AWP, PCA, & the San Diego Writers Festival

My dad passed away this week. I feel shocked by this every time I say it. This post is not about my dad, but it felt wrong not to acknowledge that after the last few hard months, things here continue to be hard and sad.

Somehow, there’s still been joy and fun in the last couple of months too. This extrovert writer is especially happy when I get to throw myself into a sea of writers and spend days totally immersed in the writing world, so here’s a rundown of recent conferences and a festival.

AWP conference highlights:
– Celebrating Whale Road Review‘s 10-year anniversary at our booth with nonstop author signings and some sparkling cider toasts (pictured above).
– Being part of amazing off-site events: Wednesday Night Poetry, Off Site. On Purpose. (co-sponsored by Whale Road Review, SWWIM, MER, Perugia Press, and Cultivating Voices LIVE), and Reluctant Prophets (a book launch for J.D. Isip). Each of these felt magical—full of incredible poems and some of my very favorite poets.
– Giving a presentation on Networking for Writers alongside Abayomi Animashaun, Elizabeth Dark, and Jessica Jacobs.
– Going to the Gregory Alan Isakov concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on the last night with some of my dearest friends.

San Diego Writers Festival highlights:
– Being part of an eclectic panel interview on the writing life that was organized and moderated by Adam Greenfield (pictured above).
– Reading as a featured poet alongside some of San Diego’s rockstar poets.
– Meeting new writers and visiting with dear friends around the bookfair and in the presenters’ lounge.

PCA conference highlights:
– Enjoying the poetry panels: all hits, no misses! Being there as an attendee/presenter rather than as an Area Chair for the first time in 11 years was a nice break (and Billie Tadros did a fantastic job chairing).
– Presenting on how to write occasional poems on a deadline alongside Morgan Tinin and Debbie Campbell (who I refer to as my Whale Road Review doula due to a conversation we had 10 years ago at PCA in NOLA!).
– Getting to enjoy panels and events in other areas, including a Disney area movie viewing (an unofficial sing-along) and the annual Game Studies game night (where someone just gave me a new expansion of Settlers of Catan after I showed him the Catan earrings I was wearing.)
– Spending time with dear long-time friends and some newly-made friends too, often over fantastic food. So many beignets, but not nearly enough. 🙂

MoonPark Review

Life has continued to be busy and somewhat absurd, so I’m behind on sharing good things! Here’s a quick bit of news from March: I had a prose poem included in the spring issue of MoonPark Review. I’m honored that the editors wanted to share this one, and I love the art that they created to accompany my poem. I hope you’ll take some time to enjoy their whole issue.

Bad News, Good News

I mentioned in my last post that January had been intensely difficult, but the weeks since then became even more harrowing. My dad had a heart attack and has been sedated in the ICU with all sorts of tubes keeping him alive. This week, I had the scariest asthma attack of my life and was diagnosed with pneumonia. Yesterday, my son injured his foot in PE and is now on crutches. And, of course, the entire political situation in the US gets more absurd and awful each day.

But just yesterday, my dad was finally able to wake up enough to nod in response to questions and squeeze hands when asked. That feels like a miracle.

I’ve had to miss or cancel many poetry-related things so far this year, but I’ve also had several lovely poetry-related things happen: I had two poems each accepted in the new journals Villain Era and Jackdaw Review, and I was invited to contribute to a really cool project called The Creative Process. Today, I get to read at the first event for the MAW Reading Series, which is run by students in our new M.A. in Writing program. I’ve been writing new things alongside my students during exercises in my writing classes.

Somehow, in the midst of so much bad, there is still creativity, newness, and good.

Swift, Nothings, & Finalists : a catch-up post

The past month has been intensely difficult for a variety of reasons, including the sudden loss of my youngest aunt. It’s hard to feel like updating a website is important in the face of grief and political upheaval, but sometimes poets and poetry keep me going through the dark, so reminding myself of good poetry-related things isn’t a waste of time.

One of the best poetry things this winter has been the release and virtual reading events for the anthology Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift. Editor Kristie Frederick Daugherty has made the whole process a joy, and I’m so honored to have my poem “1993” included alongside some of my poetry rockstars and friends.

In December, I was the featured poet for A Dozen Nothing. In addition to publishing a few of my poems, Pete and Jeff interviewed me and shared my answers on social media throughout the entire month. It was so lovely to have my work celebrated like that!

In the last few weeks, I’ve been a finalist for the San Diego Poet Laureate position and a finalist for the McMath Book Award. Although I’ve joked that I’m getting an “always a bridesmaid” complex, I do feel deeply honored by both of these finalist nods.

And now, back to wrapping up decisions and responses from the December reading period of Whale Road Review!

Election Week Poetry Events

It would be an understatement to say that the past week has been rough, but I realized today that the week has also brought some really lovely moments of connecting with people over poetry, and I want to hold on to those experiences.

On Monday evening, I went straight from the airport to the Mingei Museum in Balboa Park for a fair of women-run organizations and the book launch of Jane Muschenetz’s Power Point. It was life giving to celebrate Jane’s book and to be in the company of so many incredible women.

On Wednesday afternoon, I hosted our annual Poetry on Point reading at PLNU. I started this event 9 years ago so that all of the faculty and staff who write poetry could gather to read our poems for an audience, and it’s so lovely and joyful to hear my colleagues across disciplines sharing their poems.

On Thursday, I was a guest poet in the University of North Dakota’s Virtual Speaker Series. I read a variety of my poems and talked about my process of learning (over and over again) to let myself write what I need to write without letting my worries or anything else hold me back. Even via Zoom, they were such a lovely audience and had great questions. I’m grateful to Patrick Henry for inviting me and teaching my work in his class!

Yesterday afternoon, I got to be a guest speaker at the International Memoir Writers Association monthly gathering. I talked about and read from my chapbook 28,065 Nights, answered questions about chapbooks and about how poetry and memoir intersect, and ended with a writing exercise (that got me writing too!). I was honored to be invited to share with this group of kind writers.

Another thing that lifted me away from post-election despair was this: I filled in for a friend’s American Literature class on Friday, and he had assigned readings from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. Re-reading these texts and discussing 19th century women’s rights with a room of college students (all brilliant women) felt so important, and I think it fired me up to face whatever comes next.