Howdy readers! As always, I’ve got some things to tell y’all. I’ll pick up where we left off! I have officially survived my first academic year at Texas Wesleyan. I am grateful and excited for the next year! I’ll be teaching some fun courses—I’ll tell y’all about it eventually.
My fall semester was full of great news. In September, The Wild Detectives hosted The Hay Forum again. I had the honor of introducing the panel “Stories Shaped in Verse: Exploring Literary Landscapes with Roger Reeves and Melania Luisa Marte.” I also served as the guest poetry editor for The Texas Observer’s September/October 2023 issue. The Nasher Sculpture Center reprinted “Permian Sea” from Welcome to Midland in their magazine and The Dallas Contemporary featured me for their Third Thursday Series alongside some gorgeous queer art.
Fall 2023 also brought my final issue as an editor for Voicemail Poems after 7 years. I am so grateful for everything I learned working on such a unique and beautiful publication. Y’all can see the gorgeous poetry we publish, but what you can’t see is what it’s like to listen to so, so many voicemails from poets. The voicemail is such a personal recording. I heard cats meowing, sirens, papers shuffling, sometimes full minutes of someone’s life after they finished their poem and didn’t successfully hang up. It was such a strange and wonderful privilege. I also made my first podcast for them. I’m grateful to my fellow editors over all the years and all the incredible poets I got to publish. Y’all keep calling and leaving a poem at the beep. Your work is in good hands.
Spring semester was no less action-packed! I served as a judge for the 2024 Randall Jarrell Poetry Competition for the North Carolina Writer’s Network. I also had the honor of reading for the American Literary Review poetry series in Denton. Check out the pretty photo below, compliments of my beautiful wife:
In April, Inner Moonlight celebrated our 6th anniversary! I cannot believe it has been that long, y’all! Curating this show is such a joy. I say all the time that I create the reading I want to see in the world. I see so much talent and heart in DFW writers and I am honored to reflect this brilliant community back to itself. Inner Moonlight has also created its own magnificent community and I am deeply proud that’s true. We marked the occasion with a big poetry party including encore performances from features from the past year plus some Inner Moonlight favorites. The podcast episode is beautiful, so you should check it out!
The Wild Detectives also celebrated an anniversary in April! They hosted a bunch of events for their 10th (!!) including a collaborative show including Inner Moonlight, a storytelling event called Talking Dirty After Dark, and a music event called Loose Sounds. It was such a cool show and we had a blast! I released this show as a special episode of the podcast so y’all can hear the magic. Here’s a little video of me wishing The Wild Detectives a happy anniversary!
Also in April, a bunch of independent bookstores participated in the 2nd Annual Oak Cliff Book Crawl. I had the pleasure of signing books at Whose Books among some other lovely authors and friends. I can’t overstate how important it is that these bookstores exist! Buy local, y’all.
Alright! That’s it for now. Thank you, dear readers. I’ll come back with more good news, as always. Y’all be good out there!