Poets on Craft is an educational series of essays by poets about how they each approach their artistic craft and writing process from a practical standpoint, and I’m very happy to have my own essay appear alongside one by the incredible Rebecca Schumejda. My essay focuses on how narrative can play a role in poetry, even if it’s hidden behind layered metaphors and alternating styles/POVs. Having started out as a fiction writer, the ability to tell a story has remained vital even as I have shifted into poetry. Our essays are posted over at Cultural Daily, and they were compiled by another great poet and educator, Bunkong Tuon. There’s a lot there for young poets to explore, so I encourage you to take a look and explore the site! Thanks for all the support!
10 Blogging Tips for Beginners
People have been blogging since the mid-90s, so it’s not exactly a cutting-edge medium for creating and monetizing content, especially when you compare it to things like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms. But if you’re a wordsmith at heart and want to give blogging a try, I’ve selected ten tips to help you get your passion project off the ground. Now, if you’re looking to monetize your blog, that’s a whole other game, so for now I’m just going to focus on getting your blog up and running in order to attract enough readers to (hopefully) justify any ads you might want to allow on your site. This is advice for someone who wants to share their work, their passion, and their ideas first and foremost, and blogging remains a great way to do that and reach potentially interested readers.
Read moreNew Essay in Blue Mountain Review
My essay “Giving Stray Poems a New Home” now appears in the Blue Mountain Review Issue 15, which includes poetry, fiction, essays, and interviews with such writers and artists as Tim Suermondt, Laura Page, Hope Jordan, Ashley Hamilton, Ellen Malphrus, Tim Gavin, and many others. The essay appears on page 68 and details how poets can compile older pieces that don’t have a home, pieces that may seem disparate at first, but putting them together, you may be able to find an unforeseen theme, and then refine them with fresh pieces to create something new, something I did to create my last poetry collection, Feral Kingdom (available from Kung Fu Treachery Press). My deepest thanks to the editors for letting me include the essay. I hope you enjoy!
New Column in The Blue Mountain Review
Issue 14 of The Blue Mountain Review is now posted online and it looks pretty amazing. The new issue includes work and words by Jericho Brown, Robert Pinsky, Melissa Studdard, Elizabeth Beck, Meagan Lucas, Lane Young, and a whole swath of other writers. There’s also a bunch of interviews, art, and essays, including one by me called “Everyone Has a Story to Tell,” in which I thumb back through the years to the time I was talking to a bunch of construction workers about writing and where stories come from while we drank happy hour beer in Jimmy’s Corner in NYC. They didn’t think much of my ideas, except one guy, and I hope that guy eventually told his own story, somehow. My thanks to the editors and Clifford Brooks as always for including my little piece. If you want to take a look you’ll find it on page 100. Thanks for reading!
New Column in The Blue Mountain Review
It had been a while since I submitted anything to The Blue Mountain Review, and when editor Clifford Brooks asked if I had anything up my sleeve that he could include, I was going through the process of prepping my handful of novels for the arduous lit agent submission process, which involves not just researching literary agencies but also competitive titles already on the market. I decided to write about that in my latest column over at BMR (on page 102). Not so much how researching other titles at Barnes & Noble can help you decide what to write, but how it might help you decide how to go about writing the story you want to write, how you can position it, and hopefully, fingers crossed, sell it. Now I’m no pro at the latter, since I’m still trying to hook an agent myself, but you never know what little hint we might pick up from one another that might get us closer to our goal, right? Anyway, I hope you enjoy the piece, and there are plenty of other excellent essays, stories, poetry, and more in the new issue to keep you otherwise occupied. Thanks to Cliff and the editors for creating another spiffy issue!
New Essay at The Blue Mountain Review
The new issue of The Blue Mountain Review is now up, and it includes an essay of mine titled “Stepping Back / Stepping Forward” (on page 26) which discusses my month-long experience of stepping away from social media this summer to focus on writing. The break was a great way to re-focus, but I also found that stepping away from a few other things like Netflix, poetry readings, and even magazine submissions (yes, you read that right) also helped be move forward with the writing goals I set out for myself this year. You can read the essay, along with a ton of great poems, columns, and interviews, inside the new issue of The Blue Mountain Review, created by the folks over at the Southern Collective Experience. Thanks!
The Closed Circuit of Poetry
Turning words into comfort, weapons, and the most widely embraced artform of our time
During many of the most recent political shifts toward conservative nationalism, be it in Europe or in America, I have heard the call that artists must take up the mantle and create, that this must become a period of renewed drive, and that poetry, among the many arts we need now more than ever, will lead the way back to brighter times.
I have my doubts. Certainly not about the power of poetry to provide solace in trying times or to lift the veil on hypocrites and racists. Instead I worry about poetry’s ability to do so in an effective manner. I should add that my doubts do not stand in defiance of trying, but if we’re going to turn our art into tools of comfort for allies and into useful weapons against oppressors, we’d better make damn sure we’re not working inside an echo chamber.
Read morePiece By Piece: Writing Your Way Out of a Creative Dry Spell
It happens to all of us at different points in our writing lives: we hit a stretch where we can’t seem to finish anything, or the ideas have dried up faster than morning rain on an Arizona highway. It happened to me this last year when I finished one novel and was excited to start a fresh project, except each novel idea I started fizzled out. They weren’t right. Same went for a few short stories I had rattling around in my head. I’d make it halfway through before casting each aside. Even poems felt forced. I felt stuck. I WAS stuck. And I was breaking Neil Gaiman’s wise and important rule: “Whatever it takes to finish things, finish.” It was a hollow, scary feeling.
But instead of sitting back and waiting for inspiration to strike, I tried a few of the methods below to jumpstart that old excited feeling, to help me start something I could finish. I picked these up from other writers, so it's not like these are fresh, original ideas, but they helped me out, bit by bit. I’m hoping that if they worked for me, they’ll work for you.
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