August 7, 2025
Baltimore Review News: The journal had two Zoom meetings in the past week. (I gave up the whole Doodle poll thing a while back—now meetings are more like Zoom office hours for any staff members who are available.) What do we during these “office hours”? There’s always a brief time for the business/administrative items: updates on our financial status (what’s in the checking account, recent income and expenses), any nonprofit reporting, Submittable statistics, staff updates, upcoming events, blog ideas, social media updates, nominations we should take care of, etc.—and then on to the more directly writing-related business. Or the art and craft, not business, side. We talk generally about any issues or trends we’re seeing in submissions, topics like AI and legal concerns, and frequently seen stumbling blocks in the writing, as well as what we find stunning. Maybe more importantly, what we think our readers will find stunning. Then we take some time to look at submissions together. We do this all the time, remotely, on our own, and we can interact with each other in Submittable, but it’s good to share our thoughts in a live session. I share my screen and we read and discuss some poems. For prose, sometimes we look at the first page or two and note what we’ve observed. Sometimes we’ll add a “Read Later” label if we want to come back to a piece later.
Working together from locations around the world is amazing. I try to vary meeting times so that we get to see each other now and then from our various time zones.
Nailed down our AWP table yesterday. We’re T623, a corner table. Yes! And we’ll definitely have a table at the Baltimore Book Festival in mid-September. And before, one of our staff members, Claire Zhang, will be hosting a summer issue launch part in New York later this month.
On a personal note: I had a couple of flash fictions accepted by Sky Island Journal recently. I love the look of their site, and I look forward to seeing my stories there in late October. Also, three poems to be published in Bay to Ocean Journal, published by the Eastern Shore Writers Association. And Maryland’s Eastern Shore is a place dear to my heart.
Another generative writing opportunity I’ve been enjoying: the Poets & Writers Groups Monday morning “The Time Is Now” Zoom sessions. Our gracious P&W host Nicole Puglise gives us a brief time for a craft discussion then we launch into a 15-minute writing prompt time. It’s a friendly group, about six to eight of us usually—and free. A productive, half-hour or so of writing time to kickstart the week.
Hope your reading and writing week is excellent!