Literary Academy: Time for Hermit Girl Summer!
In the 1600s, groups of writers would gather for an evening of artistic expression and discussion. Known as a literary academy, the all-men or all-women groups served as a meeting point for sharing topics of philosophy along with art in the drafting process. This column honors that sentiment with thoughts on craft and writing.
I hope to establish a more frequent schedule of posting from now on. Caring for a family member while working took a lot of time, and I took the longest writing hiatus I’ve ever done. It was personally scary to not be taking at least ten minutes to write. But now I’m back to my old ways and coining this Hermit Girl Summer!
It’s everything Hot Girl Summer was except absolutely not. My goals: to work on an essay while getting back to my novel and working out some character points and structure issues. I will also be setting up some posts about really cool historical items I’ve learned in recent months.
Contest
On another note, I got to judge for a contest recently. If you have the time and ability to volunteer at a journal as a reader, I highly recommend doing it. Getting to read submissions helps activate your editing mind and consider how your own work would fare in the hands of an editor who has no clue who you are. Remember journals are looking for complete, polished work. How many drafts have you written? Have you had readers review it? Are you getting overall positive feedback or are many people telling you they have questions?
Literary Drama
Listen, most of the world is on fire, so when I hear there’s literary drama going on, I happily take a look because it distracts me from the bigger global issues that feel inescapable. Recently there was a lot of arguments over journal submission fees and the argument that writers have to pay to play.
One of the reasons I started this newsletter is to offer a free space to provide advice on the writing process in order for writers to get from rejections to acceptances for pubs. With that in mind, please ask Hermit Girl here about your challenges with your writing, especially as it pertains to getting published in literary journals.