Please briefly describe the subject of your literary journalism piece Keep in mind Henry James'
criteria for judging a piece of writing: 1) What is the writer trying to
achieve? 2) Did the writer achieve it? 3) Was it worth achieving? The
last is also the most important.
Also, identify at least two publications (from the directories I showed in class) that you are considering submitting to.
Your response is due by 4 p.m., Wed., Feb. 28.
17 comments:
I am intending to write about my mother’s dependance and love for her handguns. For about 5 years my mom has been going to shooting ranges on weekends to let off steam. I believe this can be an interesting piece because America is currently debating gun control. The newest voice to stand up for less gun control has been women. I want to show how and why my mother’s passion for gun control is or is not a reasonable point of view. I think it would be fascinating to either uncover her personal backstory with handguns and how it showcases her personality now. Answer questions like Why does she only feel safe or in control with a pistol in her hand, or What is drawing more and more women to purchase handguns for sport or safety?
I am debating to on top of writing a nonfiction creative piece also incorporate this story into a poem so i might submit this story as both a poem and a creative non-fiction piece.
I plan on writing about my first and only time buying and using a pregnancy test and how it was this completely terrifying, bizarre and surreal experience. There were a lot of weird things that happened leading up this and also when I actually bought/took it. I think the piece would allow for a really good mix of humor and addressing a serious subject/personal experience.
I think in terms of finding a bigger meaning and making the story worth writing/reading, I think the emotions I felt before and after could really play into our cultural ideas and attitudes of teen pregnancy and the stigmatization. I think it could also be really relevant because of the current political debate on women's reproductive rights. I think the story could be really relatable to a lot of women and would also shed light on a lot of cultural issues surrounding this subject. This would definitely be narrative nonfiction/memoir, so I am thinking of submitting to The Bad Version, which "seeks to foster conversation about the world we live in through the fiction, poetry, and essays of the young and curious" and Fugue, "a journal of new literature edited by graduate students within the University of Idaho’s English and Creative Writing Programs. "
I am going to write about negative experiences I’ve had with men on public transportation. It will definitely be a mix of memoir and social commentary. I’ll probably try to illuminate or at least try to understand why men think it is okay to heckle women in public places and/or go out of their way to make them uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that almost every woman has dealt with this type harassment, so the subject is pretty universal.
As for publications I’d consider submitting to, I would try to send the piece to The Literary Bohemian, because it’s a journal focused on “travel-inspired writing that transports the reader, non-stop, to Elsewhere.” My piece is about physically traveling but also my emotional journey— especially the realization that as a woman I will probably have to deal with this for the rest of my life. I would also want to submit to damselfly press, which specifically “seeks to promote exceptional writing by women...of all experiences” and are “interested in work that is honest and explores human nature.” If done correctly, I hope my piece does both of those things. I think both of those journals could be great choices, but I would also want to submit to larger print publications like Alaska Quarterly Review, Creative Nonfiction, and the Fourth Genre.
I intend on writing about the impact my father’s destructive habit had on me both socially and mentally. I plan to start it from the present and write about how I feel today regarding what happened, and then reminisce on the past from the experience I had before it happened, during, and then after. I also plan to include short scenes from actually visiting him in the rehabilitation center by using descriptive, visual scenes portraying what I actually experienced and saw and how it shaped me today.
I plan to submit this creative nonfiction/memoir piece to various publications. The few I have decided on are The Bad Version, Creative Nonfiction, Fwriction, Hippocampus Magazine and Pithead Chapel. They all aim to accept a piece of writing that relates to what I intend on writing about.
My idea is still coming together in my head, but my topic is going to be Airforce One. Last summer I was in Florida and the President was checking into my hotel on the day I was checking out and his flight was coming in about a half hour before my flight was scheduled out. Because of this, the whole airport was shut down for about 2 hours. There were secret service and bomb dogs at my hotel and people were pressed up against the glass at the airport to watch Airforce One land. I think the point of my story is going to be about the people who were NOT interested in witnessing the most important man in the country fly in.
I am going to submit to the journals "Airplane Reading" (for obvious reasons) and I think also the Awasting Alchemy. I will probably submit to more but I have to finish writing my piece and see where it takes me before I can decide.
I hope to put together a piece similar to what William Deresiewicz did with his book A Jane Austen Education. He recounted how the novels of Jane Austen taught him lessons that helped him through college and life. I'm using some of his theories to support my senior thesis, where I explore how the Gothic novel functions as a teaching tool in Austen's Northanger Abbey. In reading Gothic novels like the ones lovingly parodied in that book, I've found that many of the emotions and experiences they describe in rich detail are still relevant today: travel and the perils of the outside world for those unfamiliar with it (like a freshman college student!), sexual experience and marriage, duplicity and deceit, money concerns, etc. I hope to explore what relevance these themes still have even in an environment as alien to Jane Austen's and Ann Radcliffe's as a college campus in the 21st century.
I'm thinking of submitting to Anobium, who want pieces that are esoteric and strange and deal with pop culture (and in today's culture, the Gothic novel is definitely esoteric and strange), and Lit Up Magazine, where several of the nonfiction pieces currently displayed show how the piece's author relates to and internalizes literature (the Harry Potter series, William S. Burroughs, etc.). I'm not entirely certain about Anobium, but Lit Up seems like it might be a good fit for what I have in mind, so I'm hopeful.
In my head it makes sense let's see if I can get a description of it to make sense... My plan is to write about my relationship with my best friend who moved to California to follow her boyfriend, walked away from a full ride at med school and is now living in a homeless shelter. The most capable, motivated person and from my point of view -or the character's- it isn't drugs to blame, it's her sick degrading relationship with her boyfriend, whose wealthy family would always bail him out to leave her behind, the poor girl with only her brains and self confidence to lose.
The first scene might start with my reaction to her mom's notice that shes gone missing and then flashback to the first time I visited her in Cali, followed by the last of the times I visited. I'm picturing 4 vignettes.
Not sure about where I'm going to submit. I looked over some of the lists and Creative non-fiction Pop Culture and narrative non-fiction look like they might lead somewhere. Acadia and the Adirondack Magazine look interesting. Obviously I didn't get past the first 10 pages of the 800 listed. I'll have to look seriously again when I know what direction the piece takes I guess.
I have not decided on a set story for this piece but I have narrowed it down to two ideas. The first is about a summer relationshiip at age 15 where my 17 year old boyfriend was addicted to coke and alcohol. I would talk about tragic events along with how it took about 5 years to come to terms with what had happened. the second story idea is about my experiences working as a bar maid at a strip club and how it has changed my perspective on life and myself.
as for publications I have chosen "Broad!" literary magazine because since my stories are about women specifically and this publication aims towards women, "Collision literary magazine" "student-run publication that accepts poetry, creative non-fiction prose, literary criticism, art and photography by undergraduate students. Our goal is to represent a variety of young voices emerging from the contemporary body, as well as to extend the dialogue by providing constructive feedback to those writers we are unable to publish at the time. "
My idea definitely, definitely needs more fleshing out and is going to sound incredibly, annoyingly cliche, but I know I want to write a piece about the significance of food in my giant Italian family. There are several experiences I can use, but I'm debating between writing a more serious piece that concerns my brother's lengthy stay in a hospital and a lighter piece where I would be using an extensive interview with my father to write about one his funnier experiences in the military.
As for target publications, I'm looking at "Alimentum: The Literature of Food" for obvious reasons, and the "Ampersand Review" because I think they're hysterical and want to submit to them anyway.
I'll be writing, I think, about the tension in my hometown between students of our local private college and us yokels. It's been a major part of my life since I was a kid, us hating on Bard students and vice versa. It's always seemed kind of pointlessly to me, but I've subscribed to it. And even now that I myself am a college type now, a coffee drinking, pre-literati, sycophantical, cardigan wearing bachelor student, I can't get rid of those impulses to Bard-bash that I was raised on. It's not just college kid v. towny rivalry, it's an ingrained spite that I even see my little brother rocking. I want to write about this because I think, even in an era of political correctness and righting racial wrongs, people find reasons to dislike - hate - each other for the silliest reasons. I mean, how are we supposed to rally for gender equality when I can't even bring myself to not loathe someone because I grew up in a small town wearing Gap and they grew up in the city wearing United Colors of Bennetton?
I think I'll send the piece, if it turns out right, to 'The Southern Review,' because I'm feeling kind of 'go big or go home' right now, and the 'Cincinatti Review.'
interestingly, quinn, i'm a graduate of bard.
My piece is still coming together, both in my head and on paper, but I would like it to be both an interesting look at young adulthood, including the sometimes seedy underbelly of it, as well as something of a social commentary on a few concerning things I notice happening around me. For one, I have begun to feel more and more that education falls short of what it is intended for. Instead of learning to be creative, they teach us how to be formulaic, and we are often forced to choose paths that we may not want to because we find out that our dreams are impractical. We learn that the rich control the political system and horde the money; and science and God are still battling it out, out there in space, and yet we still must get our papers in on time and ace our tests. We know we must memorize facts and have a “plan,” but how far we will let the mechanics of the world consume our identities? And in the meantime, how many of us will already begin to give them up, letting our lives slip by us in a haze of partying, meaningless relationships, and just plain indifference towards life, allowing each moment to float by without an ounce of passion or pain. This is something I want to continue to think about and see if I can bring more clarity to.
Some of the publications I would like to submit to are: the 34th Parallel Magazine, for contemporary literature, and AndWeWereHungry, an online publication whose issues’ upcoming themes seem to fit in what the message I am trying to convey (i.e., “And we were hungry...,” “Money,” “The Best is Yet to Come,” and “Disenchanted.”)
I will be writing about my best friend Megan who previously dated and was attracted to men until she met her girlfriend Bobbie. Knowing Megan and her perspective on the situation, she doesn't necessarily identify as a lesbian. She is however, dating a woman. Through hers and Bobbie's story and bits and pieces of my own experiences in the LGBT community etc I'll probably explore the idea that love isn't a gender, but rather a person.
I was looking at LGBT friendly literary magazines and American Athenaeum, Anomalous Press, Awosting Alchemy, Brooklyn Review, and Red Sky. So there are a bunch I want to look into.
For my creative nonfiction piece, I would like to write about my experiences as a street artist. I started slow at first but it became an insatiable habit that lead to my arrest in October 2011. I intend to write about my close calls that occurred before literally being caught red handed and shed light on the undercover art form known as graffiti. I would also like to bridge the gap between illegal tagging and legal tagging by writing about the outdoor art exhibit, Five Points, a 200,000 square foot factory in Long Island City, New York that is considered the world’s premiere “Graffiti Mecca.” In writing this piece, I would like to explore the fine line between vandalism and art, as well as find serious meanings behind the many pieces I have seen in various locations in The United States.
I plan on submitting my work to multiple publications. First, to Aventum magazine, a publication that accepts pieces that explore aspects of personal experiences in the outdoors. I also intend to submit my story to The White Whale Review, an online literary magazine that accepts nonfiction pieces that contain a dialogue between art and the world around us. I found Vandaljournal.com to be a fitting publication for my piece as well. The last publication I would like to submit to is Slice magazine, a Brooklyn based non profit print magazine. I chose this magazine because it’s theme for the next issue is The Unknown, which would fit my piece well because this is a previously untold story that sheds light on what it’s like to be a graffiti artist.
I am doing my piece about my desire to be a sports writer in the future and how my identity as a woman plays into that. Since I started getting my feet wet with sports reporting, I’ve constantly had men tell me that it would be easy for me to get a job in sports writing because I am a woman and how some have even gone as far to say that I’m attractive enough to do it so it shouldn’t be a problem for me in the future to get a job. I also want to explore female identity in the sports world and my piece will be a mix of social commentary and memoir. I feel that even today where women are beginning to flourish in multiple fields, sports is one of the areas where there is still a very clear gender divide and hierarchy.
As far as publications go, I plan on submitting to Adanna and So To Speak, both feminist literary journals.
I'm stuck between two topics to write about. I either want to write about having a heart attack when I was 19 or about my stance on the whole slut-shaming phenomenon that's making its way into being a hot topic in our culture these days. I do want to write about having a heart attack but I'm not sure how I could flesh that out into being a big-picture kind of piece, which is why my other idea is at the entirely other end of the spectrum.
If I go with the story of my heart attack, I would love to submit to Bellevue Literary Review because it's a literary magazine dedicated to discussing the care patients have received in NYU Medical Center, which is the hospital I go to for everything heart-related.
I am a photographer-I photograph people all of the time, for The Oracle, whether it be news-related or sports-related, or candids for my personal work-and no matter the situation, I notice people react to my camera. Whether they smile the camera or start to pose, or shield their eyes or look away, the camera seems to make people visibly uncomfortable. I want to put into writing my observations of people's reactions when they see my camera, in the same style that Didion used in "Los Angeles Notebook."
I plan to submit my work to apt and Polaris because, as they are both literary and art magazines, I think the art-related subject will be received well.
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