Real Talk Avenue

I now get to say in my bio that I’m a Pushcart Prize Nominee. Orange Quarterly nominated my poems “Three Rachels” and “For My Brother on His Sixteenth Birthday.”  I know it’s a huge long shot to get into Pushcart, but it’s nice to know that at least one editorial board thinks my writing is [...]

I edit an online magazine of poetry, Muzzle Magazine. The deadline for submissions to our winter issue is DECEMBER 15th (2 weeks from today). PLEASE SEND US POEMS AND ART http://www.muzzlemagazine.com/submissions.html  For a little background, I founded Muzzle in May 2010 as a project as a writer-in-residence with a literary arts organization in Chicago called Vox Ferus, [...]

I will be making a brief pit stop in Chicago on my way back to Michigan for the holidays. I will be featuring for the Bad News Bible Church Open Mic at the West School for the Desperate (3608 W. Wrightwood)on Saturday December 17th at 8 pm. If you’re in Chicago, please come. I probably [...]

I’m a little late in posting this, but I have 3 new poems (which will also appear in my first book Good Grief)up in the first issue of Orange Quarterly. Orange Quarterly sprung out of the vibrant community of worried applicants applying to MFA programs for fall 2011. I’m the featured writer for this issue, [...]

I have a book cover, which makes this whole “I’m going to have a book” thing seem like less of a hoax. 

1) My poem “When Calling Home to Tell Your Dad About the Good Job” came out today in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change. 2) The 1-Year Anniversary Issue of Muzzle came out today. In it, I have a review of Kevin Coval’s newest collection, L-vis Lives!(which you should probably go buy now). I also did [...]

Debra Kayes (layout editor), Kaylee Pope (copy editor), and I have been combing through this issue for the past 2 months or so. It took a little longer to get rolling than I hoped due to some formatting issues going from Word to Google Docs to InDesign — we had to correct every single damn [...]

Check out my poem “What’s Certain,” which is now up at The Orange Room Review.  Oddly, this was one of the last pieces I cut from my Write Bloody Manuscript. I’m glad it’s got a good home, but you can only use “spackling” and “precision” so many times in a manuscript. You can use “whiskey” [...]

I am very very proud to announce that I am a winner of the Write Bloody manuscript competition. This means my first full-length book of poetry (tentatively titled Good Grief) will be coming out on Write Bloody Press in 2012. Now, the real work begins… Also, check out the video announcement of my selection:click here.

We (Muzzle Magazine) are currently taking submissions for our 1-Year Anniversary Issue, scheduled to come out in late August 2011. We hope to honor the past year of extraordinary work that’s appeared in Muzzle by putting out the most badass and gorgeous issue imaginable. We are enjoining you to submit your work so that we can reach this lofty [...]