February 11, 2019
Literary Nightmares
Dropbox limit has been reached Laptop battery dies Internet goes down House somehow already clean so nothing to distract from writing People who ask how’s the novel coming along People […]
March 12, 2018
#MeToo and The Necessity of Transformative Justice Practices in Writing Communities
Writers are strange creatures that spend most of their time locked inside their brains–which is what is required to birth books. We grow new characters, unrealized technology, new forms of […]
March 2, 2018
Mix-Tape IV: On Sympathetic Werewolves, Transformations & Tampa
Last year, I wrote about the challenges of trying to have meaningful conversations in such a public, frantic-paced space like AWP. This year, I’m looking forward to my time in […]
August 3, 2017
Literary Firsts & Worsts
A writer approached me after my workshop at Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator event to tell me this was the first writing conference she’d ever attended. Her comment got me thinking of […]
February 16, 2017
I’ll Never Forget Her Name: On Private Selves in Public Spaces
Let me begin by stating this is not a post-AWP-reflections essay. Or maybe it is exactly that. I was talking to a poet who did not think herself a poet, […]
May 5, 2016
Why I’m Still Not Convinced that Meter is Physiological
I sparked a small feud last month when I wrote in this blog that “Iambic Pentameter Has Nothing to Do with Your Heart.” My essay took issue with a “pulse […]
April 16, 2016
Iambic Pentameter Has Nothing to Do with Your Heart
It is time that all poets, critics, and readers dispense with the following metaphor: the iamb is a heartbeat. Let us refrain from settling arguments (or starting them) by asking […]
April 7, 2016
AWP: When Writers Attack
Last week, on a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, I read Chuck Sambuchino’s When Clowns Attack: A Survival Guide. I was preparing for the AWP Conference—an annual 12,000-person pileup […]
October 31, 2015
Short Takes
Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas are over at BuzzFeed, PopSugar and Ranker. Want to check out how your favorite writers have dressed up throughout the ages? Oh, yes, Susan Sontag as Teddy Bear […]
April 24, 2015
a Chamber – to be Haunted –
“The only way to be honest is to be haunted,” says poet Joseph Lease, closing a panel exploring “Where Art & Activism Meet” on Saturday, April 11th, the final panel […]
February 24, 2014
KR in Seattle
Even more than reading, which may be shared as a bedtime story or a tale around a campfire, writing has always been a solitary endeavor. One labors at night or […]
March 12, 2012
Dance the Poem: or, Discoveries from AWP
What does a poem have to say to a dance? What does dance, which most often says nothing, have to do with poetry? Please tell me it’s not just that […]