I wrote a love poem that uses my favorite board game, Pandemic, and also mentions vomit. You’re welcome, world. 
Thanks to Connotation Press and Julie Brooks Barbour for publishing it today! This one is extra special to me, and I’m glad it found a good home.
Issue 24 of Rogue Agent just got a new permalink, so I’m sharing it again! It includes my poem “When We Finish Playing Cootie” in the company of some incredible poems and visual art. I love this issue and this journal!
The end of May marks the 5-year publication anniversary of The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman!
This chapbook will always be extra special to me. I put so much of myself into it (time, research, questions about faith), and it was my first book publication.
If you’d like to get a copy, you can order a signed copy from me, or you can order online from Wipf and Stock or Amazon.
If you like podcasts, interviews, and/or poetry, check this out!
I had a great time chatting with Jared Duran in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago for this Limited Engagement podcast. I loved that his interview style took us to places I didn’t expect to go. Thanks, Jared!
I’d been wanting to do a poetry reading in my hometown for a long time. I made contact with Phoenix poets and got a reading scheduled as part of my Tasty Other book tour, and I finally got to read at the Caffeine Corridor Reading Series on May 11!
It was so special to have several family members and friends in the audience.
I also loved meeting and hearing fellow reader Trish Justrish, the poets who performed at the open mic, and the reading series hosts: Shawnte Orion, Bill Campana, and Jack Evans. What a cool community of poets!
Thanks, Bill Campana, for your humor.
Thanks, Jack Evans, for your generous affirmation of my work.
Thanks, Shawnte Orion, for arranging for me to read at Caffeine Corridor and for declaring me the poet laureate of North Canyon High School. 🙂
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?!”
In the chaos of traveling for conferences and ending the semester, I haven’t yet shared that 5 of my Bible project poems were published in Amethyst Review!
They split the poems into two batches (Old Testament and New Testament) and published them online on consecutive Fridays in April.
“The Book of Baa” and “The Book of Haze”
“The Book of What,” The Book of Sin,” and “The Book of Lips”
Many thanks to editor Sarah Law for choosing and publishing my poems!
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.
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.!
The last couple of months have been full. The usual end-of-semester work would be enough, but I’ve also traveled to two conferences and mourned the deaths of two wonderful people, so it’s been hard to keep up with everything.
Celebrating success is important though, so here I am, taking a break from grading to write this post. I sent some poems out into the world, and someone read them and thought they were worth publishing. I always love the way poems connect me to other people.
My poem “The Book of Endings” from my biblical word banking project was published in The Windhover, 22.1.
My poem “Which Way Do You Want to Go?” from my collection about/to my late Granny (and also inspired by the best movie, The Labyrinth) was published in Mom Egg Review, vol. 16.
My poems are in incredible company in both of these journals. I highly recommend buying these issues, or better yet, subscribing! I’m so grateful for the work these editors are doing.