Washington Writers' Publishing House
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WWPH WRITES 126... featuring poetry in translation from Katie King and "Mayonnaise" from Rose Ann Cleveland.
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WWPH's Summer of Love Literary Salons continue. Free. Cool events! Come write with us, hear our contributors to Capital Love, and learn more about the Washington Writers' Publishing House and how you can be published with us at The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore with award-winning poet/workshop leader Tonee Mae Moll on Sunday, August 23rd, and Lost City Books with award-winning novelist/workshop leader Len Kruger on Sunday, September 27th. Reserve your seat now. Details below.
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Check out our post-event pieces from our big Capital Love LitFest, held on June 28th at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, to share with you! Our WWPH Fellow, Jupiter Berrysmith, wrote this reflection on the true meaning of the Capital Love LitFest, which was published in the Washington Independent Review of Books. Plus, look at WWPH YouTube Channel -- there are videos featuring highlights from the WWPH Through the Decade panel, the How Do We Find Joy in our Writing NOW panel? and the Music & Reading Jam. WWPH YouTube here.
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- Worlds Beyond. Literary speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, or horror -- our inaugural poetry and fiction contest specifically seeking genre work that bends into the literary. Cash prizes and publication in WWPH WRITES in October. Special guest judge: Myna Chang. Opens: August 1st.
- WWPH WRITES re-opens for submissions on August 1st. We're looking for poetry and prose (up to 1,000 words).
- Grace & Gravity, volume 12, series editor: Caroline Bock, special guest editor: Melanie Hatter. The theme for the first-ever Grace & Gravity edited by the Washington Writers' Publishing House: GRACE IN JUSTICE. We will be seeking fiction or literary nonfiction (up to 2,000 words) from women writers. Opens: August 15. Publication in late 2027
- CAPITAL Translation. This is our 2027 entry in our 'Capital' series of pocket-sized, collectible anthologies...following Capital Queer (2025) and Capital Love (2026). Deadline: September 1.
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Caroline Bock & Jona Colson
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When the best-selling Spanish novelist Almudena Grandes died in November 2021, it was front-page news in Spain and across much of the Spanish-speaking world. For years, her popular historical novels about those who lost Spain’s bitter Civil War and her activism in progressive politics made her a well-known public figure. But she was equally known as the beloved partner of one of Spain’s other most important literary figures, the poet and scholar Luis García Montero. For almost thirty years they were seen as the power couple of Spanish letters, each a muse to the other, each dedicating to the other every book they wrote in loving and literary epigraphs.
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Grandes’ death came as a shock to friends and fans because she died, just one year and three months after diagnosis, of breast cancer, a disease that modern medicine has made often survivable. García Montero fell back on his poetry to cope with “bitter optimism” the process of diagnosis, treatment, grief and acceptance. The result is a deeply moving collection of love poems that capture the passion and complicity of two people facing loss with resilience, courage and an ever-present devotion to literature and each other.
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The poem below illustrates García Montero’s signature style called “poetry of experience,” which emphasizes everyday language and artifacts to express complex emotions and ideas. -- Katie King
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Luis García Montero is one of Spain’s best-known contemporary poets. He has served as director of Spain’s Instituto Cervantes since 2018 and is the recipient of many awards, including most recently the Carlos Fuentes International Prize for his lifetime contribution to Spanish letters. He is a tenured professor at the University of Granada in Spain and the author of many scholarly articles, as well as novels, essays, opinion columns, song lyrics and plays.
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Katie King is a journalist and literary translator from the Spanish whose work has been published in a variety of print and online literary journals. Her full-length book translations include three titles by Luis García Montero: a bilingual edition of love poetry One Year and Three Months (Broken Bowl Books, 2025), the coming-of-age novel Someone Speaks Your Name (Swan Isle Press, 2023), and A Form of Resistance (Doolittle Project Publishing, 2015) a collection of poetic essays. In addition, My Clavicle, a fiercely funny work of autofiction by Spain’s leading feminist author Marta Sanz (Unnamed Press, July 2025).
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Mayonnaise
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Momma loved mayonnaise. She loved it so much that if you stood still in the kitchen long enough, she would spread mayo on you. Okay, an exaggeration, but not much. When she hosted her bridge club, she’d plunk a quivering glob of mayonnaise atop the Jell-O salad that accompanied the ladies’ luncheon fare. No way she could slip that garnish past my sisters and me. She knew we’d scrape it off and hide it under the iceberg lettuce. To this day, I avoid the condiment, having unwillingly overdosed on it as a kid. What particularly revolted me was the way she’d slather one slab of her peanut butter and banana sandwich with mayonnaise. I made my own peanut butter sandwiches.
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She was already on chemo when she came to help out after my first child was born. The gray-streaked wig was acceptable. You could tell it wasn’t her own hair, but at that time she still looked mostly like herself.
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The night I went into labor, the hospital sent me back home because I wasn’t far enough along. I camped out in our recliner as the contractions tortured me with their slow progress. The Grammys were on TV, and Michael Jackson won award after award. During the night, I must have dozed because I dreamed that the King of Pop was the father of my soon-to-be son. But, of course as his famous song lyrics hinted, Michael Jackson was “not my lover.”
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Finally, by dawn, the hospital let me return, but this baby was in no hurry to be born. Hours passed. Overnight, more pregnant women had checked in, and now I had to share a labor room with a woman who’d been in our Lamaze class. I tried not to cry out during my contractions, as I hated to increase her anxiety. Or maybe I just didn’t want to incite her own screaming. I was still waiting for the magic centimeters of adequate dilation when my roommate was carted off to delivery. I felt like I had lost the birthing competition. Around noon, while I lunched on ice chips, my husband managed to nibble on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich between timing my labor pangs.
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In recent years, when my daughter—the second born and named after my mother—was expecting her own child, I advised her not to listen to the drawn-out labor stories her supposed friends were eager to tell. In that spirit, I will simply recount that, at some point, the obstetrician took pity and offered a shot of Demerol. It might as well have been sugar water for all the good it did.
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Eventually, to hurry the birthing process along, the medical staff resorted to Pitocin for me, also known to increase labor pains. At last, the gurney transported me to delivery, where first I welcomed an epidural and subsequently my new son. I stayed overnight in the hospital and slept and slept. Unsurprisingly, it would be years before I again slept so soundly.
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Meanwhile, my mother had flown into town. My husband picked her up at the airport and settled her into our small condominium, where she planned to help for a week. My husband returned to work (no paternity leave in those days). When home, he strove to be good-humored about sharing his space with a crying newborn and my blissfully presumptuous mother. I was too exhausted to protest when Momma, without asking, marched off to the nearby drug store and bought a pacifier for the baby. After all, she was cooking meals and doing laundry while I was soaking in doctor-recommended sitz baths and trying, despite cracked nipples, to breastfeed on demand.
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We didn’t know yet if the chemo was working, and I was grateful that my mother had the energy to travel and meet her little grandson. I worried how I would cope on my own after she left. And I wondered, in future years, would my son even remember her?
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On the Saturday of her visit, Momma offered to make lunch for us three adults and took our sandwich orders. My husband appeared upset but ate what she set in front of him. The baby awoke, and, as I rose to feed him, my husband scurried after me.
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His face clenched in outrage, he hissed, “She put mayonnaise on my roast beef sandwich!”
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I stared at him. Then burst into tears. The baby was crying, too.
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Now focused on writing fiction, Rose Ann Cleveland worked for many years with performing arts and philanthropic nonprofits serving the Washington, DC region. Her home is in College Park, Maryland. Her short story, “The Secret Keeper,” was published in the spring 2025 issue of storySouth. Website here.
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Photo credit: Richard McIntyre
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Submit your literary speculative fiction or poetry that takes us beyond the ordinary, specifically, beyond this world. Please limit your submission to one in either fiction or poetry. No fee. Special judge: Myna Chang. Opens: August 1st-September 15th. PRIZES: $100 first prize/$50 runner-up in each category. Publication for all in an October …
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GRACE & GRAVITY OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS on AUGUST 15
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GRACE IN JUSTICE… exploring the great divides in our nation today and the hope for a better tomorrow. The distance between survival and security has never felt greater. Across our communities, rising housing costs, stagnant wages, mounting debt, widening inequality, and challenges to our dignity and basic rights as women are reshaping how people live, love, work, and dream. Behind …
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WWPH WRITES SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
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WWPH WRITES is now open for submissions once more! In each issue, we feature one poem and one work of prose (either fiction or creative nonfiction up to 1,000 words) from a writer in DC, Maryland, or Virginia. If you are a writer with a recent book, we will consider a reprint and a shout-out to your work. Reprints are …
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CAPITAL TRANSLATION...deadline September 1
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CAPITAL TRANSLATION: WWPH CELEBRATES LITERARY TRANSLATION IN THE DMV “Without translation, we would be living in provinces bordering on silence.” – George Steiner We are proud to announce a call for submissions for our third Capital Anthology, Capital Translation. Submissions are now open via our Submittable site. More details and guidelines are also below. Please read carefully. THE WASHINGTON WRITERS’ …
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WWPH LITERARY SALONS
Our community-based literary events continue!
Made possible with the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Maryland State Arts Council...and FREE! Reserve your seat now... link to more information below...
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Summer of Love at The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore
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Welcome to the Summer of Love Tour, where Washington Writers’ Publishing House is bringing authors all over the DMV to celebrate our new mini-anthology, Capital Love. These writing salons will reflect the intention of Capital Love, which is the belief that love is the antidote to hate and that love is action, intent, healing, and hope. This event is designed to …
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Summer of Love at Lost City Books
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Welcome to the Summer of Love Tour, where Washington Writers’ Publishing House is bringing authors all over the DMV to celebrate our new mini-anthology, Capital Love. These writing salons will reflect the intention of Capital Love, which is the belief that love is the antidote to hate and that love is action, intent, healing, and hope. This event is designed to …
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For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus
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The WWPH award-winning FOR THE BLESSINGS OF JUPITER AND VENUS by Varun Gauri gets a big shout-out from PEN/Faulkner Foundation as a summer must-read (and we agree!)!
Find this acclaimed love story and novel of small-town American politics everywhere, including here...
https://bookshop.org/lists/2025-26-pen-faulkner-literary-event-titles
Here's more!
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Disillusioned with modern romance, globe-trotting Meena tries an arranged marriage with Avi, an aspiring politician in Ohio. But when Avi's political opponent launches racist attacks, Meena and Avi are forced to defend their immigrant community, which narrowly understands its own traditions, and protect their increasingly shaky relationship. This is an intimate, funny, and heartbreaking novel about small-town America and the …
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Prose editor, WWPH Writes
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Thank you for being part of the Washington Writers' Publishing House community! Join us at one of our upcoming events!
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Poetry editor, WWPH Writes
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Copyright © 2026 The Washington Writers' Publishing House, All rights reserved.
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