Having grown up in a working-poor family in which having no more than a high school education was the norm, poetry wasn’t something I knew much about. It certainly wasn’t a path I ever considered taking. Poetry was something other people did, and mostly it was opaque to […]
Because I am a Jane Eyre junkie, I want to tell your readers about Sundays With Jane Eyre (SWJE). Located in Philadelphia, The Rosenbach museum is treating Brontë fans to a free weekly program that explores Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel and Gothic tour de force, Jane Eyre. Program […]
I’d like to build on Deborah Bacharach’s guest author post from January 24, 2021, “My Year of Writing Poetry Book Reviews,” especially what she says about not writing a review that declares whether a poem (or a volume of them) is good or bad but saying what a […]
Retreats, conferences, or workshops – referring here to a writing experience that usually lasts a few days in a row, often recurring annually, as opposed to a workshop that you attend weekly or monthly. The conference is often something larger, possibly at an academic site, and retreat evokes […]
This list grew out of my curiosity over literary magazines and Twitter followers and grew into a list to help people find places to submit and to create community. New, exciting avenues for online lit are popping up all the time. All the information in this list is […]
Pursuing a higher education degree was an easy choice for me after undergrad. I am a scholar and will always love to learn. Looking back on when I first dived into applying for a masters program I could start the summer I graduated from college, I do remember […]
Right now, I’m making eyes at my most steadfast companion over the last six months, sitting patiently on the window ledge—my sweet rejection jar. The small honeypot that’s come to be one of my most valued writing tools, helping me smooth over the sharp edges of submitting work […]
Last month at my poetry reading in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the bookstore owner introduced me with an anecdote. He described an open-mic regular who summoned the courage to read because he realized that “everyone’s got something to say.” I recalled the summer in my early 20s when […]
Are you feeling stuck? Is your muse off flirting with other authors? Do idle pens and pencils and blank pages fill you with guilt? Do you have a bad case of what we commonly call “Writers Block”? Well, oddly enough, it is a description that does not apply […]
Poetry is, by nature, a personal art. There is no need to share it with anyone if one doesn’t want to. But I’ve always wanted to. Throughout my life I’ve found myself drawn to other poets. I joined reading clubs, school magazines, entered contests and participated in open […]
