I recently decided that I should do what writers are supposed to do; put myself out there. I have not been pushing my work as I should, but since I have officially finished my MFA (yay I graduated!!), and I had an entire book just waiting to be read, I decided that I need to be strategic about it. First order of business: send something to an online publication that was soliciting work.
I follow Harness Magazine on my Instagram and I saw that they had a call for pieces for their special issue and I took a deep breath and dove in and sent them a poem that I took all of five minutes to write. I initially wanted to send something already written, but they said, ‘Only new work!’ So I dug deep and I thought, what better subject matter to write about than the anxiety that plagues me almost daily; and Bosom Buddies was born! Harness Magazine loved it and published it (and I think you should go read it and share it 😊)!
Also, I decided to contact a small publishing imprint to see if my collection of stories would be picked up (gulp!). It wasn’t, but I felt good that I was able to take a big leap of faith and send out my writing for perusal by someone other than the academics who have been poring over it for the last few years. The editor said she liked my work but was unable to take me on at the moment (it may be the best rejection I think I have ever gotten to date, honestly). However, it has spurred me on to dive head first into this thing called ‘getting published’.
So wish me luck that I continue to get responses (bad or good) because at least that means my stuff is being read. I look forward to getting my latest collection acknowledged and published!!
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