Last chance to register for a virtual session on the legacy of Sylvia Plath & ARIEL for Politics and Prose this Sunday, 10/27, 3-5 PM ET, contrasting Plath's orig ordering vs. Hughes/Harper edition, & informed by Emily Van Duyne's powerful Loving Sylvia Plath. politics-prose.com/class/online-c…

“When I met the man who would become my husband, what worried me most was the pair of cats he’d had earlier in life, and his memory that they’d scratched his vinyl records. Kids? Eh. But having cats was nonnegotiable.” “I Am Cat Lady” by Sandra Beasley: vqronline.org/fall-2024/beco…

A two-for-one special for my friends who teach: just in case your syllabus needs include "an example of a double abecedarian essay" OR "the firsthand testimony of a cat lady." vqronline.org/fall-2024/beco…

“Grief is a shell game. The first time I tried to write about not having children, someone put forward the specter of the unbearable grief I would experience if I did not.” Read Sandra Beasley’s “I Am Cat Lady,” new from our Songs of Myself issue: vqronline.org/fall-2024/beco…

Apropos declining commitments to sustain a writing practice, Sandra Beasley asks, “When we say no, how much of an explanation do we owe to people?” She responds: “Perhaps none. Sometimes our motivation isn’t a matter of circumstance but of principle.” at.pw.org/NovDec2024

"Cats sense grief, a friend tells me, and move toward it." Sandra Beasley Virginia Quarterly Review #longreads vqronline.org/fall-2024/beco…

Our Top 5: - Reclaiming soil—and one's story (Bitter Southerner) - A club of country collectors (Outside Magazine) - The rise of Big Headlight (The Ringer) - How saints are made (The Guardian) - An alphabetical ode to cats (Virginia Quarterly Review) longreads.com/2024/12/06/the…

Super Bowl Sunday is all about heroes on the field, but what about off the field? Jason McCourty stars in FARE’s PSA to show how you can be the hero when it matters most. Food allergies don’t wait for the right time—they can happen anywhere. Being prepared can save a life. Watch,

Join us this Wednesday at 7pm est for a virtual reading from IN THE TEMPERED DARK: CONTEMPORARY POETS TRANSCENDING ELEGY, published by Black Lawrence Press and edited by Lisa Fay Coutley. #poetry #poetrycommunity #litmag #grief 🔗 Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regist…

Happy pub day to Steven Leyva! The Opposite of Cruelty is a gorgeous collection (and the unboxing video is pretty great as well). Order it here~ blairpub.com/shop/p/the-opp…

Reader lineup for May 17 in DC! Hope to see you there! ⁦Sandra Beasley⁩ ⁦Martha Anne Toll⁩ and Kyoko Mori!

Only thing better than having my book in a vending machine of DC authors would be if our books were piled in a big heap and you had 15 seconds to manipulate a claw to pick one at random. (LitBox 2.0?) Looking forward to reading this Saturday (5/17)! w/Martha Anne Toll & Kyoko Mori

Dang, forgot to shout out the powerhouse—thank you Lauren D. Woods, for making this happen! You had a flash of inspiration & made it reality. (In the same year that you're putting out a short story collection? Wildly productive.) Let this be the first of many LitBoxes across the DMV!

My thanks to ⁦Washingtonian 🌸⁩ for this piece! Launch coming tomorrow, 5/17 at 3! washingtonian.com/2025/05/16/a-v…

Baltimore friends—tonight at 6 PM ET (Monday, 5/19) I'll get to be in conversation with the stellar poet Steven Leyva at The Ivy Bookshop to celebrate Leyva's collection, The Opposite of Cruelty (H/T Blair). Please join us on the Ivy's patio!

Looking for book-ish community & convo in August? Join our Politics & Prose Bookstore seminar on contemporary memoir—we're reading at Kiese Laymon's HEAVY, Chloé Cooper Jones's EASY BEAUTY, and Hua Hsu's STAY TRUE. Three Mondays, 6:30-8 PM ET, over Zoom. politics-prose.com/list/online-cl…

Pssst. Got a 1st/2nd/3rd book of poems that needs a good home? Send it my way! I'm the final judge of this year's Wren Poetry Prize for Blair. NO reading fee. Get your entry in soon—when we reach 300 submissions, we close the Submittable portal. blair.submittable.com/submit

Last chance to submit for the Wren Poetry Prize, which recognizes a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd poetry collection. Winner receives $1K advance against royalties and gets to work with Blair. No reading fee. Send by Sat, Nov 15—but the portal closes early if we reach 300 submissions first!

Just sent out an advance reading packet with a knockout array of poems about food. Want a look? My seminar, "An Appetite for the Page," is this Sunday (11/16), 1-4 PM ET online, with the wonderful sarah ann winn @poetcamp.bsky.social. Sliding scale fee & a couple of seats left! poetcamp.com/an-appetite-fo…

Alice Wong’s legacy is the political horizon she helped articulate: where disabled knowledge is central & care is a shared commitment—She taught us to name grief/rage without collapsing under them, to celebrate disabled brilliance without ignoring material conditions shaping life