Dear Gentle Reader,

Welcome, may you be well, and in these sorrowful days of wars across and the warming of our planet, may you be doing all that you can to care for yourself, your family, and your community.

As Earth’s poles reach maximum tilt away from the Sun, I want to share with you the light I have been basking in this year. The light I refer to is the sparkle and warmth from the connections my writing made with editors, publishers, and readers. It is truly something wild and special for me to contemplate how my dreams of writing manifested from my imagination to words on pages the eyes of readers held. Fireworks blossom in my heart! These connections are ways I am keeping my faith and hope for the future. A future where the destructive impulse is if not eclipsed then matched by the creative impulse.

During this time when open, honest communication seems ever so fragile, easily breaking down, words seeming to fail us, join me and let us celebrate our connection to words, to the expression and connection language makes possible between us. In this dispatch from my writing desk, like others I offered this year on January 27, 2023, April 23, 2023, and June 30, 2023, I focus on making and reading books. The full-length collections and chapbooks of poems I am making, the books other writers have made that I read, and the books I reviewed.

Books, so full of wonder and the possibility of discovery. Books, such portable art objects. O, what they hold! They hold individual poems, reaching out their hands to readers. The book’s provocative cover art illustrates and associates the writing within. Here are the covers of the anthology and literary magazines where my writing found homes in 2023!

Poems from my first and second books, The Minuses and The Long Now Conditions Permit, respectively, along with a poem from a forthcoming chapbook, have been published since my last post. Allow me to share the details of those sparkling occasions with you here.

In October, Vallum 20.2, an all-online issue with the theme “Endings and Beginnings,” featured my poem “Late afternoon autumn, a trembled alternative.” If I am counting accurately, this is the eighth poem of mine since 2015 that Vallum‘s editorial team has selected for publication. Hurrah time eight! For your ears and eyes: Read or listen to me read “Who the Strummer” from 16.1, “Lustrous Fugitive” from 18.1, and “Is Occurring” from 19.1. The Vallum team also selected my chapbook Mind of Spring (no. 22: out of print, but available digitally) as the winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Vallum‘s ongoing support is not about numbers; it is about what those numbers suggest: Vallum‘s ongoing confidence and belief in my writing. That is a gift precious to me. A gift for you: You can read (download, too!) the entire 20.2 issue, chock full of beautiful, lyric, elegiac poems, including excerpts from Vallum‘s latest chapbooks—Wellwater (no. 37), by Karen Solie and Lifecycle of a Mayfly (no. 36), by Maya Clubine—on Vallum‘s website. I am ever grateful to Eleni Zisimatos, Poetry Editor, and T. Liem, Managing Editor for their kind attention and for the Vallum team’s ongoing support of my writing.

Also, in the tenth month, “Equals Rains,” a poem from my first full-length collection The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), came to print in Volume One of Cascadia Zen: Bioregional Writing on Cascadia Here and Now (Watershed Press, 2023). In this anthology, my poem is in conversation with the writing of Vancouver’s Daphne Marlatt, Meredith Quartermain, and Fred Wah, and writers from California, Washington, and Writer’s Heaven, respectively, such as Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirshfield, Tess Gallagher, Joanne Kyger (1934-2017), and Denise Levertov (1923-1997), among others. Writers I love! Writers I am thrilled to share space with. My many thanks to editors Tetsuzen Jason Wirth, Paul E. Nelson, Adelia MacWilliam, and Theresa Whitehill for including my writing in this beautiful book!

In November, Colorado Review 50.3 | Fall/Winter issue featured “From Hill’s Slant,” another poem from my second full-length collection, The Long Now Conditions Permit. This is a special accomplishment because I have wanted to be published by Colorado Review for a long time. I persisted and kept sending them poem batches. I love the feeling of my persistence meeting their “yes.” Gleefully, “From Hill’s Slant” rubs shoulders with the writing of Cole Swensen, John Gallaher, and Brandon Krieg, among other writers I admire. I am grateful to Matthew Cooperman, Editor, and Lauren Furman, Managing Editor for their time and care with my poem.

And, in this twelfth month, Laurel Review 56.1 features my poem “For L,” an elegy for my friend and poet, the late Lusia Slomkowska (1954-2014). I have in mind that this poem will gather together in a chapbook with some other elegies I have written. By sweet confluence, “For L” shares space in this issue of Laurel Review with a poem by Matthew Cooperman, Poetry Editor of Colorado Review (above), where my poem shares space with John Gallaher, Poetry Editor of Laurel Review. Hurrah, these connections, these stitched-together shapes and patterns in the great quilt or poetry! Hurrah the good company of these readers, writers, and editors in my Writing Practice!

Now, to share a bit about this year’s Reading Practice. Since 2018, I have been conducting a year-long reading extravaganza with a simple goal: To see how many books I can read. I wrote about the discoveries from previous years of #mypersonalBigRead in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. This project is a sort of numbers game, though I do not read just to rack them up. I maintain my integrity while reading books I have always wanted to read, books I have been coveting from my once extra-to-the-bookshelves, towering, and now mostly shelved stacks, books recommended to me, books I am invited to consider for review, classic and hot-off-the-presses books, books that appear as if by mysticism in the field of my attention.

This year marks the sixth year I have challenged myself in #mypersonalBigRead. Each year has had a different personality—from 2018’s beginning excitement to 2020’s trouble concentrating to 2022’s grounded breadth. 2023 has been the most personal, intimate reading year. I have read more of what I most wanted to read, more slowly, savoring, and I have read everything I could get my eyes on by the poets Jane Hirshfield, Joanne Kyger (1934-2017), Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), and C.D. Wright (1949-2016). That deep reading and study expanded my thinking about language’s possibilities and bolstered my writing of poems and reviews.

While some years I reached a tally of over three hundred titles, so far this year I am at two hundred twenty. Of those books, I have reviewed one chapbook (for Amazon), one mixed-genre book, and twenty poetry collections. The reviews of the poetry and mixed-genre books found homes in Canthius, The Malahat Review, The Miramichi Reader, NewPages, and Vallum.

How do you decide which books you will read? Might a review pique your interest? Consider yourself most cordially invited to read my reviews as a way to consider whether or not you would like to add any of those books to your reading list. The links to those reviews can be found on the Poet page (scroll a bit) on this (my) site.

If dear Reader, you have read to this next word: “amazing,” then thank you! I am thrilled by and grateful for your attention. And, I hope what you have read inspires you in your writing, publishing, and reading endeavors.

Read! Write! Persist in and with words!

: :

The Pluses!

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! Welcome, those new here. May you find inspiration!

+ Thank you bows to my community of women/women-identified writers for their generous, loving support, inspiration, and encouragement.

+ I bow to the editors and existence of the anthologies and literary magazines Cascadia Zen, Vallum, Colorado Review, Laurel Review, Puerto del Sol, The Ocean State Review, where I gratefully find support and community.

+ I bow to the editors who support my reviews and the publications where they were published: Denise Hill at NewPages; Manahil Bandukwala at Canthius; James M. Fisher at The Miramachi Reader, and Jay Ruzesky at The Malahat Review.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to my publisher Stephanie G’Schwind, and Mountain/West Poetry Series editors Donald Revell and Kazim Ali, et al interns at the Center for Literary Publishing (CLP) for making The Minuses (2020) with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Beth Svinarich et al staff at University Press of Colorado for their beautiful support to me and The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to monsoon storm chaser and marvelous professional photographer, Liz Kemp, whose monsoon photograph storms the cover of The Minuses.

+ Thank you bows to Nomados Literary Publishers, Meredith and Peter Quartermain for making my chapbook Instinctive Acts with me.

+ Thank you bows to Vallum Chapbook Series and editors Leigh Kotsilidis and Eleni Zisimatos for making my chapbook Mind of Spring with me.

+ Thank you bows to Finishing Line Press and editors Leah Maines and Christen Kinkaid for making my chapbook Landscape of The Wait with me.

+ Thank you bows (continuous!) to Vincent K. Wong for his friendship, creative collaboration, and for taking my author photos.

+ This bears repeating: Thank you bows (continuous!) to you, dear reader, for the gift of your attention! If you have any questions or comments, write me! I would love to hear from you!