Tag: acceptance

Score one for Indian pudding!

I’ve spent an inordinate amount to time over the last couple of days revising one of my poems about Indian pudding for submission to Silver Birch Press’s upcoming “My Sweet Word” series and compiling and formatting the rest of the materials needed – bio, author’s note, photo with caption.

As many of you know, I often wrestle with technical issues, especially when I have to format for MS Word from my non-Windows system and when I have to deal with images of any sort.

It literally took me hours to get everything assembled properly, but I was finally able to hit “send” this morning.

And – drum roll, please! – I am happy to report that I have already received an acceptance! I think my submission must have landed on the top of the inbox on the West Coast for the beginning of their work day.

So, at some point this month or next, I’ll be able to share the link with you, featuring an ever-so-artistic photo of my hands cradling a bowl of Indian pudding with melting vanilla ice cream. I made a batch in the heat of August, just so we could do the photo shoot.

Well, truth be told, not just for the photo shoot….

While we generally don’t make something that has to bake for two hours during the dog days of summer, Indian pudding is still a delicious treat and brings back memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with family and of B’s great-aunt Gert, whose recipe we use, although I must confess that I have been experimenting with proportions a bit.

It’s always a good time for Indian pudding!

I’m in!

Just an update for all those who have been following my deliberations about attending this residency/workshop at MASS MoCA given by Tupelo Press.

I sent my registration yesterday and have already received confirmation that I am in!!!

I’m so excited – and a bit anxious. Given that it doesn’t take place until mid-November, I’ll have lots of time to get used to the idea that I am really doing this.

Stay tuned! And thanks to everyone who helped me clarify that this was the right path for me at this time!

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…

Batting .500

A few days ago, I wrote about how I was copying poems into the cloud and setting up my submissions database before leaving for Hawai’i.

I had even done two submissions and amazingly, I have already heard back from both of them.

The first, to an anthology about fracking, was a rejection.

The second, to the Silver Birch Press blog, was an acceptance!  I had written a new poem for their June/July poetry series “All About My Name.” My title is “Becoming Joanne” and you can be sure that when it is published, I will send out a blog post here with the link!

I am planning to send out a big batch of submissions later this month, most of which will come back as rejections, but, for the moment, I’m batting .500, which is pretty sweet!

SoCS: Accepting compliments

It seems that it should be the easiest thing in the word to graciously accept compliments. Someone says something nice about you or something you have done and you smile and say thank you.

Somehow though, if you tend to be the self-deprecating, or perfectionistic, or even the humble sort, it can be difficult not to go on with a “but” … it was really a team effort, or I made a mistake in the third movement, or it was just a little something – or it was nothing at all.

Sometimes, we don’t feel worthy of the compliment. It may help to look from the point of view of the complimenter instead of reflexively rejecting the substance of the compliment.

Next time, maybe, it will be just “Thank you.”  With maybe an extension of the gratitude, like, “I’m so glad you liked it.”  “It means so much to me to hear you say that.”

A gracious acceptance of the compliment with no “but”s.
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The prompt for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is: “compliment/complement.”  Anyone can join in!  Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-215/

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SoCS: Heal

Healing feels like a life theme. There have been a lot of health challenges in our family for a lot of years, some big, some small. The small ones seem to heal; the big ones – not so much. Though the situation becomes less acute, full healing isn’t possible. It’s hard…

So, instead of full physical healing, we have to work on spiritual healing, which involves coming to a state of peace and acceptance. It’s also hard, a constant challenge, but the key to moving forward in a positive direction.

This is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-january-1715/  Please join in!
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Badge by Doobster @MindfulDigressions

Also, Linda is hosting Just Jot It January. Join in with this, too!  http://lindaghill.com/2015/01/01/just-jot-it-january-pingback-post-and-rules/

rejection letters

I happened upon this 2010 post from the blog of Shawn L. Bird, which I have been following for several months. I love how time has made her able to accept rejection letters with such equanimity.

I chose not to send my music compositions to publishers as a young adult because I felt I would be too discouraged by rejection to keep on trying. Now, in my fifties, changing to writing essays and poetry instead of music, I am able to send things out and get rejection letters without letting it stop me from writing and submitting again.

I admit, though, it would nice to get an acceptance every once in a while.

Maybe next time…

Shawn L. Bird's avatarShawn L. Bird

In the May 20th blog entry, “Why I Love My Job” I told you that in grade 5 I switched my career goal from writing to teaching.  I didn’t tell you why.

In grade 3 and 4, I was a writing star.  I shared stories with my grade 3 class during show and tell, and I know I kept them on the edge of their seats with my brilliant prose.  In grade 4 I won a Mother’s Day contest with a poem I’d written.  My star was on fire.  I had nothing but confidence in my skills as a writer.

In grade 5, I shared a poem I’d written with my school librarian, Mrs. Alex Harbottle , and she suggested I send it in to a magazine.  She recommended a children’s poetry journal called Jabberwocky.  I sent off my poem.  In due course, I received a letter back…

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