2012 Lois Prize: What good are contests anyway?

With the start of the 2012 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize reading period, I’ve been thinking a lot about why people submit (or should submit) to literary contests. I recently had a conversation with a friend that went something like this:

Me: Hey friend who is also a poet. You should submit to the 2012 Lois Prize. It’s great. Emily Warn is our judge and she’s, like, amazing.

Poet Friend: Is there a reading fee?

Me: Yep, it’s $15 and 100% of the fee goes to produce our 2012-2013 CALYX Journals. You can be part of the magic!

Poet Friend: $15!! You must think I’m made of money. Only my poems are pure gold! You’re no friend of mine–get lost!

(Okay well the conversation didn’t really end like that, but you get the idea).

Sound familiar? Given the tiny budgets of most literary magazines, recent cuts to arts-related funding, and the fiercly competitive publishing scene today, it probably does. Lost of magazines have contests and they do it both to support themselves and also to promote the work of the best new writers. Lots of writers submit to contests. Lots of them don’t (or can’t).

While it’s true that submitting to contests take an investment on the part of the writer, the benefits are great. Here’s a few that come to mind when I think about CALYX’s prize:

1. You stand to receive critical attention from a great poet. This is a way that your writing can be taken seriously and your talent can be recognized by someone who knows great writing. In this case, it’s Emily Warn (big time Copper Canyon Press poet and co-founding editor of poetryfoundation.org…don’t tell me you don’t look at that site every day like I do…). If she picks your poem as the winner, I bet you’ll feel pretty great.
2. You could win $300 cash. It’s true that this isn’t the biggest prize out there today, but we also get fewer submissions than, say, the $1,000 or $10,000 contests that you might hear about. What it comes down to is that someone is going to win that check for their writing—why shouldn’t it be you?
3. Your reading fee goes to support CALYX’s production costs. This is a way that you can support our mission and our magazine while you get something in return—attention poured lovingly over your poem, the eyes of our judge, and potentially publication and a cash prize.
4. Every US contestant gets a free issue of the journal in thanks for submitting. That’s a $10 value. And who doesn’t love getting something in the mail?
5. It’s fun? Haven’t you ever submitted to contests before? I once won a pair of sweet yellow sunglasses just from entering a contest through my favorite cartoon program…contests exist because people like to see if they’ll win something.
6. It’s a good way to professionalize your writing and take yourself seriously as a poet. Just like sending work out regularly for publication, it’s a good habit to get into the practice of submitting to contests run by journals and presses that you admire.

There you have it. You can even save yourself the paper and stamps by submitting online this year. Thanks for your support of our contest–if you want more information about our contest, you can read more about it here.

My Favorite Conversation at AWP (or “why I love submissions that make us snarl”)

If you couldn’t tell from our snarky twitter tags (#nooneputsbabyinthecorner), the CALYX table this year at AWP was on the polar icecap of planet book fair. Despite our distance from the hustle and bustle of the central corridors (or perhaps because of it) we still had a great turn-out at the table: authors stopping by to say hello, new writers who were unfamiliar with our journal, old friends, new readers. All of them were happy to chat about CALYX and hear about the new staff’s plan for the coming years.

My favorite experience meeting someone takes a bit of set-up to explain properly. It started on Thursday when I went to a great panel hosted by VIDA called “Troubling the Label: When Does a Text Become Feminist?” This panel addressed so many of the issues and questions that we talk about around the CALYX editorial table—how do we consider a piece of writing “feminist”?  Do we as gatekeepers/editors have the right to judge writing as feminist or not—or is that better left to our readers? How do labels like “art and literature by women” exclude gender-queer individuals?

One of the panelists brought up an interesting point—that journals must define themselves as feminist not only through the work they publish, but also through how they conduct themselves as an organization.

As a CALYX editor, this made me twitterpated with pride. Since 1976, we’ve been practicing collective, non-hierarchical decision-making. Rather than a top-down process with a famous guest editor or a graduate student round-up, CALYX reads its “slush pile” (is it okay that I cringe when I say that? even if work isn’t right for us, I hate to say that someone’s creative effort is like dirty snow) collaboratively—every piece of work that comes to the journal is looked at and voted on by two readers.

If the two readers feel that there’s promise in the work, the piece is held and sent to the editorial collective, a group of six editors from different ages, cultural and educational backgrounds, and aesthetic tastes (not exactly like this). We usually “hold” about 15% of all work received. Our editorial collective then reads—and discusses every piece. We argue, we debate, we stand up for our own unique taste and what moves us as readers—and we end up with a journal that speaks to many different women with tastes as diverse as ours.

One of our recent disagreements was over some poems from a young queer-identified writer. Half of the editors loved her work—found it funny, fresh, and sharply written. These poems didn’t resonate with the other editors. This split may have been a generational gap, it may have been an aesthetic disagreement, I’m not sure. We’re all taking more time to think about the poems and we’ll talk about them again next week.

And during AWP, this particular poet came to our table to introduce herself. I was so excited to meet her—not only because I have a crush on her poems, but because she put a human face on the whole controversy.

What it comes down to is that even if we decide (as a group) that her poems don’t fit with us, I’m grateful for the chance to have read her poems and for the conversations that she sparked. “Rejection” can be a hard word to swallow, but at CALYX it can be even more complicated. When editors agree that they must reach a fair consensus, sometimes writers fall victim to the compromises we make as a group. Sometimes we miss out on great work because we can’t make an agreement—but we always end up with a diverse group of writers and styles in the work that we do publish.

I love being an editor because I love reading. As senior editor (and the leader of the editorial posse), I’m especially excited when we get submissions that challenge our assumptions about what is art or poetry or what makes a story “good.” I love discussing work around the table that makes us snarl a little bit—if the writing forces us to have a meaty conversation, I can guarantee that it does the same for our readers.

-Rebecca Olson

Future Kicks: CALYX Journal makes the switch to electronic submissions

Paper, paper, paper...

Last week, the CALYX editors gathered around my kitchen table eating almonds while we discussed an important question: Should CALYX Journal switch to accepting electronic submissions through an online submission manager, or should we stick with the good ol’ fashioned SASE system?

Here are some of the questions that were on our mind as our discussion blossomed:

How will the change affect our accessibility to writers from diverse groups?

Despite the ever-growing influence of technology in our lives, many women today continue to lack regular access to the internet or may face circumstances which do not allow them to get online frequently. There are also many women who cannot afford the costs of postage, printing, and paper which our regular submission process requires. In order to be sensitive to both of these limitations (and therefore be accessible as a journal to more women), we have decided to remain open for both paper submissions and electronic submissions for the coming year.

How will electronic submissions influence the amount of submissions that we receive?

We anticipate that opening to electronic submissions will greatly increase the amount of work that we receive. In 2009, we received around 1200 submissions. Last year, it was down to 950. We’re hoping that accepting online submissions will turn this trend around and we’ll see work from many new writers–and many writers who have never submitted to us in the past.

How will electronic submissions affect us around the office?

Last year, our paper submissions process produced approximately 125 lbs of paper that are in boxes around our office (see photo). We’re hoping that moving to electronic subs will help us reduce clutter and paper waste. We’re also hoping that it will save us some time and speed up our response time back to our writers.

How will electronic submissions affect our reading process?

While the change will affect the way that our volunteer readers and editors literally read manuscripts (Retired Senior Editor Beverly McFarland loves to read out on her back porch in the sunshine), it will not affect the integrity of our decision-making process and the care with which our editors read each piece of writing. We will continue to practice collective decision-making and every submission will still be read by at least 2 different readers before it’s presented to the editorial collective.

Are we excited?

Yes, yes, yes. What a great change. We’re all on board, and we look forward to seeing your work in our system when we open for submissions on October 1.

Read our editorial guidelines and find our online submission manager here: http://www.calyxpress.org/submission.html

 

 

 

Don’t Miss “Looking Back; Facing Forward”!

Not convinced!?  I present you with this top ten list as exhibit A in my case in favor of your attendance!!!

 

10.) Haven’t you been meaning to get to Cloud 9?  All I ever hear about this place are rave reviews.  Odds are you’re either like me and you are dying to go, or you already love it and you’re looking for an excuse to go again!

9.) Thursday night event doesn’t conflict with your weekend plans!  Success!

8.) The Jubilate women’s choir is going to be performing!  Have you heard of them?  There’s more info here:  http://www.jubilatechoir.org/

7.) A March 10th event is perfectly situated between fat Tuesday and St. Patrick’s day so that you can keep the festive-ball rolling and beat out the “in like a lion” mix of rain and wind that March likes to bring to the Willamette Valley.

6.) Sometimes I deny myself that glass of fancy wine or that lovely-sounding cocktail because I feel that my money could be better spent… but that excuse is gone for this event!  Cloud 9 is donating 15% of the proceeds from food and drink for the night straight to CALYX!  Bottoms up!

5.) Did you know that this is CALYX’s 35th year!?  Sit back and think about how much women’s art and literature has been shared with the public during those 35 years.  That definitely warrants a festive night of celebrations

4.) On that same note, did you know that this is Margarita’s 35th year as the director as CALYX?  Her hard work and tenacity has been pivotal in making CALYX the amazing source of women’s lit and art that it is today.  Part of the night is about celebrating her awesomeness.

3.) You should probably get to know assistant editor, Rebecca Olson, and the assistant director Kelsey Connell a little better.  Both are newish and definitely a big part of the “Facing Our Future” part of the event.  They’re wonderful young women who have a lot of love and passion for CALYX, so you’re all sure to have a lot in common.

2.) Fellowship with like-minded people:  CALYX readers are awesome; that’s a fact.  I often find myself wishing I could spend more time in the presence of really cool people and I am really looking forward to a night of good conversation, which I always end up stumbling into at CALYX events.

1.) Whoa there, now.  I just checked out the Cloud 9 menu.  They’ve got a cheese plate.  Also, a drink called a “Frisky Dingo.”  Also, mocktails.  http://dinecloud9.com/c9/menus/ Decision made

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.

Becky’s Pick of the Month (Crow Mercies is Magically Delicious)

This month, we’re excited to release Crow Mercies by Penelope Scambly Schott. I was personally very drawn to this manuscript early in the production process. Schott’s poetry has a magical realism quality to it that I admire in fiction authors like Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison (also, Kathleen Alcalá, who published this fantastic book), but that unusual to find in the contemporary poetry of the Pacific Northwest.  Her imaginative narratives push the boundaries of what is metaphor and what is description, to a place that my “poetry gut” desperately wants to go.

My favorite poem, “Holes in the World” is a good example of what I mean by this.  In other poems, her mother is a Calypso Orchid, a homeless woman lives in someone’s closet, and the speaker sits with an ancient Croatian woman, but in “Holes in the World,” Schott’s subject is a bear husband.

She starts off with an italicized section that establishes our interconnectivity, “breath from the mouth/ blood from the womb // vertebrae of dead whales / reamed by the seas.”

In the verse that follows, the speaker is taken by a bear husband “to wive/ and we mated in a cave.”  The poem is broken into couplets to better illustrate this coupling of nature and human, and freedom and captivity.

I tell my husband the bear

I am not you

This, I explain is the source

of our lonesomeness

paw to paw

and the air between us.

It’s writing that dares to venture into the strange and the magical that is brave enough to say something real.  While Schott’s writing is still fairly linear and deeply rooted in narratives, her subjects and imaginative leaps twist the experience of the reader in surprising ways.

While I tend to think of Schott’s work as magical realism, Poet Peter Sears in this blurb calls it surrealism. How would you classify Schott’s work? Or, does her poetry resist this kind of categorization?

Remember, all month Crow Mercies is 20% off and has free shipping. Don’t miss your chance to read it for yourself!

–Rebecca Olson, Assistant Editor

Pick of the Month: Becky’s Thoughts on Woman of Too Many Days

I know immediately what Mary I. Cuffe means in the poem “Night Fishin” when she writes:

at the end of the street was the lake

a blue you wanted to belong to.

Who hasn’t felt a desire to belong—to people, to a place, to colors. As someone who grew up next to a lake (but not “on” a lake), this poem made me think of sneaking down to swim in a place that I didn’t “own,” but certainly belonged to. I think of Turtle Lake during a full moon when Cuffe writes:

You never seen a thing so calm under your hand

as a lake at night, in the summer.

This poem deals with the our physical relationship to space and to others, even when that intimate “belonging” is forbidden; Cuffe isn’t afraid to explore the danger of that.  The speaker and her sister “stole the lake” while they stayed in an unwelcoming neighborhood with “stiff-assed robins.” This exclusion from the lake makes the speaker’s love and knowledge of the lake by the end of the poem that much more powerful. This hidden love, this stolen love, is dangerously close and dangerously real. What do you want to belong to like that?

To read more from this fascinating collection (and get 10% off and free shipping while it’s still our August “pick of the month”), order a copy here.

Staff Pick of the Week

 The Winter 1999 issue of the journal was before my time here at CALYX, but I’ve always been drawn to this issue’s interesting cover (it looks like a combination of an lover in early morning and something from the movie Beetlejuice).  It’s a sculpture called “Belly” in clay, glaze,  and nylon by Leslie Rech.

My favorite poem from this journal is “Hens and Chickens” by Nancy Dalhberg. Not only because I have several chickens at home, but because of the line “And then I suddenly / remember my mother cleaning chickens / in the kitchen, pulling out pullet eggs while I / tugged at the tendons in the cut-off feet, / making the claws grasp and release, grasp and release.” 

What about life isn’t a “grasp and release, grasp and release.” 

I hope you enjoy taking a look at this issue as much as I have.

-Becky Olson, Assistant Editor

Buy this issue here, with FREE SHIPPING (Save $4)

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.”

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Staff Pick of the Week

Thank you to all for the great response on our first pick of the week: The Violet Shyness of Their Eyes: Notes from Nepal. As many of you know, CALYX’s mission is to provide the finest art and literature by women to a wide audience. We’ve decided to do discounts each week on a favorite book or journal of the staff. That way, more people can have the chance to fall in love with the many writers, poets, and artists of CALYX!

Staff Pick of the Week- Beverly McFarland (senior editor) recommends:

Vol. 20:3, Summer 2002, is my “Journal Pick of the Week”! Because included in all the wonderful work is one of my most favorite stories we’ve ever published—“Wings” by Teresa S. Mathes. Who among us has never dreamed of literally having “wings” and being able to really fly? Women in Mathes’ story are born with wings! Great summer reading about girls learning to test their freedom.

Enjoy our discount this week.

- Beverly McFarland, senior editor

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