Let It Fly

A challenge and a resource created with Callie Feyen and Megan Willome

The first time I remember submitting my writing for publication, I was around 11 years old. There was a poetry contest and I hammered out some simple rhymes, sealed them in a hopeful envelope, and sent my heart off in the mail.

I didn’t yet know how foolish creativity was. My child-heart believed there was a need in the world that my poems might fill, and I remember what it felt like to send my words out in hope, without any doubting. I remember the joy of possibility and the great burst of flowering imagination that saw the world in ordered verse. Every day I trekked barefoot across the gravel to pull the flap of our mailbox and see what good news may have appeared, addressed to me, asking for more.

There was never a response from the magazine that received my submissions and it would be thirty years before I tried again.

Nowadays I embrace the foolishness of creativity for its own sake, but I also send my heart out to the world regularly, via this Substack and places like Cultivating Oaks Press and Fathom, in hopes my words might be a little spade in the hand of God. I believe He wants you to laugh and cry and hope and imagine and see and shake your head in absolute awe, so I write toward that end.

The great thing about submitting work in the 21st century (as opposed to “the 1900s”, as my youngest would say) is that I don’t have to walk barefoot across the gravel to see if my words merited any response. Most online publications are very gracious to send an email and helpful feedback.

Sometimes the words land. Sometimes they circle for months and return to find a home here on my Substack. Almost always they come back to me with very insightful wisdom from editors whose eyes I am honored to have on my work, even if the words didn’t quite land for them. If my hope is to get better, submitting my work is one way to learn. Even rejections work in my favor.

Like anything good, submitting work for a publisher’s consideration requires bravery and consistency, accountability and a plan. My brilliant friends

Callie R. Feyen

and Megan Willome invited me to work on a little project with them called Let It Fly, and we created a workbook for you to track places to send your words, deadlines for submissions, ideas and goals, and more. We hope it’s a tool that inspires you to “let it fly” and see what might happen, without pressure or a long walk across hot rocks.

The 12 page workbook is $10 and is set up for quarterly use, with pages you can reprint as needed. Because the three of us were born in the 1900s, our technology is old school—when you sign up there may be a short wait time before the workbook lands in your inbox.

Paid subscribers: I am sending you each a free copy of Let It Fly as a small thank you for your encouragement.

We hope you’ll be equipped and encouraged to let your work fly into the world, and the three of us are being brave right alongside you.