In honor of National Poetry Month, I’m starting a video series called Poetry Rev. I’ll be doing 2-3 minute poetry book reviews with a sample poem each and posting the videos to YouTube. Please check out my welcome video for more details and subscribe to my YouTube channel!
Category Archives: Blog
Festival of Faith & Writing
Last month, I had a wonderful first time at the Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids! (Even though I had to re-book my Sunday morning flight and get out on Saturday afternoon to escape an ice storm…) I especially loved spending time with writer friends on the plane ride there, over meals, in the hot tub, and at the One Poet, One Poem reading.
I got to present on a panel of literary journal editors called “Making Space: The Literary Journal as Witness” alongside Angela Doll Carlson (Saint Katherine Review), Nathaniel Lee Hansen (The Windhover), Daniel Bowman (Relief), and Brianna Van Dyke (Ruminate). I loved getting to represent Whale Road Review and talk about reading, writing, and editing with such wonderful company.
One of the very best parts for me was seeing my current and incoming PLNU colleagues present. Dean Nelson gave an excellent talk on interviewing (even at 8:30 in the morning), and Margarita Pintado gave a great poetry talk and reading.
Some of my other favorite sessions included a celebration of Luci Shaw and later an interview with her conducted by Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughters, a poetry session on daughters writing mothers (with Barbara Crooker and Jeanne Murray Walker), and a session on using ancient texts (with Diane Glancy and Lauren Winner). l also loved the keynote by Edwidge Danticat, who was stunning when she read and talked about her book The Art of Death.
Another highlight for me: I was so impressed with Pádraig Ó Tuama, an Irish poet, who did an interview alongside Marie Howe and then gave a talk and reading on Friday. When I bought his book and went to his signing, I also gave him a copy of The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman because he’d talked a bit about the bleeding woman during his interview. I felt a bit like a silly fan giving him a copy of my book, but I did it anyway. When I was traveling home on Saturday, a friend texted me to say, “Did you SEE what Pádraig posted about your chapbook on Instagram?!”
This was a wonderful way to close my first trip to FFW. 🙂 I hope to be back!
Poets in Pajamas
I had so much fun being the guest poet on Poets in Pajamas on my birthday! I read a couple of favorite poems from each of my published collections, plus a couple of bonus brand new poems, and I answered questions from the live online audience. Thanks to all who tuned in and participated!
You can catch the video of my reading here: Poets in Pajamas 32: Katie Manning.
Poetry at the PCA
The week before Easter, I got to attend the annual Popular Culture Association national conference in Indianapolis. I love this conference. It’s the perfect mix of scholarship and fun, with participants inside and outside of academia. I can attend sessions on poetry and Doctor Who and games studies all in the same place. It’s glorious.
I’m the Area Chair of Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry, so I screen submissions and organize the poetry panels. It takes a chunk of time and doesn’t pay, but I love this work too. It’s a fun puzzle for me to figure out how to arrange the presentations into panels so they will speak to each other in interesting ways, and I love getting to connect with poets and poetry scholars by hosting them at this conference. I’ve met some wonderful people this way over the last four years, from undergraduate students presenting for the first time to well-established poets like Kaveh Akbar. (I was going to insert a photo, but I just took a ton of blurry photos from my crummy old phone, so just imagine a lot of people looking awesome. I’ll bring my good camera next year…)
This year, I got to present in a session called A Field Guide to Grief: Poems. Kira Dunton, Sally McGreevey Hannay, Sarah Ann Winn, and I read poems from our collections that deal with loss (of a friend, of a son, of grandparents). I wasn’t sure people would turn out for grief-based poetry, but the room filled up, and it was one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had. The audience was audibly and visibly connected with us. I saw people openly crying. The room rang with laughter in the moments when the poets’ dark humor came through. The Q&A time continued with audience members sharing very personally about their own losses and asking about when/how we’d come to write from grief. It was such a special time.
I also had the good fortune to be invited to take a side trip to South Bend on Good Friday to read with Sarah Ann Winn and Emily Capettini. Krista Cox of the Lit Literary Collective was a wonderful host. I loved hearing more of Sarah’s incredible poems from Alma Almanac, and I was so impressed with Emily’s Velma Dinkley flashes and Bloody Mary short story. Bonus features: talking and laughing with Sarah and Emily on the drive, seeing my cousin Toni who’s always lived halfway across the country from me, and eating delicious food with all of these people until the restaurant blasted loud music to make us leave at closing time.
I’m looking forward to the 2019 PCA conference in Washington, D.C.!
PCA, New Alchemy, & Unlost Journal
The end of the semester would’ve been busy enough, but we’ve also had my spouse’s surprise cancer, surgery, and chemo treatments. Although April and May haven’t been the most productive writing and publishing months for me, I do have some good poetry-related updates.
The PCA/ACA conference was wonderful as always. I loved seeing all of the poetry presentations and sharing poems from Tasty Other. I was also honored to receive the Felicia Campbell Area Chair Award!
I got to read on April 19 at the New Alchemy Poetry Series, which is newly relocated at Lestat’s West. What a cool venue, and what a great night of sharing my poems and hearing others read during the open mic.
In May, my poem “The Book of Icons” from my Bible word banking project was published in Unlost Journal.
This week, Tasty Other turned 6 months old! I joked about doing a mock-baby photo shoot with a chalkboard of fun facts about the book, but I’m not that silly (or perhaps I just don’t have the time right now… I am that silly).
Next up: I’ll be participating in a local author book signing this coming Friday, June 2, from 6-8 p.m. at Liberty Station, Barracks 16 (co-sponsored by SD Writers, Ink and Comickaze).
San Diego Readings
I loved being part of the SD Writers, Ink local author exhibit and featuring at the (Not) Dead (Yet) Poetry Society’s reading on February 3 with Ron Salisbury and Anthony Conwright.
I also had a wonderful time as a featured reader for Non-Standard Lit on February 5 with Kaia Sand and Suzanne Stein. (Yes, we had a poetry reading during the Super Bowl. I did read the closest thing I have to a football poem…)
My next local reading will be with the New Alchemy Poetry Series on April 19 at Lestat’s Coffee House.
Update: Readings, PHV, WRR, and Publications
The end of the semester and the holidays kept me away, but I did have a wonderful book launch at PLNU on Nov. 30 and an awesome San Diego book release at the Women’s Museum of California on Dec. 3. What a privilege to share my weird Tasty Other poems and to read alongside some of my favorite people!
Here is my Poetry Has Value post about November. What a bizarre month that was. I’m still working on the December post and 2016 year-end reflection, but those will be ready soon.
My journal, Whale Road Review, published its first anniversary issue on December 1. I love the issue, and I love the work of choosing and sharing other people’s incredible writing.
I had 3 poems published in a mixed-genre mystery anthology called Candlesticks and Daggers. I also had a review of Luci Shaw’s Sea Glass: New & Selected Poems in the Advent/Christmas 2016 issue of The Cresset.
I’ve been sending out poetry submissions a lot over winter break and reading a lot of submissions for Whale Road Review. Now that classes are beginning tomorrow, I’ll be getting back into a regular writing routine, especially since PLNU awarded me an internal grant of a 4-unit release to work on a poetry project. (Thanks!) Here we go…
Nevermore, Review, & Interviews
Life has been full of the very bad and the very good. I’ll share some of the good…
On Oct. 29, I was a featured reader at the Nevermore Free Poetry Festival in Van Nuys, and it was an amazing experience. Thanks, Nicelle Davis, for making magical things happen. I definitely need more full-day poetry festivals and Poe-inspired costumes in my life. I probably need to wear black lipstick more frequently too…
Photo by Edwin Vasquez
In the last few weeks, I’ve been the featured poet in WTH Weekly (thanks, Cassie Paton!) and A Door with a Voice has received a review in Mom Egg Review. Speaking of Marvels also just published an interview with me about A Door with a Voice with some deeply thoughtful questions from R Vinoshini Naidoo.
I’ve had a few poems accepted for publication in the last few weeks too, which feels great, of course. Thanks, Yellow Chair Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, and Candlesticks & Daggers!
Next up: Tasty Other, my first full-length poetry book, will be released next week! I’ve been setting up readings and will soon create an Events page with all of my “book tour” information (and I will let myself feel like a rock star for at least a minute).
Tasty Other!
I’m so excited to share that my new book, Tasty Other, forthcoming in November as the winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, now has a cover!
Tasty Other also has a pre-order page, so if you’d like to purchase copies at almost half price, go for it!
A Door with a Voice: Poems, Review, & Interview
The past two weeks have been some of the worst of my life. My mother-in-law was killed in a car crash that put my father-in-law in the ICU, and now it looks like he won’t make it either. We are so heartbroken.
I’m thankful right now for any happy news that I can get, and I have three pieces of good poetry news today.
- Five poems from A Door with a Voice were published in Eunoia Review.
- Erika Dreifus posted a review of A Door with a Voice.
- Nancy Chen Long posted an interview with me about A Door with a Voice.
And if you’re interested, you can read the poetry collection itself: A Door with a Voice.