Tying Up Loose Ends

February and March 2025

Some Recap Questions:

How are you faring with managing your time between, writing, reading, administrative tasks and playing? Are you feeling overwhelmed/ underwhelmed? Do you feel like you have a support system that works for you? Are you needing to make some changes?

Have you been feeling any emotional obstacles in your writing process? Have you been able to push past them? What has worked for you?

Have you been able to introduce any new habits in your writing routine which are playful? Do you think it’s a worthwhile pursuit?

What I’ve been reading:

I’m still in my fantasy fiction groove and just finished “The Dead Take the A Train” by Cassandra Khaw (loved “The Salt Grows Heavy”) and Richard Kadrey. Now I’m reading “My Darling Dreadful Thing” by Johanna Van Veen.

For Poetry: Louisa Igloria’s “Caulbearer”, Amanda Moore’s “Requeening” and “Radial Symmetry” by Katherine Larson.

For nonfiction, “Take Back the Magic” by Perdita Finn and for memoir, Sophie Strand’s “The Body is a Doorway.”

I also try to read a literary journal once a month—a lot of websites have downloadable editions that are free. The last two I read have been: euphony and Cool Beans.

What I’ve been writing:

I have been taking a course through The Muse Writer's Center in Norfolk, VA with Louisa Igloria: Syntax and Surprise. It has been almost 23 years since I took a class from her and she is just as informative and inspiring as I remember; she is such a lovely person in general and a wonderful poet as well. It was only a month-long course but I feel I can apply all of the information I’ve been given for the remainder of the year, easily! And I’ve been introduced to new poets whom I’m excited to learn more about (Martha Silano, Katherine Larson) as well as a great group of poets within the classroom.

Additionally, I took a free online workshop hosted by The Garden of Neuro Institute called “The Jewels Within” and it was fun and exploratory—we spent an hour answering questions about ourselves as writers and the answers were in poetic form! The topic was how to keep one’s authenticity as a poet after immersing yourself in other poets’ work.

What’s been getting published:

Over the past 2 months I’ve sent out 46 packets of poems; gotten 41 rejections; and 11 poems published. I’ve sent 2 different chapbooks out to 11 different publishing companies.

The little bat poem I wrote in January, “Vesper Shawl”, was accepted for publication—so happy for the little creatures: recognition, baby! Two poems about capitalism and reframing our place in society got picked up, some childhood-processing poems, a poem I wrote for my husband after we had been married a few months found a home (that one took twenty-two years), and a poem which had been published last fall on Nature of Our Times website, was published in their upcoming print anthology—I’m really proud of that one; it’s one I’d been trying to write for several years to fit into the nonfiction book I was working on.

Free writes:

As always, I’d like to close with a couple of free writes. One of the free writes I had suggested a while ago, “float or sink” became a deeply reflective poem for me. Since I’m doing two months worth of loose ends, let’s have four free writes.

Prompt One: What if I told you…

(Remember to keep your pen moving, even if you are writing “I don’t know what to write.” It’ll come—trust the process.)

Prompt Two: Maybe…

Prompt Three: I can tell…

Prompt Four: “gentle revolt”

(The photos are of my yard: cherry blossom, columbine, dead purple nettle and some fig leaves. Since it’s flower season, I included two watercolor and ink doodles on stone paper as well.)