April 2025 Newsletter

Hello friends and family. 

In April, Alex and I moved to Portland, Oregon. Our east to west coast move has been a while in the making, joyous and stressful, freeing and all-consuming. While we search for a permanent place to live, we are renting an apartment in the Laurelhurst district. In the meantime, I look forward to writing, meeting new friends and continuing to connect with old friends. 

As per the transition, the last few readings I participated in on the east coast were fabulous. Thanks to…

• Wayne Kral host of First Floor Walk Up on the Lower East Side
• Maria Mazziotti Gillan and the Allen Ginsberg 2024 Poetry Readings in Paterson, NJ for my poem “Benevenuto a Roma” that won Honorable Mention
• Carolyn Cordell, who hosted a virtual reading, from Canada, with Parkland Poets
• Rob Arnold and the Poet’s House team. My last reading was at the 29th Poet’s House Community Reading on River Terrace in Manhattan. My books were placed into their collection among hundreds of others published in 2022 and 2023. Their library contains over 80,000 poetry books and books about poetry. There were more than a dozen readers present including Megha Sood, Ron Kolm, Cheryl Boyce Taylor, Linda Kleinbub, Phillip Giambri, Madeline Artenberg, Pauline Findlay, Hassanal Abdullah, Beatrix Gates, Marwa Halal, and Emily Lee Luan. Rob Arnold spoke about DEI language that had to be deleted when applying for federal arts grants. Poet’s House was not complying, but the news was and is continually sobering. 

And so, art organizations and public media outlets have been on my mind daily as the present administration haphazardly slashes budgets. Folks, the personal is political. If you can, help support the arts during these turbulent times. I will join you on the streets, working the phones, writing and reading poetry out loud, writing to politicians, raising my voice as part of a diverse chorus to combat injustice.  That said, I have been invited to read with Writers Speak Out: Words of Resilienceon April 26^th and was recently published in Silence is Consent and Whisper, Whisper, Shout with a host of amazing writers. (See information below if you would like to order a copy.)

I will be a participating writer again this year at the Hobart Festival of Women Writers in the Western Catskills.  If you have never been, consider joining us as we raise women’s voices. The festival includes readings, workshops, art exhibits and panel discussions. HFWW also put out a call for donations as they have recently lost some of their funding. Registration opens May 1^st. 

Finally, thanks to Philadelphia Stories (reviewer Nicole Conti and reviews editor, Sarah Viveca) for the rave review of Even the Dog Was Quiet.

Meanwhile, if you wish to buy signed copies of Even the Dog Was Quiet and If There Is No Wind, you can purchase them through my Kofi site. They are $15 each, plus shipping and handling. There are discounts available for large quantity orders. Contact me for more info. Support independent publishers and writers by purchasing their books.

Tasty Tidbits

“Dear Rorschach” a collaborative poem to film with director/editor Bobe Wu, was recently screened at the 12th International Video Poetry Festival and REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2025. The film won first place in the Moving Words Film Festival competition in 2024.

Both books are traveling on the Vagabond Poetry Caravan with Mark Lipman. He is going on a world poetry tour in a converted international school bus, “connecting people from all corners of the planet through arts, music and poetry as a Poetry Ambassador for Peace.” You can follow Mark (National Beat Poet Laureate for 2024-2025) and his bus on the website hyperlinked. Hopefully, one day Mark will make it to Portland!

I was interviewed by Ameerah Shabazz-Bilal, editor of Whisper, Whisper, Shout for her podcast. Ameerah is a jewel in the poetry world and the interview was a blast. More information to come!

Joined 2 poetry challenges for April—Elk River 30/30: A National Poetry Month Challenge and River Heron Review NaPoMo ‘25. Having trouble keeping my head above water, but still having a great time! 

Playing Telephone! a virtual networking art game. I read about it in 2021 and received my assignment for 2025. “…you will be assigned an anonymous work of art from somewhere else on earth and it will be your job to translate this artwork into your own medium. This work of art may not immediately speak to you or reveal its meaning, but trust that it contains a message. Once you’ve completed your translation, you will return your work to us, and it will be passed to another artist somewhere on our big, beautiful globe to translate in turn. We hope that you will play with us! The first two games, in 2015 and 2021, produced amazing results.” They are especially looking for writers outside the US. 

Upcoming Events Events are free, unless otherwise noted.

4/26 Writers Speak Out: Words of Resilience. Open mic. Over 85 poets. Surprise guests. Reading begins at 1 pm EST (10 am PST). It is a happening. Short sets. I should be going on sometime between 3:15 and 4 pm EST (12:15 and 1 pm PST).

06/06/25-06/08/25, Twelfth Annual Hobart Festival of Women Writers, Participating writer. Hobart, N.Y., the Book Village of the Catskills. Check the website beginning May 1^st for the festival registration fee and more information.
11/7/2025 Calling All Poets. Virtual reading. Follow instructions on the website to register. $5 admission.

Recent Publications

If you are interested in submitting to these publications or to make a purchase, click on the hyperlinks.

• Chaos, Crises, and Conflict: “Shower the Baby” (Moonstone Press).
• Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Hot Dog, Volume 19, issue 1:  “Orange Curtain,” and “Writer’s Detour or My Lovely Garden” Elizabeth MacDuffie, Editor-in-Chief.
• Poetry is Dead Volume 2: “Glen Falls, ’79” D.L. Lang, Editor.
• Sense & Sensibility Haiku Journal: “Springing East to West Coast” Patricia Carragon, Founder & Editor.
• Silence is Consent: “A Soulless Nation,” “At the Onset of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine,” “Hell on Earth,” “Grieving at the Loss of Roe v. Wade,” & “Drowning in a Sea of Misogyny” Christopher Bogart, Editor.
• The Opiate Magazine: “I Try Not to Grow Old,” “Ladder to Adulthood,” & “Death, Then Grief” Genna Rivieccio, Editor-in-Chief.
• Whisper, Whisper, Shout: When Women Speak Anthology 2025: “We are Being Hunted.” Ameerah Shabazz-Bilal, Editor. 
• Philadelphia Stories: my review of Steve Oskie’s novel, Glassman. Sarah Viveca, Review Editor. 

Upcoming Publications

• Lips Magazine: “Thirty Minutes Outside Chicago,” James Gwyn, Editor. 
• New Jersey Bards Poetry Review 2025: “Meditation,” (Local Gems Poetry Press)
• S/He Speaks 3: Voices of Women, Trans & Nonbinary Folx: “I Still Wear My Christine Blasey Ford Button,” Tom Daubert & Cassendre Xavier, Editors (Moonstone Press).
• Write Forward: A Constellation of Voices: “Lifting and Separating” International Women’s Writing Guild. 

Success Stories from Friends and Colleagues

• Congratulations to Robert Polner and Michael Tubridy for the review of their book, An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O’Dwyer that appeared in the American Catholic Studies journal (Three Hills, Cornell University Press).
• Steve Oskie’s novel, Glassman, can be purchased here. (See my review listed above.)