I’ve been needing some good news this week, so I’m especially happy to share that my story “Song of the Balsa Wood Bird” from Fireside Magazine will appear in the 2022 Best of Utopian Speculative Fiction. I’m looking forward to seeing this anthology of imaginative, hopeful stories.
You can read my latest video game prose poem, “The Labyrinth Proper,” in Sidequest. This is the one I read and discussed toward the end of my episode of the podcast Into the Looking Glass, so if you’re curious as to the inspiration and writing process on this one, go have a listen. Also, their next episode come out recently, featuring the wonderful Angela Acosta!
On the fiction side of things, I’ve got some exciting news that I’m not able to share yet… Hopefully soon. My in-progress drafts continue to jostle around and try to cut to the front for attention. Two are close to completion, but it doesn’t help things when they keep leapfrogging each other.
Back by popular demand, Elizabeth Beechwood and I will be teaching our online workshop Creating Nonhuman Characters through Hugo House again this fall. This workshop is aimed at fiction writers and poets of all levels. Here are the key dates for fall registration:
In just a couple of days, The Sprawl Mag is having their launch party for volume 1.2. I won’t be able to attend live, but I’ve sent in a video reading of my poem “The Llamacorn Herd,” in case there’s time to share it. If you’re able to attend, you’ll get to hear readings from some of the other fantastic contributors, including Lorraine Schein, Bobby Parrott, Rasha Abdulhadi, Cassondra Windwalker, Devon Field, Lilian Vercauteren, Cheryl S. Ntumy, Chelsea Fanning, and Susan L. Lin.
The final event I want to mention will be in October. The Oregon Poetry Association is having their annual conference on Saturday, Oct. 7, and I’ll be presenting a session on speculative poetry. More info. to come.
Just got back from vacation in Central and Southern Oregon. We went spelunking and horseback riding with extended family, then headed to Crater Lake, which I hadn’t visited since grade school and didn’t really remember. It was quite impressive! I don’t think any of my photos do the national park justice, but I picked one to share, along with a couple from the high desert.
During the trip, I worked on a new scene for a story, wrote a new poem, and did research for a couple other stories. One of them I haven’t really started drafting yet; it’s still percolating. I was excited to get an update on the Discover Beaverton anthology, which is in production mode, and the upcoming virtual launch party for The Sprawl Mag volume 1.2.
Congratulations to the poets selected for the HWA Poetry Showcase X! Editor Angela Yuriko Smith just announced the table of contents on the HWA’s Youtube channel. The other judges and I had hundreds of submissions to consider, and ultimately, we could only fit 50 poems into the anthology. Much gratitude to the writing community for making our job so tough and giving us so many quality poems to consider!
In addition to the list of poets and the cover reveal, in the video you can find a clip of yours truly at the end, where I offer some thoughts and advice to poets interested in submitting to next year’s anthology. I learned so much from judging this year, I need to make sure I take my own advice!
TERSE. Journal has just published their Mycelia issue, including my poem “Rhizomorphs.” In this poem, I put a slightly speculative spin on the world’s largest single organism, a specimen of Armillaria ostoyae located in the Malheur National Forest. I had a lot of fun making the format mimic the content on this one.
I had such a fun time chatting with Brittany Hause on this month’s episode of the podcast Into the Looking Glass. We covered a lot of ground, from my upcoming chapbook, to different processes for writing speculative fiction and poetry, to video games. Be forewarned, this one’s kind of a marathon. It does follow the format of the other episodes: interview questions, then a reading, then a writing prompt. Brittany also has a connection to South America—and does gorgeous translations of speculative poetry from that region—which fed into their very thoughtful questions and our follow-up discussions on those influences for each of us.
Which poem did I choose to read? A brand-new prose poem, “The Labyrinth Proper.” I think this is the first time I’ve had something published in audio before print, although the text will also appear soon in Sidequest.
I hope you enjoy this glimpse into the connections between Oregon and Ecuador, how I feel about rough drafts, a not-so-proper labyrinth, and more!
I’m behind on providing updates! Here’s what I’ve been up to these days:
We interrupt this regularly scheduled poetry update to ask you to pause whatever you were planning to do after checking this blog post and go read my friend Maggie Slater’s new story, “Catching College,” in Metaphorosis. You’re welcome. I had the honor of reading an earlier draft, right around the time one of my relatives was going through the college application process, and let me tell you, there is so much truth underlying Maggie’s inventive story.
Moving on from truth to lies, this is what I was originally planning to post today: I have a new poem in the anthology Anterior Skies, Vol 1: A Genre-Bending Anthology of the Weird and Cosmic. That part’s not a lie, by the way. I wrote “The Universe’s Edge” during an online poetry workshop, based on the prompt to write about a lie you were told. The prompts tended to be aimed at producing autobiographical poetry, but I took them each in a speculative direction.
I have a new poem out in Volume 1.2 of The Sprawl Mag. “The Llamacorn Herd” imagines a variant of the unicorn—probably more like guanacos than llamas if you get down to it, but anyway… I pulled from memories of climbing the steps of Barrio las Peñas in Guayaquil with my dad on one trip, and seeing the lighthouse at the top at night with my cousin on another trip. And although they aren’t Ecuadorian, I did get some Guatemalan worry dolls from my uncle when I was a kid.
These photos are from years ago. The lighthouse has since been painted with a thick blue stripe curving up the length, calling to mind the spiral of a unicorn horn. Er, llamacorn horn.
I’ll have another writing update soon, with another new poem around the corner.
