Incantations for the Revolution: A Conversation with Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo works with the literary advocacy group, Women Who Submit, a nonprofit that seeks to empower women and non-binary writers by creating space for sharing information and resources for publishing. During the 2024 Antioch MFA Winter Residency, Xochitl hosted an Antioch Submission Party. That party was the push I needed to start my application for a residency that I eventually got waitlisted for. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have applied without the energy of that Submission Party. That’s when it clicked for me: Women Who Submit is more than just a group of writers hitting “submit” at the same time. It is a community that makes the process feel less lonely and less intimidating. That feeling of connection and encouragement continues to stick with me.

In this interview, Xochitl and I talk about how Women Who Submit came to be, how it has grown, and how community can transform the writing process. We also explore her latest collection, Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites, examining the role poetry plays in times like these, and why joy and pleasure deserve just as much space as witness and resistance.

Paul Williamson (PW): I know that Women Who Submit is an important space for women and non-binary writers. What need did you see in the community that sparked its creation?

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (XJB): Women Who Submit was founded in response to the work of the organization VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Back in 2008/2009, they found a major gender gap in publication and reviews, which they documented in the “2009 VIDA Count.” VIDA started asking editors, “Well, why are these numbers like this? What can we do to change it?” The most common reply was that women don’t submit as often or as aggressively as men. So, we said, “Well, if that’s true, then let’s create these co-working spaces where we empower and encourage people to submit, share resources, share journals, and create that accountability so that we can change the numbers and get more of our voices on these editors’ desks.”

PW: Since you started, have you seen the numbers shift?

XJB: What we track is how many people send work out. We don’t have any numbers for the percentage of successful publications versus the number of submissions. We’re more about the practice of submitting and exercising that muscle. But we publicize every month where our writers have been published. Typically, between ten and twenty writers are being published each month in different literary journals and publishers.

PW: What impact has working with Women Who Submit had on your writing?

XJB: I think what Women Who Submit has changed about me and my writing career is that I would now rather do things with community than without. I have accountability buddies I check in with. Five women and I met at the AWP conference in Kansas City two years ago. We went to a bar, and we all got a drink called “The Passion Project,” which felt very fitting for a group of writers. So, our text group is called “The Passion Project.” We had so much fun that we’ve kept it going for almost two years. If I see a submission call, I send it out to people. For example, I wanted to put together a chapbook and saw these micro chap contests. And I had never heard of a micro chapbook.

PW: What is a micro chapbook? 

XJB: A full manuscript is forty pages, chapbooks are typically twenty to thirty-five pages, and a micro chapbook is ten pages. I thought, if I can’t put ten poems together, what good am I? So, I invited other people to work on this with me. We had Zoom meetups, exchanged pages, and shared notes to prepare for these contests. I don’t think any of us won any of the contests, but now I’ve made a micro chapbook that turned into a full chapbook. I’ve been sending it out and have been a finalist.

PW: How has Women Who Submit evolved over the years?

XJB: In the beginning, it was for women writers. The name is tongue in cheek, right, playing with the idea of female submission. However, the word “submit” is used here as an action (to send work out) rather than an act of submission. Then over the years, our community has broadened in really great ways. It’s now for women, non-binary and trans writers. When we started, we met at each other’s homes. It was really just co-working spaces. In 2016, we began offering public programming, including panels and workshops where people could share resources and learn about topics like getting an agent, promoting a book—things like that. Now, we have funding and grants to help people attend events like AWP and offset submission fees. We also host open mics, readings, and publish new work on our blog.

PW: For writers who are struggling to get their work out there, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned through your work that you could pass along?

XJB: There are two things that I hear writers have anxiety over. One is, what if it’s not good enough? The other is, what if it’s really great and I picked the wrong publication? Like, maybe the publication isn’t good enough. I’ve felt both. Sometimes a journal accepts me right away, and I catch myself thinking, “Wait!—why so fast? Are you even that great?” Which is crazy, right? Maybe they just loved the work.

What I tell people is that your career will be long, and your work will keep growing and changing. You’re always going to write new pieces. Publishing is like a yearbook—it shows where you were at that moment. You grow, you learn, and there’s always a next version of you waiting to write something new. And you should celebrate that. 

Yes, sometimes I’ve said yes to a small journal, and a week later, a bigger one wanted the same piece, and I’m like, “Oh, shit.” It happens. But that’s okay, there will always be more opportunities. It’s about building community and relationships, because the work—and the chances—don’t just dry up.

PW: That’s such good advice. It reminds me of an interview I did last spring—the poet I spoke with said it felt cathartic to put the work to rest. Once it’s in the book, you can’t keep revising it. It’s done—almost like it’s dead. Do you feel that way about your own work? Is there relief in just letting it go and putting it out into the world?

XJB: Definitely. I stop thinking about it. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she’s teaching a Chicana studies class, and she’s like, “Oh, I’m using ‘For the Love of Home’.” And I just thought, that sounds familiar. And she said, “It’s in your last book.” I was like, “Oh, okay. Thank you for telling me” (laughs). In my first book, I found a lot of mistakes, and I started to dislike it. Why do that to yourself? Just release it.

PW: Okay, so Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites. What sparked the idea for that? How did it come together? 

XJB: The collection started as a project. I applied for a residency with the National Parks Arts Foundation, which was held at Gettysburg. I did not think it through. You know, you go to a submission party and someone will say, “Oh, did you see this?” And because the energy of a submission party is to send work out, I don’t always think much about who I’m sending to. I was at a party and somebody said, “Did you see you could write at a national park?” I thought, “Oh my God, I would love that. I’ve always wanted to write at Yosemite or to be a John Muir type, hanging out with the Redwoods and writing.” So, all I heard was “national park.” The only things I really knew at that point about Gettysburg were the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln. This was the 2016 election time. So my narratives were, “Oh, this is a time where the country is divided.” I created this narrative about the Gettysburg Address, and I got it.

In the fall of 2017, I went. It was a huge culture shock because it’s a Civil War site. I was thinking, “It’s Pennsylvania.” So, in my mind, that’s the North. I knew so little about Gettysburg, the importance of that battle that continues. People are making pilgrimages to this place. Being from California and a Chicana, reenactors were foreign to me, and in September 2017, there was a big call to take down Civil War sites and monuments. It was right after Charlottesville, and a protester in Charlottesville murdered Heather Heyer. A month later, I’m on a Civil War site with over 1,100 monuments. As a person of color and a woman, I’m like, “What the hell did I just do to myself?” So that’s how the book started. I would write these witness poems every day about being on this Civil War site. I was thinking about what purpose I have as a Chicano woman in being here at this Civil War site with these reenactors? What’s my voice in all of this? And that was the cornerstone of the book.

PW: Were the other writers there because it was a residency opportunity, or were they actually into the historical portion?

XJB: There’s only one resident at a time. That’s another thing that scared me about it. I was living in this 1860s farmhouse, where two Confederate soldiers died in the basement. So, I’m alone in a haunted house on hallowed ground where over 10,000 men died, and you’re alone, and it’s this very white space. As a person of color, there were so many things to be afraid of.

They offer month-long residencies, and you can be a painter, a writer, or any other artist. But from what I’ve seen, other residents who’ve gone there are more into the battle or the history. It’s a big green natural space, but that’s not how it’s used. It’s not like people are throwing frisbees or jogging. I was the only person who was walking around. People don’t walk through this park. You drive your big F-150s and your Harleys around. 

PW: I’m from Pennsylvania. I’ve been to Gettysburg, but when I think of national parks, I would never have listed Gettysburg, even though I am familiar with it.

XJB: Yes, I think of beautiful mountains or trees and things, so. That’s when I learned there’s a difference between a natural national park and a historical national park. The other thing that was funny was that there is very little information about the Gettysburg Address. They don’t care. The park is about the three-day battle, and it’s essentially kept in a time vacuum. It’s 1867 at all times there. And when I would ask about the Gettysburg Address or Lincoln, people would be like, “I don’t know.” But if you want to know where the brigade walked from here to there, that’s a different story. 

PW: Being by yourself in the middle of nowhere is kind of cool. But you’re not really feeding the other part of yourself. I think a lot of inspiration can come from the people around you. 

XJB: I always remember reading about Hemingway’s writing day. He would stop by around 7:00 p.m. to get dinner and a drink, and enjoy people, because that feeds the writing too. You need both. 

PW: I love how such a random experience can create, like, well, your book. If you hadn’t had that experience, it wouldn’t have existed in its current form. How long did it take you to complete Incantation? 

XJB: I was just thinking about this. In Fall 2017, I was at Gettysburg writing a poem a day— there are about twenty-one of those poems, and that became a section of the book. I like using contests and submission calls as deadlines to help me finish things. In 2021, I saw a full-manuscript contest, and that was the first time I pulled everything together. I knew I wasn’t going to win that first contest; it was really just about having a deadline. When I lose, I reconfigure, edit, and revise it, and send it out again. I go through that process until it gets picked up. So I would say I was writing it, generating work between 2017 and 2021, because there are COVID poems in there. Then I revised and submitted it from 2021 to 2022. 

PW: So, about five years. And how was it different from the last time you put your book together?

XJB: It was actually very similar because I started with a trip to the border, where I volunteered with the group No More Deaths. I was very uncomfortable and felt very unsafe. And that was the cornerstone of that book. So, I was writing about the border and my personal experience of what I saw out there. That became like twenty poems. I call myself an experiential poet. I don’t understand things until I’m experiencing them for myself. It’s how I learn, and it inspires me to write to process everything. Then I started thinking about my family’s story, specifically their immigration story. And about myself in LA as a single woman, what does this all have to do with each other?

I call myself an experiential poet. I don’t understand things until I’m experiencing them for myself. It’s how I learn, and it inspires me to write to process everything.

PW: I know you are very active in advocacy. In your view, what role can poetry and poets play in moments of political urgency?

XJB: Clear language is essential. Politicians use language to shape their vision of the world, and so do poets. We have the gift of language, imagination and vision, and it’s like an antidote to fascist governments, right, because they’re trying to get everyone to be in this one fascist mind. And poets can see through that and create more room for diversity and other visions of the future that are more loving and more about humanity, the earth, and nurturing those things.

PW: I like that. Poets are an antidote to poison. How do you see the role of poets and poetry shifting in our current cultural moment? 

XJB: I think that this has been the poet’s vocation for centuries. What we’re seeing with our new fascist government isn’t new. I think it’s always been a part of the poet’s vocation to use words to imagine new futures, to use words to help other people imagine what could be possible. My graduate paper was about this, and that was like ten years before Trump really came on the scene. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, there’s a poet. And the poet comes, and he tries to warn people, but the poet’s killed. People don’t always want to hear it, but we have to keep doing it. I think Shakespeare knew that, but also knew that it’s not an easy job. People don’t always want to listen.

PW: What do you hope readers take with them after spending some time with your work?

XJB: I think I just want people to be open to other experiences and explore their own experiences in the world we are in right now. To be open to love, joy, and pleasure.

Because the book is called Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites, there is all the battle site stuff and the really hard topics of witness and alienation. But then, towards the end of the book, there are a lot of sensual love poems. I hope people open up to the idea that our pleasure is important in our revolution.

PW: Balance.

XJB: Yes, balance.

PW: Do you have any new projects or themes that are calling out to you right now?

XJB: There are two things I’m working on. I wrote a chapbook called Unmothered. It’s about healing the mother wound and learning how to parent the self. I’m really happy with that, even though no one has published it yet. My other project is an essay collection about how the writing life as a Chicana intersects with activism, teaching, and poetry.

PW: So it’s a book of essays. 

XJB: Yes. It’s a book of memoir essays, but there are also craft elements. I’d compare it to How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee.

PW: I love that book. So, a craft book blended with lived experience. Exciting idea. Finally, what are you reading right now? 

XJB: I’m rereading another writing life memoir, How to Be a Chicano Role Model by Michelle Cerros. It was a book I read when I was twenty-four or twenty-five. I thought it was going to be a how-to book, but it was more like Alexander Chee’s book [How to Write an Autobiographical Novel], a  memoir that explores craft. This is the poet’s life. This is how it can look. When I read it, I was looking for direction in my life. I found it really made the poet’s life possible for me. I saw a vision that it was possible. Soon after, I started taking classes and applied to Antioch. So, I’m rereading it right now, and I want to write a piece about that for the essay collection.

PW: You also did your MFA at Antioch?

XJB: Yes.

PW: I didn’t know that. So you’re an alumna as well as a teacher. Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. Antioch is lucky to have you.