It’s so nice to be featured by the department for both publications and my nomination.

The Doer: The Department of English & Rhetoric Newsletter
Issue 4.2: 1 December 2011

This might be a nerdy thing to advertise, but I am proud of it, so I am going to share it. For the first time, I have been featured in a department newsletter because of my recent publications. Here is the link:

The Doer: The Department of English & Rhetoric Newsletter
Issue 13: 1 September 2011

I hope that I have more publication news to report soon. Right now, I am proud to share that I have received three personalized rejection letters in the past two weeks. It’s so good to hear that many of my poems are close to being accepted! I am staying optimistic and re-submitting to different magazines immediately after hearing results. It’s just about finding the right market and home for these poems.

If you haven’t already, you should check out the new and improved Poetry section of www.rachelm.com . It has been blank for way too long, and now I’m very excited that it’s beginning to fill up.

I first submitted poems during my senior year at UNC-Asheville. During my time at NAU, I was much more focused on scholarly papers and presentations than submitting creatively. I submitted during my time here at GCSU, but sporadically, usually when a big contest came up or I had a journal recommended to me. When I found out that I would be only teaching part-time here at Georgia College, I said that there was no excuse— time to submit like a crazy person. So I started, and it’s already paying off.

I plan to devote at least one day a week to submitting. So far this week, I’m at a total of about nine hours and fourteen submissions in. Simply sorting through the journals/magazines is what takes up most of the time. It’s so important to figure out where your work fits in, what the guidelines are, etc. I hope to submit to six more over the next two hours. I’m not sure I’ll make it, but that’s why I keep a list, so it’s easy to pick up where I left off tomorrow.

Submission season officially starts Sept. 1st, once schools are in session. But that’s why I’m trying to submit as much as possible before the real season, so that I am able to knock out both the out-of-season and in-season markets. I am casting a wide net, using the large body of poetry I’ve accumulated during my writing time of the last five years, and I hope to keep reporting publications on an increasingly regular basis.

Thanks for all of your support.