Call for Manuscripts: Street Smarts
by Louis Reyes Rivera and Bruce GeorgeLink to article
There’s a New Anthology in the works…
Louis Reyes Rivera and Bruce George, co-editors of the critically acclaimed The Bandana Republic, are now accepting submissions for their latest effort, Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies.
Street Smarts is another literary first, this one focusing on the urban working class and the ability to enhance one’s earning power despite often being underemployed. How do lower paid workers make ends meet? How do the unemployed survive once they’ve used up their unemployment benefits? What happens to them once they disappear from official statistics? What tactics have they developed? Is there another economic system at work that is totally outside of mainstream standards? What does the underclass and the fair-to-middling do to feed the family within a hostile environment? Are the strategies they devise parts of yet another working standard? To what extent is there an underground economy that is not exactly illegal, yet for which there is no yardstick by which to measure its effectiveness?
Given the current economic downturns and consistent losses of jobs, are the strategies and options that have long ago developed among the working poor still viable? What are they? Are they legal, extralegal or illegal? What common threads hold the underclass together? Do they bear their own ethics? How applicable are they?
The answers to these questions serve as the parameters for Street Smarts. Our target audience includes the hundreds of thousands who, like never before, are faced with new challenges – unemployment, loss of homes, debts, etc., with homelessness and public shelters ever increasingly a viable and realistic given.
Here’s an opportunity for the entire planet to hear your truth, our truth, about both our desperate and our aspirate states, straight up from the streets. This anthology will offer real life stories of how folk who have come from or find themselves suddenly at the bottom have developed their own ways and means to survive.
The editors of Street Smarts welcome you to submit your own story of survival. It can come in the form of poetry or drama, as biographical and/or fictional accounts of ways in which citizens will make ends meet – how we work a hustle or cook those meals on a shoestring budget or how we use borrowing and lending to keep that household going (even via pyramid schemes or other forms of community banking), or working the numbers racket and/or relying on the bolita).
We want to hear from freelance writers and artists, from consultants who no longer work a regular j-o-b, even from street pharmacists and drug dealers. We want to hear from those who still host Rent Parties or organize poetry readings, who rent dance halls for weekend events, or loan shark their way through life. We want to hear from anyone who finds a way to cut the price down, or make use of old home remedies instead of going to the pharmacy, from those who’ve survived prisons in every way imaginable, and how they adapt to street and prison codes in order to fend for themselves.
We will consider material on any topic, in any form and according to how each contributor interprets factual events and strategies, even when couched with fictional characters. What matters most is that you’re helping to illustrate how creative humans really are, no matter what the odds against us. Artwork and photography are welcomed.
Email your submissions to vze3cbjx@verizon.net in simple word format. If you have to use snail mail, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope to Louis Reyes Rivera, GPO Box 16, New York City 10116.
File Formats:
All material submitted must be the author’s original work. Use of work that was done or created by others without permission is a violation of copyright laws. Send us your best work and in simple word format! Please use your program’s spell check option or manually check your work before sending it. The editors reserve the right to make minor grammatical changes so that all materials conform to our guidelines. We want this to be a work of art both for general markets as well as for schools.
Material submission guidelines:
Poems and letters cannot be more than up to three (3) pages in length (single spaced).
Short stories, interviews and essays (political or social) should not be more than ten (10) pages in length and must be double-spaced, typewritten.
Artwork and photographs should conform to a 6″ by 9″ format.
Requirements:
Please include with your submission your name/address, P.O. Box and/or e-mail along with a brief bio. Any questions or concerns about your submission can be sent to the editors at Louisreyesrivera@aol.com.
Terms & Conditions:
A submission implies that you agree with the following terms: No submission will be returned without your inclusion of a self-addressed stamped envelope. If your work is not accepted, we will either return it in your self-addressed stamped envelope or we will discard it (and/or delete it from our computer).
Submissions may not have been published before or appeared in any other commercial publication. None of the contents may be derived from previously created documents unless specifically noted.
You agree to authorize publication of your work to appear in Street Smarts and in any manner that the editors deem appropriate to the format of the book. By submitting your work, you also grant permission for the editors to distribute it throughout the world.
You agree to hold harmless the editors and publisher from any and all claims, suits and damages based on international copyright laws, including plagiarism or unauthorized use, or any other legally related issues.
Having read the Terms & Conditions for submitting your work, you understand that these Terms constitute the basis for accepting your work and that you agree to such Terms & Conditions.
Submission Deadline:
We should have received your materials no later than December 31, 2009. Entries submitted after that date might not be considered.
SASE: We prefer that you email your submissions. If you decide to snail mail your work, include a stamped self-addressed business-sized envelope so that your work can be returned to you if it is not accepted.
Tags: Bruce George, Louis Reyes Rivera, Street Smarts, The Bandana Republic, urban survival strategies, urban working class
October 14th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Gee, interesting idea, study the underground economy so we can start to quantify how many people do 30’s style “rent parties” and how many subsist on Nancy Botwin-esque underground horticulture? (I can tell you, it’s a lot, ask your kids living in California about how easy it is to get temp work as a “trimmer” at $30/hour in various places.)
But, by the same token, how realistic is it that someone in this position is going to want to brag about it in “Streets Smarts”? How do the author’s notes not get subpoenaed? How is any confidentiality guaranteed to submitters? It sounds pretty dubious and risky to me, aside from producing results which are going to be highly selective and anecdotal and not necessarily of much sociological value.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Always pay your rent first–ALWAYS.
Your stomach can’t evict you.
Pay other as needed like when they turn your electricity off.
If you take a one credit class at community college, you can get basic medical care at the student health center.
Ignore laws like mandatory car insurance when you can until you can afford it.
Buy a Toyota or Honda, even if you have to get an older one than the American car you could get with the same money. Those two brands will last longer and require far less repairs.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Why are you inquiring about urban survival only? I live in a very small town on Cape Cod. Most of us cobble together a living doing multiple jobs (when they are available), such as home health aids, landscaping, waitressing, dog-sitting, etc. Much of the income is not reported. Many of us barter services. The local Swap Shop at the dump provides for many of our material needs (furniture, wood for wood-burning stoves, clothes, cooking utensils, small electronics). There is a lot of collective support (esp. off-season). During the tourist season many people rent out their homes and live in tents for the summer. Why side-step the rural working poor?
October 15th, 2009 at 7:29 am
The first blogger’s reply was very typical of a self-righteous elitist idiot. The mere fact that he would presuppose that a person going in the book will set himself/herself up for being incriminated is telling of the fact that he feels that they are criminal. He needs to stop believing his own press clippings. I think “Street Smarts…” is a very timely project that will be a powerful tool for people in struggle to not only express themselves in a therapeutic fashion, but to also shed some pointers for others to learn from.I see this as a Bestseller.I can’t wait to get my copy. Bravo!
October 15th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Nothing was said about paying for accepted submissions. Are you asking for volunteer unpaid writing?
October 15th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Please direct your questions about this project to the email address for the authors: vze3cbjx@verizon.net.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I love the concept of “Street Smarts:..” is amazing. Bruce and Louis are doing it again. I have their latest book “The Bandana Republic, a Literary Anthology by Gang Members…” and it was a fabulous read.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:42 am
Hey, Janet, it’s hard to get paid for your writing these days because (1) no one reads anymore, (2) newspapers are contracting, (3)websites and blogs don’t have to pay, (4) what we have to offer, to steal a punch line, is much too good for them.” (PICK)
November 6th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Yo, ya gotta give it to these dudes… they’re addressing a niche that very few want to touch, namely, the tactics and strategies required when the rubber meets the road (thin or lost wallets versus some very pressing survival needs: Shelter, food, & clothes jump to mind). And alas, some of us have had to develop Ph.D.s on the subject (Practical-human-Desperation)… Perhaps our hard-earned tips can help someone else; for the times demand it (and probably will for a good while yet, the pundits notwithstanding).