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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Send 'em In

Calls for submissions that have crossed my radar:
1. Sycamore Review is looking for submissions. For the guidelines, go to http://www.sycamorereview.com/submissions/ .

2. The Bigger, the Better, the Tighter the Sweater:
Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female
Slated for Winter 2007

The statistics are staggering. Eighty percent of American women are dissatisfied with the way they look. Twenty-two percent of college women claim to ³always² be on a diet. Americans spend more than $40 billion on diet-related products each year. Since 1997, there has been a 465 percent increase in the total number of cosmetic procedures performed, accounting for $12.5 billion in 2004. But statistics only tell a small part of the story.

We are simultaneously taught to scrutinize ourselves and to feign nonchalance. We are supposed to care whether our jeans make our butts look big but we all know how obnoxious it is to actually ask if they do. To speak honestly about our bodies is a rare thing. To speak honestly and be funny about it is a triumph.

THE BIGGER, THE BETTER will be an anthology of personal narratives that have at their hearts a funny story but that aim higher or delve deeper without the need to be politically correct or particularly uplifting. It will help paint an entertaining and realistic portrait of our feelings and attitudes about our bodies with all their complexities and contradictions.

We are looking, first and foremost, for truly funny writing. But, humorous anecdotes are not enough. These humor pieces will also be exceptionally well-written personal essays by women willing to explore the complexities of their relationships with their bodies and appearances. Tell secrets, admit defeat and triumph, expose underbellies, be honest. We are particularly interested in voices that may not get much coverage in the mainstream. We want strong, developed, first-person writing that goes beyond mass market journalism.

Some likely topics include:
€ Ideas of perfection and imperfection vis a vis race, body type, skin
color and personal taste
€ Plastic surgery
€ Pregnancy/motherhood
€ Beauty knows no pain: dye jobs, plucked brows and bikini waxes
€ Ready to Wear: fashion, cosmetics and the right shoes
€ The Female Form: rolls, jiggles and dimples
€ Learning to love or loathe a body transformed by illness or injury
€ Taking it Off: sex with the lights on
€ Support: Filling out a bra, or not
€ Obsessions: Seeking toe cleavage, a hairless chin, or eternal perkiness
€ WTF?!: Puberty

Editors: Samantha Schoech and Lisa Taggart are editors and writers living in the Bay Area. Together they edited TIED IN KNOTS: FUNNY STORIES FROM THE WEDDING DAY (Seal Press, 2006), which contains good examples of the type of essays being sought for THE BIGGER THE BETTER.

Publisher: Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, publishes groundbreaking books by and for women in a variety of topics.

Deadline: October 15, 2006

Length: 2,500-6,000 words

Format: Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and paginated. Please include your address, phone number, email address, and a short bio (50 words) suitable for publication on the last page. Essays will not be returned.

Submitting: Send essay electronically as a Word file (with .doc extension) to Samantha Schoech and Lisa Taggart at bodyessay@mac.com. Put ³The Bigger,
the Better² in the subject line. If email is not possible, mail the essay to Lisa Taggart at 1480 Santa Clara St., Santa Clara CA 95050.

Payment: $100 plus two books

Reply: Please allow until January 1, 2007, for a response. If you haven't received a response by then, please assume your essay has not been selected.
It is not possible to reply to every submission personally.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Need a Prompt?

WRITING PROMPT

What's the most peculiar gift you've ever received? Describe the
scene when you opened it and your reaction.

You can post your response (500 words or fewer) in the "WD" Forum:
writersdigest.com/mbbs/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=3947&posts=1

Friday, August 11, 2006

Markets

from Worldwide Freelance Writer Newsletter :: 9 Aug 2006

Writer's Markets

SASEE, USA http://www.sasee.com
1357 21st Ave. North, Ste. 102, Myrtle Beach, SC 29577, USA. Tel: 843 626 8911. Fax: 843 626 6452. Email: editorial@sasee.com
Woman's lifestyle magazine. Welcomes editorial submissions from freelance writers. Looking for new, unpublished, non-fiction material that is for or about women. Essays, humor, satire, personal experience, and features on topics relating to women. No fiction or poetry.
Length: 500 to 1,000 words. Submissions: send your submission by mail or email. Pay: varies.
Guidelines: http://www.sasee.com/get_involved2.html


EARLY AMERICAN LIFE, USA http://www.ealonline.com
Editorial Query, PO Box 221228, Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122-0996, USA. Email: queries@firelandsmedia.com
Published seven times per year. Topics center around America from its founding through the mid-1800s: History, Architecture and Decorating, Antiques, Studio Crafts, Travel. Length: one-page stories: 750 words; features: 2,500 words. Submissions: prefers a query first, by mail or email. Pay: varies, approx. $500 for a first feature article. Guidelines: http://www.ealonline.com/editorial/guidelines.htm



PASSAGEMAKER, USA http://www.passagemaker.com
105 Eastern Avenue, Suite 103, Annapolis, MD 21403 USA. Tel: 410.990.9086 ext. 30. Contact: Natalie Friton, Editorial Assistant. Email: natalie@passagemaker.com
Bimonthly magazine covering all aspects of trawlers and ocean motorboats, and welcomes contributions from around the world. Submissions: send your article by mail (send both a paper and electronic version) or by email. Pay: $50-$250 for smaller articles (700-2,000 words), and $250-$750 (2,500-3,500 words) for feature articles. Payment includes photography. Rights: first-time North American Periodical Rights. Response: 60 days.
Guidelines:
http://www.passagemaker.com/issues/guidelines.asp



COSMOS, AUSTRALIA http://www.cosmosmagazine.com
PO Box 302, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012, Sydney, Australia. Tel: 02 9219 2500 Fax: 02 9281 2360. Contact: Wilson da Silva, Editor. Email: editorial@cosmosmagazine.com . Fiction Contact: Damien Broderick, Fiction Editor. Email: fiction@cosmosmagazine.com
A monthly general interest magazine. Its discussion of science, society, and the future ranges over topics as diverse as art, design, travel, exploration and archaeology.
Length: features: 1,200 to 3,500 words; departments: 700 to 800 words; short stories: 2,000 words. Submissions: query first, up to one page with clippings. Pay: features: A$720 to A$2,100; departments: A$420 to A$480; short stories: $700. Main Guidelines Short Story Guidelines


Search for
markets in their free database: http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/mf.asp

Saturday, August 05, 2006

A Is for Always

Always think like a writer: looking for stories, analyzing what you read for structure.

Always try. We're not failures until we give up.

Always look at the world as if you're an alien, as if you're a child. Fresh eyes help bring fresh writing.

category: inspiration

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Quote of the Day

"I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork."
-Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)


I'm on vacation, in a place that doesn't have a broadband connection. This, my dears, is my current version of roughing it.