Who Owns a Woman’s Shoulders? (Personal Essay About My Mama That Demonstrates Flirting and Short Skirts and High Heels or Whatever Excuse People Make Is NOT the Problem AKA Men Need to Stop Believing They Have a Right to Women’s Bodies)

About five years ago, my mother decided to train to be a lay-speaker in the United Methodist Church. Her class, taught by a male minister, included eight men and three women. At 71, my mother was the oldest woman present; another was in her early 60s, and the third was in her late 20s.

Read the rest of my essay at The Bitter Southerner here.

Rules of Engagement: A Step-by-Step Guide to My Very Own Home Invasion

I was making tea in the kitchen at the back of the house when I heard a boom followed by the tinkling sound of broken glass. A car accident on the street, that’s what I thought. I jogged forward a few steps into the dining room, stopping short under my thrift-store chandelier.

A gloved hand was coming through a pane of glass on my front door. The glove was knit with a thick, shiny white yarn and covered with brown leather patches on the fingers and palm. The hand was attached to an arm, nicely muscled and covered in a gray thermal T-shirt. The door was opening before the hand turned the lock. It had shattered in the frame to the left of the handle. …

Read the rest at: http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/issue11/nonfiction/caralyndavis

Literary Journal Publishing Resources / Links

I put this together for an online writing class. Hopefully it might help you too.

1. Duotrope’s Digest lets you search for journals according to various parameters: http://www.duotrope.com/

2. Poets & Writers allows you to do the same: http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines?perpage=*

3. NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines can be useful, and they have a Calls for Submissions page and literary magazine reviews as well as a blog that announces new journal launches: http://www.newpages.com/literary-magazines/

4. The Review Review has literary magazine reviews: http://thereviewreview.net/

5. The Review Review also has publishing tips such as:

• What Editors Want: http://thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/what-editors-want-must-read-writers-submitti (Written by a journal editor)
• Submitters Dilemma: Choosing the Right Magazine for Your Work: http://thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/submitters-dilemma-choosing-right-literary-m

6. Fiction Writer’s Review also has some journal reviews: http://fictionwritersreview.com/

7. Six Questions for… does interviews with journal editors. I think that’s where I first noticed Monkeybicycle, which ended up publishing one of my pieces this past summer: http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/

8. Perpetual Folly does a Pushcart Prize-based ranking system of journals. They just came out with:

• The 2012 ranking for creative nonfiction: http://perpetualfolly.blogspot.com/2011/11/2012-pushcart-prize-rankings-nonfiction.html, and
• The 2012 ranking for fiction: http://perpetualfolly.blogspot.com/2011/11/2012-pushcart-prize-rankings-fiction.html

9. Bookfox came out with a ranking system based on Best American Short Stories last year: http://www.thejohnfox.com/bookfox/ranking-of-literary-journ.html

10. The Rankings has various ranking systems and lists of journals that are included in big-time anthologies: http://therankings.wordpress.com/

11. The Million Writers Award can help you find interesting online journals: http://storysouth.com/millionwriters.html