Marching & Singing Toward Spring

The annual AWP Conference & Bookfair takes place this first week of March in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to a book signing and offsite reading for CavanKerry Press to celebrate Singing from the Deep End (see March event post below for details on both), I’ll be woman-ing a table for Perugia Press and celebrating with our press and five sister orgs with a collaborative offsite reading on March 4, in honor of our friend Jennifer Martelli. I’ll also be on a panel with four other small press editors entitled “Small Presses Getting Big Attention.” It’s been lovely to talk shop with them even as we plan for our panel, and I’m grateful for that camaraderie in what is usually a kind of solitary endeavor (even as it involves so much community building and social engagement).

Before I drive southward, I wanted to share upcoming events as my book tour continues. And you can always check out the “Readings & Events” tab for details, including sign-up links! First up is my March events list, and then details about a couple of particular events.

I’m excited to be reading with Kali Lightfoot (Big Band Night at the Good Life Bar) and Carla Panciera (One Trail of Longing, Another of String), two members of the Good Harbor Poets writing collective I’m lucky to be part of, at justBook-ish, a literary gathering space for creative communities in the Dorchester, MA neighborhood of Fields Corner, on Wednesday, March 11, 6:30-8pm. This is a kind of homecoming for me as I spent weekends with my dad in Dorchester, where he lived while I was growing up. Their mission is awesome: “At justBook-ish, we believe every person is like a book: judge not by the cover, but by the content, remember each person has a unique story, and always take good care of your spine.” Thank you to Porsha Olayiwola for organizing the reading and holding space for us. Hope you can join us for poems and conversation! 

And please join me and Erica Goss for a virtual braided reading and conversation to celebrate our new books, both of them second collections woven with mothers and daughters, bees and trees. We’ll be reading poems that speak to each other from our books as well as talking about the second-book adventure we’re both on – plus whatever you’d like to talk about! I was honored to write a blurb for Erica’s Landscape with Womb and Paradox – it’s fantastic. This virtual gathering will take place on Sunday, March 15 at 1pm PT/4pm ET. Here’s a link to register.

Abundant thanks to the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College for hosting my local launch for Singing from the Deep End on February 19! It was such a beautiful evening. Special thanks to Matt Donovan and Jen Jabaily-Blackburn for hosting, to Jen for giving a really lovely intro, and to folks who came from far and wide to celebrate Singing from the Deep End. I got to take a #plathglare author shot under the iconic Sylvia Plath painting there:

My reading at Salem State University with J. D. Scrimgeour last month was postponed due to the snow dropped during a Nor’easter, but it will be rescheduled sometime this fall. And I was able to read at Charles Olson’s table when I read at the Gloucester Writers Center with Heather Nelson. Thanks to the GWC for warmly welcoming me home to Gloucester, to Eric Parkison for hosting and for the thoughtful intros, to Heather for sharing her work, and to all who came to listen to our poems from Motherland and Singing from the Deep End.

To close, I’m so grateful to have been awarded one of the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s “Grants for Creative Individuals” this year, which are “unrestricted grants of $5,000 to Massachusetts artists, culture bearers, and creative practitioners to equitably advance creative expression throughout our diverse communities.” I’m in really good company with 463 other folks across the state who are receiving this funding, including 57 others in the literature category. This is my first time getting support for my creative work in this way, and I’m still taking that in. Congratulations to all the awardees in all the fields, and thank you to the Mass Cultural Council for bolstering my work and that of artists across our state.