10 Reasons Why CALYX Loved Being at AWP This Year

10. Because of organizations like VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and fierce women like Amy King who came ultra-prepared to the Women’s Caucus ready to get the crowd both excited and pissed. Check out their website to see current information about the what journals and presses are woman-friendly, and which are woefully not (um, The New Yorker and The New Republic, I’m looking at you).

9.Because of this awesome lady DJ at The Black Cat, uniting the people with funky-fresh beats. This is what I’m talking about!

8. Because there’s feminist presses and publishers there. A big high-five to organizations like Kore Press, Argos Books, Akashic Books, and The Feminist Press for doing the important work of keeping women’s voices in print (oh, and, ahem, of course, CALYX).

7. Because there’s feminist writers there, silly. I had the chance to meet so many fearless women writers today of all ages and backgrounds who aren’t afraid to say, “Yes, I’m a writer. Yes, I’m a feminist. Yes, this matters.”

6. Because of Jhumpa Lahiri. Need I say more?

5. and Kay Ryan.

4. and Pam Houston.

3. Because feminists love Washington D.C. Where else can you find that many statues of Eleanor Rosevelt??

2. Because people get just as excited as you are when you say “We’re celebrating our 35th year as a journal!”

1. Because it’s rewarding and energizing and delightful to see the up-and-coming men and women feminists of the writing world wandering through the bookfair. Each person there is a reminder that books matter, art matters, creativity matters.

Thanks for a great conference everyone! See you next year–

-Rebecca Olson

Assistant Editor for CALYX Press

Young Feminist Challenge #1

Hey young feminists. I know you’re out there–starring star-eyed into cyberspace, reading Feminist Hulk tweets, slowly visualizing your takeover of the world and how that probably involves Janelle Monae‘s dazzling brand of funk music.

"Wow. This is great."

As I’m sure you know as literate, intelligent young women, magazines like CALYX have been hard at work bashing gender stereotypes since the ’70s. My challenge for you today is to push your boundaries and tastes, to shake up your ideas about gender and literature. I want you to read something that connects you to a feminist of another generation, written BY a feminist of another generation.

Today, I’m starting with the issue of CALYX Journal printed in the year that I was born. Here’s the opening line from “Eros,” written by Olga Broumas and published by CALYX in 1986 “On Death’s face all religion dances/ like pins on the head of a clit”. So…I finally have hard evidence that Olga Broumas was using artwork to resist patriarchy when I was mastering the art of holding my 3-month-old head aloft. Great.

Want to know what brilliant, hilarious, juicy, heart-breaking, wretched, angry, reflective, wise poems are in your birthday issue? Click here to find yours. Read! Connect! Be surprised by great writing and great women!

-Assistant Editor Becky O.

Save the Date: Glitterati

Feminism Friday: Reflections on Interning at a Feminist Press, Part II

Opening the Mail at CALYX: A Love Post

Throughout my recent internship at CALYX, I fell in love with opening the mail. Who would have predicted it? I’m perfectly familiar with the process—I rip envelopes open at my house every day. And my internship at CALYX included plenty of tasks that were much more intellectually stimulating.  But there was something extremely satisfying about opening the mail at CALYX. If this sounds suspicious, please let me explain.

First, there was the morning walk to the post office—I loved the chance to walk one sunshine-y block at the start of my day, travel mug of coffee in my hand, tote bag with the mail keys over my shoulder. The men in the barbershop were always smiling, and the Grass Roots Bookstore workers frequently gave me a wave. It’s always nice to spend time in downtown Corvallis.

Back at the office, I’d settle into my work. I would unfold the little letter-opener with a snap, like a jack-knife, into my palm. I would spin the pieces of the “RECEIVED” stamp into place for the day’s date. I would open the big purple pad of ink like a treasure chest. Then, I got to work—pressing those satisfying purple stamps onto every envelope, every cover letter, every happy check from every happy CALYX reader.

Okay, okay, okay. So, even though I’m being serious when I say that I loved these things, here’s the real truth: what I loved most about opening the mail at CALYX was the letters themselves. As the opener of letters, I became the bearer of good news: I opened letters from foundations saying we’d received grants, from supporters sending donations, and from readers sending subscriptions. There were books to review, journals to peruse, and poems upon poems upon glorious poems. All of those words (all of that creativity and passion and love!) passing through my fingers, under my stamp, and into the hands of the incredible women of CALYX.

Opening mail will never be the same.

-Liz Wyckoff

Feminism Friday: Reflections on Interning at a Feminist Press

It is hard to narrow down my experience with CALYX in just one short paragraph, so I’ve been trying to think of a few key elements that made my internship memorable. Maybe it was being surrounded by women who have dedicated their lives to literature and art by women, the fact that everyone there is a great inspiration with intriguing stories, the charm of being involved with something wonderful and important, or maybe I was lucky to get along with my fellow interns. I can’t really put a number on any of these things. I can say that this internship fulfilled my questions: yes, I do want to be involved in the publishing world, and yes, it is an amazingly lengthy and complicated process to publish. I have always enjoyed being involved with the development of a story or a poem—reading, editing, workshopping—almost as much as I love writing itself. At CALYX, this was my favorite part. I had the opportunity to participate with the copy-editing meeting and I’ll never forget the tricks Beverly showed us with editing. It’s nice to be in an environment where discussing the use of a comma or dash is exciting work, and I hope to continue it. This internship has given me great insight as a writer, someone who wishes to be in the publishing world and as an avid lover of literature. Seeing all the manuscripts going through CALYX, watching them be processed and handled by so many people, sending out rejects and holds to wonderful writers, gave me such a different view and respect for the publishing world. I love this business because it is not about money, but the love of something wonderful. Along with experience, this internship has given me a better sense of direction. I’ll never forget my time with CALYX or the lovely women I had the opportunity of learning from. You are all an inspiration to me, and I hope I’m able to put as much love into my work as you all do.

Your adoring intern,

Jan Colley

Staff Pick of the Week

Staff Pick Discount: FREE SHIPPING

This week our staff pick is Open Heart, a full length collection by Judith Sornberger, to celebrate the news that a CD including a song written to her poem “Pioneer Child’s Doll” has received several Grammy nominations. “Pioneer Child’s Doll” appeared in Open Heart in 1993.

Judith writes, “The song by that title is part of a song cycle called ‘Within These Spaces’ on a CD of composer Lori Laitman’s songs by the same title. In addition to the other nominations for the album as a whole, the song cycle has been nominated under the ‘contemporary classical composition’ category.”

We on the staff still cannot get enough of her poems, even seventeen years later. Hilda Raz, editor of Prairie Schooner, praised Open Heart saying “Judith Sornberger’s superb first collection of poems is about the fracture of conventional wisdom under the pressure of women’s experience…. The poet’s control of form holds her readers in place while Sornberger steals, retells, and resignifies women’s stories.”

Click here to purchase with FREE SHIPPING (save $4)!

Feminism Friday: “Feminist Press: You Mean, Like, Books for Girls?”

As an editor of CALYX Press, a 34 year-old feminist publisher of art and literature that has published the likes of Barbara Kingsolver and Jane Hirshfield, it’s necessary to sometimes explain to curious parties what it means to be a feminist publisher.

I know what it means to be a feminist.  To me, it means a freedom of choice.  It’s not about women or men necessarily; it’s about the freedom that we deserve as human beings to choose what kind of lives we make for ourselves.  To some, this means the choice to have children, marry a partner, and be a stay at home mom.  For others, it means traveling the world or owning a motorcycle.  For me, it means living in Oregon apart from my family and devoting my life to books and writing because that’s what I love—I’m grateful that I had the ability to make that decision for myself.

So how does that freedom translate into publishing? Well, for one, the women of CALYX have always had freedom of editorial choice.  All of our editorial decisions are made collectively—that means that every submission that comes into the office is read by at least two women.  Twenty-five percent of all submissions are then discussed by 6 women and voted on—we sometimes hold stories and poems to read again later.  That means that we practice equality and fairness in our decision-making.

Freedom of choice is also big around the office in how we run our non-profit.  We work collectively to get jobs done, from our Director down to our wonderful student interns—everyone is encouraged to share their ideas about how to get the word out about different projects.   You should have seen us Wednesday crowded into the backroom, every staff member sticking stamps onto envelopes because that’s what we needed to get done and we all wanted to help.

We also choose to publish exceptional work by women that is representative of that freedom to be ourselves.  Some of the poetry and prose that goes into the journal has nothing to do with women or personal identity.  One story going into the new Summer Journal Vol. 26:2, for example, has a homeless man as the main protagonist (you’ll be excited when Lego Bionic Moses comes into the story).  On the other hand, some poems in Vol. 26:2 deeply personal and intimately explain experiences from women’s perspectives: what it’s like to give birth, look for a job as a woman, learn to Kayak for the first time.  The editors of CALYX choose work that we feel is well-written, interesting to read, and represents some important part of the diverse and dynamic experience of women.  There’s no one perspective that embodies everything that it means to be a woman (or a feminist, for that matter), so representing as many different viewpoints as we can is a good place to start.

What do you think about this? How does a business, a person, or a piece of writing be “feminist”?

-Rebecca Olson, Associate Editor

Staff Pick of the Week

The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal

Revised edition, 2005, by Barbara J. Scot

Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award

The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal, winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, is a moving memoir of a western woman’s transformative sojourn in Nepal. Scot’s vivid account of living, teaching, and trekking in Nepal demonstrated insight into cultural difference while confronting the complex issues of development work and the status of Nepali women. In 2004, Scot returned to Nepal, and in this new edition she records her reactions to the changes the country experienced in the last decade, particularly the current political unrest and the effects on the country of a Maoist insurgency. Scot looks back on her original experience in Nepal and its impact on her life, and reacts to the differences she observed during her recent journey.

Check out the book here

Contests! Prizes!

Hello CALYX poets,

This is a reminder that the deadline for the 2010 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize is coming up on May 31.  Here’s some reasons why you should submit to the contest:

1. Everyone who enters the contest gets a free journal

2. Your chance to win $300 and get published

3. You can be a part of a well-known literary journal that has been publishing feminist art and literature for 34 years

4. You’ll make assistant editor Becky very happy!

5. Who doesn’t like getting and sending letters?

6. Contests: just plain fun. 

Send your 3 best poems to CALYX, PO Box B, Corvallis, OR, 97333 with the reading fee of $15 enclosed. Your money goes to making sure your submissions are read carefully (by our lovely editorial board of 5 readers, and our final judge Fran P. Adler).  You also get to support CALYX!

Feminism Friday: Learn from the Past, Don’t Leave it Behind

For Feminism Friday, there is an issue that has been on my mind, and that I will begin to discuss here. If you have thoughts to share, comment. In honor of Feminism Friday, I’d like to start a dialog about the idea of “outdated” feminism.

Why do so many feel it necessary to separate themselves from first, second, and even third wave feminism? It is as if a stigma has been created that many feel they must “shake off” or “move past” in order to accomplish the feminist ideals of today. While I can see a little of where this comes from, my experience leads me to find fault with this logic.

As one of the new staff members of CALYX, I find it more and more necessary to learn and listen to the women on staff who have been through it all. Traveled all over the world? Check. Became the first press to publish Frida Kahlo in color in the United States. Yeup. Raised families while striving to change the way we see art and literature by women one journal/book at a time working? Oh yes. Dined with a movie star and his wife? Definitely. (If only you could hear Margarita, our director, tell that story.) Published over 3,5oo female artists and authors in an effort to equalize the disparities between men and women? Double check.

As I explore the rich history of the 34 year old press I am honored to be a part of, I can’t help but wonder why some folks (mind you, this isn’t saying everyone feels this way) don’t take more advantage of learning from the feminists of the past. Is fear of fanny packs and shoulders pads 80s feminism really stopping us from learning from feminist women? (Not necessarily just employing rhetorical devices here. Go ahead and answer.) Maybe the goal of those who equate a negative stigma to this portion of feminist history is to simply show our goals have evolved.  However, to me, it is only after embracing the lessons from the past that feminism can move forward. After all, the past waves of feminism laid the groundwork for the goals and ideals of feminism today. If we can’t learn from the past, how can we legitimately look toward a better future?

The struggle for equality is not over. Many of you might remember last year, when controversy over this list led to outrage from women and men people everywhere? Small presses like CALYX continually work to change this. We publish art and literature by women that other larger presses may not consider because our purpose is to celebrate women’s voices. CALYX is a press that will always value its history, even while working toward making the future a place where women’s art and literature is on as many darn top ten lists as possible valued as highly as it should be.

Thanks for reading these thoughts, even as they are just in the fledgling stages.

-Kelsey Connell, Assistant Director