Where can we read some of your recent work?

Two new poems, “Bequest” and “Which Way Is November and How Many Feathers,” are just out in the newest issue of Diode, and “Dementia, or Trying to Say Goodnight” appeared in this fall’s 20th anniversary issue of Stirring . 

What are you reading right now? 

I’m smack dab in the middle of Franny Choi’s Soft Science, which is wonderfully inventive in its explorations of identity, gender, violence, technology, and consciousness. I’m so excited by what these poems are doing with utterance, form, and fragmentation. 

I’m constantly returning to Molly Spencer’s If the House, a collection of poems that evokes a raw winter landscape and considers the house/body/family so brilliantly as it examines questions of marriage, intimacy, and grief. These poems consistently stun me with their searing, breathtaking imagery. (Editor’s note: Donna Vorreyer’s review of If the House appears in this issue!) 

And I keep rereading Jessica Jacobs’s Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going, a collection that is so layered, musical and lush, with compelling figurative language and music, and stirring, fresh approaches to the love poem. This collection brilliantly builds from the rich narrative of a self coming-of-age, through encountering the beloved, to exploring with nuance and power the messy edges of commitment, intimacy, and a life lived together. 

As for novels, I’ve been satisfying my need for intelligent feminist fantasy. A re-read of Emily Croy Barker’s The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic has been a thrilling preparation for the forthcoming sequel, How to Talk to a Goddess (spoiler: I’ve read it, and it’s fantastic). I love the witty characters, the fairy tale and poem allusions, and the moving surprises of the heroine’s magical education. (Also, I’m a sucker for a cantankerous wizard.) 

What’s next for you?

I’m finishing up revisions on my third full-length manuscript, Where the Wolf. I’ve also got poems forthcoming in The Greensboro Review, Ruminate, and Cave Wall.  

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