We will all at one point or another experience illness—the bed—and caring for those who are ill—the bedside. In this year of pandemic that reality has felt very close to many us. The experience of illness is unique, intensely particular, private, often incommunicable—and also universal. It changes us and the people around us in ways we need to understand, need to share. Some of these stories, depending on where we're standing or lying, bedside or bed, can feel irreconcilable. But are they? Using stories, poems, and memoirs from the anthology View from the Bed: View from the Bedside, we will explore the experience of illness from different perspectives—men and women in the midst of it or looking back, doctors and nurses seeking to alleviate it, families trying to stay the course.
ADULT CHILDREN Being One, Having One & What Goes in Between
What defines adulthood nowadays? Or ever? In particular when do we see our own children as adults? When they are older than we were at the age we had them? When they have children of their own? Are fully self-supporting? And what about the prematurely adult children some of us were or tried to be—where have they gone? And the lost and needy children in us? The ones whose parents just never were enough? Are they still active? And what about when our parents are failing, what is an adult to adult relationship then? And what does an adult to adult relationship really mean—especially in a society that emphasizes reinvention, not legacy? When we have been truly dependent on someone is full parity ever possible? Desirable? We invite stories, poems, memoirs and creative non-fiction that explore—with zest, angst, humor, humility, anger, love—the intricacies of these constantly mutating and, hopefully, maturing relationships between consenting, compelled, regressed, often quizzical adults who once were, as we all were, helpless and malleable and strong-willed and resilient children who had no idea, and perhaps still don’t, of all it took to raise us.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR ALL WISING UP ANTHOLOGIES Print and Web
We make final editorial submissions on all submitted manuscripts only after the submission deadline. Electronic submissions only, either Word or RTF. Prose ≤ 5,000 words. Poetry ≤ 5 poems. Payment in copies Submit manuscripts electronically
We consider dual submissions and previously published work only if informed of this at time of submission. Previously published work must be accompanied with a list of where and when it has been previously published, including on the internet. We do not pay reprint fees. It is the author's responsibility to get needed permissions.
A GENTLE REMINDER FOR WRITERS
We read all submissions with care because we value the time, effort, and aspirations of our writers. We ask that writers who submit show us the same consideration. Before submitting, please read the Call for Submissions carefully to make sure that the work you are submitting truly fits the theme in content matter and in tone, for we are more than a literary press, we are one with a clear social commitment to finding the We in Them, the Us in You. We want work that has emotional depth and complexity and that invites us, ultimately, into wiser relation with each other.
We suggest you browse through our list of subjects and then our library and read excerpts from some of our other anthologies, as well as our mission statement - A Welcoming Philosophy - on the home page and our reasons for founding the Wising Up Press. If you are interested in the Writers Collective, we provide extensive information about that as well.
FLIP SIDES Truth, Fair Play & Other Myths We Choose to Live By & Spot Cleaning Our Dirty Laundry A Wising Up Anthology
This anthology was originally, and rather playfully, conceived as two. Truth, Fair Play & Other Myths We Choose to Live By was a response to an increasingly cynical world view that disavowed our best intentions. The other, Spot Cleaning Our Dirty Laundry, responded to an increasingly righteous reactivity in all of us that refuses to take responsibility for the harm we ourselves can cause. Then we realized they were flip sides of the same coin. . . . Spot cleaning wouldn't be necessary if we didn't have beliefs and ideals—or if they didn't need to be continuously reconciled with the exigencies of raw life.
Both intimate and generalizable, the poems in Source Notes: Seventh Decade revolve around two core questions: "If everything we said to define ourselves/ was preceded by Just like everyone or/ Like most of us, what would shift/ in the life-long construction project/ we call our self?" and "Who says age can't be luxurious,/ astonishing, sui generis?" The poems move from public events to personal ones, explore creativity, age, marriage, early trauma, motherhood, family relationships, and travel, teaching us "we are never too old for rebirth, the hold of the miraculous."
PRESIDENT BIDEN AND PROSPECTS FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM
Charles D. Brockett, PhD
This ebook meant for the common citizen portrays trends in public opinion about immigration in 21 easily read graphs. These trends are also related to their broader context: Will President Biden succeed where his last three predecessors failed? Certainly it will be a big challenge, but it can be done if we let the public show the way.
What attaches you to the characters in William Cass's moving first collection of stories is that they are loving people, emotionally observant and internally responsive to the world around them. Even when isolated, and many of them are, Cass's men and women know what it is to be connected. . . READ MORE
SHARING THE BURDEN OF REPAIR: REENTRY AFTER MASS INCARCERATION A Wising Up Listening Project
Heather Tosteson & Charles D. Brockett
This book describes a six-year listening project on reentry that took place at the crest of an unusual wave of bipartisan criminal justice reform in Georgia, one of our most punishing states. Its primary intended audience is common citizens, like us, concerned about the reality of mass incarceration but unsure how to engage. . .
The forty-three writers included in this anthology responded to our invitation to think with us—broadly and intimately—about goodness in our lives: Where have you seen goodness in play? How has it changed your own life, the actual choices you make or how you evaluate your choices? We hope you will find personal inspiration and resonance in this thoughtful and moving collection . . READ MORE BUY
We decided to create a small press to expand and support our various Universal Table programs - and because we love the written word, especially when it is used passionately and authentically to explore themes of abiding importance to us as individuals and as a society. Many of our publications focus on literature by contemporary writers because of the power of narrative to help us identify safely with others who may at first seem, by appearance or circumstances or culture, very different from us. Stories make the world feel more manageable by increasing our ability to tolerate suffering, to experience empathy, to marry hope and pain in a way that honors the reality in each of them. Stories teach us, in the very listening, in the very act of identifying with the storyteller, or the characters, that the existence of other points of view is a richness not a danger. In our own lives, most of us find it difficult to tell stories that have good roles for all of us, that can see our differences, however profound, as mysterious, unpredictable, but ultimately gracious - an invitation into a blessing story larger than any one of us can write alone. We want our publications to serve as an invitation to stand in that richer relation - empathic, musing, open to new meaning - with ourselves and with our neighbors.
