By Jayel Gibson
Rose DesRochers is the owner and administrator of Todays-Woman.net. Today's Woman
Writing Community is a supportive on-line
community for men and women over 18. Their goal is to help writers succeed in the writing industry by offering a useful selection of services including author interviews, regular columns, interactive forums, and a place for writers to share work and exchange critiques. Today is the site’s third anniversary
Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Rose
DesRochers, a woman who wears many hats. Wife, mother, published poet, author of dozens of
articles and at least one very amusing short story as well as the owner and administrator of the
Todays-Woman Writers' website, a very full plate for one woman. Let's begin.
What inspired you to create a writers' website?
Many visitors and
members might be shocked to know that Today's Woman Writing Community was actually started by my husband Shawn. I
use to own a webring / women's online group and when the webring closed the doors, Shawn
registered Todays-Woman.net as a woman's network for me, after some deciding I chose to use it as my
own personal site for graphics and my work, I then changed it over to a community for men and
women.
At first my goal was to create a network where men and women from different walks of
life could go unite in friendship. I wanted it to be a place where people could share thoughts,
ideas and experiences. Some of the first members started submitting poetry and it gradually
began to grow as a poetry community. Over the course of the last year members began to express
that they would like to the site branch out to cater to different styles of writing. So at a
request of members we did just that. Today’s Woman now caters to a diverse group of writers. We
have really opened our doors and broadened ourselves to more than just
poetry.
The Today's Woman Writing Community site offers articles on a variety of topics,
writing related as well as topics of interest outside the realm of authoring and publishing. What
are the submission guidelines for article submissions to Today's Woman?
We only accept submissions from the original author of the articles. We do not offer monetary
payment at this time, and do not accept articles that are primarily advertisements. We allow the
author to place a brief resource box and contact information at the end of the article and we
promote the author in regular newsletters that we send out. We are interested in seeing
well-written articles on writing, self-help, motivation, true stories and other articles that
might be of interest to our loyal readers. Only submissions in English are accepted. Length per
article is 500 - 2000 words.
Today's Woman Writing Community provides writers with both
the ability to submit work and comment on the works of others. Could you explain just how
commenting and submitting are linked to one another?
As a community we
thrive on comments and grow as writers by the feedback that we receive. One of the guidelines of
Today's Woman is that in order to share your own work, you must comment on two poems or
stories before you are able to submit. To keep your writing in good standing on Today's
Woman
you must follow these guidelines and take the courtesy to comment on two other authors’ poems or
stories each time you make a submission to our website. We have found this to work extremely
well. One of my sayings is that “nobody is a passenger here, that everyone's crew.” Giving and
receiving feedback is an important stage in writing and it is something that we pay a great deal
of attention to at Today's Woman.
What are your immediate goals for the
Today's Woman website? What do you envision for it five years from now?
Today's Woman has gone through many stages of development. Our goal is to cater to your needs
as a writer. We've assembled a list of important resources for writers and we offer some
wonderful tools to our members. In five years, I would guess bigger and with even more
resources.
You are also a poet. I am sure that maintaining and
administrating a large website is very time consuming, do you schedule time for writing poetry,
or is it something that just fits in amid the other demands on your busy
life?
I write whenever I can. It is amazing that I find time to squeeze
writing in along with administrating Today's Woman and being a mother. But somehow I manage to
do it.
Poetry is not for everyone, and is a genre with much diversity of
style and content. What moved you to write your very first poem? Would you share some of the
other things that have inspired your poems over the years?
The raging of
teen hormones inspired me to write my first poem and then over the years it has been
grieving the loss of many loved ones, life, love, society and everything in between.
Which poets have influenced you? Which are your favorites? Least
favorites?
I think a lot of poets have influenced me. I would have
to say that Robert Frost influenced me the most. His poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" was one of the
first famous poems that I ever read. He certainly inspired me. Other poets who have influenced
my writing are Emily Dickinson, Robert W Service and Al Purdy.
Share
some of your writing goals with us. Do you have plans to write in genres beyond poetry? Where do
you see your writing journey taking you over the next ten years?
My main
goal is to keep writing. Another area I would like to look at is freelancing. I've currently
written a number of articles and essays and one of my essays was recently published in my local
paper. I am also being quoted in an upcoming October issue of AARP Bulletin on poetry-contest
scams. When I was in high school I really, wanted to get into journalism but that did not work
out. That is still something I would like to do at some time in the future. But, who knows. But I
do plan to come out with a poetry anthology next year.
Poetry is a
difficult genre to get published. As a poet who has run the gauntlet of a less than perfect
publishing experience, what advice can you give poets aspiring to publication that might assist
them in avoiding a few publishing pitfalls?
Might I suggest my article
"Don’t Get Taken: Exposing the Fraudulent Poetry Publishers." But my biggest advice would be the
same advice given by many writers. "If it sounds too good to be true, it often
is."
What general advice would you like to share with other
writers?
My advice would be to learn to accept criticism. Make sure to
proofread and edit your work. Edit your writing, read it out loud and edit it again, ask another
writing buddy to look over it too. As a poet, remember that a poem is never truly finished.
Now, before you rush off, give us a glimpse of an average day in the
busy life of Rose DesRochers?
I usually start out with a cup of coffee
and a glass of orange juice. I start by downloading my email and answering all the tech
questions. I then log into the website and make sure that all members have followed the
guidelines for submitting. If the day goes right, I can actually accomplish all I set out to do
that day. I do spend a lot of my time sitting in front of the computer! However in between it
all I make time for two children, a husband and a cat. At the end of the day, when I'm in bed
and asleep, I find time for me.
Do you have any closing comments you
would like to share?
Todays-Woman.net has been a team effort and I’m very
lucky to have the kind of members, friends, staff and family who are willing to devote so much
time and energy to helping all writers achieve their goals and dreams.
Rose, thank you for taking time from your very busy schedule to share a bit of yourself with the
Today's Woman visitors.
Jayel it has been my pleasure. Thank you for
interviewing me.
