Happy September! New Poem up at Rogue Agent, an Interview, and Fall Submissions

Row of orange sunflowers, Woodinville

 Happy September!

This is really one of the most beautiful seasons here in the Seattle area, with late roses, dahlias, and sunflowers still blooming in the gardens, the days are still long and the days get a little more pleasant. I enjoyed our trip to Oregon, but I was even more happy to get home. We went and got flowers and went to our little farmer’s stand, and cut roses and lilacs (!) from our own garden, and I was happy just to relax over Labor Day weekend and catch up on everything, including spending time with our cats, who refused to leave our side for a couple of days.

Field of dahlias, Woodinville

For my friends who work in academia (or have children,) it’s all about returning to the school’s schedule, but for me, September is a good excuse to get new notebooks and pens and start a new spreadsheet for poetry submissions. It’s also time to enjoy the last little bit of sunshine before the rainy season really sets in. It’s time to put new bulbs in the garden, to watch the last of the summertime sunsets. It’s a good time to get together with friends who’ve been travelling during the summer, and the poetry reading schedule starts up again in earnest. What about you? Is there something you look forward to in September, even if it means leaving summer behind?

A New Poem, “Today, Rose Gold,” Up at Rogue Agent

I have a new poem up at the new issue of Rogue Agent, “Today, Rose Gold,” which talks about dyeing my hair pink and how retail therapy was involved in my recovery from my cancer diagnosis/MS diagnosis in the last couple of years. I really appreciate how the editor puts together every issue, and I also appreciate them giving my work a home.

An Interview with Luna Station Quarterly

Thanks to T.D. Walker who did this interview with me for Luna Station Quarterly about my book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter. I talk about radioactive flowers, the influence of growing up in Tennessee, and menacing scientists. I apologize for the lateness of this; I was just made aware that it had gone up, so I hope you enjoy it.

Fall Submissions: Impossible?

In the good old days, when I first started submitting, with envelopes and stamps and everything, September 1-June 1 was a reliable open window for most literary magazines. You got all your poems printed up and lined up, and then sent everything out at once. Sure, you waited around nine months for your precious rejection slip, possibly with some writing on it, but it was easy to get going.

This year, when I got ready on September 1 to send out work, I’ve found that some journals have shuttered, others have shrunk or changed their submission windows, and some that should be open as stated on their submission guidelines just…aren’t. Online submitting, which often costs money, seems to me a bit more time-consuming and frustrating that the old method, where you just stuffed your envelope and sent stuff out. Ah well, that’s progress for you. Nowadays you can check in to the online system and see if your poems have been “received,” are “in progress,” or, sometimes, rejected or accepted without an e-mail (it’s happened to me.)

Some things haven’t changed. Along with starting a new Excel spreadsheet for my poems in the fall, I’ll start a new spreadsheet for book manuscript submissions. I’ll research new journals and scan my local bookstores for journals that look interesting. I like seeing journals in person, to see what their covers look like, if they have art work inside, scanning the work for names I recognize or an interesting piece. I know more and more journals are switching to online-only, which seems like a sort of loss.  I still have a bookshelf full of journals that date all the way back to the late nineties, with paper evidence of publication which, admittedly, often gathers dust but I love having a paper archive. Some days I think I would have really liked being a librarian, except even libraries are going more and more online.

Anyway, how do you motivate yourself to get your fall submissions rolling after the slower summer season? Do you, like me, save up poems written over the summer to send out in September? What are your favorite new journals, or what journals do you miss the most?