I've been a reader, and fan, of Poetica Magazine much longer than I've been its Blog Editor.

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In early 2009, I received an email from the publisher of Poetica, Michal Mahgerefteh, in which she asked her readers to provide comments on the website. Since I was already a blogger, I provided my comments regarding the quality of the blog on the website, which, at the time, was largely nonexistent. Suddenly, I was the Blog Editor.

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I'd always been a reader. For the eight years prior to that time I'd been a writer as well. In the last nearly two and a half years now I've had the great privilege to be the editor of this blog.

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Sometimes when you begin something, your original vision for what it will be changes over time. That's what happened with JWorld Cafe. I'd originally planned to write all the blog posts; an editor in name only. But a few months into it, as I was about to go on vacation, I decided to run an Open Forum in which we'd post the work of our readers. It was then that I discovered our readers had a lot more to say than could be contained in the Open Forum. Of course - our readers were writers.

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The guest bloggers we've hosted on JWorld Cafe have offered glimpses into everything from their creative process, their artwork, and their writing habits, to how they learned to write again after loss or illness.

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Through them I learned to try again too. In the year preceding becoming Blog Editor I had been through some serious disappointments trying to get my book published, both with the agents who represented me and the publishing houses involved. Reading the stories of our readers - our writers - taught me to try again too.

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This post marks the beginning of a hiatus for the blog and for myself, as I'll be promoting my book over the next few months.  

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Thanks, as always for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

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Linda Pressman is the Blog Editor of Poetica Magazine and the author of the newly released memoir, Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survivors and Skokie. Her work has appeared in publications including Brain, Child Magazine, the the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, and Mizmor L’David, a anthology of work by children of Holocaust Survivors. She blogs at Bar Mitzvahzilla and at Open Salon and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband and two children.

I finally finished my book, Learning to Say "Satoraljaujhely," in time to have it published before the International Jewish Genealogy Conference held in Los Angeles last July. I had submitted a proposal to offer a presentation from my "book in progress"--when the proposal was accepted, I was asked to be the keynote speaker at the Hungarian Special Interest Group luncheon. I realized that this was an opportunity to read before the most interested audience I would ever have, and that it was an important occasion to have the book finished to sell.

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I started by listing each piece I had for the book--poems, short stories, and memoir. Since this material deals with about 200 years of the history of my Hungarian Jewish family, I listed the date or dates covered by each piece and the narrator used for each selection. Once I had the list finished, I realized that I really did have enough work to complete the book--I had covered the entire time period and had included all the major characters in my story. I reviewed the list and a few selections with a friend and colleague who was familiar with the project I'd been working on. She also thought I had enough to consider the book finished.

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I put all the selections into chronological order, including the date and narrator's name as subtitles. I knew I would be including photographs--old family photographs and my own photographs from my 1997 and 2004 trips to Hungary, so I started to add them to the text. The first draft of the book was done sooner than I'd thought. Revisions and editing, with the help of several friends/editors and a lot of time with a Hungarian dictionary, took almost a month--a short time for a book. Finally the book went off to my publisher, the Tucson small press Jumping Cholla Press, which used a print-on-demand printer to get me 100 copies to take to Los Angeles. (I got the boxes of books a whole week before I had to leave for LA!)

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At the conference, I sold books at an opening-day sales table, gave my luncheon presentation, reading selections from the book while projecting slides of photographs from the book as well as more Hungarian photographs I have. The audience really appreciated the presentation, and I sold a large number of books. Later in the week, I presented a writing workshop on using family history in creative writing. It was one of the most exciting, involved workshops I've ever taught--and afterward I sold quite a few more books! (We've printed more since the original printing.)

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So, my advice is--don't let your "magnum opus" take forever! Just get it out in print and get it out into the world! There are lots of people who will appreciate your writing.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Lynn Saul, Guest Blogger

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Lynn Saul teaches writing and humanities at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, and a creative writing workshop and other adult education classes at her synagogue, Congregation Bet Shalom in Tucson. She received an international travel award from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council to support her 2004 artist’s residency in Hungary with the Hungarian Multicultural Center. Her publications include poetry and prose in many literary magazines and anthologies, including Sarah’s Daughters Sing, the Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, SandScript, and on ShalomVeg.com. Her book, Learning to Say "Satoraljaujhely," was recently published, and she was the keynote speaker at the Hungarian Special Interest Group luncheon at the International Jewish Genealogy Conference in Los Angeles in July 2010. It is available for sale on Amazon as well as at several bookstores in Tucson; further distribution is planned as well as readings and presentations. Please contact the author at lynnsaul@cox.net  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

In 2006, when my editors at Kar-Ben Publishing asked me to write Sarah Laughs, my picture book about the biblical Sarah, I was skeptical. It’s a story about a woman whose main goal in life is to have a baby. How do you make kids relate to that, I asked? My editors reminded me that most preschoolers have firsthand experience with pregnant mommies and would understand that a woman wanted a baby. I sheepishly admitted this was true, and began researching to see if I could come up with a narrative to intrigue young readers.

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I used many sources, including Adin Steinsaltz’s Biblical Images. Steinsaltz and others depicted Sarah as a pioneer who spread the belief in one God, teaching alongside her husband as an equal partner. Telling the story through Sarah’s eyes gave me the opportunity to explain this to young readers. As I studied and imagined her, I was touched by Sarah’s courage to follow God’s voice through the desert, to accept the delay of what she wanted most—a child—year and after year. Isaac comes to Sarah after a lifetime of longing. Her life embodies the hope that our dreams will come true, no matter how long they are delayed. This was a powerful message for me, as a writer who waited years to see her publishing dreams realized.

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In Miriam in the Desert (released September 2010), I follow another strong Biblical woman—Miriam, the sister of Moses. Miriam was a leader in her own right, just like Sarah. I loved imagining this Biblical matriarch in the desert, bolstering the spirits of her people through the long trek in the wilderness. At the same time, it made me question myself. How would I have behaved in the desert? Would I have had Miriam’s faith or would I have grumbled like all the other Israelites?

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Exodus 15:20 calls Miriam a prophetess at the Red Sea, when she takes the timbrel in her hand. In Miriam in the Desert, I imagine Miriam singing not only at the Red Sea, but each time she witnessed a miracle in the wilderness. Miriam’s Well, the sieve-like rock which provided water to the wandering Israelites, was bestowed as a reward for Miriam’s devotion. A woman like this would certainly have led her people in songs of praise over and over again.

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The midrash of the manna also inspired me. It was said to have a unique taste in each Israelite’s mouth. This parallels the midrash about the voice at Sinai, which was said to be a personal experience for each Israelite. In my picture book, I had the distinct pleasure of giving Miriam the opportunity of explaining this phenomenon, when she says, “God spoke to each one of us in the way we understood best.”

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Writing often leads us to research topics we previously understood in only a shallow manner. To write about Miriam and Sarah, I had to immerse myself in midrash and rabbinic commentary. I had to imagine their feelings and thoughts. The journey enriched my life.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Jacqueline Jules, Guest Blogger

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Jacqueline Jules is an award-winning children’s author and poet. Her books include The Hardest Word, The Princess and the Ziz, Abraham’s Search for God, Sarah Laughs, Benjamin and the Silver Goblet, and the recently released, Miriam in the Desert. For more information, please visit www.jacquelinejules.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor.

The art of good writing comes from the artist within. All humans have the ability to become great authors, poets, artists and musicians, so why do most folks find it such a difficult task? Why do many people say I could never be a writer or I could never aspire to write poetry? And why do folks who do write get discouraged when their work is rejected?

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We are what we think, so if we believe we cannot succeed in our daily actions, then for sure we will never get away from our perception of who we think we are. This self-defeating attitude is not of our making. As we grow up and mature into adulthood, we’re indoctrinated with thousands of negative thoughts. This gives us a belief that we’re only a housewife or only a truck driver, for example, and that, in tern, gives us a limited vision of our role in life and a limited life. People the world over have great creativity. Once we start to understand who we are and the reasons we exist, we start to cultivate eloquent works of creativity.

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Just writing worthy, meaningful, literature will not get the success it deserves unless we possess the resolve to carry on writing in spite of the critics. There will always be those who criticize a writer, no matter how good the composition. Rejection is an everyday experience for most writers. This is a joy we must accept and grow from. Just because someone does not like our essay, doesn’t mean it has no value. It means it was not acceptable to the editor or book reviewer that was reading the essay.

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We can do two things when we are rejected: we can give up and say it was not meant to be, or we can say; "How do I become a better writer and have my work accepted more?” Once a small section of the general public start to take an interest in our writing, others become more interested too, even those originally critical of it. Success breeds success.

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Until we can find the inner core of creativity and start to write from the soul, we will never become a great writer. We may achieve a modicum of success by writing a few columns for a newspaper or magazine but that could keep us in a vacuum. We can scrape a living, but may not amass a fortune, for we are trying to write and trying will never cut the mustard.

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The secret to excellent writing is to enjoy each letter and syllable we put down on paper. The pure joy of writing makes us a success, nothing else will. Those who tell us we have to struggle and sweat have not grasped true meaning in their lives. We need no approval of any human to be a success. Stop trying to become a success. We are a success already. We were born. We are a success of life. Everything else we do and achieve is just a bonus.

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In summary:

Just

Obey

Yourself

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Michael Levy, Guest Blogger

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Michael Levy is an international talk show host, philosopher, poet and the author of ten inspirational books. He is a prominent speaker on health and wellness maintenance, stress eradication, wealth creation and development, authentic happiness and inspirational poetry. His poetry, essays and investigative journalism enhance many web sites, newspapers, journals and magazines throughout the world. His new book CUTTING TRUTHS will be available in August 2010. Please visit his website at http://www.pointoflife.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor 

My two teenage daughters put me to shame with their dedication to online journaling. They've been writing in their journals for years, something I didn't do very well at their age.

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True, I only had pen and paper and privacy was an issue. My diary looked like a classified government file -- incomprehensible due to heavily blacked out sections. I frequently wrote down -- then nervously inked out -- the names of boys I liked because I was afraid someone would discover my deepest thoughts and out me à la Harriet the Spy. The flimsy lock on the vinyl-covered pasteboard cover did not inspire confidence.

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Oh brave new world that has such technology in it! My daughters take for granted what I couldn't imagine three decades ago: an online environment with password protection, guaranteed privacy, and relative permanence. They'll never haul boxes of diaries off to college; worry about losing their past in an apartment/house fire; or fear exposure and acute teenage embarrassment.

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Oddly enough, although my daughters journal, they don't blog, preferring to keep what they write private. Maybe it's because I blog for a living.

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True to form, my blogging is not personal -- I write about women's issues for a website owned by the New York Times Company. It's a job that keeps my laptop next to me 24/7 because if breaking news happens I have to drop what I'm doing, open up my computer, and get to work.

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I wasn't a successful personal blogger before I became a professional one, and for that reason I feel as if I've hit the Internet equivalent of the lottery. According to Hat Trick Associates, there are 400 million active English language blogs. Include non-English language blogs and you've got one billion worldwide, the majority of them personal.

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If you're hoping to break out of the pack with a money-making blog, don't quit your day job. Over the course of a lifetime, you're far more likely to get hit by lightning. (Those odds are 1 in 6250 according to the National Weather Service.)

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So what drives these bloggers to keep writing and posting, day in, day out? Many toil in obscurity, attracting few readers and even fewer comments. Yet I remember my own personal blogs and the joy I felt when a complete stranger somehow found me, liked what I'd written, and took the time to post a few kind words. Even though I wrote for my pleasure alone, I felt validated. The unpaid effort I put into my blog was well worth it.

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In comparison, as a paid blogger I get many readers, many comments, not all pleasant. I no longer live or die by what others say. Neither do I shy away from controversial or unpopular positions. Whether you blog for money or love, if you lose your integrity you lose your bearings.

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Reflecting on the differences between personal and professional blogging brings to mind the philosophical riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" In other words, does a blog need to be read to matter? Does the power of a blog lie in the act of transcribing one's personal thoughts and feelings, or in transmitting those ideas to someone else? Does a blog have to resonate with others to be successful, or can it exist in beautiful, perfect isolation?

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As a professional blogger, I won't argue that it's not rewarding having a large readership worldwide. But deep down I know that's a function of the site I write for. Since I rank #1 on Google, Yahoo, Bing for the search term "women's issues," readers find me easily.

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But a certain level of serendipity is missing nowadays. In some ways, I miss the randomness of the comments from those who once just stumbled upon my personal blogs. I know the joy I feel when I discover a blog that speaks to me, and the heartache that follows when a blogger I've grown attached to suddenly withdraws her voice and stops posting.

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If you blog, know this: The tree in the forest does make a sound when it falls -- whether or not anyone is nearby.

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Some of the most beautiful moments of our lives happen in isolation and live on in isolation. Perhaps my daughters don't blog not because of me, but because they know a fundamental truth: what matters is not being read but having lived enough to have something to say.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Linda Lowen, Guest Blogger

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Linda Lowen is the Women's Issues Guide for About.com and a former radio/television broadcast journalist, producer, and talk show host. She is the recipient of several awards for her coverage of women's issues including the 2009 EMMA Award from the National Women's Political Caucus and two Clarion Awards from Women in Communications. A 16-year survivor of ovarian cancer, she is also a member of the National Cancer Survivor's Day Speaker's Bureau. Her website is http://womensissues.about.com  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

Writing ideas don’t come by FedEx or stork. Almost all ideas, whether for fiction or nonfiction, spring from experience, observation or the experience and observation of others, that is reading, conversation and gossip. Fiction draws on still another source, imagination, when writers ask the question: What if?

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Some of my own essays draw on experience: At the age of twenty-two, I wed a photographer. From that marriage came an essay, THE IDEAL PHOTOGRAPHER, which tells how to turn a nice child into a successful photographer.

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When I took pictures myself, I realized I could not conform to the Cartier-Bresson model of a photographer, an invisible gray man who melted into the background. I was a woman, and women draw attention. That perception led to THE INVISIBLE GRAY GIRL.

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After the divorce, I traveled a good deal. My unfamiliarity with European sizes became the nugget of THE GIRL WITH THE 85 BRA.

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By entertaining friends, I learned that it was more important to have a gourmet kitchen than to be a gourmet cook. From this thought came the piece, HOW TO BE THE MOST SNOBBISH COOK IN TOWN. I also ate out a good deal, thus inspiring two essays, HOW TO READ A MENU and JOUSTING WITH A FRENCH WAITER.

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Some of my essays drew on observation: After reading Readers’ Digest I devised a parody, HOW TO BE HAPPY IN 93 SECONDS A DAY.

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Experience played no role in inspiring my essay, HOW TO GIVE THE PERFECT ORGY because I had attended only one orgy, and I was a wallflower. Neither did observation since I forgot to bring glasses and had only a fuzzy glimpse of a bed covered with writhing arms and legs. Reading came into play. The editors of women’s magazines ran instructions on how to do everything so I used the same approach with a bacchanal. From then on imagination dominated the picture.

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Some of my ideas for books and essays originated with reading: I read about the early French rulers of what is now Quebec running out of coins and paper money and using playing cards as a substitute. That became the first chapter of my children’s book, FROM CATTLE TO CREDIT CARDS.

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Conversation has always been helpful. A friend of two photographers remarked that whenever their toddler son took a tumble, he waited before picking himself up giving them time to focus and trip the shutter. This inspired THE GENTLE ART OF KIDNAPPING.

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Earlier, imagination or asking what-if was the culprit behind THE YEAR PROSTITUTION WENT PUBLIC, where a new MBA returns to her mother’s sex ranch and sets out to make the enterprise more profitable. She installs time clocks, uniforms for the prostitutes and blue sanitizing bands on the beds between customers. The business goes public and, after a while, it also goes bust.

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Writers won’t run out of ideas if only they remember to experience, observe, read and ask what if, or to put it more simply, live, look, read and imagine.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Carol Schwalberg, Guest Blogger

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Carol Schwalberg's stories, poetry, articles and essays have been published on all six continents. She lives with her husband in Santa Monica, California. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

“Dear sir or madam, would you read my book?

It took me years to write, won’t you take a look?”

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I have a serious case of writer’s block. Not the ordinary kind — I’m not struggling to find the perfect couplet to finish off a 14-line sonnet, nor am I wrestling with a plot-line that seems to have struck a dead-end. I’m not chalking up sleepless nights staring into the black abyss of an impending deadline. My block is not about any of these things.

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You see, I recently completed a novel, and now it is time to trot it out before the admiring world. Only ... to do that, I need an agent. And to get an agent, I need to compose (shudder) a query letter.

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This is where I’m stuck. That query letter is crucial, it overshadows the effort of writing the novel itself. If the agent can’t get through my query letter, she isn’t going to read my synopsis, let alone the first few chapters of my book. And she’ll never ask to see the entire manuscript.

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“This should be easy,” I tell myself. “You have a strong product — it’s controversial and current, it has convincing characters and a compelling plot. All you need to do is sell it.”

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This is what I tell myself. But it’s not working.

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Each evening I come home and sit before the keyboard, resolved that this will be the night. I’ll knock that query letter out and have it ready to send off to the scores of agents I’ve already researched. Oh, but first, let me check my e-mail. And Facebook. Oops, now it’s dinner time. And wait, here’s an article in the paper I really must read because it’s all about electronic books being the wave of the future. Look at the time! On second thought, too late to look, the time has flown. All right, this weekend, then — this weekend I’ll buckle my socks and get down to the business of writing that query letter.

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But before the weekend even arrives, it’s booked. There’ll be a show or a concert I absolutely must see, friends who want to go out to dinner, a jam session across the park, and how can I turn any of this down? I call it “gathering material”, because you never know how any of these experiences might turn up in your work, sooner or later. Your work that will never be published, because you will never find an agent for your book, because you never sat down and wrote that query letter.

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The Greeks had nine muses — but the muse I need is the muse of queries. And she refuses to sing. That’s the problem. I expect too much of her. A query letter is a business proposition, not an opera. A query should be straightforward and succinct. Perhaps John Lennon said it best — “Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?” Actually, he sang it, didn’t he?

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I’m beginning to think I’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. The challenge is not writing a query that will stand out -- it’s sending out a query often enough, to enough agents, that it will beat the odds. Any novel worth reading has likely been rejected hundreds of times. No matter how fine the book, no matter how compelling the query letter.

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In the end, persistence is what counts. Believe in your project so strongly that you can bear to see it fail, again and again. Each failure brings you one step closer to the goal.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Luther Jett, Guest Blogger

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W. Luther Jett is currently working to complete a query letter for his novel, And This I Know Is True. He has seen numerous poems published in various print and on-line journals. Some of his work can be seen at http://www.lutherjett.com . His blog is at http://lutherjett.livejournal.com/  – Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I write in the dark, comfortably supine, using pencils on unlined paper and my stomach for a desk. I write on spiral notebooks during the countless bus-rides I take because I do not drive. I write at the kitchen table, with ink-filled pens on beautiful stationery. I write at my personal computer  – and that is where FreeCell and e-mails do their best to distract me.

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My version of a paperless office is both my night-time dreaming, and the writing I do in my head when my eyes glaze over where it would be bad form to whip out a ballpoint. Sometimes these words do not get to the physical point, but as far as I am concerned, they’re written anyhow.

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I breathe because I write. I scrawl ideas on the margins of newspapers and the backs of envelopes and receipts.

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I write because I breathe. A letter, a poem, a haiku, or an opinion piece may be written on impulse, but I have to knuckle down for deadlines. Yet I have no “routine” as such; I would never be able to write one thousand words before breakfast.

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People fascinate me. Family, friends, and even perfect strangers often thinly disguise themselves and gate-crash my fiction. For non-fiction I have to keep half an eye on the libel laws. With Malta being such an insular place, this is especially pertinent.

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Credibility is something I treasure. I always get my information from the source. I do not like censorship; yet I do not like people showing that it exists by depicting gratuitous vulgarity, or sex, or violence that are bound to be censored, either.

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Sometimes, a column or a poem write themselves. I have never stumbled over the hackneyed writers’ block; perhaps that’s because I tend to procrastinate since I know I work best under pressure. So, if you want me to write for you, never say “no hurry”. I have always made deadlines (albeit sometimes with seconds to spare) come hell or high water, births and deaths, illness and travel.

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I’m a stickler for using the correct terminology; and since the phrase “editors reserve the right to edit for length or clarity” covers a multitude of their sins, this has given rise to many heated discussions. I have no beef with writers who insist upon being paid for every word they pen; but I am not averse to donating articles (or poems or puzzles) to publications of worthy causes, without being credited – since this would defeat the “donation” principle.

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My writing is eclectic; so I slant my work according to the demographics of the readership of each publication or site. I do insert a couple of “difficult” words in children’s stories in such a way that, even if they are not looked up (as I hope they will be) the tale will not lose anything. I try to get my values across in anything I write, be it a television critique column or an interview with a celebrity. I like puns, alliteration, and idioms. But unless the feature is deliberately meant to be over-the-top, I consciously ration myself not to risk losing the thrust of my piece. I have several dictionaries (some of them esoteric) and thesauruses, which I prefer to online versions.

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Therapy; a weapon; serious fun; a dais. Writing, to me, is all these, and more.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Tanja Cilia, Guest Blogger

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Tanja Cilia lives with her husband and three children on the  Mediterranean Island Republic of Malta. She is an Allied Newspapers (Malta) columnist, blogger, and features writer, and freelances for several print and online publications in Maltese and English. Contact her at tanjacilia@hotmail.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

When I tell people that I founded Ruminate, an arts and literary magazine, I often get blank stares and hear: “Umm…what is a literary magazine?” I realize everyone here is fairly literary folks, but I still think this is a great question—one worth asking and answering. Especially because, in my experience, many writers don’t know enough about the publications they are submitting to or the rich world in which these magazines exist. And getting published has everything to do with researching and understanding the publications out there!

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So, I usually tell this friend how the six hundred or so currently publishing US literary magazines make up a non-commercialized market of small or “little” magazines that promote a variety work and genres from both established and emerging writers. Each magazine typically has a specific mission or niche, like an environmental focus or one that only publishes writers only from the west coast (check for this mission in the tagline under the magazine title, on the masthead page, or the “about us” page on their website). They also have a small circulation—usually between five hundred and ten thousand, are often a nonprofit organization run by volunteer staff and maintained by donations and grants or affiliated with a university. They typically pay only in a subscription or contributor copies, although some of the larger and/or university-funded magazines pay anywhere from $5 to $30 per printed page. And, reputable magazines do not charge a reading fee for general submissions. Most do, however, charge an entry/reading fee for contests.

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The next question I often hear is, “Well, why do they matter?” This was a question we asked ourselves when starting Ruminate, and I think it is also very valid. I usually share how literary magazines provide an important opportunity for new writers to begin and establish a career, how it is easier to find a publisher for a manuscript of short stories or poetry if some of the work has already been published in literary magazines, and how they are one of the few places where experimental/boundary-pushing work or “no-name” authors may find a home. No literary magazine makes a “profit”—therefore, they don’t have to answer to advertisers or commercial marketing and can truly serve and foster the literary arts. What a gift!

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And on a more practical level, many great writers began their careers by first publishing in literary magazines, and most in the publishing world would agree that this is still true today. It is a tried and true process and agents and publishers will want to see that you have published work in reputable literary magazines. Also, many anthologies (such as The Best American Short Stories or The Best American Poetry) select work every year from literary magazines around the country.

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Now the most eager of folks might even ask where they can find our more about these fascinating publications. In which case I’d get their email address and promise to send them a list of resources (see below). And I’d also tell them that they should join the conversation—pick one literary magazine…and subscribe! And help ensure that this rich world of voices and words continues to thrive.

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Online Literary Magazine Resources

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Duotrope - searchable by genre, word count, payscale, response times, rejection rate, etc. 

New Pages - literary magazine database, magazine reviews, and calls for submissions.  

Poets and Writers Online - Lit magazine database searchable by genre with info on reading periods and editorial guidelines. 

Winning Writers - Primarily geared toward poets.

Lit List - Literary magazines, contests, and online litmags, allows you to “follow” your favorite literary mags.

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Print Resources (available in the reference section of most libraries):

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CLMP Literary Press and Magazine Directory - Detailed submission guidelines for online and print literary magazines and profiles of top publishers and journal editors.

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International Directory of Little Magazines & Small Presses - Full editorial information on both book and magazine publishers; 4,000 markets for writers to sell their work.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Brianna Van Dyke, Guest Blogger

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Brianna Van Dyke is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruminate: Faith in Literature and Art. She recently completed her MA in English literature from Colorado State University where her thesis was on literary magazines. She has presented at numerous publishing and editing conferences and workshops across the country and last month spoke on a panel of small press and little magazine editors at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, two kids, and two dogs. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I was thrilled to pass calculus. Years of checking addition with subtraction, of scrutinizing multiplication through division, and of examining functions via the employment of inverse functions successfully guided me to a culmination of being able to verify integration by means of differentiation. Complimentary processes had brought me good outcomes in math.

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Analogously, reciprocal procedures brought me good outcomes in writing.

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Reading chapter books enabled me to write funky fables for my younger sister. Consuming poetry led me to structuring rudimentary verse for my third grade teacher. Perusing nonfiction caused me to create diatribes for the most cherished of my stuffed animals.

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As I passed in age from single to double digits, I read more and wrote more. Eventually, I learned enough to teach college-level literature, composition, communications, philosophy and sociology. My textual contributions became my research as presented at international conferences and my scholarly findings as provided in professional journals.

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Subsequently, my children introduced me to the palpable glop and the denizens of their pretend worlds. Whereas I made drafts of poems and essays and scribbled down a book or two, during those years I allowed and even encouraged my children’s insistence on attending to their ladybugs and gelatinous monsters to distract me from distributing my ideas.

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Later, when my husband and I returned to a religious way of life, moving first to a religious community and then to Israel, my teens wanted a translator, not a nature lover. The local universities wanted a Hebrew-speaking faculty member, not an adept Anglo. Rather than dwell on my role displacement, I wrote.

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First, I documented my acculturation process in The Jerusalem Post and shared spiritual poetry in Poetry Super Highway and The New Vilna Review. Shortly thereafter, I provided content for The Shiur Times, for Hamodia and for Mishpacha. Next, I blogged for Type-A Mom and became a columnist for The Mother Magazine. In short time, I was writing for dozens of venues.

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En route, I adopted a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs. Those sulky muses spurred me to additionally compose speculative and literary fiction, to gyrate new poems, and to engender fresh essays. They insisted that I again habituate myself to ravenous reading, too.

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Consequently, beyond the hours I spent informally eating up essentially anonymous collections, individual bits by named newbies, or the latest and greatest particulars by established authors, I also professionally read fiction for Bewildering Stories, nonfiction for Notes and Grace Notes, and poetry for Sotto Voce. Moreover, I began publishing literary criticism at Tangent and began assessing texts within the auspices of a handful of writers’ circles. This immersion in “reverse rhetoric,” coupled with the feedback I was receiving, on my own work, from other writers and editors, helped me to become more disciplined and introduced me both to new skills and to new levels of old skills.

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I began to organize my raw ideas in electronic files, to keep track of strange, yet succulent words, and to salvage snippets of prose or poetics trimmed from work heading to market. I became more heedful of “describing” instead of “professing,” of differentiating among characters’ voices via both semantic and syntactical devices, and of employing the necessary steps for creating ostensibly seamless narrative. I credit this steeping of myself in the opposite processes of reading and writing for the sprouting of my work in hundreds of places.

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Other benefits I’ve derived from this type of verification include an increase in awards and an upsurge in media opportunities. This mathematics of writing recently generated a fiction honor from Strange Weird and Wonderful and a nomination, from The Shine Journal, for the Pushcart Prize, in the genre of poetry. What’s more, these complimentary operations are increasing the acceptance rate of my book-length projects. The existence of my newest compilation of essays, Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting proves how reliably this rechecking works.

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In the past, inverse operations helped me to succeed with calculus. Today, such processes help me to achieve through my words.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

KJ Hannah Greenberg, Guest Blogger

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Pushcart Prize nominee, KJ Hannah Greenberg's work has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Mother Magazine and The New Vilna Review, among others. She has been an editor at Bewildering Stories and Sotto Voce and critic at Tangent. She is also the recipient of several writing awards, including a fiction honor from Strange, Weird and Wonderful. She is the author of Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting, which is available at French Creek Press and on Amazon.com. Please contact her at http://kjhannahgreenberg.net  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor