Happy August, Sick Lit Magazine Readers!
It has been a lot of fun this summer. Kelly and I have done a lot of work (as you can already see), but we are doing even more work behind the scenes to get you excited about this fall and what’s to come.
We have some awesome themes coming your way and I am excited to read all of the submissions that we receive in the upcoming months!
I took a small vacation to Denver, Colorado. I saw a concert at Red Rocks amphitheater and just enjoyed the views and food of a great city. It was just the getaway I needed to come back home with fresh, new energy for creativity with the site as well as with my own writing.
I am happy to announce that I have accepted some teaching jobs for this fall. I will be teaching at three different colleges. My English degree is finally coming in handy! But I couldn’t have done it without all of you. Working with all of our contributors on editing and revising your work has really prepared for working with young writers and teaching composition.
I’m excited to be in front of the classroom this fall, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be sitting behind my computer screen reading all of your work! Kelly and I have some exciting things happening in our future; but we both promised that SLM will be better than it ever has been.
I’m not sure if most of you know this, but Kelly and I don’t get paid for this job.
We both do it because we love your writing and want to get the word out about great writing. We are writers ourselves and we both believe that writing is a practice. You only get better at the craft by reading good writing and practicing your own personal style as much as you can.
I have to apologize for some of the posts in July. As you know, Kelly was sick for a good part of the month. I didn’t want her to worry about a thing, so I took over everything. I wasn’t too familiar with scheduling the posts. Kelly tried to walk me through it, but I did make some minor mistakes and I apologize to anyone who felt that their formatting or writing was off. I learned as I went along but I was so happy to hear that Kelly started feeling better and she once again took over.
Speaking of Kelly, I am excited to announce that our Editor-In-Chief Kelly Coody is now a published author! Her novel, Unhinged, is now on sale. http://www.snowleopardpublishing.com/#!product-page/iil1o/5a59ddcb-8bf2-0dda-e03e-52f63c22cf35
I pre-ordered my copy and it should hopefully be here soon so I can start reading it. You all should order it too and maybe we can do a little Q & A session with her.
One of the reasons I have decided to stay on at SLM after my internship is because of the sense of community that this site has. I love seeing everyone encourage fellow writers on Twitter and by commenting on their stories on the site. PLEASE DO MORE OF THIS!
As writers, we love feedback. Kelly and I always try to give everyone feedback.
We encourage you to do that for each other. Read a poem that you like? Retweet it! Read an awesome fiction piece? Leave a comment for the author. This is what creates a sense of community and togetherness. Kelly focuses on the Twitter page while I run the Instagram. Give us a shout out. Leave a comment if you like a certain piece. Tell us what you love about it. That’s why we do this!
That’s why we work on the weekends and read emails when our significant others tell us to go to sleep. We love doing this, we want you all to be a part of it!
Enough of that, how about we celebrate August’s theme, Santino Prinzi’s Perceptions?!
I have loved this theme so far. We have gotten so many submissions and I love how everyone has taken this theme and ran with it. Everyone looks at the idea of “perceptions” differently and that has been the best part of reading the submissions.
When I think of the theme perceptions, I think of a dream. The way we perceive things in our everyday lives is just the way our minds handle things when we are conscious. But our subconscious has a way of viewing things differently, in example, our dreams.
I can go nights without remembering a single dream. Then there are nights when I can’t stop thinking about what happened in my dream. Sometimes I try to decode different things that happened or people who popped up. I tend to dream about people I haven’t seen in years, which is very weird to me.
After thinking about this month’s theme some of my dreams came to mind. I thought about writing about them. What a great story some of my dreams could make. But then I decided against it. There are just some dreams that I don’t want to visualize ever again. The good thing about dreams is that we have the ability to wake up from it and forget it ever happened.
Have a great month everyone!
Best,
Melissa Libbey
Senior Editor
SICK LIT MAGAZINE 
Congratulations on the teaching position. And the magazine is great 😉
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I am happy you are here to stay Melissa. Both you and Kelly have been very supportive to me. You are actually real people one can communicate with and writers also! Some other editors I have dealt with are neither.
Happy to hear you will be teaching at 3 colleges, sounds like a lot of work to me, will you still have time to write and be an editor, I hope.
I plan on purchasing a copy of Kelly’s novel also. I am trying to get a signed copy
so I suppose I would have to send it to her for that.
Where is the location of the first picture in this editorial, is that New Jersey?
Wherever it is it is quite beautiful.
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Good luck with the teaching! Adjunct work is rewarding, but like most rewarding things, it is A LOT OF WORK, especially if your teaching composition. When I fist started, I was at separate colleges. However, if things go according plan (which they don’t always do) I will have enough work at one school this fall to just teach and tutor there. I still won’t get the benefits of a full-timer since I technically have three different “part-time positions” at the college, but it seems like a step in the right direction, and will save me a ton on gas. Let me know if you have any questions about adjuncting or teaching. I’ve been doing it for five years now.
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That’s great to know! Thank you so much Sara. It is rewarding work but I’m worried about the pay. Hopefully getting the teaching experience can lead to a more full time position. But it is good to know I can come to you with my questions. Thanks so much!
-Melissa
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Up here in MA, the pay is higher at state schools than most of the private ones. I think that’s because we’re union, and the few private schools with higher pay are union too. If you’re hoping to get full time, then really network with people. A lot of adjuncts just kind of show up, teach their classes and leave. I’ve found that the more engaged I am, the more opportunities I get.
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