Sally Shivnan ~ ~ fiction ~ essays ~ travel

links & clips


PUBLICATIONS:
"A Greener Commute" from Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Summer 2008
This is a teeeeny essay about commuting to work by bicycle, which appears on the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy website.

"Song for a Boy Not My Own" from Superstition Review, Fall 2010
Essay about the magic of aunthood, starring my nephews and sisters.

"A Cold Kind of Beauty" from The Washington Post, January 2001
The desert Southwest, in winter.

"Rolling Along the River" from Washingtonian, September 2008
This describes wonderful bike-riding to be had on the C&O Canal between Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown, WV.

"What Do You Remember?" from The Short Story Project, December 2018
A story about a woman stranded in a department store dressing room. (Appears also in my collection, Piranhas & Quicksand & Love.)

"Women on Board: in Florida, Finding their Inner Gidget" from The Washington Post, April 2006
Sally goes surfing.

"Walls to Nowhere" from The Saturday Evening Post, Fall 2012
Explores the great charm, and the history and politics, of the folly buildings of Ireland.

"Andros Aphrodisiac" from The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, October 2007
A sort of love story, from this most beautiful, watery island. This piece is included in the listing of "Notable Travel Writing of 2007" in The Best American Travel Writing 2008.

"Surviving the Trip from Adjunct to Professor: How to Keep Writing Through an Overload of Teaching," from AWP's The Writer's Notebook, February 2006
The title of this article says it all, I reckon.

"Destination: Springtime in March" from The Washington Post, March 2005
Finding springtime in a single day, by driving south on I-95.

"Something, Anything" from The Short Story Project, December 2018
A woman, a man, a mattress, a car. (Published previously in Rosebud and in my collection, Piranhas & Quicksand & Love.)

"Wales Is Rock," from Let's Carry On, April 2013
An essay about wonderful Wales, blending geology, history, family, and tramping about.

"Big Sky Prairie" from The Nature Conservancy Magazine, Winter 2007/2008
A short essay about the lovely Flint Hills of Kansas.

"A Remote Possibility" from The Washington Post, June 2002
The beautiful far, far away place called Blue, Arizona.

"Welcome to Downtown Moundtown" from The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Florida, December 12, 2004
Explores the lost cities of Mississippian Era American Indians in the Southeast and Florida.

"For Some, Shifting Allegiances Is No Easy Action" from The Washington Post, June 2003
An essay about my experience becoming a U.S. citizen, and the experiences of the other new citizens around me.

"Girls with Curls" from South Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 2006
Wild times at an all-girl surfing camp in Jax Beach.


WEBSITES / LINKS ABOUT WRITING ETC.:
Washington Writers Publishing House
This is a member-run, nonprofit press for Washington and Baltimore area writers that has published wonderful authors.

The Creative Alliance
This community multi-arts center in Baltimore brings together artists of every genre and audiences of every kind, to enjoy and learn. It's a fantastic organization with amazing, varied performances, exhibitions, and workshops.

Everyone Who's Anyone website
This is Gerard Jones's wild and wonderful directory to every agent you might ever be interested in, complete with his own irreverant correspondence with many of the agents; it lets you link easily to lots of agents' websites.

Alliance of Artist Communities
This is the best resource out there for researching writers' residencies.

Rolf Potts interviews Sally Shivnan
Here's the fun interview with me that renowned travel writer Rolf Potts featured on his website in September 2016.

WritersAndEditors.com
This extraordinary site has it all. Every imaginable resource for writers, including comprehensive lists of links to writers' awards, residencies, info about publishing, jobs, critique groups, recommended reading, and so, so, so much more.

Poets & Writers directory of contests, grants, and awards
This is super searchable, complete, filterable, easy to use, a great tool for staying on top of all deadlines for writing competitions and grants.

Baker Artist Portfolios
This links directly to my own portfolio, but you can browse other Maryland writers and artists here too. The Baker Portfolios are hosted by Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (GBCA) and are a lovely way to share work.

Washington Independent Review of Books
I do occasional book reviews for this wonderful site which seeks to fill the void left as print publications cut back on reviewing. I also arrange/manage student internships with them. New reviews each week, on a wide variety of new releases.

Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP)
The leading professional organization for writers of literary stuff. Has great info on graduate writing programs and also on writing centers/conferences.

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts
This organization does an annual count to assess how well represented women authors are in prominent journals, magazines, anthologies, book reviews, etc. The good news is the results over time show improvement, though never enough. VIDA has expanded their annual survey to also look at race, ethnicity, and gender identity.

Miss Snark's blog
Miss Snark, a mysterious, anonymous, irreverant and wise stiletto-strutting literary agent, gave the world this extraordinary compendium of info and advice covering every aspect of getting to representation and publication. She is no longer actively blogging but everything is archived.

"Sally Shivnan discusses the joys of travel writing" from The Retriever, February 2017
An interview with Levi Beverly for UMBC's Retriever Weekly.

Radio Reading Network of Maryland
This network broadcasts to an audience of about 50,000 blind and visually impaired listeners in the mid-Atlantic region, and reading for them--prose, poetry, feature articles, or news--is a really fun volunteer pastime for people who enjoy reading aloud. The studio is located in northern Baltimore near I-95 and I-695--easy to get to. Reading of longer works such as novels or nonfiction books can be done remotely from home.

Literary Hub
LitHub is amazing. It boasts "smart, engaged, entertaining writing about all things books," with articles, excerpts, reviews, interviews. Its metacritical approach to reviews of new books--gathering together multiple reviews and giving a "grade" to each book based on those reviews--is novel and useful.

Towse's Links to Online Submission Guidelines
This is a great site that lets you link easily to all sorts of places where you might want to submit work--connecting you directly to their submission guidelines.

Maryland Writers Association
This organization is a good resource for freelancers.

Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance
This organization is a fantastic resource for writers and artists in central Maryland, providing funding opportunities, professional development, and much more.

Five Top Writing Tips from Jill Dawson (4-minute video)
This short video from The Guardian, in which Jill Dawson (wonderful British novelist and short story writer) shares her writing advice, is terrific!

"Ten Rules for Writing Fiction" from The Guardian
A great range of authors sharing their "rules," some more or less the usual and some unique and funny.

New Pages
Lots of stuff--info about specific literary journals, conferences, contests, etc., but also, this place seems to link to everything--creative writing blogs, literary podcasts, interviews, reviews, publishers, and so much more, and is one reason I'm not even trying on my own website to be all that extensive: 'cause whatever it is, it's at New Pages.

AgentQuery.com
Describes itself as "the internet's largest and most current database of literary agents" and it's easy to use and navigate too.


WEBSITES / LINKS TO AUTHORS AND THEIR WORK:
Pamela Petro
Go here to see the work of the amazing Pam Petro, writer and artist--her beautiful writing but also her stunning images, including her Petrographs, magical silver gelatin prints on stone that capture weird, fleeting, haunting views of ourselves and our planet.

Bill Roorbach
Bill Roorbach is the author of Writing Life Stories, a great text for anyone who wants to write memoir, along with many other books. His site includes the terrific blog, "Bill and Dave's Cocktail Hour" about many, many writing-related things.

Michael Kimball
Dynamic poet, novelist, film-maker, and the genius behind "Michael Kimball Writes your Life Story (on a Postcard)," here's Michael Kimball.

Vicki Meade
Vicki is a fine writer and editor with a long-established freelance business doing both, and she blogs here about the ups and downs, ins and outs, of these pursuits.

Jill Dawson
The site of a UK writer whose work I wildly admire, Jill Dawson.

C M Mayo
This website, belonging to the fine writer C M Mayo, is full of great stuff--under "workshop," for instance, she has wonderful 5-minute writing exercises and lots of writing resources.

Seth Sawyers
What a guy, what a blog! Seth is super talented and his writing is such a joy.

Rolf Potts
Travel writer Rolf Potts has a lot of good info and resources here; his archive of short interviews under "Writers" is especially interesting.

Andalucid
Outstanding writer and friend Arpi Shively shares the world she's found since moving to the south of Spain some years ago. Fabulous photographs as well as fascinating text here.

Thomas Swick
This is the website of Tom Swick, friend and travel writer extraordinaire. Lots of good stuff including a great blog.

Michael Fallon
Very lovely website of my fine friend and colleague, fine poet and essayist, Mike Fallon.