Publishing Experience

I was a little nervous when I arrived for the first class of the semester. I really had no clue what was going to happen, what we were going to be doing.
I think I started enjoying myself when we began reading the Dust and Fire pieces. I realized I've been kinda of limited when it comes to critiquing pieces. I've only done that in classes like Writing Fiction and Non-Fiction. I was nice to read pieces from women of different ages and from different places. In a way, it was very similar to a workshop class. 
As for New Voices, I felt my experience in this was very similar to Dust and Fire but different because we were going through the same process but adjusting our view of the subject matter and the writing styles. It remind me so much of high school and all the writing projects we did.

This class, like other workshop classes, has shown me what editors and publishers want when looking for a piece of writing. I saw the other end of the spectrum. I think this will definitely change my view of my writing. I feel like I may write more to an audience now. I might work on figuring out who I want my audience to be.

I do think I will work on getting my writing published. Even though it is intimidating, because publishers and editors in the real world are harsher in their decisions (I would assume) then we were in our decisions. I will have a tough struggle to get much published, but I'm willing to try.

"Accident, Mass. Ave." by Jill McDonough

I really liked this poem for two reasons: one, distance the reader experiences while reading this piece; and two, the emotions that come with the ending.
The first reason is the distance I felt as the reader, literally and figuratively. I haven't been in a situation like this before and the piece puts us front and center on the scene. We are the driver whose truck has just been hit. We are the driver who is yelling at the woman for backing into the tire.
The other distance is obviously from the setting. Boston is much different from Bemidji, Minnesota. I have a feeling that if this were to happen to someone here, it might not be the same situation.
Another thing I noticed that may have put the reader back a ways is the fact that I personally felt it was a male narrator, and I assumed that it was a personal experience from the writer's past. However the writer is female which put the piece in a different perspective for me.
Another thing I liked about the piece was the ending and how the two drivers come together and forgive each other. Through the piece we get the argument between the two, and there is some distance between them and then they forgive each other and we get this different emotion from the piece. there's a hostile feeling throughout the piece and then we get this happier feeling. The two women hug and they laugh about the whole situation.

New Voices Editing Experience

I felt that editing New Voices was very similar to editing Dust and Fire but I had to keep reminding myself that these were high school students and female adults. I had to constantly remind myself that the writing would not be as refined as the previous pieces we had read.
I felt it was easier to decide what pieces were written well enough to be include in the anthology. There were some that obviously need more work before inclusion and others were very well written for a high school level writer. It seemed hard for the prose group to pick final pieces and the prizes for prose.
I did feel a need to be gentle on these students and give some leniency when deciding what pieces could be included. I felt I needed to be kind to the high schoolers, because I imagined myself back in school and how I didn't want to be told no on a piece of my work. But I eventually realized that I will never know who these students are that will not have their pieces included. I felt I could be a little more harsh on my decisions.
It was fun reading these pieces and seeing what they find important to write about. I remember myself in high school and writing about similar things because that was the only world I knew.
After this experience, I realize now how much I and my writing has grown since high school. I appreciate how much I've been pushed to continue my writing.

Experiences in Editing

For the past few weeks we've been working hard to pick submissions for Dust and Fire and it's been a fun experience. I'm one of those people who have a hard time saying no to anything, but I found it was easy to do that with these submissions. As with other groups, there were probably those obvious "no" pieces, and absolute "yes" pieces. I was afraid that I would not say no to enough pieces. (I remember I said no to an entire packet that was still on its first read.) We obvious had too many prose pieces in the end and had a dificult time narrowing it down to what we now have.
It was hard to decide what exactly was a no or a yes. I felt like I was using a mental number scale while rating each piece. Like 1 was a no and 10 was a yes. On a lot of pieces I felt like giving it a 7 or 8, or maybe a 3 or 4 and there was a lot of 5s. I felt that those pieces could have gone in there or they didn't and I had to look at it again and force myself to decide. Or I waited until other people said yes or no to make my decision.
It's hard being a first-timer because I'm unsure of what exactly we all want in the anthology. I guess I say that because I'm not a big advocate for much. That's probably makes me sounds boring, and if it does, too bad. If I absolute love something then I'll say something, but other than that, I don't care much. I look for things that I am interested in, things that I haven't experienced before. I enjoy learning new things. For example, there was a piece set in Duluth, MN. I was born there and have lived in or around Duluth for most of my life. I wasn't as interested in the piece as other submissions. Same as stories about winter, the outdoors or Bemidji. Don't get me wrong, if the writing was beautiful, I did enjoy it but not as much as others.

Grandma or the Dog? The Dog Wins

I decided to wait until after class this time to write about the piece I picked (even though we should before). The reason being that I really could not choose between the two. I choose "Stoplestad" to discuss in class probably because the dog. But as we talked about the piece in class I started to see why else I loved the piece.

First off, because of the 2nd person point of view. That pulled me in and put me into the position of the officer but also kept me at a distance. I felt like I was the one who shot the dog. And when the father told the officer that the dog was still alive after being shot, I felt like I was punched in the stomach.And again during the verbal attack/threat on the officer, I felt I was the who was being threatened.
There was a good point brought up by our group; it was the abuse of the boy by the father. The father didn't quite treat the son as a loving father would.  Like pushing the boy around, exposing the boy to killing the dog or teaching him about killing it the "right" way.
As mentioned in class, the verbal attack from the father on the officer was a lot stronger than any physical attack, especially in the second person point of view. 
Another reason why I love this piece is the element of sadness and sympathy teh reader feels for the dog. Maybe this was just for me because I'm an animal lover.

"This Dream The World Is Having About Itself" By Carolyne Wright

It was really hard to choose between these two poems. I first read "This Dream The World Is Having About Itself" and then had to read the other because I didn't really understand it at first. I reread both a few times and decided I enjoyed this one the most.
The thing I like most about "This Dream The World Is Having About Itself" is the lines/stanza breaks. The sentences continue to the next stanza but if you look at one stanza, there is meaning behind each part. For example:

"we were sisters at the prairie's edge: I
who dreamed between sage-green pages, and you

a girl who feared you'd die in you twenties.
Both of us barefoot, wearing light summer

dresses from the Thirties, our mother's good
old days, when she still believed she could live"

You can see it in the lines here. I especially like that last part "when she believed she could still live". These line/stanza breaks give the piece something, some character,  that I love.
I also love the moving through decades. We cover a lot of time in this poem but it works for the piece.

Let's see what everyone else thinks in class.

"How to Succeed in Po Biz" By Kim Addonizio

What I really loved about this piece was the humor and where it came from. This author has obviously experienced first hand what she writes about in this piece. 
I summarized this as a how-to piece using past experiences to explain to new writers what the publishing business is like. I love the approach used in writing this piece. I have not written and probably will not write poetry, but I assume the publishing business is very similar for any genre.
I'm finding that what I am trying to say about this piece is hard to put into words but I'll try. The author puts us into her shoes as she goes through her journey of being a poet.
As I said before, I love the humor she writes into this piece. There are quite a few passages that I really enjoyed and the images that come along with parts of the piece were hilarious.

I may try to write again about this later. For now this I what I feel the reasons may be for publishing this piece.