“No Complaining on the Yacht”: Women in Writing and Publishing
“No Complaining on the Yacht”: Women in Writing and Publishing

Last night I attended “Transmit Culture: Women in Writing and Publishing” at Portland State University. It was a panel featuring author Karen Karbo, Tin House Press editor Masie Cochran, and our own Alicia Bublitz. There was a lot of discussion about what it means to be a woman in publishing and how marketing women’s writing has

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The “Man” Booker Prize and the Problem of Prizes
The “Man” Booker Prize and the Problem of Prizes

Unless you live under a twitter rock you will have seen that Marlon James has won the Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. He is the first Jamaican, and, from the sound of things, the first author to use so many swear words to win the prize. We’re so

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Why It Takes Us So Damn Long to Get Back to You

CALYX’s General Submission period opens next Thursday, October 1st, and runs until December 31st. I love this time of year because I get to read beautiful, brilliant poetry and prose for four months straight. But I recognize that for the women who submit, this can be an extremely frustrating time. After all, if you submit in October,

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To Do List for the Damaged
To Do List for the Damaged

To Do List for the Damaged: My Hedgebrook recipe for writing a book By Tammy Robacker As Hedgebrook opens their call for women writers to apply this June, I cannot help but express gratitude for my own poetry residency there in 2011. My experience at Hedgebrook is especially humbling today since I celebrate recent news

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Top Ten Books of 2014: A Feminist Analysis
Top Ten Books of 2014: A Feminist Analysis

“If we are to dismantle a system that is oppressive because it pushes certain people to the periphery, we must bring those same people to the center.” – Leonicka Valcius, blogger, author, editor and traveler A demand for an “equitable literary landscape” within the publishing community reflects the larger socioeconomic and political disparities among racially

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2012 Lois Prize: What good are contests anyway?
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

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The Portrayal of Female Protagonists

I read a novel recently that once again prompted me to reflect on a common and highly disheartening downfall of far too many awesome female protagonists/focal characters in literature, television, movies, etc. The composition I delved into began as many other fabulous works do, portraying the shift in social, sexual, ideological, economic, and gendered thinking

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