In his poem “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman famously wrote, “I contain multitudes.”  Well, I contain extra lives.  That’s right, Extra Lives in Verse, my book of video game poetry, is finally out today!  It’s available in paperback and ebook. 

You’ll find game references from the 1970s (lookin’ at you, Space Invaders) to the 2020s (hello, Hades), covering consoles, arcades, virtual reality, and that stalwart of school computers in the ’90s, The Oregon Trail.  You’ll find love poems, horror poems, and celebrations of live performances of game music (orchestral as well as metal).  You’ll find familiar faces like Sonic and Mario, plus some deeper cuts. 

This book includes fan favorites like “Ghosted by Pac-Man,” “The Game of Castle Adventure,” and “Zelda II Boss Fight.”  It also includes 12 brand-new poems that have never appeared anywhere else.  You’ll find free verse, sonnets, my first two prose poems, a triolet, my first villanelle, my second sestina, concrete/shape poems, a reverse abecedarian, a haiku sequence, and my first erasure poem, in which two columns of rhyming iambic pentameter (with a shared refrain) culminate in a blackout version of themselves. 

I unapologetically offer the world my obsession with the supposedly “low” art of video games, by bringing to bear the full force of my “high” art of poetry to venerate these games.  Let’s dismantle the false hierarchy together.  Be my Player 2? 

Is there a gamer in your life who could use some poetry in theirs?  I’m really excited about the possibility of bringing poetry to new audiences, and my hope is that my book Extra Lives in Verse can, in some small way, help widen the audience.  Extra Lives in Verse comes out on November 13^th. 

In Jon Stone’s book Dual Wield: The Interplay of Poetry and Video Games, he decries how “In the popular imagination, poetry and video games lie at opposite ends of a scale that runs from the aloof to the frivolous, from high art to low.  Poetry is regarded as serious, cerebral, cryptic and hermitic, video games as flashy, trivial, and senseless amusements.”  He frames these assumptions as barriers to overcome, and I heartily agree. 

I wrote the earliest poems for Extra Lives in Verse during COVID, when it was hard to write my usual stories and poetry.  I needed something new and distracting to keep up my creativity.  Something comforting.  Something unexpected.  I saw a submissions call for poems about video games, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to put those two of my obsessions together before!  What followed were years of mining my memories as a gamer girl, and of filtering my newer experiences with games through my lens as a poet. 

As the manuscript took shape over the past 6 years, I wasn’t sure if it would ever find a home.  It’s such a strange combination, isn’t it, poetry and video games?  Well, anyone who’s read my work knows I like strange. 

Then I learned about Manawaker Studio.  They immediately became my dream publisher for this project.  They’d put out lots of wonderful anthologies of speculative fiction and poetry—including not one but TWO anthologies of gamer poetry!  But they hadn’t yet taken on a single-author book.  They decided to take a chance on mine.  They’ve been amazing to work with. 

So if you know a gamer who might be excited to see their interests reflected in this unconventional way, please keep Extra Lives in Verse in mind.

If you live anywhere in Oregon or southern Washington, and you write dark literature, have you considered joining the Oregon Chapter of the Horror Writers Association?  Oregon HWA has invited me to present at this month’s chapter meeting.  If you’d like to hear my presentation “Curious Creatures: Story and Poetry Collections,” get signed up soon!  The meeting is online on November 15^th from 6-7pm.  I’ll talk about strategies for compiling a collection, share examples of my own successful pitches, and cover marketing and more. 

As part of the Portland Book Festival’s Cover to Cover programming this coming week, Toolbox Gallery has an exhibition of poetry themed around Small Wonders (not to be confused with the online magazine Small Wonders that reprinted my story “The Sauce Packet King of the West Hills”). 

My poem “Toy Boat Attraction” is part of this exhibition, and I’ll be one of the contributing poets reading at the opening reception on Tues., Nov. 3^rd from 5pm-7pm.  The poems will be on display at Toolbox Gallery from Mon., Nov. 2^nd through Sun., Nov. 8^th. 

I wrote “Toy Boat Attraction” based on fond memories of a theme park attraction with—you guessed it—toy boats.  When my family took our annual road trip to the Bay Area each summer to visit my grandparents, we’d alternate each year going to either Marine World/Africa U.S.A. (later called Six Flags Discovery Kingdom) or Paramount’s Great America (later called California’s Great America).  Great America had a double-decker carousel that made a big impression on me and helped inspired my story “The Menagerie Machine” (even though that’s about a single-deck carousel).  But my favorite part of the whole theme park was called River Adventure.  My new poem is all about River Adventure, the delight it brought my sisters and me, and how I can’t remember it in great detail no matter how hard I try. 

It’s time for the SFPA’s annual Halloween readings!  Each year they collect audio recordings of members reading their dark poetry.  This year you can hear me read one of my sonnets, “O Sweet Child, When Titania Speaks Thy Name” (based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream). 

Yesterday for the first time the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) held an award ceremony to announce this year’s winners of the Dwarf Stars, Rhysling, and Elgin Awards.  The online event included readings of the award-winning poems or book excerpts, with many read by the award winners themselves.  Whether you already enjoy speculative poetry or are simply curious and don’t know where to start, watching the recording is a great way to hear high caliber verse, as recognized by practitioners and peers in the organization.  Congratulations to all of the 2026 recipients! 

This year’s Elgin Award chairs gave me the tremendous honor of reading on behalf of David C. Kopaska-Merkel, whose chapbook Risk Assessment placed 3^rd in the Elgin Award but who, sadly, passed away earlier this year.  It was a tremendous loss for the speculative poetry community.  David was in fact the leader who founded the Elgin Awards, among his many other contributions to the SFPA and beyond.  M. Frost (this year’s Elgin Award winner for best poetry chapbook!), wrote a touching tribute to David.  I encourage you to read it. 

Here it is, the cover of Extra Lives in Verse, my video game poetry book and passion project since COVID!  It features lovely, lovely pixel art by Falah Zaidan.  I couldn’t be happier. 

Here’s the publisher’s description: 

“In this poignant collection, the poet draws parallels from her own life to the video games that shaped her over the years. Come along as she uncovers the pentiment in a medieval Bavarian monastery, disappears from a relationship like a Pac-munched ghost, goes grocery shopping with digital megalomaniacs, solidifies love on the high seas, and collects chaos emeralds along the way.”

The book is available for preorder now from Manawaker Studio.  It officially comes out on November 13^th.  You can view the latest press release here. 

This Saturday, Oct. 17^th, from 2-5pm, join me and members of the Oregon Chapter of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for the 3^rd annual Meet a Horror Author event at the Beaverton City Library!  I always look forward to this one.  It’s right in my hometown, and we always get a great lineup of readers.  This year, come meet me, Richard Leis, Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, H. A. Spector, Stephanie Feldstein, Andrew S. Fuller, and Iris Harris.  We’ll have books for sale, candy for the taking, and lots of spooky stories and poems. 

I’ll be posting again soon with exciting news about my upcoming book, Extra Lives in Verse… 

Get ready to be unmade.  Scratch that, there is no ready. 

My new poem “Papier-mâché in Reverse” is part of the annual HWA Poetry Showcase, available now.  This year’s book is Volume XIII, lucky 13.  I could imagine little as unlucky as powerlessness and loss of self, especially given everything going on in the world.  Hence, my latest poem.  Thank you to this year’s judges and editor for including it. 

It’s official!  I’ve signed the contract for my debut full-length poetry collection, forthcoming from Interstellar Flight Press!  It’ll have a mix of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and even a dash of non-speculative autobiographical poetry.  It’ll have a range of forms and lengths.  There’s not much more I can share at this point, but I’ll keep you posted. 

In the meantime, you’ll be hearing more about my other forthcoming poetry book, the chapbook Extra Lives in Verse from Manawaker Studio.  Things are moving fast on that one.  Yesterday I got a sneak preview of the cover art, and it’s gorgeous!