Category Archives: Blog

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.

Poetry Has Value: May

Here is my May post, in which it’s my birthday, and I can shout about reading fees if I want to!

(♪♫ Shout if I want to, shout if I want to! ♪♫)

With Carolyne Wright at PCA/ACA in Seattle

The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman Turns 3

With everything else going on, I almost missed wishing a happy 3 years to my first chapbook, The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman! It has a beautiful cover, but I especially love seeing adorned with a barcode and Dewey decimal number. Library books are cool.

If you want to celebrate with me, you could ask your local library to order a copy. Or you could send me a message and buy a signed copy for yourself or someone else (KatMann @ gmail.com). Bonus points if you do all of the above and send me pictures of you with the book. 😉

Poetry Has Value: April

Here is my April post, in which I wonder, “What if poetry’s value is greater than money? What if I respect my poems enough not to send them to journals that don’t meet my standards for quality or human decency, regardless of how much those journals pay for poems?”

Poetry Has Value: January Stats

My January post is up at Poetry Has Value. I’m focusing on sending my poems to paying markets this year… so far I’m down $3, but I’m feeling good.

Katie (05)

Poetry Has Value

I’ve joined Jessica Piazza’s Poetry Has Value project for 2016, meaning I’ll be keeping a public record of my poetry submissions, fees, acceptances, payment, and rejections. I’m excited (and somewhat terrified) to be part of this!

If you’d like to see the parameters of my project and/or if you’d like to read a specific list of things I fear, here is my introductory post.

Whale Road Review

I’m realizing my dream of starting a new literary journal. Welcome, Whale Road Review!

Whale Road Review is a journal of poetry and short prose. It will contain short creative work (everything under 500 words) that lingers long after it’s read. It will also include short pedagogy papers and a range of reviews. It will be simply designed and mobile friendly. The first issue will be published in December 2015.

Please like WRR on Facebook and Twitter, and send some work!

A Poetry Book Is a Poem

It’s become clear to me that a poetry book is just a larger poem. The poems in it are lines, and sometimes I have to cut good ones because they don’t fit, and I have to create a sense of flow and keep people reading. Every poem I’ve ever loved doesn’t need to be in a book, or at least not right now in this book. This feels so obvious to me now, but it definitely wasn’t before.

For some reason, I had always thought about poetry books as a storage container for all of the poems that I like the best and want to keep together (or, even worse, that I wrote within the same time period). Maybe I’ve read too many Collected Poems. I’ve been working through a manuscript and going wild with cutting and adding and rearranging and revising. Creating a book was easier with my chapbook The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman because it has a clear narrative arc. It’s much harder with the collection I’m working on now that has a wide variety of poems swirling around a central theme.

And now back to work.