Sandra Gail Lambert

Bridges and Borders - Jane's Stories Press Foundation's Upcoming Anthology

Bridges and Borders is the Jane's fourth anthology.  (And I'll be included!)  It's almost ready to go, but they could use a last bit of cash.  Here's their Kickstarter site.  Donate because Jane's Stories has done so many years of worthy, much needed work to promote women's writing .  Donate because the sultry-voiced Glenda in the video below tells you to.  (Really, doesn't her voice make you want to purr.) And donate because you'll end up getting to read all these stories. 

Yaddo! Happy Freakin' 60th Birthday to Me.

It was like being a senior in High School waiting for news about colleges.  I was at the mailbox, expecting the rejection like always these past four years, ready with my Plan B of putting together some sort of on-my-own writing retreat this summer, and I saw the envelope with Yaddo's return address.  "That is a big envelope," I thought.  I held it awhile.  It was big and it had heft.  I slit open the top and slid the papers out past the letterhead, date, my return address, and the salutation.  The phrase "pleased to invite you" came into view. 

So in June, a few days after my 60th birthday, I'll be heading to Saratoga Springs for a six week residency at Yaddo. (For my non-writer friends - this is a big deal.  Check out the list of alumni.) 

All of you writers with Yaddo experience, especially any of you who use wheelchairs, send advice my way.  And such big thanks to you alumni who provided references.  

Arts & Letters

Let me, a little writing mouse who keeps pushing those levers hoping for a pellet, tell you that intermittent reinforcement is powerful, exciting, and perhaps even addictive. My most recent pellet has arrived in the form of an acceptance from Arts & Letters.

This was my first ever not-just-sent-through-the-slush-pile-and-wait-four-months-to-hear-back submission. What happened was that I participated in a group reading at a conference (Jane's Stories Retreat), an editor from Arts & Letters heard me, she asked me to send her something, I did, and voila, eight days later it was accepted. Freaky, huh? And I have to thank Jane's Stories Press Foundation for all their support.

Anyway, I'm a happy rodent.

 

The Fourth River: A Journal of Nature and Environmental Writing

The Fourth River has just published my short story "Marine Biology."  Here's an excerpt. 

Roxanne has lost track of the conversation.  She hates having hot flashes in front of the students.  She imagines the arctic seas, the pool at the hotel where they'll be staying, the beach, and braces for the post-flash anxiety.  This time it is more sadness than anything.  It separates her as if she were in a one-person submarine with a single portal that giant squid bump into and stare at her with their sideways eyes.  She is never going to be a marine biologist.  It's too late.  For the first time Roxanne understands that choices have been made.  There's no longer enough time for everything.  Her knees weaken with the grief of it, and she reaches for the desk.   

Here's how it happened.  In July, 2009 I took a short story workshop with Lauren Groff that produced the beginnings of this story.  By February, 2010 it was done enough to submit to Fourth River.  In June, 2010 they accepted it.  And just now, October, 2011, it was published.  Yep, it takes awhile.   

Ready. Set. Submit!

It's September, the start of another season of journal submissions. Here are some of my own statistics to bolster us.  The piece accepted into The North American Review - rejected 28 times by other places.  The Fourth River - previously rejected 22 times.  The Alaska Quarterly Review - only 2 times.  The essay in the anthology Something to Declare - 18 times.  Blue Crow Magazine - 17 times.  Right now I have a story floating around with twelve rejections and five of them have been a you-made-it-to-the-final-round or something similar.  (These are the ones where I yell "just publish the friggin' thing" at the e-mail.)  

So often other writers tell me "well, I sent my story out a couple of times, but it got rejected so I guess that's that."  And mostly, it's women who say this.  And they say it in a sad voice.  Screw sadness, I say to you and to myself.  Submit widely and often.            

The North American Review

 
Did you know that the North American Review is the oldest literary journal in the United States?  That it was founded in 1815 by Nathan Hale (the nephew namesake of the "but one life to give" guy)?  And did you know that they want to publish one of my pieces! 

It's the essay about kayaking in the Everglades and looking for lesbian love.  Do you think Mr. Hale is resting easy?   

The Alaska Quarterly Review

Here's the contributors' list for the just-released issue.  Scroll down and yes, right there, that's my name.  "Rolling in the Mud," my essay about Paynes Prairie, has found a home.   

I Have an Agent!

 
 Or is it that "my novel has representation."  Or am I "handled" by an agent?  (No, that makes me seem like a troublesome basketball star.)  Anyway, I need to figure out the lingo so I can be all professionally casual.  But right now, there's no casual.  All those cliches about being excited - that's me.  Each time I say "my agent," goosebumps and giggling follow.    

So check out Joan Timberlake.  She's my agent. 

P.S. Obviously, this photo is so not of me.  It's of Aaron Fotheringham.      

Cream City Review

Aliesa Zoecklein, poet, is now published in Cream City Review !  Do you have a writer friendship where you invest yourselves in each other's work, where it is totally okay to rush over to her house and thrust a revision in her face, where her successes are as important as your own, where when you look at the Cream City Review Table of Contents with her name listed you just want to pee yourself in excitement?  Well, today is a Maxi-Depends day for me.   

The Fourth River - Another Acceptance!!!

Almost a year ago at the Anhinga Writers' Studio Workshop, I took a series of short story classes taught by Lauren Groff.  They were fabulous, and right there in the conference room I started a story.  By October, I thought it was ready to send out.  In November, I saw that it wasn't really and worked more.  During February, I sent it to The Fourth River, and today they accepted it.  In writing world time, this all went quite quickly.  

The Fourth River wants "writings that are richly situated at the confluence of place, space and identity, or that reflect upon or make use of landscape and place in new ways ." 

This is exactly what I try to do.

Lavanderia Wins!

Lavanderia: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Words, an anthology edited by Donna J. Watson, Michelle Sierra, and Lucia Gbaya-Kanga, (and in which I am included) just won a San Diego Book Awards Association award. 

These editors sure deserve it.  They worked hard to select and then pull together a wide-raging collection of writing.  Yay for them. 

Remember the essay about Paynes Prairie that I was working on?

It has been accepted for publication in the Alaska Quarterly Review. (Did you hear the series of high-C squeals coming from my house at 11:09 pm last night?) 

Year's Best Lesbian Fiction 2009

It seems that the writing life continues even when one isn't, at the moment, maybe tomorrow it might happen, actually writing. 

The editors of Collective Fallout submitted my story,The Swamp Goddess, to be considered for the Year's Best Lesbian Fiction 2009, and it made the cut.  Look for it this summer.   

Blue Crow Magazine

Yep, this week I'm published.  Blue Crow Magazine's premier issue is out.  Order one now.  Join the Blue Crow Facebook group and leave comments about what you read.  Congratulate me as much as you would like.  It's a good week for a little bit of success.   

Blue Crow Magazine

It won't be available for a week or so, but here's a preview of the cover.  It's beautiful, isn't it?  These Blue Crow guys are doing a great job.  And if you squint, see, there's my name in the list of contributors. 

 

They Love Me in Australia

Blue Crow Magazine, a print journal originating in Australia but through the wonders of POD available everywhere, has accepted a piece of my writing!  It will be out in April.  Do not fear, I will saturate your air waves with the news. 

Here's a link to an article about this phenomenom of "a generation of tech-savvy, culture-minded writers have spawned a wave of DIY [do-it-yourself] presses not unlike the alternative record labels that once energized the music world." 

My reaction was similar to Tayari Jones' tweet on the subject - "So when marginalized ppl do it, it's self-publishing, but when MFAs do it, it's Indie-Lit."   

Whatever.  I have a color-coded chart of all my submissions, and it is way fun to change green (pending submissions) to blue (acceptances) instead of red (rejections).   

Blatant self-aggrandizement - but I need a little right now.

 
"Another standout story is Sandra Gail Lambert's “Looking for the V,” a short story written about a group of friends—two lesbian couples and one single woman in a wheelchair—who embark on a weekend kayaking trip. This story describes the peace that comes with being single, traveling down a wide stretch of river, and learning how to appreciate what you have. It shows how living in the moment brings much joy to the heart."

Jenny Greenfield's review of Something to Declare in the Feminist Review does talk about more than just me, me, me.  Check it out.   

Lavanderia - A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Word

Yippee.  Lavanderia - A Mixed Load of Women, Wash and Word is an anthology of written/spoken word and photography from City Works Press, and it includes a piece of my writing.    

Although I haven't actually seen a copy yet, anything that "highlights the universal ritual and common interaction of people, places, and things found between loads of laundry" and has chapter headings such as "Hose Stroll," "Dirty Deeds," and "Rocks and Rivers" has much promise.  

Here's a mini-excerpt from my contribution to the anthology:

Two arms snaked around her neck, overlapped on her chest, and tightened.  "Jesus loves you" was a whisper in her ear, and the moistness of the woman's breath dripped onto Ivy's neck.  Controlling the urge to bite the woman's flesh down to the bone, Ivy sunk only her nails into the soft forearms and held on as the woman tried to escape.  Ivy turned her head to bring their faces close. 

"Fuck you bitch, and fuck Jesus.  Touch me again and I'll call the cops. 

P.S. I can't make this blog editor put an accent over the "i" in Lavenderia.  Sorry.

  

Collective Fallout

 

Collective Fallout is an upcoming, print journal "dedicated to queer themed sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and mysteries."  And they have accepted a story of mine for their first issue.  When I know the release date, you'll know the release date.

Lately I've been awash, well in many ways, but especially in rejections.  I'm sure Pavlov would have something to say about how just one acceptance every now and then makes me go all yippy. 

Women's Wonderlands

 

Publishing works in geologic time.  And acceptances have more layers than I ever knew. 

University of Wisconsin Press called for submissions to an anthology - Women's Wonderlands: Good Lesbian Travel Writing.  I sent off an essay, and it was accepted by an editor.  I was excited.  Then it needed to be approved by another editor.  I was worried.  That worked out and then a committee needed to approve it.  The book, with me in it, passed.  I celebrated.

And now, it seems, as I should have known, there was one last committee.  And "outside readers." It turns out everyone approves, the outside readers raved, and the original editor says we should "break out the bubbly."  It's almost a year after that first acceptance, and the planned pub date is Fall 2009.

She did caution that there could still be changes.  Another committee?  You really do have to open your hands and let the wind take the pages, don't you?