January writing links, pre-AWP blizzard edition

I’m getting ready for my trip to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday; I’ll be attending the AWP annual conference for the first time. I spent the weekend pouring over the amazing list of conference sessions and events and after picking out my must-attends, I thought, OK, I’m ready. And then I looked at a weather map.

Let’s be frank. I live in California. There’s not much cause to study the weather here. It’s been sunny and 60 degrees or so for most of the past month. And so it should be noted that when I booked my flight to DC for the conference, I didn’t consider the implications, of, for example, “February” and “Chicago.” And I happily booked myself a flight via the Windy City to get to DC.

Last night I checked my flights and thought maybe, possibly, I should look at a weather report for both Chicago and D.C. And it just so happens that there’s a giant, blustery blizzard of apparently historical proportions scheduled to batter Chicago on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Two feet of snow, tornadoes, you name it.

But enough about that. I have gotten myself rebooked on another flight via Denver. The airline won’t give me a seat, so who knows what that means, or whether I will, in fact, actually make it to D.C. as planned. But you did not stop by to read about the winter weather. I’m getting back to my routine of posting my favorite writing links for the month. Enjoy, and if you’re traveling to AWP, good luck and be safe!

Author Michelle Richmond on accidentally finding her way through a novel (Glimmer Train)

Writing advice from Rick Bass: Don’t compare bodies to car parts. (Huffington Post)

Should grammar be taught in the creative writing workshop? (via The Missouri Review blog)

An old interview with Colm Toibin in The Guardian: “Let’s have no more backstory!” I found Toibin’s approach to teaching American writing students very interesting.

Ploughshares magazine is launching an Emerging Fiction Writer’s Contest.  Deadline is March 15.

Let’s get persnickety! Why you should never, ever put two spaces after a period. (Slate)

Beyond the Margins offers 13 ways of beginning a novel, along with the pros and cons of each. Clever.

And, finally, some tips on surviving AWP. (The Missouri Review)

The party is over, time to get back to work.

For me, back to work means SUBMITTING. I’m determined to send out some of my writing this month, for the first time since 2007. So I’m doing something I haven’t done for a long, long time: research on lit magazines. This can be a frustrating and time-consuming part of the submission process, but for the moment I’m finding it kind of fun. (Someone please remind me of this in about a month.) There are so many new magazines out there, and so many great ones that have been around for a long time — I’m finding it interesting to be reminded of some that had disappeared from my radar.

Wondering where to look for markets for your work?

Poets & Writers magazine maintains a nice database of literary magazines, sortable by the genres each magazine accepts. Once you’ve whittled the database down to those mags that accept the genre you’re submitting, the list provides a brief description of each magazine, gives reading periods and lets you know whether each one accepts simultaneous and electronic submissions. When you click through for more info on a magazine, there’s a helpful “what editors are looking for” graph, as well as some other great details, including the magazine’s contact info, circulation and reporting time. Most importantly, each entry includes information on how many first-time authors are included in each issue and what percentage of unsolicited submissions are accepted. Aside from the great information, the uncluttered look and logical organization of Poets & Writers’ database really works well for me.

Duotrope’s Digest is perhaps the most detailed database of lit mags I’ve seen. You can sort by genre, theme, length of submissions accepted, payscale, whether the magazine offers royalties, whether a market is audio, electronic or print, whether the magazine accepts print or electronic submissions,  whether they accept simultaneous or multiple submissions, magazines that are temporary closed to submissions, or anthologies only. You can sort results by title, pay, response time, or acceptance ratio, which is all pretty darn impressive. There’s a great deadline calendar that includes special themed issues  Registered users have access to the site’s submission tracker. In all a great site with a lot of information you won’t find elsewhere, particularly on accuracy of response time and acceptance rates, but sometimes the amount of information here can be overwhelming.

New Pages offers a complete alphabetical listing of literary magazines, with descriptions, response times, contact info, type of submissions accepted, etc.  A great site for browsing and learning about new markets, but lacks the sorting features of some other sites. There is, by the way, a lot of other great resources for writers here as well, including a “calls for submissions” page.

There’s a lot of snobbishness out there when it comes to online mags, but it really is worth taking a look at them as markets for your writing. This list provides links and descriptions of 20 of the best. The same site also does a full list of mags, sortable by theme (such as “Canada” “Defunct” or “Experimental”), alphabetically, highest rating and most reader votes.  If you’re aiming high, Every Writer’s Resource also does a list of the top 50 print literary magazines with links and descriptions.

What sites do you use to do your research?

December writing links: The inspiration edition

Oh, hello. Somehow the month of December passed me by and it is January. It is 2010. That sounds a lot like the future, except suddenly it is not. I spent most of December in a fog of sickness, and the rest was a blur of holiday travel,  relatives, and jet lag, from which I am having trouble regaining traction in my normal life. December? Hello? What happened?

I finished November hopeful about writing, after banging out 30,000 words in National Novel Writing Month, only to loose my footing completely in the whirlwind that was December. Now I’m trying to figure out how to get back on track. I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions – or, well, I often make resolutions all year long, only to break them soon after. I think most resolutions are a lot like most diets — too radical to be sustainable in the long run. Which is why I liked this essay by author Ann Patchett so much. The more time you put into your writing, the greater your output will be. What a concept! And so, an hour a day for the first 32 days of the year. The idea being that you can set the tone for the year in the first month. Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense.

Another piece I liked quite a bit: this guest post at Writing Under a Pseudonym about balancing motherhood and writing by Meghan of Writerland. Finding a balance doesn’t have to mean ignoring your kids, but it does mean sacrifice. Meghan describes choosing running over yoga because it takes less time out of her day; she finds herself curled up with a laptop after the kids go to bed rather than on the couch watching a movie with her husband; she loses some sleep. I loved this post for Meghan’s clarity on the subject; I’ve been struggling for a year to discover what I’m willing to sacrifice for my writing and what I’m not while I balance a writing/editing career with taking care of a child. I’m still having trouble reminding myself that I don’t have time to surf the web, that I can’t fritter away a free hour the way I used to. This is my greatest challenge for the upcoming year, and if I had to make a resolution I suppose this would be it: To find balance between writing and the rest of my life.

Perhaps it was holiday spirit in action (or something like that) but this December edition of writing related links is full of inspiration. In this case, I’m talking about this post by Debra of Write On Target, describing how she acquired an agent. Take note: Debra’s blog and Twitter account feature prominently. Congrats, Debra!

Some more practical links to round out December:

Amazon will be accepting submissions to its annual Breakthrough Novel Award contest, starting January 25.

Freelancers: Now is the time to write those seasonal essays – for next year’s holiday season. Via Lisa Romeo.

10 tips on building your author platform.

The plus side of self doubt. There is one. Really.

Calling S.F. Bay Area writers

I got an email today about this call for applications:

SF-based arts nonprofits Kearny Street Workshop & Intersection for the Arts are seeking applications for a literary program for emerging writers: the 5th annual Intergenerational Writers Lab (IWL), scheduled to take place March 1 through July 16 2008. Twelve participants will be selected to participate in the literary program, which will involve workshops, public readings, and an anthology publication. IWL workshops will be led by six lead artists: playwright Ricardo Bracho, journalist and music writer Jeff Chang, poet devorah major, journalist Analee Newitz, poet and essayist Bushra Rehman, and poet Troung Tran.

For more info, visit The Intersection for the Arts’ web site. The deadline is Feb. 1.

SF Foundation Awards

The other day when I mentioned I wanted to apply for an award, I should have offered more details….After all, it’s nice to share, and if you don’t already know about this one, you might want to apply. The San Francisco Foundation every year sponsors a set of literary awards for youngish California writers… More:

The Joseph Henry Jackson, James Duval Phelan, & Mary Tanenbaum Awards are offered annually to promising young California writers. The awards are sponsored by The San Francisco Foundation and administered by Intersection for the Arts.

Manuscripts from eligible young authors are invited for two $2,000 literary awards and one $3,000 literary award.

All applicants must be between 20 and 35 years of age on March 31, 2007.

Joseph Henry Jackson Award
Applicants for the 50th annual Joseph Henry Jackson Award must be residents of and currently living in northern California (anywhere in California north of the line dividing Monterery County from San Luis Obispo County) or the state of Nevada for three consecutive years immediately prior to the March 31 contest deadline. The unpublished work-in-progress submitted may be fiction (novel or short stories), nonfictional prose, graphic novel, or poetry.

James Duval Phelan Award
Applicants for the 70th annual James D. Phelan Award must have been born in the state of California but need not be current residents. The unpublished work-in-progress submitted may be fiction (novel or short stories), nonfictional prose, poetry, graphic novel, or drama. Plays may be submitted in standard script format.

Mary Tanenbaum Award for Nonfiction
Originally established in memory of Joseph Henry Jackson, the Mary Tanenbaum Award recognizes outstanding nonfictional prose. Applicants must be residents of and currently living in northern California (anywhere in California north of the line dividing Monterery County from San Luis Obispo County) for three consecutive years immediately prior to the March 31 contest deadline.

A couple things I like about these awards: 1) It’s free to apply. 2) the maximum submission is 40 pages, so you can submit the beginning of a work-in-progress 3) there’s a nonfiction award (somewhat of a rarity) 4) submissions of graphic novels are acceptable, too, (maybe more of a rarity) and 5) they ask for submissions to be double sided to save paper (something more lit mags and awards programs should allow or demand).

For more info and an application form visit The Intersection for the Arts’ website. The deadline is coming up…about 2 weeks!

Lost

I’ve been thinking about writing something new, and some ideas have been percolating on the topic of disappearance… They are still rough, and I’m unsure of what form they belong in — essays? full-length book? fiction?

In any case, thinking about disappearance and loss reminded me of a magazine I bookmarked a few months ago and then never went back to read. (A habit of mine. Thank god for del.icio.us or I would never remember to return to all the interesting sites I come across out there.) Anyway, yesterday I finally did get back to Lost Magazine and remembered why I saved the link. It’s a cool concept, and there’s lots of interesting first-person nonfiction writing, as well as a bit of fiction. The site’s well-designed, too.