Happy New Year!

As a first step toward a year in becoming more of a professional poet, I have finally gone about creating a portfolio or profile website for myself (this blog is in the navigation bar).


Here are some of the next things I'll be working on this year: 
  1. I'll be looking into different poetry contests (contests for single poems, not manuscripts) and figuring out which ones to enter. Every poetry contest out there requires some sort of entry fee, so researching and narrowing down which ones to submit work to will help make these submissions much more economic and more like an investment than just throwing money and poems around to everyone willing to take them. 
  2. In February, I will have the opportunity to travel to Seattle to attend my first AWP Conference as part of the Rose O'Neill Literary House crew. This Conference is not only a learning opportunity (with the multitude of panel discussions on craft), but also a fabulous opportunity for professional networking. Hundreds of writers, small (and larger) presses, literary magazines and journals, and writing programs will be there ready to mingle. 
  3. When my chapbook is released in the next month or two from dancing girl press, I will be active in trying to promote it a bit: inquiring around to different chapbook-reviewing venues such as Rain Taxi Review of Books (which has a "Chapbook Corner"), Weave Magazine, and decomP magazinE (which includes poetry reviews as part of each issue and which published a selection of poems from this chapbook manuscript in April 2013) among others.
  4. I will also be continuing work on the Catechesis manuscript project, which is still coming along slowly (but surely). 

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