chapbooks

8/7/17

I wrote about obsession and the movie Chuck and Buck for Birth.Movies.Death. I had a lot of fun revisiting this movie; I don’t think I’ve seen it in about 15 years, but having watched it three times since I purchased it for the article, I can say with great honesty that I do not want to watch it again for another 15 years.

On August 25th we’re hosting a chapbook release party/ reading at the Book Show in Los Angeles. I am donating 50% of sales to Book Show’s fundraiser, and I am reading with some really great people: Ashley Perez, Rachael Warecki, and Joseph Iraggi. Drunk Monkeys founder Matthew Guerruckey is hosting, and it should be a fairly lovely summer evening. I would love to see you there.

Over at Drunk Monkeys we’ve wrapped up our themed issue, Vice and Virtue, for September. We received a LOT of intriguing submissions, but man alive, there are other vices besides sex! This was a fun one to build and I’m excited to show it to you all. Regular submissions for poetry and fiction are still closed right now, but I am hoping we can open them back up in September.

Zoetic Press is reading for NonBinary Review #15: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and we just announced #16: The Little Prince. I am so happy!

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Finally, I just finished We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samatha Irby and I highly recommend it. I’ll be writing a review for Drunk Monkeys, but until then…just trust me.

7/6/17

So much to report so I will get right to it:

My son is visiting from MA and I am so happy! He helped me sort of rebuild this site; I was so overwhelmed by it that I was putting it off for far too long. Thanks, Aidan!

My chapbook, Your Hand Has Fixed the Firmament, is finally out. Thank you so much to Scott and Grey Books Press for taking this little love letter on! You can own it for a mere $6, which as we all know is just .75 more than a Venti Dirty Iced Chai Latte from Starbee’s.

Drunk Monkeys has a call for submissions for our special September issue: Vices and Virtues. So if you want to send me anything about your genitals, now is the only appropriate time to do so!

Additionally, I had an editor’s letter in the June issue that I felt was important; it’s all about how you build your own family. Check it out.

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Zoetic Press has a new Nonbinary Review issue out: Urban Legends/ Snopes. And guess who it’s guest edited by? You’ve got it… ME! For a mere $2 you can read 29 pieces of Snopes inspired work. This was such a blast to be a part of, and I loved every second of it.

Speaking of ZP, we have an open call for Hans Christian Andersen inspired work that closes at the end of July. AND we’re hosting Write Like You’re Alive again!

Really, that’s all I have for now. Everything I’m working on is stalled while Aidan is here. He leaves next week, and while I’ll be heartbroken, at least I’ll be able to get some stuff done.

(PS: How about that new Twin Peaks?!)

2/27/17

New year, new attempt to keep up with this thing.

I edited this book, and if you are interested in the Camino de Santiago you may be interested in it! Take a look.

I recently took over as EIC of Drunk Monkeys, which is really exciting for me!

In January I was told that my chapbook, “Your Hand Has Fixed the Firmament”, was a finalist for Grey Books Press and will be published in the summer. This book is really important to me, so I am over the moon about it.

I have been writing an advice column over at Five:2:One magazine. If you need advice, email me at sincereadvice521@gmail.com.

I think that’s everything, for now. I need to get writing again but I am utterly exhausted all the time. I didn’t think February in CA would be as exhausting as in MA, but here we are.

8/1/16

August, you fickle b, where did you come from? It seems like only yesterday I was basking in the humid heat of July! (It was only yesterday). I have a few things worth reporting.

I guess before anything else I should let you all know that the special edition of Drunk Monkeys (in response to the Orlando PULSE shooting) is now out. This was such an amazing endeavor and I am so happy to have been a part of it, even from just a social media standpoint. I beg you all to read it. It has some stellar contributors.

My poem “Our Bones Will Be Our Ruins” is featured in Clever Girl issue 4. You can buy it via their website.

I finished Zoetic Press‘s 31/31 Write Like You’re Alive challenge. Well, I mean, I got like 25 pieces in, but that counts. I hosted 4 live chats on Twitter and I am considering keeping them going. I did a series of erasure poems based on Dax Riggs songs and made them into a short chapbook. If you’d want one, order one here!

In July, Pokemon Go debuted. I am going through a hard time emotionally– probably the hardest of my life, a time where old hopes are dying and new hopes are clawing desperately at the dirt covering them, trying to emerge. Pokemon Go lifts that depression and those suicidal thoughts, albeit temporarily, and my Facebook rant about those bashing it was crafted into a more viable essay that Five 2 One Magazine was kind enough to publish. Weeks later, I still love it, regardless of what the whiny babies at r/pokemongo have to say. I even got my first piece of hate mail, from a man in my city who told me to start renting here (?) and go home by 10, and when I replied to him he told me if I replied back it would be considered harassment! People are sort of crazy.

Yesterday my friend Dan and I took my son Aidan on a 5 mile scavenger hunt in Salem MA, and we caught tons of Pokemon, so shut up, ~haters~.

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I think that might be it for now. It’s back to being distracted and submitting poems to different places for now.

6/8/16

Where does the time go? I feel like it was just May, I was just getting ready for the Poetry Circus, and now here we are well into June.

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Photo: Creative Salem

While I go through a heap of personal challenges and changes, I am trying very hard to keep my focus on work and writing. I have a poem, “Our Bones Will Be Our Ruins”, appearing in Clever Girl Magazine soon. I have taken on the social media pages for The Citron Review and Drunk Monkeys. Of course, these are labors of love, so I am also looking for another paying gig (remotely for now); if anyone has any leads, thank you in advance for sending them my way.

I am shopping around a small chapbook and trying to find the inspiration for newer work. Things are hard nowadays, and not just for me… it seems everyone I know is really struggling lately (I blame, in part, this volatile election cycle and the soul sucking nature of social media), but I am trying to keep my head up and understand that even though I don’t know what my future holds, something good has to be on the horizon.