Submit!
Get the year started right...
A long weekend is ahead, and I want to send poems out for consideration about Jane. I've decided to call the manuscript 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘬𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. I made a mood cover mock-up board for the project.
The poems are narrative and metahistorical. I want to send to some of the expected places, but it would be cool to learn about fresh, new places.
Please help me find some places to submit. Here's a digital chapbook of poems from the series: https://theoffendingadam.com/2023/jane-2/, if you’d like a preview of some early iterations. Where should I send poems this weekend? Let me know in the comments where you’d submit.
How fortunate and excited I am!
Join us for the next installment of Wilder Words, a quarterly virtual reading featuring the stellar faculty of the 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center Online Writing Program. It's an incredible resource! The Fine Arts Work Center is an artist-led organization that needs your support. Take a class, and make a donation. Learn more.
This reading will feature authors Didi Jackson, Carl Phillips, Susanna Sonnenberg, and Ruben Quesada, who will all join 24PearlStreet to teach in the upcoming Winter 2025 season.Thursday, January 30, at 6-7 pm Eastern. Read more about the event: https://fawc.org/events/wilder-words-2/.
I’ve been thinking about Los Angeles. I was born and raised there, and the longer I stay away, the less I recognize it. A few years after leaving LA, the hospital where I’d received pediatric care from infancy through my teens was shut down. It was one of the earliest hospitals in East Los Angeles; Santa Marta Hospital is now gone.
Last year, I spent two weeks in Los Angeles. This past autumn, I was caring for my Mom. She’d suffered her second brain aneurysm and a stroke. My sister needed a break and I flew out and stayed with mom. Throughout the day, she was visited by friends she’d made in the building. This was the most time I’d spent with Mom in years. She was taking medication every four hours. We spent a lot of time together and I felt much closer to her when I left. Today, my sister texted today and said Mom was sharp and funny again during a recent medical visit.
While I was back, I visited East L.A. and gave a reading at Latinx With Plants in Boyle Heights. I was invited to participate in Palabras, a regular series hosted by West Hollywood Poet Laureate Jen Cheng. An AWP offsite in Chinatown is being considered. Follow Jen for more. Palabras is a BIPOC-centered literary salon.
AWP is in late March, and I worry I won’t recognize a place I’ve loved and known all my life. I know California is resilient in the face of disasters, but a few years ago, I had visions of it on fire. In my visions about Los Angeles, the fire began when I was on the bridge. We were on a bridge together—you and I. Pittsburgh is affectionately known as the City of Bridges. Still, the bridges in Los Angeles—The Vincent Thomas Bridge, the Colorado Street Bridge, and the Queensway Bridge in Long Beach—are majestic and dazzling at night. A drive along any of these bridges makes for a picture-perfect moment. If you are in L.A., do it. Shop local. Learn some Spanish.
I wrote about being on the Sixth Street Viaduct. This iconic bridge, which appeared in many films, has been refurbished into a modern light spectacle. I wrote a poem about it called “Pyre of a Vanishing Planet." It was published last year by Honey Literary, a BIPOC-focused magazine founded by two poets and scholars, Drs. Chan and Mookerjee, in 2020. I hope you’ll read and let me know how the fire is affecting you and how others can help.
Finally, I found this on Substack from
offering one of many resources available to support those affected by the fires in Southern California. Please offer your time and donations when you can.