Spent the weekend enjoying readings and listening to pedagogy discussions at the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers' annual conference in Fairhope, AL. It was a pleasure to read alongside so many Gulf Coast writers, especially my past and present Center for Writers cohort. A big thank you to GCACWT's president, wonderful poet and person Katie Riegel, for organizing such a wonderful event. 

A big thank you to the wonderful editors at Harpur Palate who chose my poem, "Coco," as the winner of the 2017 Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry! Honored to have my poem included in Harpur Palate's pages. Also, congratulations to Celeste Mohammed, winner of the John Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction! The issue with my and Celeste's work is available for purchase here. 

In anticipation for issue 38.1, the wonderful editors at Pleiades are featuring my poem as the Pleiades Poem of the Week! A big thank you to poetry editor (and magnificent poet!) Jenny Molberg. Read "Nighttime Spectacular" at the Pleiades Blog. 

So grateful that my poem, "The Visible World," was chosen by Pimone Triplett as the winner of American Literary Review's 2017 Award for Poetry! Many thanks to Pimone Triplett and ALR's editors for believing in this poem. The announcement, including the list of wonderful finalists (and winners/finalists for other genres), can be found on ALR's website here. 

The University of Southern Mississippi recently celebrated student writing for the state's bicentennial by hosting a special writing event in which high school students—guided by professors and graduate students in the English Department (myself included)—wrote poems, essays, and memoirs about their Mississippi experiences. These students went from invention to composition, revision, and publication, all in one day. So proud of the work they did—and grateful for the professors at USM that helped organize the event. Read the students' work here. 

Grateful to be presenting on Derek Walcott's Omeros at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association's annual conference. Check out the conference program here. 

Last spring, I had the pleasure of working on a collaborative found poem using John Keats' 1817 letters, and "Dear Bailey" is now available on The Keats Letters Project blog. Shout out to my collaborators/fellow poets Brandi George, Angela Ball, Chad Foret, Charlee Meiners, Todd Osborne, Jessica Ramer, Jon Riccio, Matthew Schmidt, Anastasia Stelse, and Zachary Williams. Read "Dear Bailey" here. 

So grateful to the editorial staff at Phoebe for selecting my poem, "Register of Futures: Florida," as a finalist for the Greg Grummer Prize and publishing it in their spring 2017 issue. Congratulations to winner Jennifer Givhan, and to the other finalists! Read all of their excellent poems here.

Thrilled to be in such excellent company! Read about my fellow winter scholars here.

A wonderful weekend in Newport, OR full of craft talks, workshop, karaoke, and sea lions at Tin House's Winter Workshop for poetry. Especially grateful for the generosity of my workshop-leader, Ada Limón, and my fellow poets in attendance--and the eagle who made a guest appearance! Thank you to Tin House for organizing this event, and for awarding me a scholarship to attend.