Flash Story in The Conium Review

I'm really thrilled to be part of the latest issue of The Conium Review, with my flash story, "Copy Machine." It features some other fabulous work, including a story by one of my favorites, Shane Jones. You can order a copy here.

Best Books of 2016 List

Joanna Valente over at Luna Luna Magazine did a roundup of thirty books from 2016 that should be on your shelf, and I'm honored The Birth Creatures is on it. Check out the full list here.

Interview In Grist

I had the pleasure of talking with poet Katie Manning about her chapbook, A Door With A Voice, and she grilled me some about The Birth Creatures. Grist was awesome enough to publish the interview, which you can read here. Katie and I are press-mates over at Agape Editions, which means you can read both our chaps there for free!

This Just In: I'm Going To Be A Hyacinth Girl!

You guys have some pop culture goodness to look forward to from me next year. My poetry chapbook, Playing One on TV, has been selected for publication by Hyacinth Girl Press in 2017!

This book started out as a NaPoWriMo project, four years ago. A fun, lighthearted project turned into a manuscript with deeper feminist explorations of girlhood, womanhood, and race. HGP is the perfect press to publish it, not to mention one of my favorite chapbook publishers. I can't wait to see it in print and share it with you all.

First Pushcart Nom!

Received a nice surprise this week that the lovely folks at Posit nominated my poem, "A Spill on the Grid," for a Pushcart Prize. I'm especially excited to see one of my "Malala poems" get this honor. In case you missed it, you can read the poem here.

Poems In Public Pool And Forthcoming Story

I recently had a couple of pop culture poems go up at Public Pool that you can read here. The first one, "Angela Chase Weather Report," is from my chapbook, PLAYING ONE ON TV, about iconic female television characters.

I'm also super excited to have a flash story called "Copy Machine" forthcoming in the next issue of The Conium Review alongside some fabulous writers, including one of my favorites, Shane Jones. Check out the full contributor list here.

Short Story in Meridian

Once upon a time, I had a dream I opened a chapbook store with Jeff Goldblum. I wrote a poem about it (obviously), which turned into a short story, which Meridian chose to publish in their latest issue. They have a free epub version available on their site, in addition to physical copies for sale.

This is my favorite story I've written, and I couldn't be more thrilled that such a great journal loved it as much as I do.

Gigantic Sequins 7.1 Available

Issue 7.1 is available to order here, and it's gorgeous.

This team consistently puts out not just great work, but one of the best looking journals around, and I'm so grateful I get to be part of their staff.

Poems And Interview At The The Poetry Blog

Fox Foley (who published my e-chap, The Birth Creatures) has been doing a great poetry Spotlight Series, this year, over at The The Poetry Blog, and I'm excited she chose to feature my work at her Infoxicated Corner. I have three new poems up about various bags I've owned (yes, one of them is a Jansport backpack, obviously) that you can check out here. I also did an interview and talked about my influences, creative process, and generally felt like an imposter poet, as per usual. :p

Review in Whale Road Review

I reviewed Heather Christle's Heliopause for Whale Road Review. You can read it here and check out the awesome work in the rest of Issue Three.

Short Story In The Pinch

I'm super excited to have a new short story about some unconventional marriage counseling called "The Switch" in the new gorgeous issue of The Pinch. You can purchase the issue here.

Interview In Luna Luna Magazine

I'm a big fan of Luna Luna Magazine and poet Joanna Valente and was thrilled that she interviewed me about The Birth Creatures for Luna Luna. You can read my answers to questions about pregnancy and the process and style that shaped The Birth Creatures here.

Poems In Posit

I have two new poems in Issue Nine of Posit that you can read here.

"Resolutions" was written at the beginning of 2015, when I was thinking a lot about the quietness and safeness of my writing and how I wanted that to change (which, I think, it has for the better). Nothing wrong with quietness in writing in general, but in my case, there was a comfort level in my creative space contributing to that, and I've recognized a need to step outside of it if I want to improve my craft.

"A Spill on the Grid" explores a similar theme and is another one of my "Malala poems" - I've always been fascinated by her father's encouragement of her outspokenness, as it contrasts what I was more or less instructed to do when I was her age, and I look to her courage and intelligence often when navigating a more outspoken creative path for my own writing.

Big thanks to Susan Lewis and Bernd Sauermann for including me in this issue.

Birth of THE BIRTH CREATURES

My magical realism e-chapbook, The Birth Creatures, is out today from Agape Editions! It is available as a free download here. Here's what some poets have to say about it:

"Something fantastic mixed with the plundering lowing of pregnancy and early motherhood is present here. We have the surprise mixed with trim rhyme: 'I'm pulled into the rhino / nestled in its crib of ribs' and we think of this grotesque comfort, the body as push and pull and grasping. So much is about consumption and aggressively so: the moon is devoured and 'a peat bog / where the kitchen table was' becomes the murky counterpoint. This is a geography that lurks, that is an extra self within the realm that is the deep loneliness of early motherhood. I too felt consumed while reading this chapbook, but in the best, most delicious way."

—Molly Sutton Kiefer, author of Nestuary, Tinderbox Editions EIC

"How a woman's body turns alien, fantastical, so foreign to herself when she grows a child—'under the crust I am cherry pie.' Samantha Duncan's powerful chapbook-length poem The Birth Creatures traces a 37-weeks-pregnant woman's struggle to accept what this birth will mean: 'I'm an afterthought to be studied/ my insides sighing/ against the hunger for/ more of me it you.' Besides the innumerable bodily changes (what Duncan calls a 'revolution'), in the house where the woman waits for labor, a cypress tree roots under the crib, a rhinoceros appears where the bouncer was to go, bird bones appear in the bathroom. The Birth Creatures is in one way true to the tradition of magical realism, but also unapologetically peeks at the undersides (those secret, sad feelings) of what it means to become a mother: 'a journey a century/ transforms insides/ into leftovers/ the waste the time// the assimilation of you/ into me.' Yet also, the joy: 'we are doing/ we are real.'"

—Nicole Rollender, author of Louder Than Everything You Love

I'm triple excited to have this book out in the world and couldn't be more grateful to Fox Foley for seeing the magic in it. I hope you'll read and enjoy it.

Puppy Monkey Poem

This is me stopping in to report that I've been busy and THINGS ARE AFOOT.

- If all goes according to plan, my new chapbook, The Birth Creatures, will drop NEXT WEEK from Agape Editions (that's right, I said "drop," like I'm a god damn rock star and not, er, the opposite of that). It's a kooky little book I wrote last year, and I couldn't be happier that Fox Foley picked it up for her new Sundress Publications imprint. This is my first foray into e-chap publishing, and I'm super excited to reach a wider audience through this medium. Look for the link, soon, y'all.

- The awesome folks at Stirring published my poem, "Color Wheel," in their February issue that you can read here. It's the second published poem from my 90s batch that I wrote last year. The first was "Juliet," which you can check out in Really System here. The overarching theme in this batch is, as always: I still want to be Claire Danes when I grow up.

- Gigantic Sequins is officially OPEN for submissions until March 15, and I'm helping read poetry and CNF. In addition to those categories, they're also looking at fiction and art/comics, so go here to send them stuff. GS is also taking pre-orders for Issue 7.1, which I helped read for, link to purchase here.

- We're hard at work at ELJ Publications reading manuscripts for our 2017 catalogue. Check out our submission guidelines here. Our sub fees are all under $10, and we typically respond quickly. Our 2016 lineup is pretty sick, so you know you want to join our family. Send your stuff by April 1.

- Jordan Catalano, I'm coming for you.

Flash Fiction in Flapperhouse

The lovely Flapperhouse published my flash story, The Playground, in their Fall 2015 issue, and you can now read it online, here. So excited for this pub, as it marks my return to fiction, my primary game.

Poems in Menacing Hedge

Thrilled that Menacing Hedge published an excerpt from my chapbook, The Birth Creatures, in its Fall 2015 issue. Check it out, alongside some other great work, here.

2015 Book Roundup

New year, aka, time to throw a book list wrap-up at you.

Fiction highlights were Amelia Gray's new one, Gutshot, which I'm fairly sure I can credit with kicking my ass back into fiction-writing gear, and beginning Karl Ove Knausgaard's opus, My Struggle, which I think most people either love or hate for its painstaking attention to mundane detail. I don't know what it says about me, but I love it and can't wait for the U.S release of all its volumes. Poetry is, as usual, all over the map, but a standout for me was discovering the badass that is Cate Marvin. Similarly, with chapbooks, Amorak Huey's The Insomniac Circus slayed me with its cleverness. I often have a hard time finding nonfiction that blows me away. Jan Bondeson's Buried Alive was great for its subject matter and intrigued me enough to want to read more on the longstanding fear of being buried alive. Five Days at Memorial also drew me in - a good work of journalism that isn't totally without bias, but that doesn't overtly try to lead the reader to one conclusion or another.

Seeing as I did not meet any 2015 reading goals, I'll merely set out to have a literary and fulfilling 2016. :D

Fiction

Three Hundred Million – Blake Butler

The Poorhouse Fair – John Updike

Umbrella – Will Self

The Strange Library – Haruki Murakami

My Struggle: Book 1 – Karl Ove Knausgaard

My Struggle: Book 2 – Karl Ove Knausgaard

Gutshot – Amelia Gray

Against the Country – Ben Metcalf

Binary Star – Sarah Gerard

Can’t and Won’t – Lydia Davis

The Cure for Suicide – Jesse Ball

The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood

Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel

Slade House – David Mitchell

New American Stories – Ben Marcus

In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods – Matt Bell

Poetry

One Thousand Things Worth Knowing – Paul Muldoon

Strike/Slip – Don McKay

The Glacier’s Wake – Katy Didden

Twigs and Knucklebones – Sarah Lindsay

Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower – Sarah Lindsay

Strike Sparks: Selected Poems – Sharon Olds

The Keys to the Jail – Keetje Kuipers

Gurlesque – Lara Glenum

Not For Mothers Only – Rebecca Wolff

[insert] boy – Danez Smith

Heliopause – Heather Christle

Deep Lane – Mark Doty

Count the Waves – Sandra Beasley

The Bone Folders – T.A. Noonan

Confluence – Sandra Marchetti

Stationed Near the Gateway – Margaret Bashaar

The Lunatic – Charles Simic

Apocryphal – Lisa Marie Basile

Oracle – Cate Marvin

New Exercises – Franck Andre Jamme

The Last Two Seconds – Mary Jo Bang

World’s Tallest Disaster – Cate Marvin

Given – Arielle Greenberg

Satellite – Matthew Rohrer

Fragment of the Head of a Queen – Cate Marvin

Mr. West – Sarah Blake

The Poem She Didn’t Write and Other Poems – Olena Kalytiak Davis

Erratic Facts – Kay Ryan

Non-Fiction

Deep Down Dark – Hector Tobar

Buried Alive – Jan Bondeson

Gods, Graves, and Scholars – C.W. Ceram

Yes Please – Amy Poehler

About Town: TNY and the World It Made: Ben Yagoda

Zine – Pagan Kennedy

Missoula – John Krakauer

The Bone Woman – Clea Koff

The Seven Good Years – Etgar Keret

Word Nerd – John D. Williams

The Invisible Sex – J.M. Adovasio

The Other Serious – Christy Wampole

Five Days at Memorial – Sheri Fink

Chapbooks

The Hows and Whys of My Failures – Dan Nowak

The Insomniac Circus – Amorak Huey

Mutant Neuron Codex Swarm – Juliet Cook and Robert Cole

Incident Reports – Caitlin Thomson

Blinded By Clouds – Risa Denenberg

war/lock – Lisa Marie Basille

wingless, scorched, and beautiful – Allie Marini Batts

Strangest Sea – Ariana den Bleyker

The Sheep Stealer – Jenn Blair

Orphans Burning Orphans – Gene Kwak

My Mother’s Child – Pamela Taylor

Traveling – M. Mack