The end of January brought an unusual amount of rain to San Diego and an unusual amount of good poetry news and events to me. I couldn’t keep up with posting them all, so here’s a catch-all post for the end of January.

News
I found out on the final day of January that my full-length manuscript, Hereverent, received an honorable mention for the Wishing Jewel Prize! Congrats to the winner, Dennis Hinrichsen, and thanks to Green Linden Press for affirming and encouraging my work.

Publications
In addition to my poem in Kahini Quarterly, which I did write a post about, I also had two more poems published in the past week:
– “How Can You Tell If a Mushroom Is Poisonous?” was published by the excessively cool Cotton Xenomorph, a journal whose editors and contributors I can’t wait to hang out with at AWP post-pandemic.
– “Baba Yaga’s Answer” was featured on the website for Next Door Villain, which is a fantastic podcast focused on villains from fairy tales to recent shows.

Readings
– On Friday, January 29, I got to be a featured reader for The Greatest Indoor Reading Series alongside Jane R. LaForge, Jack Bedell, and Keith Kopka, and that was such a warm and welcoming gathering! I will certainly be attending this reading series in the future. Thanks to Noley for inviting me, to Charlotte for hosting, and to Treena and Ridge for creating this space.
– On Sunday, January 31, I was a special guest with Marthe Aponte and Jacqueline Tchakalian for a brand new series from Nicelle Davis called Plants, Painting, and Poetry. What a gift to read and talk with powerhouse artists and poets!
– I’ve continued to participate regularly for Wednesday Night Poetry, the longest-running weekly poetry series in the U.S., hosted by Kai Coggin. This asynchronous reading series has been such a lifeline during the pandemic, and the inaugural reading was especially incredible.

Class Visits
I love teaching my own students, but there’s also a special thrill in getting to visit someone else’s class as a guest poet, most notably because I don’t have to assign any grades. 🙂
– On January 21, I visited Susan Rich’s literary magazine class at Highline College as part of a panel of journal editors for the student editors of Arcturus. The students asked brilliant questions, and I loved getting to hear from the other editors on the panel as well.
– On January 29, I visited Tom Allbaugh’s intro to creative writing class at Azusa Pacific University, and those students asked me such thoughtful questions about my new chapbook and about writing in general.

Writing
My university is starting our spring semester late, March 1, in an attempt to work around the winter COVID surges, but I’m still hosting a 3-hour silent writing time called Writers Gonna Write once a month on Zoom for students, alumni, and colleagues. I also gather once a week with a few dear writer friends to catch up and do a bit of writing. So much right now is so far out of my control, and parenting kids who are doing school at home is still a challenge, but these regularly scheduled meetings with kindred spirits have been keeping me writing.

Editing
The staff of Whale Road Review made it through our largest reading period ever (over 600 submissions in December), and by mid-January we’d chosen all of the pieces for our upcoming issues. I’m working on setting up the spring issue now, and it’s amazing. We had so much fun at our 5-year anniversary reading on January 9 that we’re now planning a staff celebration reading for February 6, and we’re planning to have virtual release readings for each issue going forward too. I love doing this work.

I won’t mind if February brings more good poetry news and events, but I do need things to slow down a little so I can focus on completing syllabi and course materials for my spring classes. I feel fortunate to get to do all of these things while we’re staying home. If you’re reading this, I hope you’re taking good care and finding ways to be creative and connect with others safely too.