Acceptances Galore: A Day of Hearts, Flowers, and Goodwill Towards Editors

Because we, as writers, generally spend our time moping over our mountains of rejections, which I will eventually fall into in this blog, I'm sure, I'd like to take this chance to celebrate a few weeks that have gone really well. My work is being picked up like hotcakes. Which I've never purchased or eaten, but I hear that if your stuff sells like them, it means you're doing well. So, hotcakes it is.

I've had two essays accepted for an anthology, Milestones for American Women: Our Defining Passages. Rumor has it that Knopf may pick it up to publish it, which would be a wonderful coup. That, and the former ALA president is slated to write the afterword. Librarians unite in your bookery! I don't think my prose is as well-formed as my poetry, but I am sincerely flattered that the editors were kind enough to offer some revisions and kind words.

I've been notified that though the Winter 2008 issue of the online journal kaleidowhirl has been slightly delayed, it will indeed be out sometime soon, and my piece "Disobedience" will be published shortly.

Ruminate Magazine will be publishing my poem "Refrigerator Borealis" in its next issue with the theme of 'addiction.'

Upon returning from work this afternoon, I checked my gmail account (which I do compulsively, for all those who care to toss em a line), and was thrilled to find that the editors of Quiddity literary journal want not one, but two of my poems for their inaugural issue for spring 2008. No contract or anything definitive beyond that email yet, so it's not set in stone, but goodness willing, "Flagrant" and "Wavewalk" will soon have a home in an honest-to-goodness university-published print literary journal. Since to date I've been accepted only in online journals and one faith-based print mag, this is a huge occurrence for me, book-snob librarian that I am. (Not that I don't appreciate the online works - I very much do, and appreciate the access they provide. But print is one step closer to my coveted ISBN!)

I'd like to send a warm thanks to all of those editors (who have also received my profuse thanks via email) for their kind words and support. We all know how down we get upon receipt of the form letter rejections in our hastily scrawled SASEs, and I've received a number of those back over the past few weeks as well. But the successes really do outshine the failures, and even one placement gives me the courage to send out a new batch of pieces I am very attached to, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Thank you to all of the kind editors out there - you make writing more fulfilling because you are willing to slog through the mountains of work you receive. Thank you to the subscribers that keep journals in the black (or close to it) so that we can continue to not only get published as writers, but also read our contemporaries' work. And thank you, Lovely Readers, without whom our work would float into the atmosphere, having never been discussed or appreciated.

Yep, I'm in a total Kumbaya mood. A total "let's kiss and hug and all vote for Obama" mood. (At least, I hear that's what happiness feels like.) If I was a supervisor, this would very much be the day that you wanted to ask for a raise. Alas, I hold no such pecuniary powers. You all will have to settle for knowing that I am sending general goodwill vibes into the ether, and wishing you much luck with your own writing.