DENA ROD

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Introducing...Dispatches from Dena!

Dena Rod

Mermaid Avatar by Rachael Pattillo

[Image Description: The cartoon face of a person with light brown skin, curly black hair, fuschia lipstick, and a silver septum ring is in front of a gradient mermaid scale background in teal blue]

Hi lovelies! In a move some might call ten years too late, I’m starting a blog right here on my website denarod.com! Here you will find essays, stories, anecdotes, poems, advice, or really anything and everything I feel like writing about. This will also be a space for me to hold myself accountable for anything and everything to do with writing projects.

While I’m still working on getting my writing posted in other avenues and platforms, the publishing process can still take longer than ideally expected. In our current, harried landscape of COVID-19 isolation, I still crave connecting with those of you who I don’t see on a daily basis anymore.

Photo by NORTHFOLK on Unsplash

{Image Description: A white paged planner sits against a grey deskstop. A gold pen lays left of the planner while a wooden bowl holds a few paperclips.]

What goals am I trying to hold myself accountable for? Well LET ME TELL YOU!

  1. Submit to the Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program

    • I’ve been looking at this program for over a year now and now it’s time to just APPLY! Honestly, I feel like I’m at the best point in my career to be a candidate and definitely a stronger candidate than I was this time last year. I’ve published my first chapbook, swallow a beginning, which sold out of its first print run of 100 copies! I toured with Sister Spit before COVID-19 & shelter-in-place orders canceled our CA leg of tour.

      Deadline: early bird May 29 // final deadline June 26

  2. Submit to Blood Orange Review

    • This journal has been on my radar since last year’s AWP but I’m…not the best when it comes to meeting deadlines. That’s okay! We’re all working on becoming better people every day. I even missed BOR’s deadline this year of May 1st but then they extended it until May 15th! Talk about third chances.

      Deadline: May 15

  3. Pitch my poetry manuscript to presses & find presses who are a good fit for me as well!

    • Some of you may know that I spent the majority of 2019 finalizing a manuscript for my first poetry collection. While the final manuscript formed into something that is not quite my initial vision, I’m still immensely proud of the poems and want them to be out there for people to read! My chapbook project showed me that people will pay money for my poetry and I shouldn’t discount that. I’ve already submitted to Nomadic Press and milk and cake press, and have my eyes on Manic D Press as well! I also want to find presses whose mission aligns with mine because I think there I will find the most synergy and success!

      Deadline??? this is the hard part because it’s hard to keep myself accountable for things that don’t have any hard deadlines. SO I’m giving myself until June 30 to submit to three more presses. Submissions fees tend to pile up so I need to space them out.

I know that I can meet these goals, especially since I’ve proven to myself that I can stick to a challenge. This past April, I participated in #NationalPoetryMonth by writing thirty poems in thirty days. Phew! While I can’t say I’ve continued the daily practice of writing a poem a day, it’s definitely jump started my urges to create more sporadically again. Hence this blog!

Feel free to let me know what you what to see in this space!

Until next time lovelies!