Woman's Work: The Extension and Point of Clarification

April 10th is the new deadline for the call for submissions. Although I have received some amazing stories, I am still a long way from my goal of 30 solid, amazing stories (I've received about 200 submissions at this point). Also if one more person writes me and tells me they are just finding out about the call I am going to poke my own eye out...lol

Point of Clarification: the stories that I am looking for do not have to be about women. I am looking for talented women writers who can write about ANYTHING. So don't feel stuck because you have a great WWII story but your protagonist is male. SEND IT! Woman's Work is about highlighting women as writers - whatever the story.

Okay, get to writing and pass the word!!
*The full call is right below this entry.

Michelle
www.girlchildpress.com

NEW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Woman’s Work: The Short Stories

Part of the problem is that I treat writing like a privilege not an obligation. It comes after everything, after all my other responsibilities.
Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz
My Writing Life


Woman’s Work: The Short Stories is a celebration of what happens when women finally get to the page. About the extraordinary stories that spill out of these extraordinary, and often ignored, storytellers during those stolen moments when she surrenders to her burning desire to write, to create.

GirlChild Press seeks the fresh and exciting voices of writers that can entice the reader with intricate tales of shapeshifters and evil doppelgangers, rock and roll princesses in twisted fairy tales, broken gunslingers in deserted western towns, and political murder mysteries that lead to sex in illicit places.

We will follow her through rabbit holes and pop up as mermaids dressed in camouflage, all while reveling in a romance that bloomed on a long-forgotten battlefield in outer space. Surprises will await us at every corner. We will discover what is passionate, and pure, and complicated and be glad for it.

Ultimately, Woman’s Work is about women as master storytellers.

Submission Requirements

• Deadline: March 1, 2009
• No more than 2 previously unpublished short stories per submission
• Simultaneous submissions okay, but notify if your work is accepted elsewhere
• 4,000 words or less
• Double spaced
• NO POETRY

All contributors will receive a copy of the anthology and will be invited to read at the book launch in 2009.

Electronic Submissions

Girlchildpress@aol.com
Title of submission should be placed in the subject line.
Please include your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and short bio with your submission.

Snail Mail
GirlChild Press
PO Box 93
Hyattsville, MD 20781

Please include your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and short bio with your submission


GirlChild Press publishes work that celebrates the triumph, defiance, and excellence of girls and women everywhere!

For more information about GirlChild Press visit www.girlchildpress.com

What would you do if you had a Just Like A Girl reading and (almost) nobody came?

You talk about raising boys.

I was half way to Philly (in a surprisingly heavy rainstorm) when it occurred to me that folks might not be willing to brave the rain to come out to a reading. Count me psychic...'cause not one person came to the reading at Big Blue Marble Books.

I love this bookstore. They were one of the first bookstores to setup a reading for Growing Up Girl ,where we had a packed house. But clearly today was not going to be a repeat performance.

At 3:30, when it was clear there would be no reading, a Mom came into the store. She was not looking for the reading. She was killing time until her teenage son was finished with his community services hours next door at the local coop. She asked what the book was about. I told her. For some reason that encouraged her to talk about her son.

She was chatty and funny and realistic. It seems that the last four years had been crazy challenging with her son and she was clear that no book she had every read (and there seemed to be a ready list floating around in her head) helped her get control of her kid. Mom was a self described control freak who had her whole life mapped out when it came to how she would parent her kids (she has a daughter who is "easy as pie"), but eventually had to "put my personality in a blender and push puree." Her advice to parents, "put your expectations down when comes to raising kids." With that decisive edict, she zipped out of the store to go check that her kid was where he was supposed to be.
As soon as the door slammed I had to laugh. Not at her, but at myself. 29 minutes before she had walked in, I had been trying to talk myself out of a mood that was steadily creeping up on me. I was annoyed that I had driven two and half hours, in the rain, to be at the reading that no one showed up to - or so I thought.

Actually, I was sitting in the very empty loft reading room for a very different reason. Before I left home today, I was sketching out the call for submissions for the Woman's Work short story project (look for the call on November 1st) and also jotting down some ideas for the parenting handbook that is also slated to come out in 2009. I had already broken down the chapters and was trying to figure which "expert" I was going to assign to each. I was also asking myself what tone I wanted for the book. But after listening to this mom it was clear I was coming at this project from all the wrong directions. By the time a parent picks up How to Grow a Girl (tentative title), they are probably far down the path of parenting and looking for some concrete and sanity-saving information. I need to go back to the drawing board on this one. And regarding the tone - I think chatty, funny, and realistic is probably going to be the best choice.

Sometimes you really do have to go on a journey to find what you are looking for.

We will have a "do over" opportunity for Philly on Friday, October 31st at 8:00pm. Come check us out at Wooden Shoe Books. Don't leave me sittin' up in there by myself this time:) I don't think I can be Zen twice in the same month.


Until Later!
Michelle
www.girlchildpress.com