Craft Tips, Team Recommendations, Contributor's Showcase and What We Published Last Month
Magazine Updates: February 2024
Welcome to our first Write or Die Magazine update! Each month, you will receive this special newsletter with a recap of what our magazine published the month prior and what our editors have been up to. As the Write or Die Mag team, we will share what has been inspiring us, along with craft tips and opportunities to work one-on-one with us! We also created a special space for past contributors to our magazine so they can keep us in the loop and share any writing or publication news.
Our magazine has grown so much over the past year, thanks to this wonderful community. We can’t thank you enough.
And just a reminder, submissions are open! We accept short stories, essays, and author interviews.
Team Recommendations
She shares various things that help her write, from her favorite reading light, to a library card, to a ginger juicer. It feels so personal and attainable for writers of all levels and genres.
Shelby Hinte, associate editor: “Percocet Helps” by David Simmons
This short story “Percocet Helps” by David Simmons in Hobart absolutely fucked me up. Reads like a contemporary Denis Johnson—bizarre, drug-induced, and grossly real in a way you don’t want to believe. It’s been a while since I’ve read a story with images that I’m pretty sure will haunt me for years to come.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” It would not be hyperbole to say I go through phases of thinking about this quote daily. For me, it’s both reminder and warning, a truth both beguiling and deceiving in its simplicity. How do our lives accumulate? How do we suddenly find ourselves two, five, ten years in the future? Don’t the actions of our regular days sometimes feel like miracles? To step outside into another spring, the smell of the earth cracking open again. To touch at the neck or thigh of a lover, fingertips against fine fuzz. To let wine slip under the tongue, or to dress a salad in vinaigrette until the leaves go dark, then translucent. To pet a beloved animal. This. This is how we spend our lives.
The slim craft book (my edition comes in at 111 pages) sits on the small bookshelf (one of three in my room), which I keep next to my desk for quick access. There are only a handful of other titles there, ones I return to again and again. As a general rule, I don’t like to use the word perfect in any context, but this book feels perfect. A certain stillness surrounds it, and it brings me a sense of peace. There are so many gems that, like the quote above, feel obvious on the surface, but their brilliance and depth strike with a ferocious clarity. I highly recommend this for anyone who doesn’t yet own it. Another perk? It feels so good in the hands. I love a thin paperback. More very short novels, please! (Another discussion for another time.)
I’m going to be weird here (as per usual) and recommend season 11 of Vanderpump Rules. I’ve been watching from the beginning since back in 2013 when I was living in Los Angeles and thought it was cool to frequent the same hot spots as the cast on the show. Watching the new season, I find it heartbreaking how the team’s been split apart by emotional crises, and I’ve been hoping that they can all come back together and find a way to make it back into each other’s hearts. I realize how lame this is, but the show makes me think about my own humanity! And it’s the perfect mid-week mind-melting watch.
I shared this in Notes, but I love how Courtney talks about organizing her writing life here. If writing 1000 words a day doesn’t feel right for you, there are other ways to get the work day, stay on a schedule, and bring your projects to life.
Suzanne’s Craft Tip
Our assistant fiction editor, Suzanne, is a collector of craft tips. In each issue, she will share her favorite tidbit of the month with us!
Sometimes, I use writing advice—podcasts, books, essays, lectures, tips like this one, ahem—as an excuse to procrastinate. I return to the same ideas repeatedly, convinced I need to review them or understand them better or refine my thoughts on them in some way. I’ve accepted this as part of my process.
One piece of advice I do find helpful to keep at the forefront when writing is the idea of a turn or a shift in the narrative, whether this means a significant event that pushes the plot forward or a smaller moment in a singular scene. I like to think of a shift/turn as anything weird, bizarre, strange, or simply unexpected that suddenly takes us down a new path, in a new direction. I think these not only help to advance plot and character, but also keep the readers actively engaged with the text.
The next time you edit, take a pass through your story or manuscript with this in mind.
Where does the story turn?
What feels unexpected but inevitable?
How do your characters act in ways true to their personalities but that also reveal new depths or break the status quo?
What We Published Last Month
Fiction
The Undressing by Emma Leokadia Walkiewicz
Despite feeling like a freak doll whose stuffing had been torn out, its seams stitched back up, your shirt came off because your newborn’s need for milk and skin was primal, immediate. You could still feel things then; you could feel the urgency in the sterile hospital air. The absence of sensation came after. And then—a shift. It was a shift for you, the undressing.
Fiction publication in our magazine also comes with a special interview given by Tamar Mekredijian. Here, Emma talks about writing in the second person, drafting in one sitting and advice from Annie Dillard.
Essays
Notes of a Failed Worker by Taylor Roseweeds
Published: February 28
Some of us just aren’t meant to be working inside all day: stuffed and surveilled. I guess no one is “meant” to be doing that, but perhaps most of all not a poet. Some of us are meant to be high, lounging at the altar, waiting for a vision.
Fiction is the Most Segregated Place in America by Christine Ma-Kellams
Published: February 21
Debates over diversity in publishing are nothing new, but now more than over, the division seems to be driven by invisible forces that no one can pinpoint but everyone can witness the effects of—namely, what sells (vs. what doesn’t), and the kind of stories we’re expected to tell.
Tribute to a Lost Star by Rashaan Alexis Meneses
Published: February 14
Only a certain type of girl would fall for George Emerson. The kind who carries the Brontës in their backpack and memorizes lyrics from The Cure and The Smiths.
Author Interviews
Miles Borrero: On the Connection Between Yoga & Writing, Finding Universality in Trans Stories, and His Debut Memoir ‘Beautiful Monster’ by Olivia Beaton
Published: February 1
I think one of the things that I do well as a yoga teacher is pacing and so I feel like that really traveled into the book. For me, having the breath in the book was kind of magic, because it was almost like a hidden yoga class.
Jon Lindsey and Harris Lahti: On Launching a New Press, What You Need to Start Your Own Indie Press, and C4G’s First Book ‘Suicide’ by Barrie Miskin
Published: February 15
I’m open to publishing whatever and whoever as long as there’s blood and tears. Like the Danzig song. That’s what I’m interested in. Anything leass is hard to get excited about. —Jon Lindsey
That's what I'm looking for: to encounter a story that can only be told by a single person. Like an imprint of their brain on the page. —Harris Lahti
Michael Wheaton: On Nostalgia, Fame in the Age of the Internet, Writing as Montage, and His Nonfiction Debut ‘Home Movies’ by Abigail Oswald
Published: February 20
I think some people are finding that they only need to feel famous to a thousand people, and other people are finding that nothing will ever be enough.
Julie Myerson: On Not People-Pleasing, Learning from Criticism, and Her Novel ‘Nonfiction’ by Shelby Hinte
Published: February 29
I realized I was never going to be able to write anything unless I forgot about pleasing people and just wrote what—to me anyway—felt like the truth.
Work with Our Editors: Editorial Feedback Services
We believe editors should uplift a writer's unique voice, not alter it to fit their own style. Our feedback aims to ask questions and provide insights that help you refine and perfect your work.
Our Services
Short Fiction with Tamar or Suzanne: Writers receive detailed line edits and notes focusing on both micro and macro elements of their story
Short Fiction + with Tamar or Suzanne: Writers receive detailed notes, a developmental letter, a story summary, feedback craft lessons, resources, and an email Q&A exchange.
Creative Nonfciton with Shelby: This editing service includes macro-level line edits, a detailed editorial letter, 60 min Zoom discussion, and curated recourse, and email support.
Testimonials
Suzanne is an excellent editor and a reader with infrared vision. She saw things I barely knew were there, and I wrote the story! I've been through Clarion and Tin House. I'm accustomed to hearing the truth, and Suzanne, in her diplomatic way, didn't hold back. My story is much improved thanks to the work she put into it. Don't let her go! —Steven Bryan Bieler
I am relly blown away! The depth of critique and feedback was just what I needed to keep editing this story.
Contributor Showcase
We ask our past contributors to keep in touch and let us know if they have writing or publishing news after being featured in Write or Die Magazine! We are so honored to have published these writers and their work. Here is a look at what they've been celebrating since their appearance in our mag!
Author of “The Perils of Star-Gazing: The Less-Than-Stellar Side of Reading Reviews” published on June 14 , 2023.
News: My memoir, Sad Sacked, will be released June 11. Order it here!
Author of “Foreign Words: How Immigration Inspired My Writing Journey” published on July 12, 2023
News: I recently became the Lead Poetry and Cultural Collaborator for Afriqué Noire Magazine, where I will be interviewing emerging writers and creating spaces for collaboration with other communities. Additionally, my second collection is completed and will be published in Fall 2024.
I've also created a space called The Creative Writing Hour, where creatives and writers gather to work on their individual projects and build community. We meet every Thursday from 8pm - 9:15pm and Sundays from 11am - 12:15pm. Anyone interested in joining can send me their email to dhayanaalejandrina@gmail.com.
Author of the essay “Foil and Unfolding: Writing Poetry With A Sword” published on November 15, 2023
News: I have gotten a literary agent! I am over the moon to share that I am now repped by the delightful Amy Giuffrida at Belcastro Agency. Amy and I are about to go on sub for my debut manuscript, a narrative memoir about running the sport of roller derby.
Thanks so much for including me!