 Melange Creperie Thursday, August 1, 2019
By Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman originally posted on my blog site: https://lifemadeofwords.blogspot.com/2019/08/defunkt-magazine-launch-party.html Defunkt Magazine began as a way for me and my fellow editors to do what we wanted. The magazine that we had all worked for previously made it hard for us to do what we wanted. Houston has such large literary, art, music, comedy, and performance communities it didn't make sense that they all didn't interact more. Thus our amazing co-editors Miranda Ramirez and Chris Flakus created Defunkt. We had been working since April marketing our submissions, launch party, creating merchandise to make our magazine a success. The day of the launch everyone was on edge. I had to drop off my family at the airport that morning at 7 AM followed by my 9-5 at Writers in the Schools. I gripped the mug of my latte trying to chug it all down before we started setting up. The traffic coming up to the Heights was ridiculous and set everyone back on timing. However, when the event started it was an out-of-body experience. The place was completely packed. We had filled the inside, patio, and back seating area of the Creperie with people who wanted to see us succeed. It was surreal. People who I had viewed as unattainable because of their fame and status in the community had become friends. This launch couldn't have been as successful as it was without the help of the people in this community. I am so eternally grateful for them. The food was amazing. Crepes, coffee, booze, and poetry? I couldn't have thought of a better combination. Our line-up of performers including Lupe Mendez, Joshua Nguyen, and Obi Umezeor moved us with their words. We had artists and musicians come and showcase their talents. The night was beyond anything I could've hoped for. A great thanks to everyone. In the meantime, you can submit your work to [email protected] and come to our next event!
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 Originally published here! Since I first heard of Glass Mountain, I knew about Write-A-Thon. Through my fiction editor and my friends in the upper staff, Write-A-Thon was always there, but no one attended. As the years move forward and my involvement with the magazine grew, so did our November fundraiser. If you weren’t with us last year, here’s what you missed and what you can expect for this year, starting most importantly with free food! First and foremost, it wouldn’t be a Glass Mountain event without amazing (free) food.
Craft Talks: if there’s something I can’t get enough of, it’s craft talks. Part of being a writer for me is the understanding of craft itself. I’m a history major as well as a writer and I’ve had this deep-rooted obsession with understanding how things work and why. Studying craft is a way for me to structure my writing and understand the way words move in this language. Last year, Write-A-Thon hosted some of the best and brightest from the UH Creative Writing Program. Cait Weiss-Orcutt, Jon Meyer, and Rachel Ballenger facilitated exceptional discussions that included original writing prompts. Cait Weiss Orcutt gave great insight on using personal experiences in poetry by utilizing language to world-build within your pieces. Poems have parameters, unique ways of creating and using space in our minds, and she helped us develop ideas through the prompts given in the session. I talked with her after the masterclass ended; we stood in the hall, and I wanted her advice. She talked about writing from a place of discomfort in the talk, but I was still struggling on how to write about my past. I won’t forget the advice she gave me. She said to hunker down and write it—don’t worry about it being good or even poetry—and begin by tapping into that dark place and writing it out. I sat down and started writing and although what I wrote never turned into anything, I did pull some of the material for other projects. One of the characters I fleshed out became the main character of my story Under the Pink which is being published through chapbook in December. Jon Meyer was our enthusiastic fiction teacher. I had the honor of introducing him before his class began. I’ve always been a fan of Jon. I’d seen him read with Gulf Coast and the University plenty of times and I really connect with his characters in his stories. He has an effortless grasp of craft that shines through his readings and I completely envy it. He broke down fiction to its bare bones by taking something as simple as going to the dentist and othering it. His talk focused on defamiliarization and strangeness, and he encouraged the group of writers to tackle everyday life this way. The prompt was to take an object, a place, or a ritual of any kind that we think of as usual and other it using language and craft. I ended up writing a little snippet about the necklace I wear around my neck. The pendants are a collection of Arabic prayers and good luck charms my mother and grandmother give me. Breaking it down to its bare bones and making it something unfamiliar helped me realize that in my writing I can do the same thing to the objects or rituals I have in the story. I love to write magical realism and surrealism, so this talk opened my eyes to new techniques on how to write better in these genres. By first breaking down the object or character that holds the magic into something simple and personal and then using language to build that personal element into something magical that represents something bigger within the story thematically. Rachel Ballenger was our last speaker of the day. Her talk centered on nonfiction—precisely, how to be comfortable writing nonfiction. She placed emphasis on the fact that you can use flowery language within nonfiction pieces and there are ways to do it well so that you’re deriving from personal or others’ stories rather than retelling life. People cling to the exciting parts of a story and not the mundane of everyday life. I remember this talk specifically because I got to tap into some source material. The writers around me were so eager to share their backstories, and it inspired me to keep writing. That year I was focused on writing about my mixed heritage, and this craft talk helped me break through the mind-numbing writer’s block. The free-write time was the most useful in the scheduling because I could then take what I learned in the craft talks and implement it into old stories, new stories, or random scenes I wanted to put into future pieces. I combined what I had learned during all of the craft talks, and during the final free write, I typed an entire story (three pages—so not long). The day was rounded off with a small reading, where the bravest of souls would read their first drafts out loud. I remember reading a poem I’d written about not being able to visit my mother’s land, Iraq. This experience was nerve-racking for me. I’m open about my background, but I’d never written about that experience until then. The reading built my confidence in writing about my family. It was at Write-A-Thon 2017 that I wrote the first draft of the piece that would end up being my first publication Naming the Stars. Through the talks and being able to one-on-one with the master's students in such a relaxed setting, I was able to formulate and craft the story. I wouldn’t have this story or this publication without Write-A-Thon in 2017, and I’m excited to see what this year’s Write-A-Thon has in store.  I've been asked frequently from my writer and artists friends how to get published. I can honestly say there is no right way to do it. I submit a piece 20-30 times through various literary journals before I get any feedback whatsoever let alone an acceptance. My fiction does not fit the archetype of traditional publishing, so fitting my work with the right publication is a process. To all who ask I just say: keep submitting. Your piece isn't going to get published in your first, fifth, or maybe even hundredth submission. That's how publishing works, it's much more beneficial finding the right outlet to publish your work versus giving up. Naming the Stars was rejected countless times before I found a call for submissions that fit the theme of diaspora.
The editing process is another big problem within publication. Most journals aren't going to sit and comb through your piece for line edits or plot holes. Your piece needs to be publishing ready the second you turn it in. If its a matter of your grammatical differences moving away from a magazine or a journal that has strict grammatical requirements may be necessary. I use grammar in my style of writing and play with it constantly and I've been rejected because of it. Finding the publication that is going to work for you and your piece is key. Being rejected is a part of the journey of a writer and just because you were rejected should not discourage you from submitting or writing. |
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