REBECCA HART OLANDER

This year has brought opportunities to focus on poetry in my work with students. In January, I was an outside reader for a MA poetry thesis in the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, and this spring I’ve had the honor of teaching the ENGL 346 Writing Poetry workshop at Westfield State University. It was the class of a lifetime; the student poets and I forged an amazing community online, and I miss them already. I’ll be at WSU teaching FT composition courses again next year, which I also love and will be glad to be back to doing in person. But the teaching of poetry is particularly…

Look at this beauty that arrived in my mailbox! LINEA is a hand-stitched, limited-edition journal of micro fiction (pieces are 180 words max), featuring a letterpress cover and made with love in every way by Simian Press. The picture doesn’t do it justice; inside there is visual and written art, including a gorgeous fold-out set of drawings by publisher Adell Donaghue (made in honor of her sister who died of COVID-19 in 2020, created with brushes made from nature, and harnessing joy in the midst of grief). Deep gratitude to Donaghue and editors Carol Edelstein and Elizabeth George for giving my piece “Grady’s Heart” a home in this jewel box.…

Poet Andrea Blythe featured me in her “Poet Spotlight” this month to discuss my chapbook Dressing the Wounds, teaching, editing, writing community, what I’m reading, and who I recommend others should read (hint, this would be ALL Perugia poets, including our latest poet Jackie Balderrama, and, other current faves: Eve L. Ewing, Marilyn Nelson, and Kwoya Fagin Maples). An excerpt: In response to Blythe’s question “What keeps you writing?” I answered, “It is my primary creative outlet and way of understanding my environment, and my place within that. [What] keeps me writing is both the unexpected beauty and brightness of the everyday as well as the inevitable brinks and plunges into…

This spring found me digging deeply into teaching remotely through COVID-19, and this summer I’ve been learning how to do so more effectively before the fall semester. I’ve also been working on projects for Perugia Press, including editing our latest publication, launching our new website, and working with our first-ever intern. In both of my jobs, much time has been invested in reflection and action in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and George Floyd and renewed attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Consequently, I have not been focused on highlighting my own work as a writer, but I do have some things…

Hello friends. It’s been since February since I’ve written here. I’ve been consumed by other things, many of them the same things you have been consumed with as well, I’m sure. My last post was about 6 upcoming readings, only one of which was able to happen before COVID struck. But I wanted to let you know that one of the other five canceled readings has been rescheduled and re-imagined. I’m reading this Thursday, August 6, with Omotara James and Leah Umansky, for the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Virtual Amherst Arts Night Plus. The reading will take place on Zoom from 6:30-7:30 EST. It is free, but you need to register…