Happy Halloween!  I’ve got several new poems out this weekend. 

First up is “Dancer Summons,” my belly dance poem appearing in the new issue of The Common Tongue Magazine, which is full of dark fantasy stories and verse to scratch that Halloween itch.  Coincidentally, later today I’ll be participating in a dance event for the first time in over a year and a half. 

Next are two poems, “Merfolk in the Ghost Net” and “The Kraken’s Bight,” in the new issue of Seaborne Magazine themed around Storms, Omens & Monsters.  I love the illustrations by artists Ioan Nicolae Ciontea and Caroline Scamell accompanying my poems. Seaborne Magazine donates a portion of their revenue to charities that support oceans and marine life; this issue supports Surfers Against Sewage.

Finally, “The Devil with the Golden Hairs Earns His Sleep” is in the Magic issue of Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine.  I was inspired to write this poem while thinking about how my dad used to recite the Grimm fairy tale “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs” to my sisters and me when we were young—except that he always called it “The Three Hairs of the Giant.” He recently told me that my grandmother used to tell it to him in Spanish. 

If you want to finish off your Halloween with even more poetry, one of my fellow contributors to The Common Tongue Magazine, Brittany Hause, put together a great list that you can find at this link.

My poem “Sea Grass Supplication” is available to read online in The Curator Magazine.  I wrote it this past winter during my family’s beach trip.  We’d arrived just in time to enjoy the sunset shown below.  Our trek through the sea grass made quite an impression on me. 

Speaking of vegetation that makes an impression, my family went to a corn maze this past weekend.  It was rainy, super muddy, and great fun.

Part two of my essay, “Level Up Your Poetry: Anatomy of Two Gaming Poems,” is up now on Sidequest (you can find the first half here).  In this new installment, I break down two of my poems (“Lava Reef Cooldown” and “The Deku Butler’s Son”) as examples of the approach from part one in action. 

On a related note, I’ve got several brand-new poems due out in various publications soon.  These ones won’t be about gaming, but they do run the gamut when it comes to structure and genre.

It’s time for masks, the sacredness of human touch, and … hair magic?  No, I’m not talking about COVID, I’m talking about my story “Desert Locks” from GigaNotoSaurus.  It was just selected for the new volume of Best Indie Speculative Fiction, which is due out later this year and will feature works from 2020 that first appeared in small press and indie publications.  I had a story in Vol. III, and I’m honored to be included again in Vol. IV.

Part one of my new essay, “Level Up Your Poetry: Video Games and Ekphrastic Verse,” is up now on Sidequest.  If the combination of poetics and digital games intrigues you as it does me, I also included links to some additional resources.  More to come!

Happy October!  The leaves and weather are starting to turn, the Halloween decorations are out, and here in the U.S. we’re smack in the middle of National Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month. 

If you’re in the mood to listen to some spooky poetry, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has its annual online Halloween reading page, where you can find audio recordings of poets—including yours truly—reading our work for your eerie enjoyment.  This year you can hear me reading “The Banquet at the Center of the Maze,” which originally appeared in Coffin Bell.