Some generous soul out there nominated my poem “Bridge of Grass, Bridge of Suspension,” from my mini-chapbook The Inca Weaver’s Tales, for the Rhysling Award! 

I’m in good company—there are so many jaw-dropping poems on the nominee list, I encourage you to go read as many of these works as you can find.  We won’t all be named finalists, alas, but it’s an honor to be nominated.  And please go read others’ poems, too.  Maybe you’ll find some new favorites. 

This particular poem of mine was a last-minute addition to my mini-chapbook.  When Naseem Jamnia was working on the layout, they reached out to see if I had any pieces to fill out a couple extra pages.  Provide readers with even more poetry?  The answer is always yes!  I wrote “Bridge of Grass, Bridge of Suspension” that evening as the bonus poem.  I had already done some initial research and brainstorming. 

I want to leave you with the final two lines of my poem: 

“(Where we have canyons of difference
we are in direst need of bridges.)”

This year’s Worldcon Poet Laureate, Brandon O’Brien, is starting a weekly column about speculative poetry on the Seattle Worldcon blog.  For the first post, “Con-Verse: Welcome,” he reached out to members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) for our takes on this expansive type of writing in which anything, truly anything, can happen on the page.  I mean that in the sense of both form and content: the speculative genres open up the content to whatever the imagination provides, and poetry as a form allows pretty much any structure to coalesce on the page. 

Anyway, Brandon’s blog post is a great way to hear from an array of voices and get a solid foundation on speculative poetry.  I based my contribution on some of my previous thoughts from Worldcon 2020.  I think Brandon’s column is due out on Mondays, so keep an eye out for more Con-Verse. 

See, this is why I should be more patient about calculating my stats for the year.  Add 2 more new poems to the count! 

The Broken City just put out its video game themed issue, which includes my poems “Five Date Nights at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex” and “Through the Screen (A Warped Abecedarian).” 

FNAF stands for Five Nights at Freddy’s, for anyone who’s wondering.  It should come as no shock that I enjoy arcade settings, and I really liked the sprawling location featured in FNAF: Security Breach and thus wrote a poem set there. 

The other poem, my first abecedarian (a reverse one!), continues the celebration of digital environments and considers what it would be like to truly enter a game world.  I had fun namedropping movies, shows, and such built around this trope.  It’s captivated me since childhood. 

Happy New Year, all! 

I haven’t compiled all my annual writing stats since the year isn’t officially done yet, but maybe I’ll share some next month.  For now, I’m doing the thing where I try to take time to reflect back on my accomplishments for the year.  It’s easy to get swept up in the tide of rejections—trust me, I get plenty of those for every one acceptance.  Or to feel like I haven’t been productive enough or have stagnated creatively.  I got some sage advice from my mentor earlier this year that helped me reframe my thinking and recognize the myriad ways we can challenge ourselves in each new writing project.  And I’m always grateful for the insightful feedback I get from my most trusted critique partner and the community I get with my writing groups.  It’s important to celebrate the wins.  Sometimes when we take stock of them, they add up to more than we’d recall individually. 

Here are some stats I can share:  In 2024, I had 5 new short stories published, 17 new poems, and 3 new pieces of nonfiction. 

This past January, my first poetry chapbook came out (it was also my first standalone book).  I’m so grateful to the team at Sword & Kettle Press who helped me make The Inca Weaver’s Tales a reality! 

I’ve had a longtime goal to get invited into an anthology, and I was fortunate to get not one but two opportunities this year, almost back-to-back.  Both anthologies will hopefully come out next year.  One story is done and accepted, the other draft is chugging along. 

One highlight for me this year was being a guest lecturer for two classes at my alma mater, Santa Clara University.  The students asked such thoughtful, sharp, varied questions.  I remember those days as an undergraduate, how hungry I was to learn, to better myself and my writing as art.  I try to cling to that same hunger.  I hope those students do the same. 

I also spoke this year at StokerCon, the Willamette Writers Conference, and OryCon.  I was a guest on the podcast Pages on the Tongue (hosted by Michelle Murray), and I did readings for the online series Speculative Sundays (hosted by Akua Lezli Hope) and Story Hour (hosted by Daniel Marcus and Laura Blackwell).  My gratitude to all these hosts and organizers for supporting writers and helping us reach new audiences. 

Looking forward to 2025, one big thing on the horizon is my first ever novella.  I’m excited (and perhaps a little nervous?) to start on edits with the team at Of Metal and Magic Publishing.  We’re hoping that Thrice Petrified will be ready to go sometime next year!  I’ve been working on this story for years and years, and I just love these characters and their fantasy world and can hardly wait to share it more widely. 

That’s plenty for now.  Take care of yourselves and each other! 

I have a few updates to catch up on.  First is that I’ve had a story accepted for an upcoming anthology about claw machines!  The Kickstarter will be launching early next year.  You can sign up for updates now if you’d like to keep tabs on this project. 

I (along with many, many other authors) have a microfiction story in 42 Stories Anthology Presents: Book of 42².  As you may have guessed, each story is exactly 42 words long.  My story, “Gallows Humor (Upon Finding Jimbo’s Body),” is part of the Clown chapter and features two circus clowns who encounter the work of a coulrophobic killer. 

On the poetry side of things, I’m excited to have some more video game poetry publications on the horizon.  The Broken City will publish two new poems of mine in their gaming-themed issue, and I’ll have a reprint in the anthology Dangerous to Go Alone 2 as well as one in Meow Meow Pow Pow. 

I had a new fantasy poem in issue 47.4 of Star*Line called “Gla-Mer: The Fashion Magazine for Mermaids.”  This one had its origins in a little booklet of stapled-together scrap paper I’d made in grade school—I probably still have it somewhere in my attic.  Anyway, for this new poem I was reminiscing about that booklet, then I started having fun with headlines, and finally my adult lens took it in a more serious direction. 

In “Poetry and the Moon,” Mary Ruefle states, “The sun is the source of life itself, the great creative power.  One cannot confront god without instant annihilation…”  The main character in my newest story, “Ree in the Domain of Scavengers,” worships the sun and faces her own form of annihilation.  You can find it in Flame Tree Publishing’s new anthology Sun Rising Short Stories. 

The idea for “Ree in the Domain of Scavengers” originated years ago when I read a piece of trivia in a string cheese wrapper, of all things.  Yup, sometimes we get stories from the most random sources.  I can’t remember the exact phrasing anymore, but I think it had to do with scavengers avoiding prey that had been struck by lightning.  Anyway, I wanted to feature another low-tech society in a jungle setting, because I really enjoy that type of worldbuilding, and this time I added monsters. 

If you enjoy Sun Rising Short Stories, I hope you’ll also check out Christmas Gothic Short Stories (I have a story in that one as well!).  I love how Flame Tree Publishing’s books feature new stories alongside classic ones, with gorgeous covers. 

Let’s finish up the spooky season strong.  If you’re curious about the appeal of the horror genre, or you’d like to incorporate more of it in your own work, I’ve coauthored a blog post for Of Metal and Magic Publishing with Allison Filiatreault and JM Williams.  In “Committing Fear to the Page – The Jagged Hook of Horror,” Allison and I talk about the genre from the perspective of a reader and a writer, respectively.  I hope it helps you find and/or create more of the types of scares that you most enjoy. 

And, early Happy Halloween! 

Just in time for Halloween, the Horror Writers Association is releasing their annual anthology of dark verse.  My poem “Peter Pumpkin Eater’s Most Delectable Carving” is in good company in the HWA Poetry Showcase Volume XI. 

I wrote this poem after watching a video about pumpkin carving—it’s an amazing art, one at which I demonstrate absolutely zero skill.  In fact, I get a little squeamish at all the textures and smells.  Good fodder for a horror poem. 

Also, this past summer my family went to Enchanted Forest, a beloved amusement park near Salem, Oregon, that I grew up visiting.  I just had to get a photo of the aforementioned nursery rhyme character.