CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
The Matriarchal Missive: Women's Insight & Hindsight
from the Silver & Gold Years of Life
Invitation for older women to submit a 1,000-3,000-word composition to the compendium The Matriarchal Missive: Women’s Insight & Hindsight from the Silver & Gold Years of Life to be edited by Duann Kier.
Author Requirements: Women ages 55 and older
Deadline: December 31, 2022
Estimated Publication Date: Mid-2023
Basis of Book
- To weave together threads of wisdom from older women based upon their life experiences, insight and hindsight
- To give a voice to women who are at risk of passing over to the other side without having been fully heard on this side
- To save information, knowledge and wisdom gained from the earlier waves of feminism before they are lost to time
- To inspire all women, especially younger ones, to develop their highest potential and to claim and proclaim their place in the world
Concepts to Consider in Your Composition Could Include:
- Blessings of being a woman your age
- How growing older has affected your experience and understanding of life
- What you have learned about the cycles of your body & seasons of life
- What is important and not important in life
- What you wish you had known earlier in life
- What has brought you to tears and what has made you pee in your pants with laughter
- How your experience of life has been affected by your gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, or other
- What it was like to grow up as a girl/woman in your family
- Positive/negative life lessons you learned from the women in your life
- What you wished the women in your life had shared (or not shared) with you
- What you wished the women in your life had modeled (or not modeled) for you
- A letter to a younger version (or versions) of yourself or a young woman in your life
- How you developed your gifts and talents
- How your religious roots affected your perception of self
- How the fairy tales of your generation influenced you
- Your experiences in our societal education systems
- What you learned about sexual intimacy
- Why you chose to marry or not to marry
- Why you chose to have children or not to have children
- The ways you found to give birth to your own unique creativity
- Why you chose your particulars jobs, career or life’s work
- Your employment experiences
- Your understanding of leadership
- What have been your main sources/resources for personal inspiration, power and empowerment
- How you found meaning, magic and mystery in your life
- The most important turning points or rites of passage in a woman’s life and their potential revelational insights
- How to celebrate these points and passages with ceremony and ritual
- What you discovered from your greatest victories and/or your greatest losses
- The right to feel your feels and experience your full range of emotions
- Your greatest regrets and how other women can avoid them
- Your greatest joys and how other women can enjoy their own lives
- How you personally have been affected by the patriarchal systems in place across our planet
- Experiences or expressions you need to share before they are lost
- What you feel led to write about
Submission Guidelines
- Deadline
- No later than Saturday, December 31, 2022 at 12:00pm Central Time
- Authors of accepted compositions will be notified no later than Friday, March 31, 2023 at 5:00pm Central Time
- Author Requirements
- Women at least 55 years of age on or before deadline date
- Word Counts
- Composition Title: Maximum 15 words
- Composition Body: Minimum 1000 words; Maximum 3000 words
- Composition Bio: Maximum 300 words
- Format
- Microsoft Word
- Font Type: Times New Roman
- Font Size: 12pt
- No bold-faced type
- Single-spaced
- Add one double space at end of composition to add bio written in third person, including author’s age. For example:
- Jane Doe, age 65, is a. . . .
- Email your composition as an attachment to Duann@DuannKier.com by 12:00pm Central Time on Saturday, December 31, 2022
- Subject Line
- Submission to The Matriarchal Missive
- Body
- Please accept the attached file as my submission to The Matriarchal Missive. None of the material in my composition is copyrighted and I understand I will not receive any financial compensation for its possible publication in the book. I also understand my composition may be edited for clarity.
- If my composition is selected for inclusion in The Matriarchal Missive, the name and address you should send my free author copy is:
- Subject Line
- No compositions will be accepted after deadline
- No corrections will be accommodated after composition is submitted
- Only one submission per author
- Submissions not meeting guidelines will be returned to sender and can be resubmitted meeting guidelines
- Submissions will be judged primarily upon how successfully they address any/all of the four major premises listed under the above section titled “Basis of the Book”
Addendum
- If your composition is selected to be included in the book, you will also be offered the opportunity to contribute to a section of the book titled “The Haggarie: Crone Humor for Laughing at Life and Even Oneself.”
- Word Count: Maximum 300
- Same format as composition
Contact Person
- Duann Kier at Duann@DuannKier.com