Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Write about what you know: Being a Girl

As you know, at New Moon we believe that girls are the LEADING experts when it comes to, well, being girls. Our friends at Girl Child Press feel the same way. In fact, they're collecting stories from girls to publish in their new book, Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta! See their submission guidelines below -- and then share your talent with them!

Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta!

The latest offering from GirlChild Press is intended to be a rough and tumble, sassy, wickedly clever anthology.

Just Like a Girl is meant to highlight the clever girls, the funny girls, the girls who don’t ask for permission and take up as much room as they like. She is the girl who knows there is no sin in being born one; and that in spite of all evidence and current belief systems girl/woman does not equal weak.

Said girl doesn’t have to be a super hero, but she has hit a few balls out of the park, called out a couple trash talking construction workers, and took a few racist, homophobic, misogynistic folks to task. Ultimately, she knows how to pick herself up and brush herself off.

She’s a feminist. 2nd Wave. 3rd Wave. No Wave.
She’s high maintenance.
She has read the Patriot Act. She understands it.
She recognizes that people’s lives fall apart, but with time and some Elmer’s glue it all works itself out.

She’s an urban girl. A country girl.
She lives in a square state. A blue state. A red state.

She seriously ponders what are the SAT scores of those girls grinding in the music videos. She is the girl in the music video.

She has the perfect plan on how to break up with a boyfriend.
She’s a 25th century girl.
She knows the words to Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly.
She is a cashier at WALMART.
She’s the second chair flute in her 8th grade band.
She marches on Washington
She has 6,000 friends on myspace.com

She writes for herself. She writes for her sister. She writes for the girls still not born.

Think of Just Like a Girl as a travelogue for the bumpy, powerful, action packed world of girlhood.

Tell a secret.
Reveal a lie
Go tell it on the mountain.
You get the point.
So cast a net and see what the day’s catch brings

Submission Details

Deadline: September 30, 2007

The anthology is open to any subject matter.
Work is especially welcomed from new and emerging writers.
Contributors may submit up to three pieces.
Essays and short stories should be no longer than 3,000 words.
Poems should have the contributor’s name on each page
Sci-fi is encouraged!

Electronic Mail
Send your work to girlchildpress@aol.com
Attachments should be titled with your name and the email subject should be Just Like a Girl.

Snail mail
Michelle Sewell
GirlChild Press
PO Box 93
Hyattsville, MD 20781

Please include a brief bio and a mailing address.

Contributors will receive a copy of the anthology and the opportunity to read at the official Spring 2008 booksigning.

For more information on Michelle Sewell and the press check out www.girlchildpress.com


michelle
www.girlchildpress.com

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This poem hurt my feelings. It said, "She seriously ponders what are the SAT scores of those girls grinding in the music videos." I think that's awful! Not all girls in dancing videos are dumb, I dance every day and I'm considered 'smart'!

New Moon said...

I'm really sorry the examples given hurt your feelings. I don't think it was meant to be an insult -- the next line says, "She is the girl in the music videos," meaning that girls are really diverse. I have no doubt that you're both smart and a great dancer!

Anonymous said...

I think that the sentence: "She seriously ponders what are the SAT scores of those girls grinding in the music videos" means that girls see more than a pretty face. They see the pretty face and the great dancing AND they know that girl also probably has a family, a college degree, a favorite seafood, a pet cat, etc.