The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced this year’s Rhysling Award finalists, and I’m thrilled to see my ballad “The Emerald Tapestry” listed among so many awe-inspiring poems!  Seriously, this year’s Rhysling anthology is going to be, as the kids might say, a banger. 

“The Emerald Tapestry” is in the Best Long Poem category.  I don’t write very many long poems, so to have had this one accepted at Corvid Queen and then recognized by peers this way, I’m truly honored. 

My poem “Anubis at the Arcade” is part of the Paying Tribute issue of Eye to the Telescope.  Angela Acosta curated this issue, and I’m excited that she chose to include my poem.  Funny thing, I was emailing author Sarah Titus about a different topic earlier this week, when it dawned on both of us that we’re in this issue together! 

My older son helped inspire “Anubis at the Arcade.”  He loves Egyptian mythology, and he explained to me how he thinks it’s too bad Anubis sometimes get a negative reputation due to his association with the afterlife, when his role could be more nuanced.  Around that time, I was reflecting about how arcades have changed since my childhood, and, well, my brain meshed the two ideas together.  I’ve mentioned in the past how I enjoy arcade settings.  I had a lot of fun writing this poem.  Enjoy! 

If you’re in the Portland area, I hope you’ll swing by the Beaverton City Library’s Local Author Fair next Saturday, May 16, 11am-2pm.  I’ll be hanging out at the table for the Oregon Chapter of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), along with author Vanessa MacLellan and chapter president and fellow author H. A. Spector.  We can be scary on the page, but we’re quite friendly in real life, I promise! 

We’ll have books for sale, including my (non-horror) novella Thrice Petrified, because it’s a genre-inclusive group that celebrates the range of members’ work.  But yes, there will also be plenty of spooky tomes to purchase at our table.  My friend Richard Leis will have a table as well, so be sure to visit him for more dark speculative poems and stories, too! 

Besides the usual rejections, I’m happy to report that I’ve had a couple of acceptances lately.  First up will be a poem, “Anubis at the Arcade,” due out in the Paying Tribute issue of Eye to the Telescope.  Then later this year, I’ll have a new fantasy story out called “Shades of Bruises and Blood” in Trollbreath Magazine.  I’m looking forward to when I can share more about each of these pieces! 

In the meantime, I’m chipping away at a longer (for me) fiction project, tinkering with some poems, and looking at doing some summer events. 

I really like small presses.  I like when someone has established a niche, built their community around it, and takes a lot of care putting work out into the world that is not necessarily market-driven.  (I say that as a business major; hey, I also majored in creative writing!)  I’ve been extremely fortunate so far in that I’ve had two books traditionally published, both by small presses, where my experience working with them was overwhelmingly positive.  Seriously, I count my lucky stars and wish that every writer could have that. 

You have a chance to show your support for Sword & Kettle Press, publisher of my Elgin Award-winning chapbook The Inca Weaver’s Tales.  Today they’re launching a Kickstarter campaign for Ten Years of Sword & Kettle Press, an anthology sampler of the chapbooks they’ve published over their first decade!  It will include an excerpt of my poetry chapbook, along with stories and poems from many others, all speculative, all crafted through a generous and inclusive lens of feminism.  Please check it out and help spread the word. 

It’s Poetry Month and Earth Month!  I have a new nature poem out today, “Avenue of the Peaceful Giants” in The Ranger’s Almanac Vol. 1.  This poem was inspired by my family’s visit to see the redwoods in Northern California a couple of years ago. 

The Ranger’s Almanac showcases national parks through stories, poems, breathtaking photography, and other art forms.  It also celebrates the work of park rangers and other professionals in the parks & rec industry. 

Wondrous, soothing, wild places are out there.  Your local parks & rec agency is toiling to preserve these lands and provide access to them.  Go out, enjoy them, and support this crucial work. 

Glockenspiels and clockpunk and snack time, oh my!  I’ve got another interview, this “time” a very brief contributor one on the Clocks anthology Kickstarter page.  Admittedly I don’t delve much into the story itself…  I’ll save that for when the book comes out.  But in the meantime you can learn about my motivations for wanting to be part of this project. 

I also want to share that Sword & Kettle Press, the publisher of my Elgin Award-winning chapbook The Inca Weaver’s Tales, will soon be launching their own Kickstarter campaign, this one for a 10-year retrospective anthology!  I’ll post more about it soon.  For now, you can sign up to be notified when it launches. 

My poem “I Write a Rite of Pyrite” is part of the Cursed issue of Emerald City Ghosts.  This poem first appeared in HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. XII. 

They also included interviews with each of the contributors.  In mine, I talk about writing in a flow state, how my career as an analyst plays into my process, and what I’m currently working on. 

We’re finishing up Oregon’s spring break, and while I worked for most of the days, I took yesterday off to go with my family to the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center an hour and a half north in Washington.  My older relatives recall the ash from the 1980 eruption landing in yards and gutters here in Beaverton.  We can see the flattened peak on clear days from Portland, but this was the closest I’d ever gotten to it.  We got gorgeous weather for our visit.  In the gift shop, they had glass ornaments handmade in Ecuador, so I had to bring one home with me. 

This morning we stuck closer to home and went to the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge.  We lucked into more great weather.  My older son commented as we walked about how peaceful it was, and then he shared with me how he thinks there are various types of “Oregon peaceful”:  beach peaceful, forest peaceful, desert peaceful, mountain peaceful, cave peaceful.  (I was very tempted to tell him he has the makings of a great poem in that insight, but that doesn’t seem to be his thing.)  When we got home, I realized that a lot of my novella, Thrice Petrified, is about restoring some of those types of peacefulness to the landscape and the creatures (fantastical and otherwise) inhabiting them. 

We interspersed additional types of fun into the other weekend and evenings of spring break, such as basketball games and a couple of movies.  I also received the proof of the Clocks anthology to review, plus I just got an acceptance for a poetry reprint.  And I’m making slow but steady progress on my current writing project.  All in all, a great week. 

The Kickstarter campaign for the upcoming Clocks anthology has officially launched!  This is your chance to get early bird rates and directly support the authors and artists contributing to this themed exploration of clocks and what they can represent, as shown through speculative fiction.  The book comes out later this year from Little Key Press and includes work by the following: 

Chantell May Saunders, Charlotte Van Ryswyk, Courtney Raines, Elizabeth Jaffari, Erin Hall, J.S. Mercer, James Carraghan, Katherine Quevedo, Katrina Jax, Madi Haab, Mia Dalia, Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, Raymond Brunell, Reign Reeves Pearson, Rose Wilde Hall, Sarah Walker, and Susan E. Rogers.