#0049: Call for Submissions Open + IRL Meetup Happened
You gotta write about that!
Call for Submissions for Inlandia: A Literary Journey
September 1st is opening day for submissions to Inlandia: A Literary Journey. Submit your best art, creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. The submissions window remains open until September 30th at midnight, PDT.
Inlandia’s 100 Rejections Club Meetup Live and In Person
A few days ago, Inlandia’s 100 Rejections Club had an in-person meetup at a not-Starbucks cafe. We busied our creative selves for an hour, tapping on keyboards or putting ink to paper. Then we set aside those WIPs to talk for 90+ minutes. Sometimes about elements to add to the club in Year 2, and sometimes about other topics large and small.
Brainstorming
We’d like to add a quarterly in-person gathering for members in the Inland Southern California region. Because we’re so spread out, we’ll probably rotate locations, perhaps opening up homes to host meetups.
One member recommended field trips to get club members to conferences and other opportunities. (The national AWP conference returns to Los Angeles in March 2025 [#0037].)
An introduction to the publishing world, a query letter workshop, how to find an agent, and craft talks, especially about children’s publishing, were requested. Someone wondered about mentor-mentee possibilities. (Hmmm…. Sound familiar? Maybe from last week’s post [#0048], which included looking ahead at Year 2 of Inlandia’s 100 Rejections Club? Ah, the power of suggestion!)
Other literary topics
One member shared they’d gotten a piece accepted at Pomona Valley Review. (See? We aren’t only about rejections!)
Someone asked about how to find book illustrators, which led to Cati, Inlandia’s executive director, mentioning that Evan Turk, a children’s book author and illustrator, often visited the not-Starbucks cafe in the late morning. Alas, no sightings that day.
A member talked about following a lead from the Authors Publish newsletter to an Inkwell agent query opportunity. When I talked with them one-on-one later, I found out the agent promised to put them in touch with a colleague at the agency who specializes in children’s literature.
You might be wondering why so much about children’s publishing. Well, the gathering that day had several members specializing in and/or intrigued with that area. Over the years I’ve discovered that the monolith Publishing World is actually lots of silos with specific paths to publication. (A topic for another day.)
Write about that!
At one point, a member lamented to me that the publishing world doesn’t value children or women who care for children. My reply: Write about that!1
A member mentioned an upcoming event where she’s been asked to talk for 10 minutes about how she’s marketed her memoir. After sharing a great story of a friend who’s promoted the book to all her contacts, the member said she had too much information for such a short talk. Cati asked her to write about post-launch book promotion as an evergreen topic for Inlandia’s newspaper column.2
We were riveted by the story one member told of her neighbor needing help with a litter of feral kittens in her garage. Turns out the neighborhood was swarming with feral cats, so the member decided to learn about Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR), a humane way to halt feral cats from breeding. This member, on her own, has successfully completed TNR nearly 20 times, and her neighborhood has no feral kitten litters for the first time in years. “You have to write that story,” I exclaimed.3
During the gathering, a member shared that she’d just finished a first draft of a middle-grade novel featuring an ADHD female protagonist. Later, I learned she’s an ADHD-certified coach who’s speaking on the topic to a room of 200+ at a conference next month. My response, of course: “WoW! You have to write about that!”4
Next time: Reflections on almost a year of rejections
Though the member’s current WIP is a bilingual poetry book for children, another way to add publishing credits to their third-person bio and demonstrate authority in the field is via opinion pieces.
Inlandia Institute’s weekly column runs in 4 regional newspapers, which is a lot of eyeballs on a byline.
Personal essays are another way to establish herself as a creative nonfiction writer (even when not on the same topic as her WIP).
Whenever you can repurpose to increase your exposure, especially as an expert — 200 people in the room AND however many more who read a published version — go for it!