking yours away. Success is not as finite as it seems–it’s a matter of luck, timing, and hard work. (Or sometimes, yes, who you know).

17a. You are neither as great or terrible a writer as you assume. 

18. Know that sometimes you simply need to work harder and sometimes you’ve done the best you can do and there’s no shame in either.

19. Participate in the literary community in the ways you are comfortable participating. What matters is that you contribute. That could be subscribing to a magazine, attending a reading, volunteering at a literary magazine, and so on. (See #8)

20. Have an online presence or don’t. It’s shocking how much time writers spend stressing over this that could be spent writing. Yes, an online presence helps but only if you actually use it with some regularity. Plenty of writers don’t have a significant online presence and manage to still be writers. If you feel like having an online presence (Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Tumblr, whatever), is a pain in the ass, it’s going to show and it’s not worth having.

21. If you’re going to have a website, don’t have an ugly website. There’s no excuse anymore. If you cannot afford a designer, no problem. Use a content management system like Wordpress or Tumblr and a nice template.

22. You will probably need a job unless you’re fine with financial stress. Yes you can have a job and be a writer. It happens all the time. I used to be fine with financial stress because I was young and my fantasies were exciting. I am not anymore because I am old and I love my apartment and health insurance and buying stupid shit. A job facilitates these things so keep it in mind. There are worse things than a job.

23. Learn to deal with rejection. You don’t have to like it. You can sulk and whine and cry. You can blog about it. Just know that publishing involves rejection far more than acceptance. It’s easier if you can process that early on. 

23 a. Maybe don’t write editors who reject you to call them names. That doesn’t ever end well.

24. Have other hobbies. Don’t be one of those people who only writes and can only talk about writing. My hobbies are embarrassing but I do have them and am grateful to have them.

25. Ignore all of this as you see fit.

On Carrie Fisher’s Autopsy Report, Or What We Talk About When We Talk About Women’s Pain

I know next to nothing about Star Wars. Sure, I’ve seen some of the films, but I never became an avid fan and was never invested in the films beyond much more than a passing interest. I know next to nothing about Carrie Fisher as a human being, but I do know this:

There is absolutely no shame in her ingesting heroin, meth, alcohol, ecstasy, MDMA, cocaine, etc., in the days before her death. This was a woman who struggled openly, honestly, and loudly with drug addiction and mental illness for years. Decades. 

What there is shame in, however, is using her very public and painful addiction as a means to anything other than having an honest and essential discussion about the ways addiction affects women. And the ways in which we consume, romanticize, ignore, and belittle women’s pain, whether emotional or physical. We cannot turn narratives of addiction into glamorized, flashy arguments about how fame and fortune turn celebrities into power-hungry, lethargic, selfish monsters. Carrie Fisher’s narrative is not the narrative of her being a power-hungry monster. It is the narrative of a very different power-hungry monster: that of an entertainment industry, and beyond, that both glamorizes and ignores women’s pain and the stringent and demanding expectations that we place on women both in public and in private.

It is the narrative of the fact that women’s heart attack symptoms display in far different ways than the heart attack symptoms of men, yet many women have never been taught how to recognize the unique ways that their life-threatening pain presents itself. It is the narrative of the fact that the trauma of sexual violence and the trauma of abuse perpetrated against women actually has manifested in women with ovaries having their ovaries removed at far, far higher rates than women with ovaries who have not endured abuse. This narrative is about Yentl Syndrome, a medical community phenomenon that sees women’s physical pain taken less seriously than men’s pain. This narrative is about the fact that addiction, for so many women, stems from a lack of resources to access healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with PTSD and violence, such as counseling, psychiatric treatment, support groups, education, comfort, understanding. Recognition. This narrative is about how years ago, before drinking was deemed “acceptable” for women, women took sips of wine and vodka in back rooms before they returned to the full-time job of taking care of their children. And we refused to see it, and we still refuse to see it.This narrative is about how there are far, far more AA groups and chemical dependency programs for men than there are for women.

This narrative is about how men only have to wait 49 minutes before receiving painkillers for abdominal pain, while women are forced to wait over an hour. This narrative is about how women metabolize drugs differently than men. It’s about how female sex trafficking victims are often plied with drugs and alcohol to make the ordeal of being raped several times a day “easier,” and how addiction can develop this way. This narrative is a centuries-long narrative that saw women with uteruses having their uteruses removed due to concerns that the uterus was a source of “hysteria.”

In other words, if a woman is suffering intense emotional pain, or intense physical pain, society’s first and foremost objective is to take instead of give. Society does not take away the pain, however- they take away our access to what can take away the pain. They take away parts of our bodies, they take away our own deep intuition of what is truly “wrong” with us by claiming that our intuition is faulty, they take away our ability to defend ourselves, and, like Carrie, they take away the years of our lives that we spent demanding that our pain be recognized as more than just “too much emotion.”

Women, especially women forced to perform to high expectations in the public eye like Carrie, are seen as “too much.” If we struggle, we are too much. If we are honest, we are too much. If we display emotion, we are too much.

Carrie Fisher’s narrative is not about greed, or power, or reckless indulgence. It is about a woman, who, like many women, was forced to give too much of herself away, and was not given nearly enough in return. Tomorrow, no, today, another woman will die of drug addiction, maybe miles from here, maybe in the house next to your own. She will die alone and she will die misremembered, and we will drudge up all the minute and grotesque and grainy details of her death as a way of continuing to convince ourselves that women always “take it too far.” Another woman will have a heart attack that a doctor could have prevented. Another woman will sit down in the emergency center and have an unnecessary medical procedure to correct the wrong problem after being convinced that the true problem she mentioned all along was incorrect.

When I look at the photo of Carrie Fisher that dozens of news media sites have positioned alongside flashy headlines about the drug cocktail that may have killed her, I don’t see a power-hungry, cash-wasting celebrity. I see a brave and honest women who was extraordinary not for her celebrity status, but for her recognition of, and commitment to, talking about the very things women are asked, no, demanded, not to talk about.

Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, author of Night, and survivor of the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. (via caitrionabalfe)

Please spread the word for anyone potentially affected by the ban !!!

booooooooooooooooooooost

Republicans who attacked Donald Trump’s Muslim ban during the election now have nothing to say

Issue #35 of Up the Staircase Quarterly is now live! Check out amazing poetry by:

Lucian Mattison | Super Saturday

Kate E. Schultz | A Student Reacts to Sharon Olds’ ‘Sex Without Love’

Julian Randall | Biracial Ghazal:  Why Everything Ends in Blood & Freedom

Michelle Lewis | Drowning

Elizabeth Tsung | In Taiwan

David Ishaya Osu | Together

Michael Augustine Jefferson | An Andalusian Bull

Ariella Carmell | For Red & Visions

Krista Cox | Confessional

Tingyu Liu | Placoderms & Evolutionary

Nancy Bevilaqua | Thanksgiving (1997)

Dave Harris | When I say I’m afraid of going bald what I mean is & My mother tells me my father is a gorilla

Fun fact: According to Greek legend there was a famous prostitute who managed to avoid a death sentence by showing the judges her boobs and arguing that it would be a crime against the Gods to destroy something so beautiful. 

Before you ask, yes there are paintings of this. And yes, they’re amazing.

Read more.

I love history.

Role models tho.

The gay one

No, but this is one of my absolute favorite bits of history! 

The courtesan named was named Phryne and she was indeed a renowned beauty, and was indeed was put on trial for a capital crime. And yes, the sum of her defense consisted of her stripping in court (helped by her lover/defendant) and asking the jury (all males) if they were prepared to destroy this. 

But this is actually a very interesting case of Values Dissonance - the capital crime she was accused of was blasphemy. In Ancient Greek society, exceptional beauty was a sign of favor from the gods, and they took the idea that beauty indicated goodness with great seriousness. They even called their nobles Kaloi k'Agathoi, “the Beautiful and the Good.” 

So by showing off her great physical beauty, Phryne was being very clever indeed, her argument essentially being “How could I possibly commit blasphemy if the gods have given me this body?“ 

God, I adore history. 

”If these tits are legit, you must acquit.”

Natalie Wee, from “COMING OF AGE”, 

Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (Amazon / Goodreads)

—from “On the Queer Girl Fantasy” by @natalieweepoetry published at @risingphoenixpress, from her book, OUR BODIES & OTHER FINE MACHINES, set to be released here at @wordsdancemag on December 1st! CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE POEM!