Hi Friends:
Because writer’s block is just another excuse to join your friends for cocktails, this issue includes:
A sip…
Asking the muse to Migrate is… asking too much.
A shout out…
If the desire for a new beginning resides somewhere between the two extremes of the human psyche, Loida Maritza Perez’s autobiographical novel, Geographies of Home, offers an unfiltered glimpse into the Afro-Dominican immigrant experience.
An author, cultural activist, and independent scholar, she is the Founder/Director of AfroMundo, the multi-generational collaborative with a core mission of addressing and combating racism and systemic bias using cultural, artistic, and humanities programming.
An alumna of Cornell University (1987), her writings address themes of the varying degrees of domestic violence, immigrant alienation and cultural displacement, illusory stability, identity/Afro-Latina identity, and the family disintegration associated with the failure of the American Dream to materialize.
A recipient of many grants, fellowships and residencies, including the New York Foundation for the Arts Grant (1991) and the Pauline and Henry Louis Gates Sr. Fellowship (1996), she is a National Leader of Color Fellow (2022-2023) and an awardee of WESTAF BIPOC Artist Fund (2023).
Active since 1999, she is a University of New Mexico Visiting Scholar, has taught creative writing at Breadloaf Summer Institute (St. John’s College), National Hispanic Cultural Center, and Taos Writers’ Workshop, and has published several short stories in Bomb, Callaloo, Latina, Meridian and elsewhere.
A sentence…
Prompts gleaned from Geographies of Home:
“With bare feet planted on familiar ground, she had trusted her perceptions.”
“It was as if, after years of setting aside memories, the pile had grown too high, and had tumbled, obliging her to take an inventory of her life.”
“So many lessons she had refused to learn because they had been taught to her by her mother. She recalled Bienvenida's claim that the devil was one's own fears called forth by self-doubt. Only now did she accept those words as truth.”
“It wasn't that she romanticized the past or believed that things had been better long ago. She had been poor even in the Dominican Republic, but something had flourished from within which had enabled her to greet each day rather than cringe from it in dread.”
“When classmates had presumed to know the inner workings of her race and class - inferring their inherent laziness, lack of motivation, welfare dependency and intellectual deficiency had stopped up her ears and gradually trained her eyes not to see.”
A few useful tips…
Various ways to ride a writing wave:
Edit prior works.
Write the day's observations.
Revamp an abandoned outline/plan.
Map out/lay the foundation of a new story.
Start a dialogue, ideas, settings, or scenes diary.
Interview your characters, and ask them why they are in your story.
A few contests/competitions…
The Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award
Lilith Magazine Fiction Contest
The Lyric Magazine: College Poetry Contest
Minotaur Books / Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition
Quantum Shorts Flash Fiction Contest
The Tony Quagliano Poetry Award
A few grants/fellowships/retreats/scholarships…
The Leon Levy Centre for Biography: Biography Fellowships
A few freelance opportunities…
Investopedia is hiring an experienced personal finance freelance writer to support the production of annual special edition print magazines.
A few residency opportunities…
The Loch Long Crime Writing Residency
Quay Words Writer-in-Residency
Tennessee Individual Artist Fellowship
A few submission opportunities…
The Caribbean Writer (TCW) has issued a call for submissions under the theme Legacies: Reckoning and Resolve.
Cosmopolitan is seeking erotic personal essay pitches detailing real-life sexperiences -and- is also seeking pitches detailing artificial intelligence, abortion and reproductive rights, scammers, and true crime.
Daily Beast is looking for entertainment pitches for the Obsessed column.
Harper’s is seeking pitches for long-form reported pieces and essays.
HuffPost is seeking holiday/end-of-year/ resolution essay pitches.
Marie Claire is seeking pitches for features for their upcoming “money” issue.
Mayday: Black is seeking nonfiction pitches and drafts from Black writers including those seeking first-time publication.
The Metropole accepts original pieces on any aspect of urban history or on topics that are of interest to urbanists.
Phoenix is dedicated to publishing African speculative fiction and fantasy (Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism).
Sojourners is accepting pitches for reported pieces, analyses, and commentary that address social justice issues or appeal to a well-informed faith audience.
Vulture is open to pitches.
A few sessions & workshops…
November 21st
November 22nd
November 23rd
November 26th
Ongoing
And a final thought…
This installment contains an affiliate link; I earn a commission when you purchase books using that link, or you may please buy me a coffee.
Thanks for reading,