Blog – Top of JC’s Mind

an encouraging rejection

When I was in Hawai’i, I spent a considerable amount of time searching for literary journals that might publish my work and choosing, formatting, and submitting poems to them.

Some of you may have seen my recent excited, squealing post over an acceptance that came from those submissions and my crazed rush to withdraw the three accepted poems from other journals to which they had been submitted.

I am nearly always submitting to journals that allow simultaneous submissions to avoid having to wait months to find out an editor has rejected a poem before being free to send it elsewhere, but the protocol is to promptly withdraw a poem from other journals if it is accepted.

Most of the time, I submit to journals that don’t charge reading fees, but I did submit a set of four poems to a journal that does charge a reading fee and offers personal, expedited feedback for a slightly higher fee, which I decided to do, as I haven’t had much experience in hearing criticism from an editor’s point of view. On the bright side, this journal also pays cash for poems they accept, which is somewhat unusual. It’s more common not to be paid or to be given a copy or copies of the journal, if it is print rather than electronic.

I sent en email over the weekend withdrawing the accepted poems and today (Tuesday) got feedback from that journal’s editor, who obviously had not seen my withdrawal notice. Under the circumstances, I’m grateful that she didn’t accept any of the poems! She did give very specific and helpful criticism and was very encouraging about my submitting to their journal in the future.

Her criticism of the poem in which she was most interested  – and which she invited me to revise and re-submit directly to her for consideration, which I can’t do because it is one of the ones that will be published by Wilderness House Literary Review this fall – was actually addressed in an earlier draft. I need to talk to some of my poet friends and see if it would be too forward of me to send the earlier draft to her to see if it addresses her criticism adequately. It’s dicey because I can’t offer it to her for consideration anymore.

Another way in which this journal is different is that they read blind, meaning that the poems are submitted without any reference to the author. For a new poet like me, it saves me from an editor seeing my file and saying “Who the heck is this?” So to receive encouragement to send more of my work was very validating, knowing that the editor didn’t know whether or not I was someone who published regularly or had a writing degree. She didn’t think I was a rank amateur.

When you get a typical “thank you but your work does not fit our needs at the present time,” you wonder if maybe the editor is rolling his eyes and thinking you are totally out of your depth.

But, at least today, an encouraging rejection is a confidence booster.

new twitter follower

I just got notification that I have a new twitter follower, Gas Industry Today, which just seems weird, given that I have spent years doing public commentary against fracking and continued reliance on fossil fuels.

I thought from the title that this was a pro-industry site, but when I checked it out, it is actually a news aggregator. Given that I post a lot of links, it makes sense that they would follow me, at least for a while.

I don’t usually promote following me on twitter here on Top of JC’s Mind, because my twitter is a mishmash of blog posts, links to things about global warming, fracking, and such, links on Catholic topics and women’s ordination, and the occasional personal comment. It’s even more eclectic than this blog!

But, if anyone wants to follow, on twitter I am @btmum.  I think that link will work. I am not so adept at twitter-verse protocol.

LOL – Probably not a surprise!

Acceptance drama!

Alternate title: What happens when you check Submittable late at night when you can’t sleep.

Since coming back from Hawai’i, I’ve been having lots of trouble with sleep, so I got up and decided to check Submittable, which is a tool that many literary journals use to host submissions. I wasn’t expecting much news, because journals also send emails, so I was shocked to see an acceptance! I was excited! Also, slightly terrified, because it seemed that I had inadvertently broken a cardinal rule of simultaneous submissions, which is to immediately withdraw an accepted poem from any other journal which has it under consideration. Most journals only accept previously unpublished work, so it is important that you notify them promptly so that they aren’t spending time reviewing a poem that they can’t include in their publication.

I powered up my desktop, which has my main inbox – which, granted, is overflowing with the mail backlog from traveling. I thought that I had reviewed everything I received in Hawai’i, but, somehow I missed the acceptance email from Wilderness House Literary Review  – which they had sent on July 3rd. I was shocked to read that they accepted all three of the poems I submitted for their next issue!

I quickly wrote a reply, about how excited I was to appear in their journal and apologized for the delay in replying. Then, I brought up my personal submissions database and found that I needed to send notices to only two other journals, because a couple of others had already rejected these poems. Fortunately, each of these journals still has one or two of my poems to consider.

By this point, my pulse had been racing for a while, and going back to bed was out of the question, so I took advantage of the six hour time difference to message E in Hawai’i. I rattled on about this whole wonderful-but-slightly-nerve-wracking drama until I calmed down a bit.

But I knew I still wouldn’t sleep so I wrote this post, scheduling it to come out at a more reasonable hour for most of my readers who share my time zone.

At whatever time anyone does happen to read this though, I am pleased to announce that my poems “(Not) the aunt I remember”, “Fifty-four” and “Downy” will be published in the fall online edition of Wilderness House Literary Review in early October.

You can be sure I will publish the link here at Top of JC’s Mind when it becomes available.

And maybe, in an hour or so, I’ll be able to fall asleep…

SoCS: flying

I used to like to fly. The first time I flew I was in my early twenties and I loved looking out the window at all the landforms I had studied in geology and the clouds I had studied in meteorology. Those were also the days when checked baggage was free and so were snacks and meals. I even remember getting hot towels to freshen up at the end of a long flight – and this was in coach, not first class.

Now, I don’t like flying as much. Flights are really packed and service is  – ummm – let’s say spotty. For example, on my recent flight back to NYS from Hawai’i we had blankets for the flight over the ocean in the afternoon but no blankets for the overnight flight from LAX to Philly. The airline sent me an email to order food for that flight, except they don’t serve food that late at night. Originally, I had a morning flight into Binghamton from Philly, but the airline cancelled it so I was in Philly for five and half hours before getting to come home in the afternoon.

I guess in a way it is lucky that I don’t fly very often. Less to complain about and more money for my bank account.
***
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is: “fly/flies/flew/flu/flue.”  Join us!  Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/07/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-1815/

socs-badge

Colbert and Tyson on Pluto

I had to post this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jXazEYi3P8&feature=youtu.be with Stephen Colbert interviewing Neil deGrasse Tyson about Pluto. Both are favorites of mine. Enjoy!

Strawberry shortcake

One of the trade-offs I made in spending five weeks visiting my daughter E in Hawai’i was that I was not at home for local strawberry season.  (I can hear you all sarcastically saying “aaaaawwwwww!”)

In our family, strawberry season is one of the most anticipated times of year. We used to go to our favorite local farm to pick them by the bucket, for ourselves and to share with extended family. I will admit the last few years had turned into buying quarts at the farmers’ market, with fewer people at home and a few physical constraints creeping in.

The two to three weeks of the height of strawberry season then turn into an orgy of strawberry eating. Strawberry shortcake was usually the first entrant. Fresh strawberry glacé pie, using a recipe from the farm we used to visit when I was growing up. Strawberry spinach salad. Strawberries on ice cream. Strawberries on cereal. Eating strawberries plain or dipped in sugar. Then, there were the strawberry-rhubarb combinations – pie, crisp, and a chilled soup that is one of my favorite dishes ever.

It is all amazingly delicious and special because we seldom eat strawberries unless they are fresh and local.

So I thought I had missed all the strawberries until I went to the farmers’ market this morning. One of the vendors is not a farmer himself, but re-sells produce from various New York and Pennsylvania farms. He must have some suppliers who are a bit further north and still had fresh strawberries. I bought a quart and currently have about half of them washed, sliced, and macerating in the fridge. I baked the shortcakes and will get some whipping cream when I go out on errands this afternoon. The bowl and beater and chilling in the fridge.

I get to surprise B with fresh strawberry shortcake tonight for dessert. I can hardly wait!

One-Liner Wednesday: Truth and Politics

“I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

Join us for Linda’s One-liner Wednesdays! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/07/15/one-liner-wednesday-so-stereotypical-so-true/

back home

I’m sorry, dear readers, for being absent for the past week. I flew home from Hawai’i Tuesday, arriving home on Wednesday afternoon without having slept. Since then I have been in a bit of a fog.

OK – more than a bit.

I am notoriously bad at changing time zones. It takes me about a week twice a year when we go on and off daylight savings time to adjust my sleep schedule, so the six-hour time change from Hawai’i Standard to Eastern Daylight Time has been a struggle. I am alternating between nights where I get little to no sleep and ones where I am so exhausted that I sleep eight or nine hours. I have been trying to catch up on the most important things that I missed being away from home for five weeks, such as visiting the elders and our younger daughter and some re-scheduled appointments, but I haven’t had much brain power to put together posts.

LOL – Not that this post is that profound!

I can at least let you know that there will be some more Hawai’i posts coming as I get access to some more photos. There will also be some commentary on recent events and potentially a squealing, excited post if any of the poetry submissions I did while in Honolulu result in acceptances. I am sparing you any disappointing posts when I get rejections (but will tell you that I have already received several rejections. It’s an advantage of putting in a bunch of submissions in a short time that the rejections aren’t as daunting because you still have some submissions under consideration.)

I had been trying to keep up on reading and commenting, but even that fell apart over the weekend. I’ll be trying to catch up with that – and sorting through the 800+ email messages in my inbox – this week.

Stay tuned and thanks for your patience!

JC

Free Kindle version of Summer Anthology from 7/5-7/7/15

What could be better? A free kindle copy from Silver Birch Press of their Summer Anthology of poetry and prose. But hurry! It is only free through Tuesday, July 7.