#0054 While waiting for the rejections to roll in, ponder the possibilities
Simultaneous Submissions + Read Books
When I submitted a creative nonfiction piece to a specialized journal about medical narratives on the last day of September (#0053), it got me thinking. What other outlets might fit the specialization for simultaneous submission? What about for other prose/poetry/art items in the realm of narrative medicine that need homes?
Duotrope Research
Did you know, on many individual journal pages Duotrope1 lists other places where people submitted (“Work submitted here was also submitted to…”)? Sometimes these lead to similar journals. Sometimes not. (This time, for this cnf medical narrative and this specialized journal, no luck.)
Smart Search
Duotrope offers different ways to search the ginormous database. New this year is “Smart Search,” a short and sometimes sweet way to zero-in on possibilities. For the three required pulldown menus under Nonfiction Smart Search, I chose the Topic “Health/Medicine,” the Style “Personal,” and the Type/Length “Narrative Nonfiction.” Because narrative medicine is niche, I optionally selected the maximum number of results (50), ticked the box for Include Wildcards, and did NOT tick the box for Exact Matches.
Two solid leads: one I’d heard of but didn’t know accepts reprints; the other, brand new to me. As I explored the website, I recognized a poet’s name: the mother of a teen who’d appeared in this spring’s all-teen issue of Inlandia: A Literary Journey. Small world.
When I changed up the Type/Length to “Essay” and later to “Article,” some new places — including a third potential place I’d heard of — showed up, and one or both of the leads dropped away. When I switched the Style to “Any Style” and searched with “Narrative Nonfiction” then “Essay” then “Article,” another shuffle including some new places (again the third potential popped up) and again one or both of the leads disappeared. But with the “Any Style,” many professional medical journals were flagged as “Exact Match” when, in fact, they would not be appropriate for my medical narrative pieces.
Find by Title/Name
Usually, people know of a journal’s name, or part of or perhaps something like? the name, and go searching under Duotrope’s Find by Title/Name. I’ve sometimes used this search mechanism to hunt down topics. This time: narrative medicine.
When I inputted “Narrative” then separately “Medicine” (so, two searches because Duotrope limits the number of characters in this search field and “medi” looked odd to me), I ended up with 6 more possibilities, 2 with fees (though one of them is an annual contest2), and 3 that did NOT allow simultaneous submissions.3 When I inputted “Disability,” I tracked down one other possibility. But “Chronic” and “Illness” were deadends: DNQ (did not qualify) or Defunct.
What’s funny (strange, not haha) is that the oldest, and perhaps the most distinguished, journal in the field of narrative medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, didn’t show up anywhere (though it is in the Duotrope database). Lesson learned? Even with all the search tools, you may not see all the possibilities.
But all work and no play leads to (a horror movie starring Jack Nicholson).
Creatives Read
Whenever I hear someone say they haven’t read a book this year,4 I internally cringe. And gasp. And just. Whaaa???
Writers Need Books
If you write, you need to read books. For oh so many reasons. Here are two: book club and edutainment.
Since I posted September 29th, I finished rereading The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (book club selection for November). When listening to the audiobook last year, I’d missed a key aspect: the fig tree as one of the narrators. Highly recommend reading over listening to this one. And I skimmed the hardcover copy of Chenneville by Paulette Jiles (book club selection for October), which I’d listened to last month. The narrator of the audiobook did a fantastic job. The only thing missing from the audiobook and kindle version? Endpapers of a historic map that highlight the distances John Chenneville travels. The map? Essential for deeper understanding.
For pure entertainment, I finished listening to The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao, the first in a promised sci-fi/fantasy series.
High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity — plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science.
It checks the boxes for climate fiction (so-called cli-fi), relationship drama, class drama, hidden history, and even philosophical wonderings.
On the more educational end of edutainment, I started listening to the nonfiction book We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds by Sally Adee.
Science journalist Sally Adee breaks open the field of bioelectricity — the electric currents that run through our bodies and every living thing — its misunderstood history, and why new discoveries will lead to new ways around antibiotic resistance, cleared arteries, and new ways to combat cancer.
Not sure how I heard about this book, but it’s shockingly good (pun intended).
Artists Need To See
If you make art, you need to take in other examples of your category. It’s fuel for your creativity. Even if completely humbling.
On the New Books shelf at my public library, I spotted A Fox in My Brain, “written, drawn & experienced” by Lou Lubie. It’s a memoir in comics format. Funny, intelligent, sometime heart-rending, the artist shares how she discovered she has cyclothymia, a mood disorder from the bipolar family.
According to her author bio, Lubie is from the island of La Réunion and had already published five books before moving to metropolitan France, where Goupil ou Face (A Fox in My Brain) was published in 2021. This volume is labeled by the American publisher, FairSquare Comics, as “A Slice of Life Graphic Novel” and on the copyright page includes this line: “The story and characters presented in this publication are fictional.” Huh? Also, no mention of a translator. Umm?
Regardless of how it came to be, the book — monochromatic with expert use of orange spot color — uses single panel, multi-panel, and spreads so well. With a teeny squiggle of an eyebrow, Lubie expresses fortitude behind a one-word statement: “Absolutely.” So good!! Something to strive for.
I connected A Fox in My Brain with We Are Electric when Lubie explains how the brain “is made up of neurons that communicate through electrical impulses.” She illustrates dopamine (one of the neurotransmitters) as orange goldfish. So good!! And last month I finished listening to Pathological by Sarah Fay,5 a memoir in which Fay describes being misdiagnosed with six different disorders and slams the DSM.6 Fay’s book made me put Lubie’s misdiagnoses into perspective.
Next time: 🎶da-Do-Do-Do, da-Da-Da-Da🎶
Though I’m going through Duotrope for this post, since Inlandia’s 100 Rejections Club members have the group access, these general concepts apply to other databases. And even interweb searches. (CAUTION: the interwebs lead to lots of deadends.)
Literary contests often use at least part of the submission fees as the award for the contest winner. Unless the contest is underwritten by a donation or a grant.
I used to think “simultaneous submissions” meant I had to submit the poem or story or artwork to several places all at once, like on the same day? No no no. (Talk about literal thinking!)
OMG OMG OMG
Yes, that Substack Writers at Work Sarah Fay.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of the history and current uses of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is a topic for another day.