the art of the bio
& round-up
Happy Monday, folks!
Here’s what I have for you today:
Housekeeping
Opportunities
The art of the bio
Call to action
What I’m reading
Quotations
Tweets
Housekeeping:
I have a poem out!
& my birthday is in less than a week
and I love presents always. Here’s my Amazon wishlist. Please buy me gifts, if you want. Love you.
My efforts to clean out my bookshelves continue.
I hope you’ll consider buying 5 books for $30 on my website. These purchases enable me to pay The West Review contributors & thus give back to other writers where I can.
Opportunities:
Call for submissions (short stories, poems, nonfiction): Consequence | pay: $40-$80 per piece
Jessica Abrahams @jiabrahams: Very excited to be commissioning stories as a Guest Editor for @Narratively! I'm looking for long-form journalism on a range of topics - including personal essays, sub-cultures, and secret lives. That crazy story you've always wanted to tell? Now's your chance...I'm open to all ideas, from all parts of the world, but the key is that it should be a story you can really bring to life, with characters and scenes and a narrative arc. It's best if you can outline how you'll do this but if you're not sure, pitch me anyway - If the right idea is there, we might be able to work on it together. Rates start at $1000 and the deadline to send your pitch is July 26. DM me for my email address or submit your idea via my website jessicaabrahams.com Not familiar with Narratively? It's a platform for narrative non-fiction and it publishes *amazing* stories. [see thread for examples] (July 8)
The art of the bio:
Today, I’m offering you a chapter of my ebook Publishing Poems: An Easy Guide.
Recently,
I went over how to write a strong cover letter.
Now, I’ll be giving a lil guidance about writing a strong bio, in case that’s any help to you.
Here goes!
What’s a bio?
Bios are a short and quick snapshot, contextualizing your work and giving editors an idea of where you are in your career.
Will this be your first publication? Cool.
Are you an astrophysicist? Nice.
Do you usually write fiction? Neat.
Do you already have ten books published? Right on.
The general rule is that bios should be between 50-100 words in length and written in the third person.
Here are two fill-in-the-blank outlines of professional/succinct bios:
[Your name] is the author of [Chapbook/Book Name] ([Publisher Name, Year]) and has also been published in [Impressive Journal], [Well-Known-Journal], and [Journal-We’ve-At-Least-Probably-Heard-Of]. She lives in [City, State], where she works as a [job title].
[City] native [Your name] ([your pronouns]) has poems forthcoming in [Impressive Journal], [Well-Known-Journal], [Journal-We’ve-At-Least-Probably-Heard-Of], and others. She is an MFA candidate in [genre] at [Name of University].
Or, here’s an example of how a bio might look if you have absolutely no publication history:
A graduate of UC Berkeley, Jane Doe works as a copywriter in Albany, California, where she lives with her husband and sons.
Tips:
Be wary of adding extraneous information that
isn’t tonally appropriate/professional
doesn’t contextualize your writing/career
Be wary of including unknown journals within your bio.
Note that both examples above recommend listing previous publications like this: “[Writer] has been published in [Impressive Journal], [Well-Known-Journal], and [Journal-We’ve-At-Least-Probably-Heard-Of],” ergo:
Including your school’s tiny undergraduate publication—or a mention of a journal that has absolutely no name recognition—can make you look a lil clueless.
Call to action:
Look back at your own bio. Is there a way you might be able to strengthen it?
What I read this week:
What I’m reading now:
The Cancer Journals, Audre Lorde
Quotations:
Our feelings need voice in order to be recognized, respected, and of use.
-Audre Lorde
I do not wish my anger and pain and fear about cancer to fossilize into yet another silence.
-Audre Lorde
Silence has never brought us anything of worth.
-Audre Lorde
I’m not feeling very hopeful these days, about selfhood or anything else.
-Audre Lorde
Pain fills me like a puspocket and every touch threatens to breech the taut membrane that keeps it from flowing through and poisoning my whole existence.
-Audre Lorde
Help me to remember what I have paid so much to learn. I could die of difference, or live—myriad selves.
-Audre Lorde
In the gallery today ugly images of women offering up distorted bodies for whatever fantasy passes in the name of male art. Gargoyles of pleasure.
-Audre Lorde
I do believe not until every woman traces her weave back strand by bloody self-referenced strand, will we begin to alter the whole pattern.
-Audre Lorde
I must let this pain flow through me and pass on. If I resist or try to stop it, it will detonate inside me, shatter me, splatter my pieces against every wall and person that I touch.
-Audre Lorde
Without community there is certainly no liberation, no future.
-Audre Lorde
I want to write rage but all that comes is sadness.
-Audre Lorde
I carry death around in my body like a condemnation. But I do live.
-Audre Lorde
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether or not I am unafraid.
-Audre Lorde
What I most regretted were my silences.
-Audre Lorde
I spent the last ten years enjoying a lot. I had a lot of fun. I had a LOT of joy. I did cool things. …Acting again. Writing two books. Becoming small-time instagram famous. It’s all very cool and impressive looking on paper, isn’t it? I look very impressive from the outside with my little blue checkmark I cared about getting so much, and my two published books. And my 200K+ instagram followers… before I realized it was a trap and a cage.
Enough people like my books, sure, and that’s amazing. And I’ve supported myself for a few years with writing, which is also amazing. But I am constantly on the verge of never making money again.
Hi I’m sorry that if I have to think about branding and packaging my beliefs up into a book again with a little bow I will THROW UP.
You can make a shrine out of anything.
-Florence Welch
I wish that I could just be brave.
-Florence Welch
If you could only see the beast you’ve made of me.
-Florence Welch
I can hear your bones / singing into mine.
-Sara Eliza Johnson
The storm grows louder and louder
like a fear.
-Sara Eliza Johnson
Each atom in each cell will remember
the body it had made in this place, this time,
long after the rain flushes the river
to flood, long after this morning
when the country wakes to another war,
when two people wake in a house
and do not touch each other.
-Sara Eliza Johnson
At the edge of the valley,
wild hyacinths,
violet ones, scythe
through the shadows.
-Sara Eliza Johnson
This must be
what love is:
a pain so radiant
it cuts through all others.
-Sara Eliza Johnson
She lay on the ocean
blue carpet.
-Ely Shipley
Tweets:
That’s all for today.
& stay healthy, sane, & keep looking out for each other—
-Despy Boutris
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Note: I am aware that C.D. is deeply imperfect. I find white women’s bizarre fear of ~cancel culture~ & ~the mob mentality~ to be. . .suspicious, at best—and also generally pretty tellling. And the, like, the antivax thing is obviously frightening. These quotes are good, though—so let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Also, I love reddit.
Mood.
Also kind of a mood.