Fantastic to read poetry this afternoon at Lit Youngstown’s Fall Literary Festival along with the wonderful Sara Moore Wagner and Susan Wojnar!
Author Archives: Christopher
I’m reading at Lit Youngstown’s Fall Literary Festival
Delighted to be heading out to read my poetry and moderate a publishing panel for Lit Youngstown’s Fall Literary Festival at Youngstown State University. There are tons of readings, panels, a book fair – so much literary goodness. I’ll be reading poems from my unpublished second book manuscript Friday Sept 21 at 2 pm, along with fellow readers Sara Moore Wagner and Susan Wojnar, then moderating an Editor’s Publishing Panel that features Dianne Borsenik, Rochelle Hurt, Larry Smith, Vertigo Xi’an Xavier, Jessica Fischoff, and John Gosslee. And that’s just one fragment of all that’s happening over the festival’s two days. If you’re in the neighborhood, come on by!
My Second Poetry Book Manuscript is a Semifinalist for the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize!
Lovely to learn that my second poetry book manuscript was a semifinalist for the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from The University of Utah Press. Congratulations to the winner Lindsay Lusby!
I’ve Been Awarded a Ragdale Residency Fellowship for Next Spring!
Holy. Moly. I’ve been awarded a residency at Ragdale for next spring, fully funded with a fellowship!!! I’d never applied to do any residency before being invited to apply to this one, and wow I never expected all this. Thank you Jeffrey Meeuwsen, Amy Sinclair, Regin Igloria, and the Curational Board, selection committee, & staff at Ragdale Foundation for this amazing opportunity. I’m honored and elated. Having this to look forward to will certainly help keep things glowing when winter winds come a-blowing.
The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy
My poetry book has been out for over 3 years by this point but somehow seeing that there’s a copy in the library system of the university where I went as an undergraduate, seeing the book beneath the image of that library where I spent so many blissful hundreds of hours face pressed into books or writing endless poems in carrels on the upper floors… It brings me over all sentimental.
3 Collaborations Published in They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing!
What a thrill to hold in my hands my contributor copy of They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing just out from Black Lawrence Press. The names on the table of contents make my head spin. Dustin Nightingale and I are absolutely looped to have three of our collaborative prose poems appear in this anthology: “Staring Out a Window Echoing the Actual Moon” and “And Me With Only a Bottle Opener in My Pocket” first published in DIAGRAM, and “I Fear We Have Made a Terrible Mistake” first published in Two Peach. Thank you to the editors who initially published these and to Simone Muench, Dean Rader, Sally Ashton, and Jackie White for including us in this amazing volume.
(Click the poem titles above to read the poems as originally published!)
Finalist for Sarabande Books’ Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry!
Lovely to return from vacation to the news that my second poetry book manuscript was a finalist for Sarabande Books’ Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry judged by Ocean Vuong. Congratulations to the winner Chad Bennett. Also, congratulations to my fellow finalist and fellow Indiana University MFA Nathaniel Perry!
I’m reading in Youngstown Sept 21, 2018!
I’m delighted to share the news that I’ll be reading my poems at Lit Youngstown’s Second Annual Fall Literary Festival, which takes place this September 21-22. If you’re in the area, come on by! The two-day line-up of readers, presenters, workshops, panels, and activities is really exciting. Early registration is just thirty-five dollars and lasts until August 15. I’ll be reading at 2 pm Friday Sept 21.
Click HERE to see the complete festival schedule and to register.
“Smell of Wet Earth Like the Inside of My Hands” and “Shelter Awhile” Published in Colorado Review
I’m thrilled to have received my contributor copies of the summer Colorado Review, which contains my poems “Smell of Wet Earth Like the Inside of My Hands” and “Shelter Awhile.” This is the second time I’ve been in the Colorado Review, since they were good enough to publish my lyric essay “Go Away and Stay Right Here” back in the Spring 2014 Issue. Such a delight to share the pages of this issue with amazings such as Ruth Baumann, Conor Bracken, Sophie Klahr, Cate Lycurgus, Lisa Olstein, Brian Simoneau, Kevin Wilson, to name only a few. Massive thanks to Katherine Indermaur, Matthew Cooperman, Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Stephanie G’Schwind!
“If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun” Published in Gulf Coast
The summer/fall 2018 issue of Gulf Coast includes my poem, “If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun.” I am over-the-moon thrilled to share these pages with the likes of Tyler Gof Barton, Jenny Molberg, Paige Lewis, Rebecca Hazelton Stafford, Mark Neely, and so many other amazing writers. Massive thank yous to Dan Chu, Chelsea B DesAutels, Aza Pace, Justin Jannise, Michele Nereim, Luisa Muradyan Tannahill, and the rest of the GC crew.
With poems out in the most recent issue of Blackbird, Pleiades, and now Gulf Coast–well, it’s been a wonderful summer!