Francesca Leader
@mooninabucket
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'23 World's Best Short-Short Story Winner ( @SoutheastReview ), ‘22 Pushcart Nom, 2x BOTN & BSF Nom. @jjournalnyc / @havehadhavehad / @moonrabbitcandy / @pleiadesmag
Montanan living elsewhere
Joined February 2021
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Holy hell, you guys — my 1st chapbook! So grateful to Bottlecap for bringing it life. As someone who considers herself more fiction writer than poet, it’s special for me to have my poetry and my vision (including my cover design) validated in this way.
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Forty-Five, still alive, and washed clean. It’s my birthday, dammit —tell me something nice 😊
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Leonard Cohen said that if your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash…heretical as it may be for a writer to say it, I’m starting to think some of the best-lived lives leave no trace at all. That we’re at our best when we’re too engrossed in doing to recount or document.
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I'm all for honoring emerging young writers with the 30 Under 30, but can we please have a 40 Over 40 for the late bloomers, too? Not all of us crank it out while we're young. Look at E. Annie Proulx!
#latebloomer
#amwriting
#amwritingfiction
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Ok, trying this again since I just learned how to make an actual thread! 🙃 Here is a list of highly-ranked literary journals that don't charge submission fees. This list is based on the Erika Krouse 500, starting from Tier 2 and proceeding on down.
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Just learned today that I’ve been legally divorced since June 20th 😃 —Gemini season did not let me down! To mark the occasion, here’s my ringless, single left hand. It’s not a young hand, and it ain’t pretty, but for the 1st time in 2 decades, it’s free. 🙏 🕊️ 😭
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My heart is broken. Today I met with the person I’ve loved for more than 2 years, and he told me it was over. He’s met someone else. I am so in shock as to wonder if I’m fully alive right now. So I guess I’ll spend some time wandering, like a ghost.
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So very tired of the phrase “On the same page” in work calls and e-mails that I’m considering some creative alternatives:
“Tuned in to the same channel”; “Coloring with the same crayons”; “Bushwhacking in the same forest”….
Any suggestions? Help me out,
#WritingCommunity
😅
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You guys, my stepmom is 80 years old & has never written poetry, but after I sent her a copy of the same poetry diary that I’ve been writing poems in every day, she decided to try….and broke my d
@mn
heart.
Please tell me your thoughts & I’ll share with her.
#WritingCommmunity
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A serious fuck you to the inventor of the BMI tonight. Just got a message from my doctor about “ways to improve” my BMI. This shit is part of what gave me an eating disorder in my teens. Tell me, do I look like I need to focus on reducing? Because I don’t think so. 😡 😡
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Wasn’t expecting an announcement before June, but … guess I can share now that I won the 2023 World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest! 😳💀 The word I used was “gobsmacked.”
Grateful to SER for the generous contest fee holiday that emboldened me to enter. 🙏
#WritingCommmunity
Announcing our contest winners and finalists! Congratulations to these talented artists, and thank you to our judges, Athena Dixon in cnf, Naz Cuguoglu in art,
@robtolenbutler
in short-short fiction, and
@natalieshapero
in poetry!
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My ex broke up with me on May 26th. He would’ve liked (if I allowed it) to downgrade me from lover to friend—a preposterous & selfish desire. It is now June, my month of birth and, in many ways, rebirth. I’m glad to be free of him. Life is beginning anew.
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Me, at 14, on the roof of my uncle and grandmother’s Bronx apartment building. I used to hate this picture. Now I love it. Who knows what else, with time, I may completely change my mind about. 😊
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Wow. From submission to rejection in just 5 minutes.
Is this what it feels like to chat up a gorgeous woman at a bar, only to watch her put out her cigarette in your drink and walk away?😅
#WritingCommnunity
#rejection
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Wow...so, I never expected this to happen to me, and I'm pretty darn sure it won't happen again, but...I just had a piece accepted on the first try!! Oh, and the place that accepted it is one of my dream mags,
@moonrabbitcandy
!!!!!
🤸♀️ 🎊 🤸♀️
#WritingCommunity
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Passed 500 submissions today.
Since I began subbing in late 2019, I've published 43 pieces of art and writing, with 12 more pending release. So I'm at about a 10% acceptance rate (though not adjusted for withdrawals/solicitations).
If I can, so can you.💐⭐️
#WritingCommmunity
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Tried to help my daughter annotate a poem per the requirements of her HS English class, and just about lost my $hit. Is this how you make a teenager fall in love with poetry? No. It's not. This kind of exercise makes poetry a chore.
#poetrytwitter
#WritingCommunity
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You guys, this is a big one . . . I have a 4k word short story coming out in one of my dream mags,
@fivesouthlit
!!! EIC
@CourtlandAvenue
gave this acceptance the most wonderful personal touch by DMing me in advance of the formal email. SO happy RN.🤗 😭 ♥
#WritingCommunity
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All these prominent journals offer free online submissions:
1. Paris Review
2. One Story
3. Kenyon Review
4. McSweeney's
5. A Public Space
6. The Sun
7. n + 1
8. Cimarron Review
9. Washington Square Review
10. Guernica
11. Cincinnati Review
12. Passages North
13. Pleiades
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You guys, I recommended a litmag to a writer friend of mine with a very unique piece he’d tabled for a couple years, and he got a same-day acceptance! 😀 This makes me so d
@mn
happy. I feel like I helped deliver a baby or something 😅
#WritingCommmunity
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To those I may have annoyed by posting about acceptances too much: This (writing, submitting, & sharing about it) is keeping me alive. My personal life's a $hitshow. I'm no kind of success story. I'm in the
#WritingCommunity
to give and receive support. Thanks for being here. 💙
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Dressed up for a poetry event tonight. This is as fancy as I ever get, so I asked the teen to take some pictures.
🤷♀️ 😳 👗
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Had an amazing open mic this week, performing my poems from memory for the first time. I almost didn’t even try—told myself I was maybe still too jittery, too shattered, But then I realized that a new, scary experience might be just the thing to lift my melancholy. And it was. 🩵
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Regardless of how many poems I may write/publish, I'm not sure I'll ever get a book out of them . . . because my poems don't really talk to each other. Like, my poems don't even know each other. Like, how did they all even come from the same brain??
#ADHDpoet
#WritingCommunity
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Vague publishing tweet. I might’ve won a short story contest… but I can’t say anything officially until June. 🤗
#WritingCommmunity
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What’s better than a DMd invitation to submit my work directly to a fiction editor? An acceptance the next day!!😃 I’m overjoyed to share that 2 of my favorite flash stories will appear in the Spring ‘25 issue of
@pleiadesmag
, an absolute dream mag. Stunned & grateful. 🙏 😭
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You guys, I am crying with joy. 😭💖
I saw the latest issue of
@BarrenMagazine
go up, and DM'D the EIC because I never got a response to my CNF sub back in July. He looked into it, and... just look what he said....
No acceptance will ever, ever top this.
#WritingCommunity
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My writing was a major part of the bond between myself & my love of 2 years. He was my muse, my 1st reader. Without him, the idea of writing sickens me. I’d set a goal of at least starting a poem every day in 2024. I’m releasing myself from that for now. I need to rest & heal.
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I discovered the Erika Krouse 500 in 2020, and began submitting to as many journals on this list as possible. As of now, I have work published or forthcoming in 16 of them—2 ranked in the top 100, 3 ranked in the top 200. Most charged no sub fees. See thread for details.
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#TFW
the editor of a dream journal slides into your DMs to say she’s been following your work, loves your voice, and wonders if you might like to email her a short story or two for consideration 😳🤯😃
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It might not be a yes, but when
@The_Rumpus
says “We love your voice,” that is absolutely all the validation I need on a Sunday afternoon 😭 🙏
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My publishing secret, if I have one, is that I’m shameless - I will throw spaghetti at the wall all damn day. The few strands you see me jubilating about are the ones that happened to stick, but oh so many of them end up on the floor. And they deserve to. 😆
#WritingCommmunity
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What a lightness comes from realizing that all the time and energy you once poured into one person is now available to channel into others who will appreciate it—and you—more. 😊
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Just made the longlist in a flash fiction contest for the first time ever - please clap!
#WritingCommunity
#writing
#flashfiction
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I was 41 when I published my first story in late 2020. In 2021, I published a poem. In 2022, I published about 20 things - stories, poems, CNF. Here's what I've got published or forthcoming in 2023 (*reprints excluded*) 🧵
#WritingCommunity
#poetrycommunity
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Wow. A
#litmag
that REQUIRES you to purchase an issue before submitting? Yeah, no. Not all writers can afford to buy stacks of $10-20 litmags, or even pay $3 sub fees. And not all writers have the time/energy to read widely. This requirement is just elitist BS.
#WritingCommunity
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For a small fee, I will go to your enemy’s writing workshop and say, “I feel as if you may be struggling with the distinction between idiom and cliche.”
#WritingCommmunity
For a small fee, I will go to your enemy’s writing workshop and say, “this feels like it wants to be two poems”
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Litmags, please don't let a publication announcement be the way I find out my work wasn't selected. Clearly, if it had, my piece wouldn't still be hanging out in your
#submittable
queue. This is just bad form. No excuses.
#WritingCommunity
#writerbeef
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So honored to see my artwork on the cover of the latest
@PitheadChapel
🤗 Everything they publish is amazing. Hope you’ll check it out. 🙏
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Call me petty, but if it's going to be a form-letter rejection, I don't want to wait 8 to 10 months for it. Just weed me out in the first round and let me get on with submitting my work elsewhere.
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Well, that’s a bad kind of first: a Submittable rejection without a rejection letter. 😳 I only found out because I checked my active submissions queue and realizing something was missing. No “Thanks but no thanks.” No nothing. That’s cold, baby. Will not submit to that mag again
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Writing a daily poem—or at least a “poembryo”—has shown me that every 10th passing thought contains a poem-seed, if you can snag and plant it. So why merely think when you could poem?
I may keep this habit up not just for ‘24, but 4ever.
#WritingCommmunity
#poetrycommunity
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Struggling with how to feel about a piece that took maybe 2 hours to write netting a major acceptance within days of completion, while pieces that matter more (*to me*) continue to languish, racking up rejections. Is this some sibling of the let down effect?
#WritingCommunity
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Living with a narcissist control freak means that you can race to buy milk as soon as the store opens so you won't get yelled at when the milk's gone, and end up getting yelled at because you paid a few cents too much for said milk.
I'm so done.
🤬😵
#narcissisticabuse
#wtf
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With my grandmother for the first time since the fall of 2022. At exactly twice my age (90 years), she has never been more beautiful. She no longer knows who I am much of the time, and we can’t talk the way we used to, but a sense of familiarity and shared humor remains.
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Please, let me die with one or two of my pop cultural saints still intact. Don’t let me open my feed tomorrow to learn that even Keanu Reeves and Dolly Parton are terrible people who do terrible things concealed behind a veneer of enlightened compassion.
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I reached a hard decision, but one that feels right:
My first novel just isn't viable.
However, there's much within it that may be salvaged for short story parts.
Many darlings will die, but many will find new life as I render, retool, and reshape.
#WritingCommunity
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I used to think “finishing” a work was a waste of time if I couldn’t publish it. No—every novelist has 3 or 4 unpublished novels in their desk; every poet has 100 unpublished poems. Some work’s just part of your process. And making peace with that frees you.
#WritingCommmunity
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When you get an idea so arresting that your brain tells you, "I couldn't possibly forget that--write it down later," YOUR BRAIN IS LYING.
Pull the car over, block the sidewalk, get out of the shower, and capture that idea before it's gone. Because it will be.
#writingcommunity
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Wow, my first hat trick - Three poems accepted by as many journals in as many days.😀 Grateful to Chill Mag for accepting a wistful piece about missing my dad in an Irish pub that wandered the earth for about 1.5 years before finding a home.
#WritinCommmunity
#poetrycommunity
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So pleased to get this artwork acceptance from the wonderful
@PitheadChapel
last night. I've been trying to place this painting for years, and now I'm just glad it didn't end up anywhere else.🤗 ♥
#WritingCommunity
#ArtistOnTwitter
#Creatives
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Well, hey, I got shortlisted by
@dustpoetrymagazine
. 😀
A lot of “yes” coming. I can feel it. 😊
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Might delete later, but I’m just gonna say it: The best revenge is getting more action in the 3 months since he dumped you than in the entirety of 2 years with him. 💥 😆
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Up to 93 submissions, 79 rejections and 19 acceptances (around 24% acceptance rate) as the first quarter of 2024 ends. My sub numbers have dropped a lot as I’ve chosen to prioritize other things for a while. How’s your submissions game going?
#WritingCommmunity
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Excited and proud to share that I have just received my 100th rejection of 2024!!!
#WritingCommmunity
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This rejection, from
@sewaneereview
, for my as-yet unpublished story "The Bear," is so good I almost want to print it out and frame it. Not a "yes," but it sure feels like the next-best thing. 🙏 ♥
#writingcommunity
#writer
#greatrejections
#sewaneereview
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14. Grain
15. Wigleaf
16. Threepenny Review
17. Puerto Del Sol
18. Jellyfish Review
19. Ruminate
20. Salt Hill
21. Master's Review
22. X-R-A-Y
23. Paper Darts
24. Denver Quarterly
25. J Journal
26. Hobart
27. The Offing
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So . . . if a litmag says they have to pass on my submission "at this time" . . . that means they might accept if I resubmit it at "another time" . . . right?? ;)
#WritingCommunity
#rejection
#rejectionisprotection
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What an amazing surprise, on Christmas Day, to learn that
@OrcaLiterary
chose my piece to be their "holiday acceptance" for 2022!
Greatly looking forward to being in Issue 13 of this beautiful magazine.
#Writerscommunity
#WritingCommunity
#Writer
#amwriting
#speculativefiction
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OMG OMG - poem acceptance from
@LiteraryMama
!!
Can't say how excited I am about this one. 😊☺️
Much gratitude to the editors for choosing my work. 🙏 ♥
#WritingCommmunity
#poet
#writers
#writer
#POEMS
#momswhowrite
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Utterly floored by this triple poem acceptance from
@DoorIsAJarMag
yesterday. 😃 Never had 3 accepted at once, anywhere, ever, and would never have expected it from a magazine I admire as much as this one. Maybe because it's
#nationalpoetrymonth
?? 🤷🏼♀️ ♥ 😉
#writingcommunity
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You guys...I've been skulled!!!
💀 💀 💀
So grateful to the lovely
@Chelsea_Stickle
for choosing my work, and also to
@Aaron__Burch
and the rest of the
@havehadhavehad
team for running one of the wierdest, most fun journals around 🙏 ♥ 🤗
#writingcommunity
#flash
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There are acceptances… and then there are ACCEPTANCES.
More soon. ;)
#WritingCommunity
#poetrycommunity
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F*ck your zodiac sign, what was you signature scent in high school? (*p.s., for me it still is 😳)
F*ck your zodiac sign, what was your signature scent in high school?
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Today, a beautiful poetry journal that form-rejected my first three packets accepted two (2!) of my newest poems for publication. The moral of the story: the absence of encouragement is not the same as a blanket dismissal of everything you’ll ever write.
#keepgoing
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Ok, you smart writer-type people, be my dictionary this morning. Tell me what you think "riparian" means - No looking it up yet, just hot takes. (Deliberately wrong answers - especially funny ones - are welcome.) 😊
#WritingCommunity
#definitions
#writers
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So glad I started experimenting with 500 to 1000-word
#flashfiction
in 2020. As of my last acceptance, every flash piece I've completed, to date, has found a home. The challenges, and satisfactions, of this form are endless. On to the next batch in 2023! 🙃
#WritingCommnunity
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The piece of writing you feel most unsure of will often be the one singled out as someone’s “favorite.” Your sensors can only tell you what resonates hardest for you, not for others. So if you hear a bell ring—however faintly—put that piece out there. Let it find its home.
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Guys, it’s been slow, but I have 3 poems and 2 flash fictions due out in September 😳 😊
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Omg I am losing my $hit right now...
My first
#Pushcart
nomination, from an incredible publication.
So grateful to
@JJournalNYC
for selecting me for this honor.
The piece comes out in December. Will post updates!
#WritingCommunity
J Journal is happy to announce this year's Pushcart Prize nominees:
Graham Akhurst/This Country
Mary Clark/Cambridge Royalty
Francesca Leader/Now You See Him
Spencer Seward/Party Talk
Anamyn Turowsy/Orbiting Jupiter
Ryan White/Focus
@MaryClarkWrites
@mooninabucket
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#Twitter
and
#Instagram
are my MFA poetry workshop. Before I got on socials, I wasn't reading/writing poetry. I didn't discover 1-2 new favorite poems a day. I certainly didn't compose 1-2 new poems of my own every week. I do now.
Some go-to accounts for good poems:
🧵1 of 4
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12k followers?? Gosh, that’s flattering 🥰 If we’ve never interacted, I’m Francesca. 👋 I write short fiction, poetry, and CNF. I also do illustrations. I’m really excited about new writing coming out this fall in
@MISTERBULLBULL
,
@SoutheastReview
, and
@Abyss_Apex
. How about you?
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Hey,
#litmags
, what say we take the guesswork out of the whole submissions process? I'll send you every unpublished thing I've ever written, and you can just browse through it for six to twelve months, and let me know if you see anything you like. 🙃😅
#WritingCommunity
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Really the only one of these I ever should have posted....
#blackoutpoetry
#rejectionerasures
#rejection
#erasure
#writingcommunity
#poetrycommunity
#poetrytwitter
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If you read even one piece I’ve written, thank you. If you respond to it, thank you twice over. If you tell others about it, thank you threefold.
Thank you—so much—for giving me the ultimate gift of your time. 🙏
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Just realized I have eight (8!) pieces of art and writing coming out this month!
That is, by far, a personal best. Hard to imagine it's real when I think how thrilled I was, in 2020, to have a single pub cred to my name.
It gets easier, guys. Truly.
#WritingCommunity
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Just withdrew an entire five-poem packet submitted to a
#litmag
in March because everything in it has been accepted elsewhere. First time that's ever happened to me...and it feels kinda great. 🤗 ♥
#WritingCommunity
#writer
#poetry
#poetrycommunity
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On January 15th, I tweeted the first poem my 80-year-old stepmom had ever written. It went viral. Then the lovely
@joelyfitch
&
@anthgarrett
asked to publish it in their new litmag.
Today, my stepmom is a first-time published poet. ❤️ 🙏
#WritingCommmunity
You might have heard of a little magazine called atmospheric quarterly.
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Confession: I’m a blind submitter. I don’t often read journals beforehand, unless there are samples online. Also rarely submit to journals with submission fees. The reason: stress. My spouse fights me over every single $3 credit card charge. Say I’m not alone?
#writerscommunity
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You guys, I’m gonna cry… this is my stepmom’s recent communication with the lovely editors of
@atmosphericlit
, who offered to publish her poem in their debut issue.
@anthgarrett
,
@joelyfitch
- I hope you know what a wonderful thing you’ve done for her 🙏😭
#WritingCommmunity
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I've had plenty of double-rejection days, but yesterday was something new: a double-acceptance day!
@jmwwjournal
picked up a piece of flash fiction, and Frost Meadow Review (
@ReviewFrost
) picked up a poem. 😲😃🤯😭 Still reeling, and so grateful. 🙏
#writerslife
#WritingCommunity
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So, remember the prose poem/flash CNF thing that Salamander rejected this morning? Well, I’m thrilled to share that one of my favorite litmags,
@IdentityTheory
, just accepted this afternoon. Thanks so much,
@vicnogaywrites
:)
#WritingCommmunity
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Grateful to EIC Dana Knott of
@tinywrenlit
for publishing another of my tiniest poems in her beautiful Issue 7, “Memento Mori.” 🙏 🖤
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Modern medicine has saved my life many times. One of those times was when I had a safe, legal abortion at the age of 21.
Tell me if abortion saved your life, too.
#AbortionIsEssential
#AbortionRightsAreHumanRights
#AbortionBan
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This is the vaguest of all vague writing tweets. Someday—long time from now—I’ll have so much to say about the new, unexpected life into which I’ve stumbled. I can’t tell you yet—I’m not ready, you’re not ready. But in 20/30 years, this story might just knock your socks off. 😉
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At 120 rejections and 25 acceptances now for 2024, so still a 20% acceptance rate. 😊 Submitted 10x in May and June, just once so far in July, working on two poetry packets to send out today. Hope you’re also able to spend part of the 4th on writerly stuff🤗
#WritingCommmunity
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Heading out to another typewriter poetry event tonight.
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This morning, I hit my 1000th submission since I began tracking in late 2019 - only subbed 10 times that year, then 20 times in 2020, but after my 1st acceptance in late 2020, I was on my way. Hundreds of subs a year by 2022, & hope to keep it there. 😊
#LFG
#WritingCommmunity
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Some of the best journals out there will never take your work--it's not for them. But there are other, equally-good journals that will love it, publish it, promote it, and nominate it.
Just like you gotta find your people, you gotta find your publications.
#WritingCommmunity
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Up to 110 rejections and 24 acceptances thus far in 2024… so my acceptance rate is still above 20%, despite all the slaps 🤷♀️😊
#WritingCommmunity
#poetrycommunity
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Acceptance from Molecule! This one with a thoughtful edit that made my submission tighter, and better. I so appreciate editors who take the time to work with a writer on improving a piece. 🙏
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Was debating whether to tweet-whine about my allergy symptoms this morning when I found a "yes" from
@Wigleaf
in my inbox!! I think I will now go bathe in tree pollen - nothing can ruin this acceptance high!!
#writerscommunity
#amwriting
#flashfiction
😊😃🤩🥰
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Let’s lighten this very heavy Thursday. Quote tweet with your favorite selfie? Here’s mine 😊
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Jubilating over this acceptance from
@FunFunFunicular
. 🤗”Trigger Warnings” was rejected numerous times, which tends to drive me to revisit and revise a piece, but I hardly changed it at all from the first draft. It knew what it wanted to be when it came out.
#WritinCommunity
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Elated about this microfiction acceptance from
@BendingGenres
! Looking forward to seeing the next issue in February. ☺️☺️
#WritingCommunity
#Writer
#writerslife
#writersoftwitter
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