Greetings, friends!
The voters have spoken. The next Sit & Share1 will take place on Friday, 12/15, at 8:30pm ET. This open-mic style reading requires all attendees to perform. Each reader will have 5 minutes. Read all the details and register here.
In other news…
Collective Lit subscriptions are on sale! Now through December 5, 2023, you can save 50% on your first 12 months as a paid subscriber. For as little as $2.50/month, you’ll get access to Office Hours (1-on-1 chats about your writing practice) and the ability to read the full Collective Lit archives. Can’t beat that!
SIT & READ
This December, the little book club that could will be reading its 14th book: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. We’ll split the novel into 2 chunks, meeting to discuss each half on 12/13 and 12/27. If you’d like to participate, email collectivelit@substack.com by December 1st. Got questions? Check out the Sit & Read FAQ.
Synopsis:
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
SIT & WRITE
It’s time to work on that thing you’ve been avoiding! If you’re new to Sit & Write, please read this before attending.
WHEN: Saturday, 12/2, 11:00am-2:00pm ET
WHERE: ZoooOOOoom
LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82178813171?pwd=H7h2gqaFaD2KFdDebeqbtxKWJz2r2U.1
MEETING ID: 821 7881 3171
PASSCODE: 369886
OTHER EVENTS
Wednesday, 11/29, 6:30pm ET: Webinar for aspiring arts writers. “Learn more about the practice of arts criticism from Alaina Johns and Broad Street Review colleagues. Our writers bring decades of experience to our work.” ($20 SUGGESTED DONATION/VIRTUAL)
Wednesday, 11/29, 7:00pm ET: The Bricks Reading Series Part 7 @ H&H Books (Philadelphia). “The Bricks is a reading series dedicated to building transcultural conversations on literature & aesthetics.” Featured readers: Daisuke Shen, Gabriel Ramirez, and Holly M. Wendt. (FREE/IN-PERSON)
Wednesday, 11/29, 7:00pm ET: Flowering: A poetry reading and open mic @ Green Line Cafe - Locust St. (Philadelphia). “This event is part of my Blossoming Poetry Series, which has used the phases of growing/blossoming plants as its basic metaphor while it populates and flowers. … Each event begins with a featured reader and then opens up for any and all attendees to get on the mic and read their own work.” (FREE/IN-PERSON)
Wednesday, 11/29, 7:00pm ET: Live Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub (Philadelphia). A Moonstone Arts Center reading featuring Jim Cory, Peter F. Murphy, and Sekai’afua Zankel. (FREE/HYBRID)
Wednesday, 11/29, 7:30pm ET: Raquel Willis in conversation with Ernest Owens @ Parkway Central Library (Philadelphia). “A writer, activist, and media strategist dedicated to Black transgender liberation, Raquel Willis has served as director of communications for Ms. Foundation for Women, a national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, and executive editor of Out magazine. … The Risk It Takes to Bloom recounts Willis’ childhood in Georgia in a Black Catholic family, how her career in journalism and community organizing showed her the courage to come out, and how this particular moment can propel us all to collective liberation.” (PAY WHAT YOU WISH/IN-PERSON)
Thursday, 11/30, 4:00pm ET: Autumn Expression with Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer. “In this workshop, we’ll explore themes of harvest, loss and transformation through writing prompts and poetry. Whether you write fiction, non-fiction, poetry or another form, this session will invite reflection and curiosity.” (FREE/VIRTUAL)
Thursday, 11/30, 6:00pm ET: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore book release @ Giovanni’s Room (Philadelphia). “A mixture of memoir, biography, criticism, and social history, Touching the Art is queer icon and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s interrogation of the possibilities of artistic striving, the limits of the middle-class mindset, the legacy of familial abandonment, and what art can and cannot do.” Masks required. (FREE/IN-PERSON)
Thursday, 11/30, 6:00pm ET: Poetry reading with Evie Shockley and Simone White @ Kelly Writers House (Philadelphia). “Poet & literary scholar Evie Shockley thinks, creates, and writes with her eye on a Black feminist horizon. Her books of poetry include suddenly we, semiautomatic, and the new black. … Simone White is the author of or, on being the other woman (Duke University Press, 2022), Dear Angel of Death (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), Of Being Dispersed (Futurepoem, 2016), and House Envy of All the World (Factory School, 2010), the poetry chapbook, Unrest (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013), and the collaborative poem/painting chapbook, Dolly (with Kim Thomas) (Q Ave, 2008).” RSVP for the in-person event here or livestream the event on YouTube. (FREE/HYBRID)
Thursday, 11/30, 6:30pm ET: Reading & discussion with José Alaniz, author of ‘Puro Pinche True Fictions’ @ Iffy Books (Philadelphia). “The hybrid book collects short stories and comics, mostly set in the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas/Mexico border. The stories reflect the author’s upbringing in this region as a second-generation Mexican-American, at times fusing folk beliefs with Bradbury-style science fiction.” (FREE/IN-PERSON)
Thursday, 11/30, 8:00pm ET: Book Release for Transitory. “Grounded in protest and solidarity, Subhaga Crystal Bacon’s Isabella Gardner Award-winning Transitory is a collection of elegies memorializing 46 transgender and gender-nonconforming people murdered in the US and Puerto Rico in 2020.” ($0–15 SLIDING SCALE/VIRTUAL)
Friday, 12/1, 5:00 and 6:30pm ET: 5th Anniversary Celebration @ A Novel Idea on Passyunk (Philadelphia). “We’re having a party! Join us on the evening of Friday, December 1st for community, cocktails, books, and tarot. This is a one-night ticketed event, with two available 90-minute time slots starting at 5pm and 6:30pm. We are offering two ticket options! $30 includes 1 paperback and 1 cocktail. $45 includes 1 paperback, 1 cocktail, and a 10-minute flash tarot reading with Marguerite. This event is in partnership with our friends at Independent Spirits Distillery. They’ll be serving up the following: apple pie moonshine, hot mulled cider, and gin.” ($30–45/IN-PERSON)
Friday, 12/1, 8:00pm ET: THE LATE(ish) POETRY SHOW @ PhilaMOCA (Philadelphia). “Come watch some of Philly's beloved poets and join the livest audience this side of the Delaware for a night of poetry, open mic, music, games and more.” Featuring Oro 5. Masks required. ($10-25/IN-PERSON)
Saturday, 12/2, 10:00am-5:00pm ET: Philly Zine Fest @ Mitten Hall, Temple University (Philadelphia). It’s a zine fest! You get the gist. (FREE/IN-PERSON)
Saturday, 12/2, 2:00pm ET: The Yuzana Workshop. “Join us as we read Palestinian poets and write a few poems of our own.” ($10 DONATION/VIRTUAL)
Saturday, 12/2, 6:00pm ET: We Raise Our Voices—Writers for Palestine @ Private location (Philadelphia). “We invite you—our Philadelphia community—to gather for an evening of poetry, storytelling, and song centering the voices of Palestinian and SWANA artists, joined by a phenomenal group writers in solidarity.” Hosted by Denice Frohman and featuring readings by Natalie Diaz, Ahmad Almallah, Nehad Khader, Nicki Kattoura, Farah Barqawi, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Huda Asfour, Ndeen Al-Barqawi, Yesenia Montilla, and Ceasefire Cento. ($10-20/IN-PERSON)
Saturday, 12/2, 7:00pm ET: 2023 Words of Resistance & Restoration Fellowship Showcase. “Words of Resistance & Restoration is a 12-week literary arts fellowship designed by and for BIPOC folx who have first and second-hand experience with the criminal legal system. … Join us for Words of Resistance & Restoration's bold conclusion: an evening of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and speculative fiction storytelling.” (DONATIONS OPTIONAL/VIRTUAL)
Sunday, 12/3, 4:00pm ET: Bring A Blanket #7 @ A Novel Idea on Passyunk (Philadelphia). Featuring readings by Audrey Lee, Chloe Williams, Graham Irvin, and Veronica Bennett. ($5 SUGGESTED DONATION/IN-PERSON)
Monday, 12/4, 11:20am ET: Claire Stricklin, in conversation. “The Writers House welcomes author and game designer Claire Stricklin, who will be reading from and discussing her work-in-progress, Dio. This experimental project was inspired by the ‘sketching’ techniques of Jack Kerouac in Visions of Cody. It is equal parts trans memoir, exploration of personal spiritual belief, and tabletop roleplaying game.” (FREE/VIRTUAL)
Monday, 12/4, 8:00pm ET: Fall 2023 Workshop Reading. “This fall at the Poetry Project, workshop participants explored abject portals, drank strange water, played paratextually, and surged like waves, in classes with Ian Dreiblatt, Dianca London Potts, Lara Mimosa Montes, Holly Melgard, and Gail Scott. Please join us to celebrate the work they made on their journeys.” (FREE/VIRTUAL)
Monday, 12/4, 9:00pm ET: Fiction reading and conversation. Novelists Ben Fama and Anna Dorn read and discuss their writing. Q&A to follow. (FREE/VIRTUAL)
Tuesday, 12/5, 6:00pm ET: Nikki Vargas in conversation with Iesha Vincent @ A Novel Idea on Passyunk (Philadelphia). “In Vargas’ compelling new memoir CALL YOU WHEN I LAND, the NYC-based travel writer, Colombian immigrant, and Fodor’s Travel senior editor takes readers around the world on this inspiring journey of love, loss, self-discovery, career evolution, and growth.” ($5 SUGGESTED DONATION/IN-PERSON)
CLASSES & WORKSHOPS
OPPORTUNITIES
DEADLINE 11/30: Black Lawrence Press’s open reading period closes. They’re seeking: Poetry (chapbook and full-length collections), Fiction (chapbooks, full-length collections, novellas, and novels), Creative Nonfiction, Biography & Cultural Studies, Anthology Proposals, and Translation. “We also heartily welcome hybrid work and collaborative manuscripts.” (BOOK PURCHASE IN LIEU OF SUBMISSION FEE/PAYS ROYALTIES)
DEADLINE 11/30: River Heron Editors’ Prize submissions due. “Poets may submit up to 3 poems, 5 pages maximum. … The winning poem and four finalists’ poems will be announced in January 2023. The selected poems will be published on February 1, 2024.” There’s also a non-contest submission category with the same deadline and a $3 submission fee. ($15 SUBMISSION FEE/$500 PRIZE)
DEADLINE 12/1: Proposals due for Cooper Street Workshops at Rutgers Camden. “Great workshops meet participants where they are, appealing to and engaging with writers at all experience levels. We rely on instructors to help publicize their workshops, so strong connections to a community are a plus. … Our instructors are compensated.” (NO SUBMISSION FEE/PAY UNSPECIFIED)
DEADLINE 12/3: Applications due for the The One Story Writing Circle. “Join a small cohort of fiction writers looking to devote a year to improving their craft and process. Circle members will receive access to select One Story classes for the 2024 calendar year … In addition, they will attend monthly asynchronous online meetings designed to help them set goals and create and maintain their writing practice, surrounded by a supportive community of writers from across the country and the world.” No scholarships available. ($650 TUITION/VIRTUAL)
DEADLINE 12/15: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts submissions due. “We accept fiction and creative nonfiction, as long if they are compressed in some way. Work is published weekly, without labels, and the labels here only exist to help us determine its best readers. Our response time is generally 1-5 days. Also, our acceptance rate is currently about 2% of submissions.” (NO SUBMISSION FEE/PAYS $50)
DEADLINE 1/1: Voicemail Poems submissions due. “We are currently accepting submissions for our Winter Issue! Call & send in a poem by January 1st to be considered.” (NO SUBMISSION FEE/NO PAY)
Find even more opportunities via my Instagram highlights! (IG account required)
Got an event, opportunity, or accomplishment to share? DM @collectivelit on Instagram or send details here.
Alright friends, that’s all for today.
Warmly,
Julian Shendelman
www.collectivelit.com
P.S. If you are a free subscriber, you’ll see a paywall below. It’s hiding a link to the free 1-on-1 Office Hours sessions, a delightful little perk for paid subscribers.