News & Events

Cathrina Jakeman, an English major at CSUP, has just published her first chapbook entitled Why I Bite with Bottlecap Press, which is "a visceral, fragmented exploration of girlhood, illness, and rage." The book can be ordered directly from Bottlecap Press here, and what follows is an excerpt from a piece entitled "Jaws Comes For Us All Eventually":

Nine — in the shower, water sliding down my skin, kissing my eyelashes — washing out

my mouth. My hand hesitantly travels to the center of my chest, towards my heart. Three      

fingers extended, clockwise motion, light pressure. Finding nothing, I sink to my knees and,  

leaning over, cup my small breasts in my palms. I hold them, feel the weight of them, and  

squeeze.

Creative Writing Teaching Assistant Haley Newman had the chance to interview Jakeman about her work, the publishing process, and how she submits pieces for publication. Their fascinating conversation is below. 

HN: What stages did your new chapbook, Why I Bite, go through before arriving at the finished product?

CJ: There’s a lot to think about and unpack with this question, but I think it all started last semester when I went to Mona Susan Power’s reading for her newest book, Council of Dolls. In her Q&A, she said she knows a line, a paragraph — a book — is done when it feels true. That really got me thinking about authorial intention and vulnerability, especially since I was writing mostly poetry and nonfiction at the time. Why I Bite went through a lot of transformation before it felt like the truth, and I think that search for truth was the biggest driver of the chapbook’s evolution from nothing into a published entity.

In the beginning, the pieces were mostly fragmented experiments with tone, form, and style. I originally imagined them going to separate journals and magazines, but over time, I realized I was circling the same themes — girlhood, illness, inherited trauma, the body as an archive of memory — and that together they could articulate my ideas better. That’s something I’m always asking myself as a writer: not just is this good? but is this effective?

One thing that helped me move from fragments to a manuscript was making a visual chapbook for myself. I designed mock-ups in Canva, printed out the pieces, cut them apart, and rearranged them until the order made sense. Sometimes I even added images from my childhood scrapbooks to test how the themes could be visually delineated. That process —  cutting my own work apart (we always hear the term, kill your babies, and in this stage I truly understood that. I mean, I was literally taking a blade to my own work to make it the best it could be), moving sections, and seeing it as its own object —  is what helped me see what belonged and what didn’t; two or three pieces didn’t make it into the book for this reason. Some pieces, like Jaws Comes For Us All Eventually and Blood Slug, went through twenty drafts before I felt they had that truthful bite I was looking for.

And, most importantly, I wasn’t doing this alone. My creative nonfiction professor, Dr. Tomie Bitton, helped me talk through these big ideas and guided me toward the strongest representation of them. By the time the manuscript reached Bottlecap, it had shed its moles and warts and become something alive.

HN: How did you find Bottlecap Press?

CJ: I actually found Bottlecap Press through the work I’ve been doing with Vinegar Press, which is the small literary press I founded earlier this year. In that vein, I wanted Vinegar to publish experimental, hybrid, and emotionally raw writing in the form of digital chapbooks and magazines.

Part of running Vinegar means being nosey and constantly looking at what other indie presses are doing — how they curate, how they design, and how they advertise their authors. That’s how I came across Bottlecap. Their catalog immediately made me want to submit. I could see my own work living in conversation with what they were publishing, and that gave me the confidence to send Why I Bite their way.

HN: What was the submission process for your chapbook like? How long did it take to hear back from Bottlecap Press at each step of the process? Did they request further editing?

CJ: The submission process with Bottlecap Press was really smooth, which I appreciated because submitting a chapbook can feel so intimidating. I sent Why I Bite in during one of their open reading periods, and I heard back with an acceptance about three weeks later. That initial “yes”... I can't even describe how that felt (I think I reread the email ten times).

From there, the process moved quickly. Bottlecap didn't request any edits; by the time I submitted, the chapbook had already been through so many drafts and rounds of revision that it was in pretty good shape. We did some small adjustments on formatting and layout for the physical print, but for the most part they trusted my vision and let the manuscript stand as it was.

The whole thing — from acceptance to production — took a little over a month, which in the publishing world feels lightning fast. They designed a cover, had me write a blurb, and now it’s out in the world.

HN: You’ve been published several times. How much of your work do you have submitted at any given time, and how do you keep all of that information organized?

CJ: My submission process tends to come in waves. I’ll go through an intense writing period where I generate and revise a lot of work, and then I’ll send a batch out “on submission.” Usually that means around ten places at once. After that, I’m in the habit of checking Submittable and my email constantly to track responses.

To stay organized, I keep a Notion page with publishers I like, notes on whether I’ve submitted to them, and deadlines. That system helps me see patterns (which presses feel like a good fit, what kind of work goes where) and keeps the process from feeling like I'm just throwing pages into space hoping for a response.

On top of that, I’m also a staff writer for The Lycian magazine, where I publish once a month. Having that responsibility means there’s always writing, editing, and organizing going on at some point, even when I’m not in the big submission push. It gives me some form of structure and accountability (which is huge since writing is something that is so reliant on self-motivation) while also reminding me that publishing doesn’t only come with external validation. Being published and continuing to publish my work has taught me the value in working with a community; that in practicing consistency and resilience, I can get as much fulfillment from the process that I do in solely chasing acceptances. 

HN: Do you have any advice for those who might feel intimidated about the submitting process?

CJ: I’ve been rejected more than I’ve been published and at first that “no” felt soul crushing. So much to the point where I was at a standstill — not writing, not submitting, just waiting for the perfect moment when everything would be exactly right for me to write the perfect piece. I had to change this. I had to reframe.

Now, every “no” tells me something; maybe the piece needs more work, maybe it’s not the right time, or maybe it just hasn’t found its home yet. That reframing was huge for me. For example, there’s this one magazine that has monthly prompts that I submit to each month. I’ve never been accepted and I’ve been submitting to this particular magazine since 2023. That’s two years, 24 pieces, and none of them have been picked up. One of the pieces I submitted was I Ate All My Friends, which found its home in the chapbook. Simply put, because I failed there, I was able to surpass my goal of publishing in that magazine and put a whole book into the world. It just takes time and stubbornness.

HN: Bonus question: What (art/music/books/movies/tv/theater) is inspiring you right now?

CJ: I’m usually inspired by themes more than single works. Lately it’s been big ideas like inheritance, violence, surrealness, and how I can try to distill them into something intimate. Recently, I’ve been reading experimental fiction like Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch and Sayaka Murata’s short stories, thinking about Murakami’s surrealness, and turning to Fernanda Melchor and Mariana Enriquez for the way they explore Hispanic heritage and violence. After my grandmother passed, I started looking more deeply into my Mexican heritage, which has shaped the direction of my current work, a short story collection, tentatively titled Mudwives. 

Please join us for three great literary events this semester! All events will be held in the CSUP library (the LARC) on the second floor in the LINCx. These events are free & open to the public and refreshments will be served. Contact Professor Darci Schummer at darci.schummer@csupueblo.edu for more information.