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// tortured genius
People often said that he finished sentences for me. Well, he did. He was between me and the world. He not only answered the telephone; he finished my sentences. He was the baffle between me and the world at large. —Joan Didion, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold ICYMI, my latest film conversation…
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// the ampersand journals
I’m interrupting the heatwave marathon of blackberry picking to share some equally sweet news: A few weeks ago, Bone & Ink published three excerpts from my project California Building, and this week, Flag + Void released three more. Much gratitude to editors Jessie Lynn McMains and Matthew Moore. I hope you’ll check out these new…
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// crab creek review
I’m excited to share that the latest issue of Crab Creek Review (2018, Vol. I) can now be ordered online or purchased from a number of booksellers in the Pacific Northwest. I’m grateful to poetry editor Martha Silano for including an excerpt from my project California Building. Buying a copy of the issue means supporting…
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// interview with carol van strum
It’s my great privilege to share an audio interview of Oregon environmental activist Carol van Strum by novelist, memoirist, and recent Esalen Institute writing teacher Joyce Thompson. Joyce writes: I’m back from a four-day visit with Oregon eco-warrior Carol van Strum, the woman whose relentless activism drove the banning of pesticide use in US national…
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// empty mirror & in bed
In keeping with the season of good news, I’m excited to share two more recent publications: four excerpts from California Building up today in Empty Mirror, and a standalone prose poem up this week in Queen Mob’s Teahouse for its “In Bed With…” series. I’m grateful to the editors for giving a home to my…
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// a season of good news
Portland, Oregon, offers the most dazzling spring of any I’ve experienced. It’s particularly welcome after the coldest February on record in the metro area this year, and it comes with good publishing news, too. In my last post, I shared that the full-length poetry manuscript I’ve been working on the last few years, California Building, was…
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// progress vs. despair
As the year draws to a close, I’m struck by the marked—and somewhat encouraging—disconnect between top-down and grassroots forces at play in the U.S. right now. The government has been an utter disappointment in so many ways, from directly undermining economic, racial, and gender equity to making us the only country in the world…
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// bodies in thin air
ICYMI, Greg and I published the sixth conversational essay in our occasional series for Berfrois—this time about valuing property over people, the limits of revenge, and the possibilities of resistance: I don’t think we can maintain our humanity when we dehumanize others, warehouse them, and pay our taxes to agents of the state to…
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// ghost ship
The Ghost Ship fire is almost too horrifying to contemplate. Multiple friends of friends are still among those unaccounted for. Any of us who have lived in Oakland and engaged with the art scene know spaces like it. Any of us who are artists anywhere know them. They make so much possible. My ex…
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// robots for the end of the world
Today in Berfrois: New adventures in subverting expository form—the fifth installment in my occasional conversational essay series with Gregory Giles is up. Throwback to everyone’s favorite ’90s environmental cartoon (?), FernGully. Improbably Sentimental Robots; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Babies and Embrace the Apocalypse Also, lucky you if you’ll be in the…