I’ve had October 15 circled on my calendar for months because today is the day my collection of short stories, Mixed Company, was supposed to hit bookstores. But, not unlike my experience with the due dates of my children, the big premier is going to be a bit delayed, to November 15. Why? Do you remember when you were scrambling around after toilet paper last year, not knowing where your next square would come from? My book is delayed for similar supply chain reasons. This New York Times article explains the whole thing, but I still suspect that the paper and ink intended for my story collection has been diverted toward a Kardashian diet book. All I know is if my book doesn’t appear by November 15, I am scheduling an induction, because I have been waddling around, great with book, for a long time.
However, my publisher is able to send me enough books to sell at all my scheduled readings, the first of which is tomorrow at BookBar in Denver. So I’m calling it an exclusive indie bookstore early release, just like Dave Eggers did. If there’s a book you’ve got your eye on for the holidays, your best bet is to order it now!
The Assorted Whimsy Portion of The Tumbleweed
My grandmother taught me that when you faced a problem that was out of your control, the best thing to do was pray to the appropriate saint. So I looked up the patron saint of book publishing, and the closest I could find was Saint Bartholomew, the patron of bookbinders and leather goods. Do you know why Saint Bartholomew was given this patronage? Because he was flayed alive, his skin removed by his captors. Hence, the…leather association. I find that whoever was responsible for assigning saints patronages had a dark sense of humor.
Here’s Saint Bartholomew as he appears in an altarpiece for the church of Sant'Agostino in Rome, with his strikingly styled beard, a book, and…the knife that might soon skin him?
Okay, Grandma, I get the point of praying to saints. In the course of finding out about them, you realize that your own problems are not that great. You feel sheepish to call upon Saint Bartholomew and say, “Look, I know you were FLAYED ALIVE, but I’ve got this little book problem happening. Can you do something about it?”
The Book Review Portion of The Tumbleweed
Speaking of gaining perspective on your lil’ problems, this month I want to recommend an unforgettable memoir, Made in China: A Memoir of Love and Labor by Anna Qu. Qu writes with clarity and restraint about her Cinderella-terrible childhood spent working in her parents' sweatshop, toiling as her family’s unpaid maid, and eating alone after her step-siblings finished their meals.
I wrote for the Minneapolis StarTribune: “Qu's indelible account of her lonesome childhood should gain her everything she lacked then — confidants, witnesses and fans — who will cheer when she finally reconnects with a long-lost beloved.”
The Q&A Portion of The Tumbleweed: Where should I submit my work?
I’ve had a chance to talk to some wonderful interviewers as I prepare for my book to emerge…eventually. My friend Paula Younger interviewed me for Fiction Writers Review and asked me a great question about how writers can find places to submit their work. Here’s some of my best advice.
A good tool to start with is my friend Erika Krouse's journal list. It gives you an endless supply of journals at which to throw your stories.
Writer Sage Tyrtle took Erika’s list, and compiled a spreadsheet of all the journals with free submissions, for people who can’t afford (or don’t want to pay) those pesky $3 submission fees.
Erika’s list focuses more on legacy, "prestigious" journals. But what I find really invigorating these days is how many more avenues there are to becoming a published writer outside of this standard route. My friend Gessy Alvarez has built a following for her journal Digging Through the Fat, and has published her fiction in places including Drunk Monkeys, Entropy, Bartleby Snopes, and other online journals that you might not find on those standard lists that start with The New Yorker at the top and march through the Georgia Review, One Story, and places like that.
In fact, that's one of my main pieces of advice for people who want to publish their short stories—find someone who is maybe not famous yet, but who is doing great work, and go and see where they've published. When Hillary Leftwich was my student at the Mile High MFA, I directed her to Gessy's website to find new ideas about where to submit. (Hillary didn't need much of my advice—she was already a well-published writer and now she has one book and another on the way.)
Justin Greene writes an invaluable "Where to Submit" column for Entropy once every three months. I think I might have found the information for the contest my story collection won through this.
I guess if I were to boil down my advice, it's to go and find people who are making fascinating art and putting a lot of energy and generosity out into the literary world, like Erika, Gessy, Hillary, and Justin, and see if you can get any ideas from what they are doing.
If you have any writing or publishing questions, be sure to send them my way! Either leave a comment here, or email me: Jenny.A.Shank@gmail.com.
The Self-Promotional Portion of The Tumbleweed
My essay “Lucia Berlin: My Mentor in Being an Outsider,” will appear in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers magazine, which, wouldn’t you know it, is also delayed by several weeks because of those pesky printer problems. But you can find it online now. Lucia was my teacher, mentor, and friend, and she taught me to treat all fellow writers with equal respect, no matter their status, publications (or lack of publications), or genre.
And if you want one of those exclusive pre-November copies of Mixed Company, I’d be glad to sign one for you at these events:
Saturday, October 16, 7 p.m., Mixed Company Denver Book Launch, BookBar (4280 Tennyson St. Denver, CO). Free Eventbrite tickets available now!
Thursday, October 21, 6:30 p.m. Mixed Company Boulder Book Launch, Boulder Book Store (1107 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, $5 tickets, good for $5 toward a purchase available now
Saturday, October 23, Montana Book Festival Short Story Panel Discussion, The Big Short Story: Big Imaginations in Small Spaces with David Allen Cates, Wendy J. Fox, Joseph Holt, and Jenny Shank, 3 p.m. MST, free, via Zoom.
Saturday, October 30, 5 p.m., Mixed Company Happy Hour at Lighthouse, Lighthouse Writers Workshop (York Street Yards, 3845 Steele St, Denver, CO), in person and via Zoom, free, but please RSVP.