#CurrentWordsPublishing – Page 2

Submitters Beware

Published on July 18, 2025August 4, 2025 by virginiawatts1 Comment

There has been much in the news within literary circles lately about literary journals with questionable practices, mostly focused upon submission fees and how these fees are used. No one should question the idea that it is expensive to run a literary magazine with such costs as editing and overhead, and most importantly, not everything about submission fees should be seen as negative. It is possible that when writers must pay a nominal fee to submit their work to literary magazines, they may be inspired to submit a more edited and stronger piece. However, it’s one thing to pay $3.00 to one journal to submit but let’s face it, most writers must submit the same piece to many magazines if they want to increase their chance of having it published. This is why submission fees can really add up. There is also the idea that if submission fees are charged, less submissions will come in and this will lead to faster publication decisions by editors. Like it or not, it does seem that submission fees are here to stay. If we accept that fact, then we must understand some realities about submission fees.

I am not going to name names here, but some well know literary journals have been engaging in practices that are shameful. It’s hard enough and expensive enough to be a writer trying to get work published in literary journals without these bad actors but, unfortunately, they do exist. One well known journal accepted submissions and charged for over a year but had already stopped reading and publishing new word. They later folded and changed their name. I have personally submitted to journals several times only to realize they had gone defunct. I was never able to get my submission fees back. Recently, several well-known journals held contests, charged the high submission fees customary in literary contests, and never announced any winners. Suffice it to say that just because something calls itself a literary journal doesn’t mean it should.

So, what is a writer to do? How can we protect ourselves from unethical practices and scam journals? Here are some practical ideas to consider.

Is the journal listed on reputable databases such as Poets and Writers, Submittable, NewPages.com, Clifford Gastang Literary Magazine Rankings, MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR
Is the journal’s website polished, free of grammatical and spelling errors. Is it easy to navigate? Does is look professional? A poor website design might be a cause for concern.
Do their publication terms comply with normal industry standards. Publication guidelines should always be clear and concise and include all requirements such as formatting parameters.
Be very concerned if a journal is asking for all rights to your work. They should be asking only for first serial rights.
RED FLAG: Is their submission fee unreasonably high? Are they charging $15.00 as an example when most journals are at $3.00. This should worry you.
Do they explain why they are charging a submission fee of any amount?
If they do charge submissions fees, do they also have yearly contests where they offer a monetary prize?
It should never be difficult to find contact information on the journal’s website, and there should be some explanation of who the editors are and what their editorial process is. A journal should have a physical address and an email address.
Look at their publication history. Have they been publishing consistently? Can you purchase copies of the journal on their website? Look at the most recent issue. Look at the quality.
If the journal has a blog on their website, is it being maintained?
Does the journal submit work to contests such as Pushcart Prize or/and O. Henry Awards?
Do they have a social media presence such as Facebook where they regularly promote the work they publish?
Be aware of any unrealistic or boastful claims about readership.
If you are submitting to a contest, look to see if the list of winners from last year’s contest is listed on the journal’s website. It should be.
Be aware if a journal repeatedly pushes back contest deadlines.

I have been submitting to literary journals for many years and have been lucky to have some level of success. Be aware of where you are sending your writing, but don’t let a few bad apples dissuade you from submitting to literary journals!!! The overwhelming majority are ethical to a fault and the writing world would be lost without literary journals. They are an invaluable part of our art form. I read literary journals, subscribe to them, admire them immensely and thank them for all the wonderful writing they bring to the world. So, happy submitting to my fellow writers and the best of luck to you all!

~Ginny

Virginia Watts has been fortunate to have published nearly 100 pieces in literary magazines including CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Permafrost Magazine, Broadkill Review, Two Thirds North, Hawaii Pacific Review, Sky Island Journal, Eastern Iowa Review, Evening Star Review and Streetlight Magazine. Nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for Best of the Net, in 2019, Watts won The Florida Review Meek Award in nonfiction.

Virginia’s new book is now available from Old Scratch Press:

Her prior poetry chapbooks Shot Full of Holes and The Werewolves of Elk Creek

are available from Moonstone Press. And her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House is not to be missed!

It’s Awkward

Published on July 10, 2025July 10, 2025 by dianneP5 Comments

That’s a photo of my local Trader Joe’s, where I was yesterday buying dog treats and ice cream and flowers and frozen gnocchi. I like Trader Joes. I like it because it is small, and what I mean by small is there are limited choices. I can easily super-overload a cart because I am curious… Ooo, what’s that fruit? I should buy six of those! I like Trader Joe’s because it saves me from that. BUT, I hate checking out there. I HATE IT. Why? It challenges all the introvert things about me. Their checkers are trained? told? naturally? forced to be? chatty!

I am horrible at small talk. I am awkward, and dorky. And I am exhausted afterwards (mentally). I am more a fan of self-checkout, but I do feel like I’m taking someone’s job every time I use one. I long for the A&P days, where the checker was (usually) a woman, and she was too tired on her feet to talk, though she’d smile, and be efficient.

Yesterday the TJ’s was fairly empty, so there was no need for a bagger at my check-out, and I always will bag, but the extra person helps diffuse the awkwardness, because then there’s two people to make annoying small talk with. Usually I end up pulling out my phone to show them a photo of my dog, and they pretend to care. My dog is extra cute though, but I still know we’re all pretending.

Yesterday the guy checking me out was trying to talk to me, and I was rapidly bagging (I bring huge bags, and try to organize by FREEZER, FRIDGE, PANTRY, but I’ll get desperate to keep up and be done talking, and just start chucking stuff in.). He was trying to talk, but his heart wasn’t in it, and neither was mine because, that checker, he kinda looked like this:

He looked quite a bit like that photo, which is a photo of my brother circa 1978 or so.

That TJs checker looked so much like my brother. A little taller, but otherwise spot on, and I have been checked out by him before, but yesterday it was the light or something, or the quiet between us. I know people not in California think TJs are tripping hazards here, and they’re not. They’re usually a good 20-40 minutes apart, so I kinda wish this guy would get another job. You know what I’m saying? Because there isn’t another TJs close by, and because that checker looks like my brother circa 1978.

My brother died in 2020, in June or July I don’t really want to remember the date. I found out he was dying hours before he did. He was up in a hospital in PA while I was two hours south in DE. Covid was raging, so they were not going to let us come see him. He didn’t have Covid, He had gangrene, probably from a bladder infection he had never fully recovered from, and he didn’t like doctors because they made him feel mortal and dumb, and he hadn’t gone to one for about five months while everything in his body was probably going bananas, and when Covid hit he was really afraid of dying from it, and probably feeling pretty sick most days anyway. My sister-in-law didn’t force him to do anything about it, probably because he was grumpy, and she is an avoider, and they both were potheads and pill heads and whatever when they could get it. They both had a tendency to approach family gatherings with something in their systems to take the edge off of my mother, and, I sometimes think, maybe that is the best way to approach her. Maybe I missed something great about coping there. Which makes me laugh to think of, and would have made my brother laugh his butt off.

My brother was very funny. He raised me to love George Carlin and The Three Stooges. One of the times he most liked in our history together was when he was visiting us in Los Angeles, and I got us all singing narcissistic songs. You take any song that is about romance/lust, etc. and you turn it into a song about yourself. So, Gladys Knight’s classic, “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me” becomes [I’M the] “Best Thing That Every Happened to Me.” Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” becomes [When I think about ME] “I Touch Myself.” Get it? We laughed our butts off, and he always talked about it, and we often tried to recreate it, but sometimes with humor the success is situational (you had to be there), and that perfect night was like that. And maybe he was a little high too, and I didn’t know it.

You can’t recreate those perfect moments in life, and trying often leaves you cold. My brother was a great practitioner of trying to recreate the things he loved, trying to hold onto vapor.

Here is his band in the early ’70s:

So cute. And here they are in the late 2010s:

Bill is gone, but the ones who are still here are still playing together at the bars local to Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. Most of those guys, living and dead, never got their shit quite all the way together. They could always play, and play well, but they were still partying like the Rolling Stones circa 1968. And maybe still being able to get out there and rock the house is a sort of having it together that’s just a bit different from how I would define it.

I miss my brother, and it’s awkward to have a checker at TJs remind me of him so completely that it renders me unable to make small talk or even flash the photo of my dog. My brother had a lope-y way of walking not unlike Shaggy in Scooby Doo, and this guy moves like that. It’s awkward because grief is awkward and comes casually loping up behind you at the most unexpected times. Someone told me grief is a metal ball in the glass jar of your life, and as you move away from the time of your loss the jar gets bigger, but the ball is permanently there, and rolls around, bumping up against everything, sometimes quietly, sometimes banging the glass hard enough that you think it will crack. Poetry is a very helpful receptacle for grief. I think poetry works well because it is often short, and emotional, and vague, not pinning grief down to a specific grief style or emotion or reason. Poetry might move the ball away from the glass, or give you a little breathing room when your lungs have constricted so much you feel like your ribs have laced up extra tight around them. My favorite brother poem has long been this one, and was so even before my brother winked so quickly out of existence.

But today I found another one. It loosens up the tight ribs too, if by loosening them you mean jabbing an ice pick in there. But ice pick or not, it does what it’s supposed to do, connects you directly to the pain, so you can feel it, instead of dodging it all the time. Then you can move on with your life, even as the brother you miss cannot move on with his, which feels supremely unfair to me, and I really value being fair, so there’s that. But for that day, that moment, at least, you can get back to what you were doing that you are doing because your life is still going. This poem is by William E. Stafford, and is called “Brother.”

We’re so lucky The Poetry Foundation exists, and has this database of poems just waiting to tend to our needs.

If someone gave you some paper, scissors, glue, rocks, crayons, clay, wire, papier-mâché, bowling balls, aluminum foil, fabric scraps, paint, sea glass, what would you create? What would your sculpture of grief look like? What medium would you use? What shape would you make? If you were only allowed eight words, one for each day in a week and one extra just in case, what words would you write? How would you arrange them? Would they be poetry, lyrics, a string of obscenities lobbed at the world, or a short burst of prose? Would they be quiet, loud, or snap, crackle, and pop? And would you want them to tighten up your ribs, or let them loose? Could you share it with the world or would it be too awkward for prime time?

Some of us come to that hard, clinking, lurking ball-bearing version of grief mercifully later in life than others. The less time you have to carry it the better: it means you had a longer shot at joy. But it finds us all eventually. I think that when we’re younger we grieve for ourselves: all the things we haven’t put into place yet that we long for, all the things we want to be that we just haven’t attained. As we get older, from any point in space because we all live at our own pace, we grieve more for others, and our missed opportunities to be with them. But Bill was. He lived. I had a brother.

Let’s Get Titular

Published on May 10, 2025May 15, 2025 by diannePLeave a comment

Above you see Don Paterson’s take on the titular poem, with a poem where the title is the whole poem.

A titular poem is a poem where the title is part of the poem, a line in it. In my own poetry I have really liked using this device, and often use my titles as the last line of the poem, the conclusion to the whole action of the poem. I have been described by my teachers as a narrative and magical realist poet. In my defense against these allegations I will let you know that I grew up listening to songs like “Jolene,” by Dolly Parton, “Ruby,” by Kenny Rodgers, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot, “Dark Lady” by Cher, and the oddest one of all, “Angie Baby,” by Helen Reddy. My formative years were two-to-three decades of songs with strange narratives in them. It isn’t my fault!

I have written many titular poems, some remarkably more successful than others, but I will share with you today one that is probably my personal favorite. This was written when I was in graduate school for my first writing degree. I had moved back in with my family. My house was helmed by two working parents, both too ready to have a drink, both too generous with money and not much else, and both not great at respecting boundaries. But I was able to go to school for my Master’s Degree and teach at the school part time, which pretty much took up 10 hours of each day, but made about one third of what a person needed for rent in those days, so, without my old room, I never could have done it. There were a lot of challenges though, one of which was a mother who was threatened by education, and really tried to impede it even as she envied it. My most repeated story, and least believed, was the one where I went up to my room to work on a paper due the next day that had to be twenty-five pages. My mother burst in to the room, my dad in tow, and began to lay out sheets of wallpaper over my (yes, I’m not kidding) word processor and desk. “We’re wallpapering the bathroom,” my mother announced.
“What, now? Tonight? It’s seven,” I said in disbelief.
“We have to do it now,” she said. “Right Vince?” My dad looked at me and shrugged. What could I do? I went downstairs, and waited. They finished a little after eleven, and I finished the paper a little after four the next morning. Yes, I should have probably written it sooner, but that aside, who competes with their kid with wallpaper? Sigh. No one I shared my graduation program with ever believed my stories. So, one day I wrote this poem to see if it could explain it to my fellow authors that my stories were true. As you read the poem remember… this is a titular poem, so see if you can understand how the title works as the title, and also as the last line of the poem. Yes, there are obscenities in the poem that some may find offensive. I’m a salty old girl, and, once, I was a salty young one.

A Few Dry Old Peas Rattling Around In A Waxed Paper Dixie Cup

Jesus fucking Christ goes through my mind as I sit here,
trying to read the poems from my poetry workshop,
and my brother, who doesn’t live here,
appears suddenly at the front window
like an unwelcome trio of Jehova’s Witnesses,
causing my dog,
who had just been whining at my leg for my bagel
to bark loudly and repeatedly at the window as
the phone rings, making me jump like a bean,
and I answer it,
all the while looking in exasperation at my beloved bother of a brother,
who is unaware that I am here,
and if he comes in the house will joke,
as if he were the opening act for the Jerry Lewis Telethon,
“Still in your pajamas? Ah you and that school racket,”
while I say, “Hello” the the phone with my voice
trying to sound
pointed
and
pissed
and my mother’s voice says,
“Read me what the calendar says my dentist appointment is,”
and says,
“I know you’d like nothing better than to put my wash
in the dryer—how ’bout it?”
and says,
“Don’t just sit around; do your windows,”
and says,
“You’re home todays so I won’t be home to let the dogs out,”
although she wants to be
’cause she thinks I don’t do it right,
and tells me again how to do it before she hangs up,
but my brother has not come in, has disappeared, so I go back to reading
for two seonds because here comes the dog again,
whine whine bagel bagel scratch me, and I stamp at her;
she looks at me—Big whoop—says her scroungy toothless expression,
and I hear a loud banging, so I look up and a strange truck,
a truck that would have turned up the noses
of Sanford and Son
and a man who obviously was designed with the truck in mind,
are in the driveway,
and he is pulling a gigundous lawnmower
off the truck while I try to think and come up with
Jesus, shit! Don’t unload that! Did I ask for that thing?!
and Who the fuck is this toothless guy? and wonder
for a scared second
if he’s a relative I don’t recognize
which is usual for me,
when I see my brother coming ’round the side of the truck
and I run upstairs thinking, What the hell is that guy here for?
Bill is going to bring this strange man to see me
in my pajamas, and the dog is lifting off the floor now
in little hydraulic barks—I am thinking
Christ Bill, now you’re going to wake Lee and I
am giving up on reading poetry; I’ll write some instead,
and I retreat to my room and start typing trying
to ignore the barking of slamming truck parts and lawnmowers out front,
but I am right,
my brother does wake my sister, and when she gets up,
by opening her door she releases another dog to bark,
and it runs downstairs to join in, eager to catch up,
while my sister
walks into the bathroom and pees loudly with the door open,
and does not flush,
puts on striped spandex, and goes tour-de-fourcing
down the stairs where, like a swift grifter,
she switches out the tape in the VCR for an aerobics tape and turns it
up
up
“Lift ’em up! That’s grrrreat! You can do it!”
but I can’t do it
because I can still hear my brother and Mister May-Be-A-Relative,
so I am able to hear another voice added to theirs
as my mother says, “Oh, I wondered if you’d be here.
I just came home to let the dogs out,” and my friends wonder
why I’m tense and why I never want to visit the zoo,
and I think,
Dad must be coming home any minute to tell us all the jokes
he’s heard today, like, “Duck walks into a pharmacist,
says gimmee a Chapstick and put it on my bill,”
or the one about the Avon lady who farts in a elevator,
after which he will laugh that long, wheeze, Lou Costello laugh
“Hey Abbott”
and somehow,
in this rapidly escalating cacophony,
a small sound,
like a maraca gently shaken,
is in my ears
pulling me to it,
causing me to think one final thought at the end of my morning study time,
because,
pricklingly familiar,
I think I’ve heard that small hollow sound before, and I think
I now know exactly what my brain is like.

Did you make it to the end? Could you see how the titular title ended the poem? I must admit I’ve always felt that the title must work as the title, of course, but should also resonate at the end of a poem, because our eyes, having reached the end, especially of a long poem, will zip back up to the top to refresh, remind us of what we were reading in the first place.

Have you ever written a titular poem? If so, I’d love to have you share it in the comments. Have you ever read one that you especially liked, or that flummoxed you? Let me know.

All these years later, through many different rounds of education at many schools, through being a life-long adjunct: always running place-to-place, through infertility and a trip to China to become a mother, through a few trips back and forth across the country with a full car and a moving van, through working with so many different and wildly talented authors, I do still feel a bit like I’m a plate-spinner with a brain that might like a long vacation on a deserted island.
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll share back something titular.~ Dianne

Dianne Pearce is the publisher and main editor at Current Words Publishing. She also designs and formats each issue of INSTANT NOODLES LIT MAG, and had to learn how to work computers to do it!

Don’t miss the second submission period for INSTANT NOODLES 2025. Submit today!

How to Get the Most Out of Critique Groups

Published on April 18, 2025April 18, 2025 by virginiawattsLeave a comment

I have participated in quite a few of writing critique groups for many years now, and I can say that the feedback I have received from fellow writers has been critical to my success in publishing my work. It is true that if you remain with the same group over an extended period, there will be certain people that you will agree with more than others for suggestions for editing your work. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, everyone has different tastes and preferences. That being said, it is important to read and consider all comments you receive. Here are a few tips to guide you in getting the most from the process of critique.

Decide what you are honestly looking for before you submit a manuscript. If you just want to know if the story is worth working on at all, then submitting a very rough draft might make sense but I never do that. My approach is to put in all the time necessary to complete a short story or poem and make it the best I can. This means, for me, several months of writing and many edits. I probably edit a piece fifty times or more before I feel I have done all that I can for it. I prefer to circulate what I believe is “a finished story.”

During the critique, just sit quietly and listen. In the groups I attend, I will receive written comment, so I don’t have to write notes during the oral critique. You can learn a lot by listening to colleagues discuss and debates questions or concerns they may have about your writing. Above all, don’t say anything as the writer. You aren’t there to explain your work and above all, you are not there to defend it. You don’t want people to feel that they cannot give you honest and open feedback. That’s what you are there for and as writers, that is what we all need.

Try not to feel hurt about “negative” comments about your writing. At first, for most writers, we do feel hurt but in time, this goes away as you realize that critique is an honest exchange of creative suggestions meant only to help you decide what final edits you wish to make. We cannot read our own work in a way that will make it the best it can be. We don’t have the distance to be able to do this. In short, we need each other. Of course, the critique should be done in a constructive, professional way. I have always had good group leaders who have insisted upon this.

At the end of a critique, I always make sure to thank everyone for taking the time to read and critique my work. I know it takes time and effort, because when I read for others, I give it my all too. It is the greatest gift we can give to each other as writers.

So now that you have your critiques, it is very important to set everything aside for a minimum of a month before you return to make edits. Early on I made the mistake of making edits too quickly and they were knee jerk and not good. You need time to let things sink in and percolate. Give it a rest.

When I do edit, I go through each written critique and fix all mechanical edits first, such as spelling errors. While doing that, I keep a running list of more involved edits that I will look at more carefully to see if I agree with them. This might be things such as a section of unrealistic dialogue, an ending that needs less or more, a character that lacks some necessary background.

I have never not changed a story or a poem based on professional feedback. Some more than others, but all have been edited because of ideas or suggestions or questions raised by writing colleagues and I can honestly say that my work has been improved immeasurably by the critique process. I am so grateful for my writing colleagues and friends. I do have one writing friend who I give my final edited pieces to for one final read. And another tip for writers. Seek out readers of all ages to critique your work. You will get different perspectives that will improve your final product.

An important final comment about writing groups. Over the years. I have made such wonderful, close friendships with the people I have met in these groups. It’s funny how life works. You go looking for something and you come away with something so much more valuable than you expected.

Good luck with your writing and enjoy all of the process, including critique and editing in response to critique. I promise you that you will find it rewarding to not only give critique but also to receive it. It is part of our art form.

Enjoy your group!

~Ginny

Her poetry chapbooks The Werewolves of Elk Creek

and Shot Full of Holes are available from Moonstone Press. Her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House is available on Amazon.

National Grammar Day Poetry Contest

Published on February 19, 2025February 17, 2025 by diannePLeave a comment

Don’t miss your chance to submit to the National Grammar Day Poetry Contest:

SUBMISSION PROCESS (copied from ACES)

Poem requirements

All poems submitted for consideration must be original, unpublished, and short.
Short is key. No epics, please.
Meter, rhyme, free verse? Haiku, limerick, quatrain, sonnet? The choice is yours.
Entries should make a point about language: grammar, usage, typos, writing, editing — whatever inspires you think captures the spirit of National Grammar Day.

Who can enter

Everyone is invited to participate. You do not need to be a member of ACES or work as an editor. The winning entry will be selected by a panel of judges that includes the previous year’s winner, along with language and poetry experts. ACES administers the award; it does not decide the winners.

How to submit your entry

In order to be considered by the judges, official entries must be submitted through the entry form.
Multiple submissions are welcomed.

ENTRY FORM

That said, we encourage you to share your entries on your favorite social media platforms. If you tag #ACES and #GrammarDay we will be able to find you and reshare.

When to submit

The submission form is open Feb. 15-28. The link will be available here during that window.

Learning the results

ACES will announce the winner on, naturally, March 4, in a post on its news channel and in its social media channels. The winning poem will be included in the story, along with the runner-up entries.

Would Love To Hear From You

Published on July 30, 2024July 30, 2024 by diannePLeave a comment

It’s the “dog days of summer.” Where I live we’ve had only brief periods of respite from the extra hot days, and these sweaty days force me inside, where they, ostensibly, give me more time to write.
And so I am thinking about all of that. And I’m wondering, those of you who write, have you ever considered taking classes, or have you taken classes, in writing? It occurs to me that while my daughter can play a few songs on the piano through trial and error, she is much better when she is actively taking lessons. She doesn’t take lessons because she wishes to be the next piano great, or even play professionally. She takes lessons because she enjoys playing the piano, and would like to be able to play it better. I pay for the lessons gladly, without a thought about it.
Do we do that as writers, with writing?

When I went back to school to get my MA it was because I wanted to get better at writing. Yes, I had the hope of publishing, but mostly I just wanted to be better at writing my stories and poems. I signed on for my MFA primarily because the teachers in my MA program, who were not affiliated with the MFA schools, suggested that I had a spark, and could get it even sparkier with more training. And so I did it, the MFA, for me.

When we had our book marketing webinar a week or so ago speaker Jared Kuritz suggested that if someone wants to be a published author that author must go from hobbyist to professional, and that would involve a dedication of time, and some allocation of funds.

I am curious and would love to hear what you think about this. Have you ever done any “professional” training for writing? Something like lessons? Have you spent money on your development? Do you hope to move from hobbyist to pro? Or, perhaps, consider and reply to this by telling me about lessons that you have taken in something else, or paid for in order that a child or someone else in your life is able to take lessons. I would be very curious to hear what you think makes something a skill that you might need training in versus something you come fully equipped for, without training.

I’m laughing to myself now, sitting here, thinking about “the dog days of summer,” and how I once paid for dog training for my prior delightful pup, an out-of-control terrier who I’d adopted when he was still a puppy. I had named him Chad,

and he came after I lost the dog who preceded him, a very fancy little terrier named BeBe who walked beside me like a queen, and never needed a leash or a single command, from the moment I brought her home. Chad, on the other hand, chewed everything: my toes as I crossed the room, my ears as I sat on the sofa or lay in bed, my boyfriend’s brand new Nikes, huge holes in his blanket, and he pooped blue wool for a week after, half a wooden magazine rack while I was at work one day, scads of toilet paper rolls. He peed everywhere. There was a moment where I listened to him cry from behind the baby gate in the kitchen thinking, “One of us is not going to make it out of this relationship.” I found a dog trainer all right. I could not wait for her to get to my house! And I remember her like it was yesterday, though it was more likely 2001, when she arrived, and I let the beast loose on her, and she said to me, “Okay. I can see he has a lot of energy. Let’s start training you to be a better owner.”
By the end of the session, several hours later, I admit, for I was a slow learner, I was fully trained, and Chad and I lived harmoniously from that moment on, for sixteen and a half years.

And just now, as I prepared to publish this post, I thought to myself, Maybe throw this post in Word and check the spelling, even though I know my writing does not need it! But I did, and I found four spelling errors, due to poor typing skills, which tells me that it seems that I am still, to this day, a stubborn and slow learner. 😉

So what about you? Do you train at writing at all? Are there other things you will use training for? Do you think of writing as something a person can improve at with training? I am curious to see if it is only me.

LIVE READING EVENT via ZOOM

Published on June 13, 2024 by diannePLeave a comment

🌟 Get ready for an unforgettable evening! 🌟

Join us for an electrifying book reading event as the talented Gabby Gilliam unveils her latest masterpiece, No Ocean Spit Me Out!

But that’s not all! Friends and fellow literary stars Robert Fleming and Alan Bern will also be captivating us with their powerful readings. 🌟✨

Don’t miss this extraordinary event—it’s FREE and open to everyone! 🎉📚Register here for the ZOOM link.

1718492400

days

hours minutes seconds

until

“NO OCEAN SPIT ME OUT” IS LIVE!

PICK UP AN OLD SCRATCH PRESS BOOK TODAY!

LIVE READING EVENT via ZOOM

Published on June 6, 2024June 9, 2025 by dianneP1 Comment

Come hear Gabby read from her new book!
Friends Robert Fleming and Alan Bern will also read!

Free and open to the public!

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days

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~NO OCEAN SPIT ME OUT~ IS LIVE!

PICK UP AN OLD SCRATCH PRESS BOOK TODAY!

Away They Go!

Published on May 30, 2024 by dianneP2 Comments

I was thrilled today to have the privilege to mail three new Old Scratch Press books off to the National Book Awards! If you follow all of our doings around here you may have seen this post from last year, where I was lucky enough to do the same thing!

Gosh, you know, we’re going up against the big guys when we send our books in to the National Books Awards. Most of the other books being sent in are going to have been written by well-established poets with a long history of publication, or brand new poets being championed by their mentors who are the big guys in their fields, and those other books are also going to come from traditional (read as: large and monied) presses or university presses, which, like the big publishing houses, also have lots of disposable income and connections. I got my MFA; I know how that all works. And still, I don’t care about the competition. I care that we have wonderful poets. Morgan Golladay has been writing her poetry throughout most of her adult life, and salting it away for “someday,” and Nadja Maril and Gabby Gilliam have been submitting and getting small wins with their writing for years now, and why isn’t their writing as deserving as anyone else’s? It absolutely is! It gives me a total thrill to just think about getting them into this contest, where they get a chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with the “big guys.” And get this—Carolyn Forché is one of the judges this year! Carolyn Forché! It’s mind-blowing to think that a poet from our little collective is going to be read by her. I still remember how my teachers raved about Carolyn Forché’s book THE COUNTRY BETWEEN US back in the ’90s. We read it and discussed it over and over with reverence. The idea that she’ll be reading one of our books? It’s just wild.

So, lovely people following our progress as a collective and a press, please join me in crossing your fingers and blowing on one of these:

as we send Gabby, Nadja, and Morgan off to the National Book Awards to try their luck!

And hey, dear reader of this blog, why not snag a copy for yourself in a show of support?

Flash prose, poetry, and essays inspired by her kitchen, garden, and family memories; Nadja Maril’s chapbook, RECIPES FROM. MY GARDEN is a sensual feast for the soul. Drawing upon her life experiences as an artist’s daughter, antiques dealer, journalist, and author; Maril mines simple objects for meaning and creates a lavish buffet.

Editorial Praise for RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN

“Suffused with the tastes of cilantro, mint, and cucumber fresh from a garden, the smell of salt air from the ocean’s edge, the familiar scent of coffee and tobacco from a father’s hug, or the simple pleasure of the sounds of clicking insects through a backdoor screen, Nadja Maril’s lovely and sensitive RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN is a feast for the senses and a balm for the spirit. While exploring personal memories that touch on abstract questions of identity and history, Maril also reminds us of the tiny yet profound comforts of earthly existence.”
–Aaron Hamburger, author of HOTEL CUBA—

“In RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN, Nadja Maril casts a richly sensual literary spell. From the deft and resonant garden-inspired pieces that find the taste of ‘summer’ in basil and celebrate the ‘welcoming gaze of sunflowers,’ to the sharply observed portraits of small yet potent memories— buying a perfect dress with her mother; baking a cake ‘too beautiful to be cut’– Maril mines moral and spiritual meaning from everyday life. The promise Maril makes about a ‘chicken and rice’ recipe is true of this whole vibrant chapbook: ‘soul nutrition it will provide.’ ”
–Elizabeth Searle, novelist and scriptwriter (A FourSided Bed; I’ll Show You Mine)–

“RECIPES FROM MY GARDENcelebrates the splendor of traversing a literary life and surviving the time of Covid. Nadja Maril’s first collection of poetic prose, flash memoir, and poetry introduces us to her family, her nurtured garden, and the myriad spaces she navigates to cope with our world. With true artistic excellence, Nadja’s words yearn for an understanding of what troubles us, inviting us into a landscape of riddles, questions and puzzles.”
–Indigo Moor, author of Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something—

“[RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN] is a treasure of small love stories: odes to beloved kitchens, and vegetable gardens, and the simple joys of a blooming sunflower. It is a book of memory and of pleasure that speaks of the love of family across many generations. The passed-down recipes inside the pages are themselves the most generous kind of love letter.”
–Susan Conley, author of Landslide—

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[In NO OCEAN SPIT ME OUT] Gabby Gilliam’s verse preserves the feel of the summer farm, contrasting its fertile brightness with the struggle between grief and the sudden absence of connection to family and place. Belonging and the struggle to continue remembering clash on the page, while the passion for life’s diverse and tactile experiences dazzle the reader with tantalizing gasps of zucchini, crab apples, and blackberry wine. Each poem gives the reader their own lingering taste of her ghosts. -Kim Malinowski-

NO OCEAN SPIT ME OUT is a captivating debut collection of poetry that delves deep into the intricate tapestry of family dynamics and personal evolution. Within its 30 poems, the collection embarks on a profound journey through the stages of coming of age, navigating the complexities of familial bonds, grappling with organized religion, and ultimately, embracing the essence of self-acceptance. Whether you’re seeking solace in the shared experiences of family relationships or searching for introspective insights into the nuances of identity and faith, this collection offers a profound and thought-provoking exploration of the human condition.

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“Sometimes stark, but always beautiful, these free verse celebrations of North Mountain introduce a seasonal sense of environmental transitions to the observer and reader’s eye, with time’s passage changing everything and nothing…Aside from a personal visit to North Mountain, there is no better way of appreciating its beauty, impact, and presence over the eons than through THE SONG OF NORTH MOUNTAIN.” —MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW—

From the mighty pen of artist and author Morgan Golladay comes THE SONG OF NORTH MOUNTAIN, a transformative collection of poetry and art celebrating the famous and mystical North Mountain of Appalachia.
North Mountain, a wildland in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests of western Virginia, has been recognized by the Wilderness Society as a special place worthy of protection from logging and road construction. The Wilderness Society has designated the area as a “Mountain Treasure.”
Morgan Golladay brings her readers to dwell in the reverence of this wonderful wilderness. Golladay is an award-winning author who was raised on North Mountain and lives in coastal Delaware as part of a thriving artist and author community. All words and art in this book are by Golladay.

Paperback (available now)

Kindle (available now)

Audiobook (available now, and Audible account not needed to buy or listen!)

Good luck women! May your wonderful books triumph!

INSTANT NOODLES IS UP!

Published on April 15, 2024April 14, 2024 by diannePLeave a comment

Check out the wonderful writing and art: curated by Old Scratch Press!
Lot’s of poetry for National Poetry Month plus other literary delights await you!

Just like a great lunch you can get it in an instant!