It was fun to finally meet my publisher in person at the Disneyana Show and Sale last weekend in Orange, CA. On top of meeting Dave Bossert, I also got to sit with author and historian Don Ballard as we signed books and chatted with folks dropping by The Old Mill Press table.
I’m thrilled to announce I was named by The Academy of American Poets as a 2022 Poet Laureate Fellow (along with an incredibly talented list of other poets). It makes a big difference for my work and lets me really dive into what I want to do with this next year!
Thank you, Humanities Nebraska, Nebraska Arts Council, and Nebraska Library Commission for your help with my application and for all your support of me and the things I love in Nebraska.
Most of all, thank you Sarah for your help, your belief, and your patience: I love you.
I enjoyed being at the Pacific Northwest Mouse Meet. Thank you, everyone who picked up a copy of At The Corner of Fantasy and Main: Disneyland, Midlife and Churros and everyone who stopped by to chat!
I’ll be reading from the new book at the Rapid City, SD Public Library (610 Quincy St) on July 26th at 5:15 (Mountain Time). Come out!
I’ll also be at the Pacific Northwest Mouse Meet on July 30th in Lynnwood, WA. The event is sold out, but if you have tickets, stop by my table and say “Hi.”
And if you’re somewhere else hoping for a reading, let me know, I love the road and love seeing different parts of the country.
I’m excited to announce I’ve been selected as the new Nebraska State Poet.
The most profound honor for me is knowing Humanities Nebraska, the Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Library Commission as well as a board of people I greatly admire as voices for literacy and creativity in the state chose me as State Poet.
Though I wasn’t able to make the announcement until this evening, the selection was made official earlier in the week, and I’m proud to say that my first day as official State Poet had me hosting Albuquerque Poet Laureate Manuel González and his daughter, Sarita Sol González, who was named by Juan Felipe Herrera as “Youth Poet Laureate.” We spent yesterday at Lincoln High School and Hastings College, where Manuel and Sarita brought their poems and their vibrant presence to great audiences. (Thanks, also, to the anonymous stranger who stopped to help me change a flat tire along the interstate so I could get Manuel and Sarita safely to Hastings!)
Since moving back to my home state in 1995, it’s been my goal to create opportunities which weren’t here for writers when I was coming up. I started PoetryMenu.Com in 2000, the OM Center Poetry Slam in 2002, open mics, Morpo Press (which published chapbooks by local poets), festivals like the Great Plains Poetry Pile Up, reading series which paired experienced poets with young writers, and my work with the Nebraska Writers Collective and the Louder Than a Bomb: Great Plains Youth Poetry Festival. Through my work as State Poet, I plan to continue and expand this mission over the next five years in communities around the state.
Yes, there will be a party. Yes, there will be cake.
Thank you, Twyla M. Hansen (Nebraska State Poet 2013-2018); thank you, Sarah McKinstry-Brown; thanks Sophia and Lucia, I am grateful for your support.
I’ve worked as a teaching artist for Nebraska’s Poetry Out Loud for the past 11 years. In Poetry Out Loud, students around the country memorize poems from a list, anything from a centuries-old sonnet by Shakespeare to a Naomi Shihab Nye poem written in the past few years. I love coaching students on how to choose the poem that’s right for them and finding their own way to recite it, and I’ve certainly dreamed about having one of my own poems on the list. Today, a student from San Luis Obispo High School emailed me with questions for a school assignment as he said he was working on my poem “The Story of Ferdinand the Bull” for POL. Which I didn’t know was on the list. So, well, my day has improved significantly. And it wasn’t half bad to start with.
So what am I working on? A lot. After a few years falling behind (but still writing a poem every week), I’ve been editing and getting books of my poems together. Mainly, that’s 3 manuscripts:
Right now, most of the work is going into the Disneyland manuscript as, well, it’s been a blast to work on. So watch for a new book, umm, at some point…
In fact, my Disneyland poems have recently appeared in Defenestration, Lowestoft Chronicle, appearing soon in Sugar House Review, and a recording of one poem on the Mousetalgia podcast, Episode 521.
Catch the Voices Creating Change podcast for a chat with me and Amanda Stevenson about poetry, the Nebraska Writers Collective, Disneyland, the works!
I’m excited to have a review of US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s “Wade In The Water” published by World Literature Today this week. She does some amazing things with erasure poetry and found poetry, two types of poem I don’t always know what to think of:
