Submitting to Story
Behind the Scenes with Authors: Lana Cullis
Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own,
that you don’t know in your own soul. — Emily Carr
My writing instructor’s comment landed the kind of blow that knocks the wind right out of you, leaves you sucking for air, and a suitable response. Regardless of the intention behind her pronouncement, “Maybe I am not the right reader for this story,” her response felt like a flat-out rejection. After all, the entire purpose of the instructor consultation was to obtain crucial feedback on the revision strategies taught during the class.
[Editor’s note: This essay is an excerpt from The Spiritual Life Writing Workbook: From Concept to Bookshelf by Susan Scott, with Lana Cullis and Sharon S. Hines. Chapter 7 features behind-the-scenes commentary by diverse spiritual life writers.]
The goal? To submit to literary magazines before the final day of class. My stomach turned. I couldn’t think of anything to say, despite the string of staccato questions that came to mind. Did she judge my writing as undeserving of her professional coaching, or worse, did she think the story shouldn’t be submitted for publication at all? I twisted with frustration and disappointment. What was I to do with such feedback?
Not one, but several of her former students, had encouraged me to pursue this instructor’s specific program geared toward publishing. “It will be worth it,” each one promised, “to take your writing seriously.” So, I registered for the 2023 intake of the highly reputed international writing intensive and handed over thousands of dollars. It all seemed like money well spent until the one-on-one consultation near the end of the program.
The instructor’s stark observation made me wish that somebody, anybody, had been honest with me before now about my obviously tepid prospects of being published in the literary world. How the call ended remains a blur, but I remember re-reading my essay, steeped in confusion. And how, despite the raging doubts, I found myself disturbingly certain — I would not surrender the veteran’s war-torn narrative to the bin.
***
Before I even began writing, a former soldier shared his battle story during an employment counseling session in 2014. It was a disturbing post-war story about seeking employment and attempting to integrate into Canadian society. My role, my responsibility, was to support vocational integration. Our care team’s mandate was to help him secure the required services to heal. We failed, and he was rejected for specialized treatment with veteran rehabilitative services. Long after his untimely death, his experience of being denied trauma care support haunted me.
The soldier’s story remained silent within me, until half a decade had passed, when I was prompted to reflect on why his telling lingered so deeply.
I had registered for a weekend writing retreat facilitated by New York Times bestselling author Mark Matousek. His first book, 1996, Sex, Death, and Enlightenment, produced shock waves for memoir writers and readers alike. It was raw, brash, and spiritual. Intriguing. Reader’s response to his 2017 book, Writing to Awaken, sparked his offering retreats by the same name. I found the theme compelling and anticipated a West Coast weekend steeped in writing theory and practical how-to tips, but the retreat did not address literary craft. At all. Rather, the format was a series of generative exercises highlighting the intrinsic value of journaling. Still, I caught a glimpse of how raw life is reimagined onto the page. My response to his prompt “Where do you struggle with a fear of being authentic or truthful?” came fast and furiously.
I was shocked when the soldier’s story tumbled out of me and onto the page. Until that day, my dime-store journal had been a sanctuary for bad days, bad relationships, sporadic dreams, and the odd to-do list. Though years would pass before I even considered revising that journal entry into a literary essay, that weekend with Matousek was pivotal.
The story next resurfaced as a companion illustration in a talk I gave on a snowy February Sunday, as a guest speaker at a mostly empty rural church. My theme for engagement? To explore how communities perceive non-members as strangers, as others. Other than “us,” that is. I struggled with many questions leading up to that morning. I questioned why organizations, religious and secular, fail the very individuals they are meant to serve. And I wondered, why not just stifle the haunting voice I heard, provoking me to share? I questioned my right even to tell this particular story.
After the telling in that setting, neither my ethical tension nor the story disappeared.
I don’t know what prompted me to return to the difficult narrative three years later, but I sought advice from a seasoned literary editor. She advised me to give voice to the story that wanted to be told.
I wrestled with where the soldier’s story ended and mine began.
I did my best to be cognizant of cultural appropriation and revised the text accordingly. Eventually, The Kiss was selected for the BC Writers 2022 Literary Contest Long List for Non-fiction. As is common in contests, only the top three submissions and shortlisted essays went to print. In other words, the piece remained unpublished.
* * *
I began to read writers perched on the edges of literary conversation, modern writers who submit their work, despite the current literary setting where language is under intense scrutiny, and not solely for craft. A setting where censorship is growing, and the fear of saying the wrong thing obscures the ability to say truthful things. Intrigued by such essayists, I rallied the nerve to submit The Kiss to a few Canadian magazines and earned the requisite politely phrased rejection letters for emerging writers.
Then, I happened upon an American literary magazine aptly named Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. I was attracted to the provocative, spirited, and bold short stories. I devoured the journal’s back issues. That’s when my confidence faltered. The biographies of the writers all sported lengthy publishing credits. Given that I was an unknown writer from Canada with zero literary publications to my credit, who was I to dare to submit to this magazine?
The submission guidelines requested only the story, without a bio — so I took the plunge. The story would have to speak for itself.
The morning after I hit “send,” I received a personal response accepting my piece.
It didn’t matter that I was an unknown writer.
Six months later, when I was contacted to approve the copy edits before publication, I noticed that the word count was substantially lower than when I had submitted the piece. The hair on my neck stiffened: the changes I felt compelled to make during the writing-intensive had been edited out. Goosebumps appeared on my forearms as I recognized the paradox. The story, now with a new name, had come full circle, returning almost word-for-word to the original version I first wrote in my journal at the Writing to Awaken retreat. After a decade of carrying this story, I finally witnessed it published — as “Scar Tissue” in the April 2024 Wounds Issue of Dorothy Parker’s Ashes.
* * *
Upon publication, the lost soldier’s story finally came to rest.
It is only now that I understand that the soldier’s narrative bound itself to me with purpose: to speak the truth of his circumstances, which included the failures of the health care system in which I worked, and to flag injustices cited flagrantly in the name of citizenship.
Looking back at the consult that left me shaking, I see now that by questioning her role as a listener, my writing-intensive teacher had offered something crucial to my development as a writer. I suspect it took courage for her to invite me to reconsider how I construct a narrative. I learned what is necessary to do the arduous work of discernment. To perceive, understand, and judge those things we hold sacred. To articulate clearly, especially those aspects of spirit that are not obvious, not prescribed, or apparent in everyday life.
As writers, we must keep knocking on doors, holding hope until we find a publication to champion our stories. Crafting this man’s story beckoned me towards the ultimate irony: first, we risk placing words upon the page, then we risk trying to find a home for the story with no clue where that home may be. After too many rejections, we can begin to suspect it’s our fault — because we are not good enough writers. But sometimes that is not the case. I am learning that some stories carry us, too.
Now I know his story was not mine to tell.
Our shared story is mine to tell.