My lyric essay “Have You Ever Given Your Sister a Snowman?” published in the Alaska Quarterly Review!

I’m thrilled to have received my contributor copy of the new Alaska Quarterly Review, which contains my lyric essay “Have You Ever Given Your Sister a Snowman?” along with a heap of amazing stories, essays, and poems. Thank you to my friends Dustin and J for graciously allowing me to interview them for this essay. Thank you to Ron Spatz and everyone at AQR for publishing it. You can buy issue in print/ebook/pdf/kindle on the AQR website, and I hope that you will!

Lyric Essay “Each Breeze Began Life Somewhere As a Little Cough” Accepted at Passages North

Late last summer I started work on a series of lyric essays, each inspired by one of the four classical elements: earth, air, water and fire. As I begin drafting the final one, it’s a massive delight to announce that the first essay, “Each Breeze Began Life Somewhere As a Little Cough” has just been accepted by Passages North as a future online bonus. In a nightmarish national news week(s), I’m very thankful for this.

“An Elephant Walks into a McDonalds” in Boulevard

I’m elated to announce that my creative nonfiction essay “An Elephant Walks into a McDonalds” has just been published in the fall 2015 issue of Boulevard. This traditional essay is a memoir account of two prison arts outreach experiences I have had: the first in the 1990s at Washington DC’s Lorton Prison as an observer with Living Stage, and the second in the 2000s as a guest poet at a jail outside Lawrence, Kansas.

This is the second essay that I have had published and it’s a thrill to have it appear in Boulevard. Thank you to Jessica Rogen and the other Boulevard Editors!

“An Elephant Walks Into a McDonalds” in Boulevard Fall 2015

Today I received the wonderful news that my creative nonfiction essay “An Elephant Walks Into a McDonalds” is slated to appear in the fall 2015 issue of Boulevard Magazine.

Given the endless winters one must suffer through living here in Syracuse, it’s absurd to wish that fall would hurry the hell up. It’s completely preposterous. It’s just silly to wish something like that. Seriously.

Creative Nonfiction Accepted at Boulevard

I’m excited to share the news that my nonfiction essay “An Elephant Walks Into a McDonalds” has been accepted for publication in Boulevard.

The essay is a memoir account of two prison arts outreach experiences I have had. The first was in the 1990s at Washington DC’s Lorton Prison as an observer with Living Stage, and the second was in the 2000s as a guest poet at a jail outside Lawrence, Kansas.

This is the second personal essay I have had accepted for publication. The first one, “Go Away and Stay Right Here,” was published last year in Colorado Review. You can purchase a paper copy of that Spring 2014 issue for $10 or a pdf for $5 HERE.

Thank you Jessica Rogen and Boulevard!

NANO Fiction’s State of Flash (& Prose Poetry): Why We Write ‘Em!

This summer, for NANO Fiction’s blog series The State of Flash, I surveyed some of my writer friends about why they write prose poetry or flash fiction. The responses I got were thoughtful, funny, insightful, sometimes frightening, and even lyrical.

The short essay was featured online yesterday, and you can read it HERE.

Thanks Kirby Johnson & NANO Fiction!

NANO Fiction’s State of Flash

My article “State of Flash (and Prose Poetry): Why We Write ‘Em!” is going to be featured at NANO Fiction in September, and I’m so excited. For this, I called up a handfull of writer friends and asked them why in the world they write prose poems or flash fiction. The answers I got were wonderful. Also funny, insightful, sometimes frightening, and even lyrical.

Check out Adam Peterson’s “Bylaws of the State of Flash,” the most recent post in NF’s State of Flash series. You may not have known it, but in the State of Flash there are fifty bylaws. And they’re not to be sniffed at.