Story "The Rooms of the Day" in Summerset Review!

 

A mountain chalet. A distant couple sharing small spaces. Mysterious backpacks and burning brussels sprouts. My new story, "The Rooms of the Day," is out now with Summerset Review!

Four years ago, I got that finger-ends buzzing inspiration at a gallery opening in Zurich where this artist's sketches of the rooms in his house covered an entire wall. Since then, I've re-written it three times, workshopped it twice. Some stories are triple-barrel scotch. Others are Beaujolais. All taste great but this one needed the ageing/editing.

Thank you to Joseph Levens, editor of Summerset Review! Read the story here.

Poem "Sky Burial" in Poetry Northwest's 60th Anniversary

A slice of Tibet in the great Northwest. Check out my poem "Sky Burial" in the 60th anniversary issue of Poetry Northwest. Can't believe my name is on that gorgeous cover, and in awe of all the amazing poems mine is wedged between. I kept reading it weeks after, in the tram, by the lake, at the Vevey wine festival (left). Because what is wine without poetry?

www.poetrynw.org/summer-fall-2019-2/

Story in "Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction"

My story "How to Catch a Sun" is now out in a new anthology, Forward: 21st-Century Flash Fiction. This story about a woman blinded by a solar eclipse and how she lived through two wars and one revolution first appeared in my favorite flash fiction journal, Wigleaf.

Great to see this story sandwiched between the work of so many brilliant fiction writers of color. The anthology is available to order here.

Want to hear my serious just-getting-over-a-cold voice reading "How to Catch a Sun"? Of course you do! Listen on Soundcloud.

Poem in "Writers Resist" Anthology

We The People Who March

We walk because that is all to be done

all our bodies can do

when so much has been done to us...

The night before the Women's March in DC in 2017, I wrote this poem "We The People Who March." I was scared, hopeful and still had no idea of the institutionalized cruelty and bigotry we were going to see since then. Now that I'm back in Switzerland, feeling helpless over the constant hail of heart-breaking news, I like to think back to that first march and know that we have so much more ground to cover.

The poem is now featured in the Writers Resist Anthology along with other word-fists of resistance.

Order the anthology here, and check out the schedule of readings all over the country: www.writersresist.com/anthology

Writing Workshop at IWWG NYC Conference April 15th

What can Poetry and Fiction learn from each other? Join me at the International Women's Writing Guild Conference at Poets House this Sunday, April 15th, and find out!

Poetry and fiction are perceived as separate and opposing forms, governed by different values and objectives: fiction, as leading with narrative and characterization; poetry, as a more effective vehicle for abstraction and the aesthetics of language. In this workshop, we will examine how the structures and devices of one form can generate stronger work in the other and provide a framework for editing. We will look at how the characterization and logistics of fiction can sharpen the purpose of your poems, and how poetry can calibrate the voice and language of your fiction, and act as a catalyst for experimentation.

Register at: https://www.iwwg.org/spring-big-apple/

Story "The Lady Clock" Nominated for Best Small Fictions 2018

Must be writers nomination season because here's another from Decomp Magazine for "The Lady Clock" - a story about a boy, a girl and a bouncing orchid in Geneva. OK now I can go home, eat a whole bag of chips AND chocolate almond bar, and dance like I've been drinking. Wait, I am drinking.

Read at: http://www.decompmagazine.com/theladyclock.htm

Story "How to Catch a Sun" in Wigleaf & Nominated for Pushcart!

My story “How to Catch a Sun” about life after an eclipse is now out with Wigleaf Journal. Bonus: it’s nominated for the Pushcart Prize! It follows one woman's life across six decades, a couple of wars and two continents - all in about 800 words.

When I first got the yes from Wigleaf, I was visiting a lighthouse in Provincetown, and started jumping up and down, then ran over to Norman Mailer’s grave to jump some more. Why was I jumping? I’ve been addicted to their perfect little bundles of fiction for years, and they’re all perfect because of Scott Garson' sharp editorial eye.

Double bonus: they’ve included a delirious postcard written on the plane on my way back from Nigeria.