I’m excited to announce the publication of my chapbook, The Sabine Women, by Red Dragonfly Press!

The chapbook was named the winner of the 2018 Emergence Chapbook Series Prize and is available to order from Red Dragonfly Press and Amazon.

Our hearts split in two and kept beating.

Betrayal, abduction, reconciliation. Among the stories of Rome’s founding is the tale of the women from the beautiful region of Sabina—stolen, forced to marry the Roman men, and ultimately brokering peace between two nations to become matriarchs of the Roman Empire. The poems of The Sabine Women explore this complicated story through the imagined voices of the women, and through examining the works that artists, inspired by this story, have made through the ages.

My poem “Train at Night in the Desert,” which appeared in the January 2018 issue of Burningword Literary Journal, has been nominated for Best of the Net! I’m so grateful to the editors of Burningword for this honor.

What Lies Beyond the Frame, the anthology from the 2017 Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, has just been released! I’m honored to have my poems “The Minister’s Last Morning,” “Diabetes,” and “My Secret Poems” in the anthology. This is a great artistic record of a wonderful poetry festival.

The inaugural issue of Cathexis Northwest Press features my essay “Over and Under: Approaches to Hyperbole and Understatement in Poetry.” Thanks especially to the editors of this journal for their prompt and encouraging acceptance note.

I was honored to have my poem “Milan” appear in the January 2018 issue of the beautiful online journal Cagibi.

I was ecstatic to be accepted for a month-long residency this past summer at the Palazzo del Gatto in Casaprota, Italy. I spent my time working on a sequence of poems about the Sabine Women. Many thanks to the partners of the SabinARTi program of the Sabina Cultural Association for their wonderful support and hospitality, the artists I was so fortunate to live with at the Palazzo, and the amazing Italian poet Riccardo Duranti for translating some of my poems so they could be performed at our closing event in Casaprota.

The Two Year College English Association–Southwest 2017 conference was held last weekend in Loveland, Colorado. A large contingent of the PPCC English Dept. had a wonderful weekend together attending the conference, and I was happy to have the chance to give a reading at the Creative Writing Cabaret on Thursday night.

I had a fantastic time from October 13-15 as a Juried Poet at Houston Poetry Fest 2017 at the University of Houston–Downtown. I gave the final reading on opening night and loved being a part of such a wonderful event. My poem “Riverwater,” originally published in Atticus Review, appears in the Houston Poetry Fest 2017 Anthology. It was inspiring to see the city of Houston so steadfast in its embrace of the arts in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

To celebrate Colorado Springs Arts Month 2017, PPCC held a Poetry & Prose Reading at the Rampart Campus on October 17. I hosted this event, and we had a great turnout from students and faculty.

I’m honored to have my poem “The Sceptacle” appear in the latest issue of the St. Katherine Review.

I’m honored to have three poems appear in the Spring 2017 issue of Relief, which arrived this week: “On Prayer, or God in an Atom,” “In Praise of Migraines,” and “Upon Franz Wright’s Death I Learn He Shared a Birthday with My Father.”  The issue is packed with stellar writing—check it out!

I attended five excellent craft seminars at Lighthouse LitFest 2017 in Denver this month.

Pikes Peak Community College continued the PPCC Visiting Writers Series with a wonderful and dynamic reading on March 9 by Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Kelli Allen, who teaches at Lindenwood University in Missouri. We held the reading at the Downtown Studio Art Gallery and had a great turnout!

I had a delightful time at the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, and was honored to give a reading on Saturday, January 14 along with the amazing poet Joanna Lee. Eighty poets from around the world shared their work, and the Bridgewater College students, faculty, and staff ran an exceptional event under the leadership of Dr. Stan Galloway. The festival will be releasing an anthology later this year featuring work from the festival, What Lies Beyond the Frame, edited by Stan Galloway and Elizabeth Liebl and published by Unbound Content.

I’m so grateful to learn that my poem “Taking Down the Tree” has been nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize! Thanks so much to Tar River Poetry , which published the poem in the Spring 2016 issue, for this nomination.

BlazeVOX has a wonderful Fall 2016 issue and I’m honored to have three poems featured in it.

I’m very excited to be giving a reading at the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival in January at Bridgewater College–looking forward to attending this event for the first time and hearing the work of many fellow poets.

My manuscript Flare was named a semifinalist in the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Congratulations to Kara van de Graaf for her winning manuscript Spitting Image, selected by Jennifer Richter.

We’ve held several literary events at Pikes Peak Community College this fall, including an October Arts Month event to celebrate Poetry, Prose and Comedy Week in Colorado Springs and a Fall Student/Faculty Reading in the Downtown Studio Art Gallery. Our amazing students were happy to share their work with an enthusiastic audience.

It’s such an honor to have my poem “Taking Down the Tree” included in Tar River Poetry.

The electronic edition of the 2016 Poetry While You Wait has been released. One thousand print copies were also distributed in offices and shops across the city Colorado Springs in April. My poem“Summer Opening” appears along with the work of many talented local poets.

Many thanks to  Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature for publishing my poem “The Loss,” and to Badlands Literary Journal for publishing three of my poems! “A Day Without You,” “Colorado Springs,” and “Mists” appear in the latest issue.

Thanks very much to Glint Literary Journal for including my poems “Picasso’s Old Guitarist” and “Circle” in their excellent Fall 2015 issue.

The Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project and several interested members of the community have met several times this fall, holding poetry salons and discussing ways to promote poetry in the region.

On October 29th I was lucky enough to serve as host for a magical evening at the Pikes Peak Community College Rampart Campus: the Fall 2015 Student/Faculty Reading. This event was held to celebrate the “Poetry, Prose, & Comedy” week of Arts Month, and featured six talented creative writing students and eight wonderful faculty writers sharing their words with an appreciative audience: