When I got a “real world” job after years of intermittently waitressing and staying at home, I stopped writing. Not because I wanted to. I found myself so drained of inspiration that I simply couldn’t put pen to paper. Instead, I spent my days rushing to get my […]
I went to a good poetry reading the other evening. But, boy, I wish I the poet hadn’t kept doing things that undermined his own presentation of his own work. The poet violated almost every rule in my unwritten how-to-do-a-poetry-reading rule book. Which spurred me to write down […]
Every emerging writer dreams of finding herself in a conversation with the editor of an esteemed literary magazine. For the new writer, especially, there are hundreds of unanswered questions about the submission process. So you can imagine my excitement when I found myself speaking with Ralph Hamilton, the […]
The first time I sent submissions out after completing my MFA, I sent out six packets of poems to higher-tier journals. Then I waited. If the feedback of my classmates and professors was any indication, I assumed the responses would be positive (either acceptances or personalized rejection letters). […]
When I was eight years old, my brother Mark, then four and a half, followed me everywhere. We had a game where I would stand inside the yard of the play-house in the corner of our living room, and he would open the mailbox, and peer inside, shout […]
This is a story about my new collection of poetry. I should say up front that I have no idea what the moral of this story is. Something something persistence, maybe. Something something luck of the draw. Definitely something about privilege. Possibly something something Serenity Prayer, because the […]
My new book from Two Sylvias Press, PR for Poets, is a guide for beginning to mid-career poets to learn how to build an audience and promote their books. Think of it as a guide to getting read. People have asked me many times while doing talks on […]
