A Peek Behind The Scenes - Part II

Part II - Submitting The Story

By late July, I had a draft of “When Morning Come” that I felt comfortable submitting to literary journals and contests.  Typically, I send my finished work to prospective publishers with the help of Submittable (a digital submission manager).  

Most of the journals I sent “When Morning Come” required submissions via Submittable, but a few of them had their own digital/software systems.

I started submitting the story in late July of 2025.  The publications on my list included: Black Bird; Black Warrior; Chestnut Review; Missouri Review; Ploughshares; Subtropics and Virginia Quarterly Review. 

Prior to submitting my work, I always read at least one sample or the most current issue of a journal in order to make sure we’re a good fit. These days, I always make sure there are a couple of journals on my submission list that might be considered “above my pay grade.”  I’m saying, why not? You’ll never know unless you try.   

6 of the 7 publications I submitted to rejected the story.   The first rejection was in September of 2025.  The following is what a typical rejection looks like:  “Sorry, this doesn’t fit our needs at this time.”  “We’re going to pass on this one.”  “Unfortunately this submission is not right for us.  Best of luck in placing it elsewhere.”

To my surprise and delight, 3 of the publications that rejected the work (Black Bird,  Missouri Review & Ploughshares) were kind enough to break me off a few words of praise and encouragement.  Some of the comments included: 

“This submission received special attention.  We especially admired the style (and) the story’s grounded feel.”

“. . . please know that we have enjoyed your submission and hope you will try again during our next reading period . . . Please feel free to mention our praise for your work the next time you submit.”

Those “encouraging rejections” from some fairly top tier literary journals let me know that I was close and if I persisted, I could probably find a publisher who would grant me a, “Yes!”  Sure enough, in February of 2026, a literary journal asked if they could put “When Morning Come” on their short-list for the summer issue.  Being put on their short list was no guarantee of publication, but they said they’d make a decision no later than May 1.  On March 2, 2026, I received an email letting me know that they had selected the story for their summer issue. 

A Peek Behind The Scenes - Part I "Finding" The Story

I thought it might be interesting/different/helpful to give a behind the scenes peek at my creative process when it comes to writing a story and submitting it for publication. My short story, “When Morning Come” was recently published in an online literary journal. Before I reveal the journal’s name, I’d like to share a few details about the story’s journey.

“Finding” The Story

I keep a number of folders containing notes and drafts of unfinished stories.  

While thumbing through one such folder in late June (or early July) of 2025, I 

found 2 pages of notes and a fully drafted first page for “When Morning Come.” 

Even though I still have no idea what inspired the story or where I originally intended to take it, I was intrigued by the challenge of fleshing out a work that I’d initially conceived in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s.  After reading and carefully mulling over the rediscovered material, I sat down and just started writing.  It was a fairly effortless endeavor.  It almost felt as if the young girl’s voice, the plot line and all of the little details had just been sitting there all along, lurking if you will, somewhere in those magical spaces that stretch between my fingers, the keyboard and the far corners of my imagination.  

A RAP SO DEEP IN BLUE

This is a slightly revised post that I shared on Facebook last week.  It is an update of sorts on an essay of mine that was published not long ago. 

***

In my last published piece “Hair Care Chronicles” (Forge Literary Magazine / April 7, 2025), I reflect on the disappearance of two of my hairstylists, one of whom was murdered.  In the piece, I mention not remembering how the murdered woman was killed.  Last week, while rummaging through a binder full of old notes and unfinished pieces, I had my memory jogged.

I found something I wrote called “A Rap So Deep In Blue.”  A title which I’m pretty sure was my poetic play on the word “rhapsody.”  I was taken aback when I read the following section of the piece.

Black girl

what

nightmares 

haunt you?

The rituals of hair.  The hair rituals . . .

That bond us/we women of color

a bond

he shattered 

with a single blast from a shotgun

He killed her with a shotgun.

And all I can think now

are of her hands

her hands

in my hair

her hands in my hair

her hands . . . and (every now and then)

 . . . her blood on his hands

and I can’t even remember her name

***

He killed her with a shotgun.  Somehow, I’d forgotten that horrifying detail.  I’m not sure where I got the “single blast” part.  Something tells me, I wasn’t told that.  I’m guessing, at some point,  I must have read about the tragedy in the newspaper.  In any case, my memory was wiped clean of all those details.  I wonder if a part of me never wanted the brutal manner of her death to arise when thoughts of her crossed my mind.  To shoot someone at close range with a shotgun means you not only don’t intend for them to survive, but you aim to destroy their body in the process, not unlike the current crop of twisted individuals who wreck the lives of innocents with modern day automatic weaponry. So chilling and coldblooded.  

***

If you haven’t read the entire piece and would like to do so, you can find it here:

Hair Care Chronicles

HAIR CARE CHRONICLES by Lori D. Johnson (Forge Literary Magazine)

 

Has a hair stylist, one you liked and/or who worked wonders with your hair, ever suddenly disappeared from your life?  If so, you might enjoy an essay about a couple of my own memorable experiences with hairstylists.  “Hair Care Chronicles” is the title of the piece I wrote that was recently published by The Forge Literary Magazine. Both the essay and a short interview The Forge’s senior editor, Sommer Schafer, conducted with me can be found on their website.   

The following is an excerpt from"Hair Care Chronicles"

I don’t remember her last name. Nor do I recall how I ended up at the hair salon where she worked in Cleveland Heights. What I do remember is that she went by “Lynette” (not her real name) and hailed from New Orleans. Some hair stylists you click with instantly, others over time, and still others never beyond the surface even while showing up to sit in their chair on the regular. I liked Lynette from the jump. Friendly, smart and hilariously blunt, she knew her way around the wayward kinks and curls adorning my head.

 Follow the links below if you’re interested in reading the rest of the essay published by

The Forge Literary Magazine  

HAIR CARE CHRONICLES

by Lori D. Johnson

Check out this link if you are interested in my interview.

LORI D. JOHNSON

(Forge Literary Magazine Author Interview)

A Couple of My Articles Were Reprinted in a new Memphis Public Library Publication

Recently, the Memphis Public Library (via The Memphis Library Foundation) launched a new

quarterly publication called MPL UNBOUND.  

I’m happy and proud to report that a couple of my previously published articles are featured in

the inaugural issue of MPL UNBOUND (Fall, 2024).  Hey, I even got my name on the cover. 😍  The articles about my grandmother’s scrapbook and my family’s history in the Whitehaven community appear between pages 16-22 of the publication. 

Both of my articles previously appeared in issues of Storyboard Memphis. “MaDear’s Scrapbook” was featured in the December 23, 2020 issue of Storyboard Memphis after being published first in the August 10, 2018 & December 18, 2020 issues of Chapter 16.   My article “Tracing My Black Roots In Old Whitehaven” was first featured in the August 11, 2023 issue of Storyboard Memphis. 

For those who live in the Memphis area, a few free print copies of MPL UNBOUND may still be available at 1 of the 18 branches of the Memphis Public Library. 

A digital copy of MPL UNBOUND can be found on the Memphis Library Foundation’s Website.  

“Mama Say She Had A Dream” by Lori D. Johnson won NELLE Literary Journal’s 2024 “Three Sisters Award” for creative nonfiction!!!

"Mama Say She Had A Dream" (which appears in NELLE issue #7 and won their 2024 "Three Sisters" award for creative nonfiction) is a blend of oral history and essay.  It opens with my grandmother's story about the death of her baby brother in the early 1900s.  My MaDear's story is one of several I culled and transcribed from the recorded kitchen conversations we had in 1989.

In 1995, I was able to publish a fictionalized version of the story in Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review, but I've longed to share the original story that MaDear told me--and in her own words.  I'm thrilled that after all of these years, NELLE Literary Journal has finally granted me that opportunity.

"Mama Say She Had A Dream" is also the first chapter of a larger unpublished body of work--MaDear's Memories (of Mart Road, Johnson Sub and More)--that pays homage to both my grandmother's unique story-telling abilities and our family's roots in Johnson Sub, the 48-acre Black farming community and Freedman's settlement in Memphis, Tennessee, where Ethel V. Johnson (aka MaDear) lived most of her life (1912-1999).

Mama Say She Had A Dream

by Lori D. Johnson

AN HONORABLE MENTION

The first chapter of my novel-in-progress BLOOD KIN received an honorable mention in the 2024 Chapter One Prize of the Gutsy Great Novelist Contest. The chapter was ONE of THE TOP 10 entries in a contest that had a total of 930 entries! 

If you’re interested in reading the complete first chapter of BLOOD KIN or any of the the other winners and/or honorable mentions in this year’s Gutsy Great Novelist contest, visit the link below. (You’ll find BLOOD KIN and my pic under honorable mentions).

2024 Chapter One Prize of the Gutsy Great Novelist Contest

My Family's History In "Old Whitehaven"

 Recently, I turned some of the research I've collected on my family's history into an article.  The article, "Tracing My Black Roots In Old Whitehaven" appears in the August 11, 2023 issue of StoryBoard Memphis.

The following are a few key points of "Tracing My Black Roots in Old Whitehaven."

--In 1989, I recorded my conversations with my 76-year old-grandmother about our family's history.  Among other things she shared with me--her family once lived and worked on "The McCorkle Place" which was then located in Whitehaven.

--Whitehaven is a community/residential aread located in the south-west section of Memphis, TN.  The McCorkles were one of Whitehaven's founding families.  The community's history wad documented in --TALES OF OLD WHITEHAVEN--a book written by Anna L. McCorkle in 1967.

Tales of Old Whitehaven
by Anna L. McCorkle

--One of the churches that served the Whitehaven community during the early days of its existence wad Edmondson Presbyterian Church.  In 1847, the congregation moved into a new building.  According to Anna L. McCorkle, "This building consisted of one room with a slave gallery in back.  There were twenty-five members, five of whom were colored."  

--Turns out, my grandmother's great grandmother (my 3rd great grandmother), an enslaved woman named Celia Plunkett (later Celia Plunkett Morgan) was one of the original five "colored" members of Edmondson Presbyterian Church.

--According to records compliled by David Ragland Davis in his publication EDMONDSON PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1844-1931, Celia, described as a servant of Dr. Plunkett (John Desire Plunkett), was baptized in the church in 1854.

Edmondson Presbyterian Church 1844-1931
by David Ragland Davis

--So many odd coincidences and baffling events occured during the course of my "discovery" of Celia, I'm almost convinced SHE WANTED ME TO FIND HER . . .

--For additional details, checkout the article--"Tracing My Black Roots In Old Whitehaven"

WORDS & IMAGES . . . Hattie Mae's Harvest by Lori D. Johnson

 Sometimes mere words aren't enough.  After I finished writing "Hattie Mae's Harvest" an essay that appears in the most recent issue of Midnight and Indigo, I was inspired to create an accompanying collage.  It's been years since I've felt inspired to create something that falls within the realm of the fine arts.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm kind of rusty, but the feeling that I got while I was in the throes of putting it together was nothing short of WONDERFUL.  

The following is a snippet from the essay . . . 

An old black and white photograph of seven smiling Black women is one of my favorites.  I discovered it in 2017 on a visit with my now ninety-some-year-old Aunt Rubylene.  I don't know who took the picture; what year it might have been taken, or for what occasion.  Even though my Aunt Rubylene is in the photo, she blames her failing memory for her inability to offer any of the pertinent details.  My aunt has always been gracious and forthcoming with me, so I want to take her at her word.

You can read the rest of the work here . . . HATTIE MAE'S HARVEST.

And if you look closely at the artwork below,  you will notice that a couple of the photos described in the essay are featured in the collage.

Hattie Mae's Harvest

by 

Lori D. Johnson

THE BROOKS AVENUE SCHOOL REUNION (August 28, 2022 / MEMPHIS, TN) & Lori D. Johnson's "Johnson Sub Research"

 

I'm still marveling that my research on the Johnson Sub community in Memphis, TN played a role in making this happen.  Wish I could have been there, but from all reports, the event was a smashing success!  The organizer, George R. Williams, Sr., gave a nice presentation at Riverside Missionary Baptist Church.  The folks at the National Civil Rights Museum were wonderful hosts and treated the Brooks Avenue School crew as honored guests.  According to my parents, the tour of the Rosenwald exhibit, the luncheon and the hospitality were all top-notch.

George R. Williams, Sr.

Brooks Avenue Reunion Organizer

Riverside Missionary Baptist Church

Brooks Avenue School Reunion

August 28, 2022

Brooks Avenue School Reunion

at National Civil Rights Museum

(August 28, 2022)

If you'd like to learn more about Brooks Avenue School and its designation as a Rosenwald School, as well as how a portion of my research on Johnson Sub contributed to the reunion, click on the link below for the Commercial Appeal newspaper feature (dated Aug. 24, 2022) about the event.

"Celebrating The Impact of Rosenwald Schools"

MY CONNECTION TO TWO FREEDMEN SETTLEMENTS . . . by Lori D. Johnson

                                

                                       

       Calhoun County, MS

 

Have you ever heard of Freedom colonies, Freedmen settlements or Freedmen towns?  Probably

not, huh?  Freedom colonies and freedmen settlements/towns were the all Black

communities established by the formerly enslaved after the Civil War.  Apparently, I hold the

honor of being a descendant of two such communities--one on my mother’s side of the

family and another on my dad’s.  

The one created by my mother’s side of the family was located in Calhoun County, MS near the town of Paris (not far from Water Valley MS where my mother and her folks were

born).  The community was founded by a former slave (name unknown)  who’d been allowed

to work for pay during his enslavement. After Emancipation, he purchased land in the area

and from it grew a vibrant community.  They established a school (Bryant School) and a church

(Mt. Pleasant Church).  They had a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, a grist mill (a mill that grinds grain into flour) and they raised sheep from which they spun wool and made clothing.  Some of their descendants (Hawkins, Pearson, Reese, Shipp & Steen) erected a marker near what once was the entrance of the church’s cemetery.  (See photo above) Sadly, not that long ago, that marker “mysteriously” disappeared.

JOHNSON CHAPEL, CME

Memphis, TN

The Freedmen settlement established by my dad’s side of the family was founded in 1903 by

my great-great randfather, Prince Johnson who purchased 48 acres of land in Shelby County, TN

(in the Peter Mitchell Subdivision of Memphis ) and resold individual lots to the formerly

enslaved and their offspring.  The residents of Johnson Sub formed a community that thrived

well into the 1990s.  For me, Prince Johnson, the man my grandmother called “The Mayor”

of Johnson Sub’s 48 acres is a figure shrouded in mystery. In spite of my research, I still

don’t really know who he was or what he truly had in mind for Johnson Sub.  Given Prince's

affiliation with The Knights and Daughters of Tabor, I suspect he may have had a

self-sufficient community like Mound Bayou, MS in mind. 

Even though today Mound Bayou is considered impoverished by many, it was once prosperous

and even described by Theodore Roosevelt as “the jewel of the Delta.”  Mound Bayou was a

freedman settlement founded in 1887 and at one point had dozens of Black businesses, 3 schools,

6 churches, a bank, a Carnegie Library, and even a hospital.  

Nothing of that magnitude ever materialized in Johnson Sub, which for years was basically

a farming community and residential area. But the Sub was full of talented folks and crafts peoplelike brick masons and carpenters, some of whom built or helped build many of the homes in

and outside of the area.  In the 1920s, an uncle who lived in the Sub was instrumental in

raising funds for a Rosenwald school, Brooks Avenue School (grades 1-8) which for decades

educated Black children who lived in the Sub and surrounding area. Several family members

and residents with Johnson Sub ties taught at Brooks Avenue. Johnson Sub also was once

home to a church (Johnson Chapel CME) and in later years a small general store (owned

and run by my Aunt Vina & Uncle Fugerson) and a chartered civics organization (TheJohnson Subdivision Civics Club).

Not only is it sorta, kinda ironic that I descend from not one, but two Freedman settlements. 

But even more ironic, perhaps, is that my mother and father first met as children and while my mother was in Johnson Sub visiting her relatives. As it turns out, my mother’s relatives were Hawkins (yes, originally part of that freedmen community in Calhoun County, MS) who’d relocated from MS to TN only to settle in another freedmen settlement-- Johnson Sub!  

Just one of the many odd and interconnecting tidbits I’ve discovered in my research of my family’s

history.  

SN: If you want to know more about Freedom colonies and Freedmen settlements, check

out THE BLACK TOWNS (1979) by Norman L. Crockett or

FREEDOM COLONIES: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow (2005/2010)

by Thad Sitton.   If you want to know more about that Freedmen community in

Calhoun County, MS, check out the book BLACK HERITAGE SITES: The South (1996) by Nancy C. Curtis, Ph.D.

If you want to know more about Johnson Sub, you need to pray or keep your fingers crossed that I find a publisher for my manuscript. 😏I’ll keep you posted.