Poise/Pose

If you haven’t bought a copy of my book, All Blue So Late, I’ll send you one for twenty dollars, and you will have it forever. Another book I’m excited for: my friend Jared Paul’s Songs From the Bottom of a Mineshaft has been accepted for publication by Button Poetry! Jared has put so much […]

The Pen Is Mightier Than the Paycheck

The skills and traits I’ve cultivated that have strengthened me as a writer have harmed my capacity to hold down a “normal” job. As a writer, I have struggled to unearth my individuality as much as possible. To own and know my own voice, my own truth, and to express that truth without hesitation. To […]

How to Work It?

My second collection of poems, All Blue So Late, is finally officially released! I have a cache of copies to sell myself; buying directly from me is the best way to support me as an artist, so please hit me up if you’re interested. I can inscribe whatever you like, of course! The next best ways […]

Listen Close to What We Say (because this type of shit happens every day)

One of my favorite podcasts, RISK!, has a story of mine live as part of this week’s show, “Rejection.” Please listen to it if you have a corner of time open. Not long after the episode posted, a woman commented, chiding the host, and me, for running a story that, according to the commenter, made […]

Patronage/Patronism

Dear Anonymous, Stop telling other people how to live. You actually never have the right to do that. And it never works.

Facing My Harshest Critic

I am damn mean to me some days. When the me that shows up onstage doesn’t do all the this and that perfectly, the way we practiced, I can be brutal to me. Way more so than anyone else has ever been; the worst I’ve ever gotten from other people is indifference, really. Me lashes […]

The Ask.

It is terror to say it out loud. Fear to admit the true want that drives it all, that circles the heart and tickles the brain. Why? Some days it all seems so damn impossible. So silly. I can’t be the one, surely I don’t deserve it, can’t do it. No way nohow as a […]

The Choice of Artifice.

Friends, I was recently interviewed for PEN America (my former employer, although that was completely unrelated to my selection). Get an eyeful of my good side on PEN’s website. Here in the flesh, it’s Halloween night, the Saturday before the 31st. Best believe Brooklyn is celebrating. People howl in the streets, drums rattle and thrum, and […]

Through the Looking Glass

One of the reasons writing is essential to me is its power to keep me connected to what I’m actually thinking and feeling. We live in a culture that places high value on money, primacy on its subjects as consumers and workers, whether we be consumers of entertainment, self-employed workers, what have you. Think about […]

“We don’t talk about it.”

My mother’s side of the family keeps secrets–semi-secrets partly known to me. My mother allows the secrets out here and there over the years, gives them some sun and air, lets them stretch and run a little. It must relieve her, a little. My mother tells me things others might color with shame, maybe because […]