Once upon a time it was hard to scrape together enough things to blog about and I would grab at any small idea, but these days I’m so busy it is hard to keep up. In no way am I complaining! Since I was asked to write a series of articles about poetry and do the open mic at Card Carrying, my life has been a whirlwind of behind the scenes creativity. I haven’t been submitting much work because I have been actively designing book covers, editing manuscripts, writing reviews, and writing a new manuscript. All of this has been wedged in with regular daily life as a nurse, mother, and partner.

Over the last month, I had the distinct pleasure of doing a feature reading online for Uncloistered Poetry in Toledo. If I would’ve had the time, I could have done it live in person, but my work schedule did not permit the travel at that time. April 10th I was able to do a feature reading with Rick Christiansen and Christopher Citro. Uncloistered Poetry was established in 2016 by Jonie McIntire who is currently the poet laureate of Toledo. She is doing wonderful things with the poetry community there and spreading the love of the poem far and wide. I was honored to be a part of this reading.

I was also invited to be interviewed by the lovely Dan Denton of The Blue Collar Gospel Hour which features working artists. Most of us making our way in the art/music/writing world have to have a day job and Dan does a wonderful job shedding some light on these folks. I have done interviews in the past, most of which were via email or mail, but never anything in person. I was a bit nervous as this was an hour long interview and I wasn’t sure if I would have enough to talk about. As it turns out, Dan is a great host and the conversation was lively. I left the interview feeling really good about what was going on in my life. He has a year’s worth of interviews on his site and you should dive into the backlog and have a listen. You can hear my interview here.

Read. Write. Support the small press. Be kind to each other.

Aleathia