Publishing "Dog Flowers"

I started writing a memoir about my mother after she passed away last September. As "my" memoir, the story centers around my memories of her--at least, the fragments I have--but the narrative weaves in pieces of her diaries and letters from my sister, who spent the months following our mother's death in prison. The memoir is about falling to pieces in the face of loss, and it's about my family's struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse. It's about the relationships we had, or didn't have, and the the shadow my mother cast in our lives. It's about the women that we were expected to be, that we could have been, but became--for better and for worse.

I hope to submit "Dog Flowers" to the Mslexia Women's Memoir Competition in September, but I could use a little help along the way. I'd really love to take one of GrubStreet's workshops, like "Killer First Pages: An Agent-Led Class on Starting Strong" or "Submitting Your Work: Weeklong Intensive", but classes and submission fees (for the Mslexia contest and other short fiction/creative nonfiction pieces that I've been writing) really start to add up.

My target goal covers the Mslexia contest's entry fee and one workshop at GrubStreet. Anything beyond helps me pursue additional contests and publication in literary journals and magazines! Or classes! Because who doesn't want to take more Grub Street workshops?

My creative nonfiction essay, "Ya' at' eeh, I say," appeared in the Silk Road Review No. 10, Winter/Spring Issue 2013.