2022 Features6 December 2022: Happy Launch Day to THE GRAVITY OF EXISTENCE! My deepest thanks and gratitude to Holly Walrath and Saba Razvi for giving it a home at Interstellar Flight Press and a very special thank you to Anya Surgan for her breathtaking cover art!
29 November 2022: Elated to have 8 poems on the long list of Ellen Datlow's Recommendations for the Best Horror in 2021. Thank you so much, Ellen, for this tremendous honor!
4 November 2022: Lovely news that made my day! My poem "How Long Do Monsters Live? has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. My most grateful thanks to Star*Line editor Jean-Paul Garnier for this incredible honor.
28 October 2022: The best 50th birthday present: my poem "Pontianak" in The Washington Post's Book Club!
20 October 2022: Thrilled to be reading at Fright Fest this year alongside some of my favorite people!
24 September 2022: TORTURED WILLOWS received second place in the 2022 Elgin Awards!! This could not have happened without my Willow sisters, Lee Murray, Gene Flynn, Angela Yuriko Smith, and K.P. Kulski with her incredible introduction. Thank you so much for bringing me along on this epic journey!
Congratulations to the Elgin nominees and winners! It's been such an honor sharing a ballot with you. Special thanks to all the voters who took the time to read our work, to the amazing reviewers out there, and to Elgin chair Jordan Hirsch.
22 September 2022: My flash fiction "The Eternal Fire" appears in The Best of Penumbric Volume 5.
19 September 2022: Thrilled to see A COLLECTION OF NIGHTMARES featured in The Lineup alongside collections and anthologies by these incredible poets whom I admire so much, Claire C. Holland, Linda D Addison, Donna Lynch, Bianca Lynne Spriggs, Ashley Dioses, and Cynthia Pelayo!
18 September 2022: Honored to be included in The Haiku Foundation Volunteer Anthology 2022 "Our Garden" on Volunteer Appreciation Day! Thank you so much, Jim, Julie, Dave, and Theresa.
31 August 2022: Wonderful discussion with author Jocelyn Suarez and moderator Akshita Nanda on the panel Spooks & Shadows: Creating a Page Turner at Head2Head: Conversations Between Writers today. Many thanks to the National Library Board for this lovely invitation.
29 August 2022: So lovely to be featured in the Somerset County Library System of New Jersey for National Poetry Month. Just saw this and it made my day! Many thanks to collection development librarian Bob Helmbrecht for this wonderful honor.
22 July 2022: Tremendously honored to see my one-line haiku "dead lotus" in the beautiful Winter SAIJIKI International, edited by Mine Mukose. dead lotus -- winter burial
16 July 2022: Thrilled to be mentioned along with my poem "Forest Mother" in the Daniel Rabuzzi article "On the Fairy Tales School of English-Language Poetry" in The Critical Flame.
1 July 2022: Over the moon to see TORTURED WILLOWS nominated for the 2022 Elgin Award! It is an honor to be among such incredible company. Many grateful thanks to the SFPA and to my wonderful Willow sisters, Lee, Gene, and Angela. What a journey it has been!
1 July 2022: My poem "The Art of Healing" appears in the anthology Of Horror and Hope, a part of the Horror Writers Association Mental Health Initiative, co-chaired by Lee Murray & Dave Jeffery!
1 July 2022: What a great review of Other Fears from Cannonball Read! I am so thrilled my poem "Other Fears" received a mention, "And how it ends...yeah, that was a great ending."
8 June 2022: TORTURED WILLOWS has been nominated for the Ladies of Horror Fiction 2021 Award for Poetry. I'm so incredibly honored to be among such great company!
17 May 2022: It still feels like I'm dreaming. TORTURED WILLOWS has won the 2021 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection!! My deepest and most grateful thanks to the Horror Writers Association for this incredible honor! I dedicate this award to my grandmother, Mary Tan Ah Lew, without whom these poems would not have been written, and to my children, Jack and Jade, the future belongs to you now. To my Willow sisters, Lee, Angela, and Gene, thank you for bringing me on this grand adventure down the rabbit hole--through history, ancestry, and mythology. It's been a helluva ride! Special thanks to Kyra Starr for her hauntingly beautiful cover, and to K.P. Kulski--Kristy, your heartrending introduction still makes me cry. To our reviewers and readers who joined us on our journeys, thank you for staying, and sitting with us in our stories. We are so immensely grateful and buoyed by your kind, supportive words. To our fellow nominees and winners, it is such an honor and privilege sharing this ballot with you. Your work is monumental in elevating this genre we love so much. I am in awe of all of you. In the words of the great Linda D Addison, "Our creation is our magic power...We write death and make people more alive." Thank you to the StokerCon committee for a fantastic Bram Stoker Awards Ceremony, co-chairs James Chambers and Brian W. Matthews, Sarah Read who lit up the stage with her presence, and our wonderful emcee Kevin Wetmore whose wife coined the perfect term for us horror folk: The Halloween People. Now let us go forth, Halloween People, to write and regale for another year. Let's keep giving life to the shadows. 1 May 2022: Elated to see TORTURED WILLOWS nominated for the Elgin Award alongside such splendid collections by friends and colleagues: Marge Simon, Mary A. Turzillo, Holly Walrath, Maxwell Ian Gold, Jezzy Wolfe, and Deborah P Kolodji.
27 April 2022: Elated to be a part of this fantastic lineup with my poems entitled collectively as "A Beautiful Darkness" [Do Not Be Afraid Of The Monster Under The Bed, Mother Moon, Stumps, The Art of Violence, The Eternal Sleep of Stone, The Monster With a Smile, and The World in A Dream]! Issue #365 of Weird Tales is on sale now.
25 February 2022: TORTURED WILLOWS is an official nominee on the final ballot of the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards! Thank you so much to everyone who believed in it. Lee, Angela, Gene, and I are immensely grateful to all of you. Kristy, we love you!!
18 February 2022: Elated to see two of my poems nominated for this year's Rhysling Award, "Snow Child" and "Whales". Thank you so much to the nominators for this honor!
23 January 2022: Thank you to my wonderful friends for the news: TORTURED WILLOWS is on the preliminary ballot of the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards! My deepest gratitude to my Willow sisters, Angela, Gene, Lee, and to K.P. Kulski for her heartrending foreword. Without you, there would be no collection. Innumerable thanks to the reviewers and everyone who had kind words for our book. These were the hardest poems we ever wrote and we are truly humbled by the acknowledgement the horror community has given us. Congratulations to all our friends and colleagues with works on the ballot! It is an honor sharing this space with you. Special shout-out to EV Knight, Steve Stred, Alessandro Manzetti, Tom Deady, Ross Jeffery, Eric LaRocca, Chris Marrs, Jeff Strand, Carol Gyzander, Cindy O'Quinn, Anna Taborska, Kyla Lee Ward, Michael Bailey, Alan Baxter, Gemma Files, Philip Fracassi, Jess Landry, Jonathan Maberry, Alexander P. Garza, Jessica McHugh, Marge Simon, Lucy A. Snyder, Holly Walrath, James Chambers, Willow Dawn Becker, Ellen Datlow, Aaron J. French, Eric J. Guignard, Eugene Johnson, Danel Olson, Kevin Wetmore, David E. Cowen, and Nicholas Diak.
28 January 2022: I had such a wonderful time on the panel of The Modern Horror Renaissance at TBR CON this January with Lee Murray, Ellen Datlow, Eric LaRocca, Sadie Colleen Hartmann, and Andy Davidson. It was such an honor joining all of you in this great and important conversation. Thank you, David Walters, for organizing this fantastic event!
1 January 2022: This was really hard to write but I'm glad I pushed through and did it. I looked back at 2021 and all I saw was fog. But when I waited, it slowly began to clear. 2021 taking my dad pretty much eclipsed every other terrible thing that has ever happened to me. Given the events of the past, that's saying a lot. But we embrace the storm with the life-giving rain and as the sunshine slowly returns, I remember that there was also an abundance of good: * I won my second Bram Stoker Award for A COLLECTION OF DREAMSCAPES. It received Second Prize in the Elgin Awards and was nominated for the 2020 Ladies of Horror Fiction Award. I am so grateful to the nominators, the jury, and the voters. Thank you to my publisher Raw Dog Screaming Press, my editor Stephanie M. Wytovich, and my publicist, Erin Al-Mehairi, for making all this possible. Special thanks to Steven Archer whose hauntingly beautiful cover fully embodies the essence of my book. * Thank you to the many reviewers who put A COLLECTION OF DREAMSCAPES on their Best of lists and wrote kind words about it. * A COLLECTION OF DREAMSCAPES received a mention in The Washington Post and my poem "Concepts" was reprinted in it. Innumerable thanks to critic Ron Charles! * I was awarded the Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant. My very first writing grant! I am so deeply grateful to Steve Stred, the judges, and the donors. * My essay Final Girl: A Life in Horror was a Stoker finalist for Superior Achievement in Short Non-fiction. Thank you, Holly, for first giving it a home in Interstellar Flight Magazine. * First mention in Kirkus Reviews of my poems in the phenomenal anthology Shadow Atlas! Thank you, Josh, Carina, and Hillary, for including my work in your groundbreaking project. * I'm so grateful for my haiku's regular appearances in the Daily and Weekly Best selections at The Haiku University's Haiku Column. Thank you to Professeur Nagata, Mine Sensei, Chiaki Sensei, and my haiku colleagues and friends. * Winning First Prize in The Pula Film Festival International Competition for Haiku Poetry and the Tokusen (Second Prize) in the 26th International Kusamakura Haiku Competition were dreams come true. * My Crane sisters, Lee Murray, Gene Flynn, Angela Yuriko Smith, and I saw the publication of our collaborative poetry collection TORTURED WILLOWS: BENT. BOWED. UNBROKEN to rave reviews. * A huge thank you to my Patrons on Patreon for your unwavering support. I am deeply grateful! * Seeing my work in the many incredible and inspiring 2021 anthologies and magazines. * I started studying again. It has been wonderful. * Rekindled my love for chocolate. * I returned to sea and loved it. * Kindness and generosity from strangers, acquaintances, and friends through this difficult year. * All of you -- my friends on social media -- your compassion and support have been monumental. Thank you for walking on this journey with me. I wish for a world of good things for you: joy, peace, health, and your heart's deepest hopes and dreams. May this year be one of light and love for us all.
2022 Releases~ ~ ~ ~ ~LATEST RELEASES22 December 2022: Thrilled to see my flash fiction "The Doll" in the latest issue of New Myths. This makes it my third story published in a year -- a new record!
18 December 2022: I'm so happy to see my poem "Graveyard Shift" in the latest issue of Penumbric.
18 December 2022: Excited to receive my contributor’s copy of the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Vol IX that includes my poem "Face Off".
18 December 2022: My article "How to Read a Speculative Haiku" appears in Interstellar Flight Magazine.
16 December 2022: Thrilled to see my poem "Quiet Life" in this gorgeous anthology DAUGHTERS OF SARPEDON from Brigids Gate Press.
13 November 2022: MOTHER is here! My poem "Shields" joins this breathtaking anthology edited by Christi Nogle and Willow Dawn Becker. An incredible line-up! I'm elated to be in such great company.
3 November 2022: Hi friends, I'll be at the Singapore Writers Festival this year. I am moderating a panel on A Different Version of Events: Playing with Parallel Universes and moderating and speaking at Otherworldly Femininities on Sunday 6th of November 2022.
1 November 2022: So lovely to see my one-line haiku in brass bell this month! still faster than me my elderly cat
30 October 2022: My essay on the darkest chapter of The Sandman series "The Horror of 24/7" appears in Interstellar Flight Magazine, just in time for Halloween!
19 October 2022: Elated to see my craft essay "The Art of Speculative Haiku" in the Raw Dog Screaming Press anthology WRITING POETRY IN THE DARK.
11 October 2022: Elated to see my poem "Annihilation" in this month's Penumbric!
9 October 2022: Hi everyone! I'm back writing essays this October. My first, "Even the Stoic Weep when they meet Death", appears in Interstellar Flight Magazine.
1 October 2022: Lovely to be a part of this month's brass bell with my one-line haiku: kitchen herbs leaning toward the sun
27 September 2022: Excited to be back with a new poem "On Set" for the Ladies of Horror Flash Project!
28 September 2022: Happy Book Birthday to Chiral Mad 5! I'm so elated to be a part of this incredible anthology alongside such luminaries with my poem "The Infinite Lives of the Little Match Girl". Infinite thanks to editor Michael Bailey for giving my Little Match Girl a home.
31 August 2022: My poem "The Art of Healing", originally published in the HWA's mental health initiative's OF HORROR AND HOPE anthology, is reprinted in Crow's Feet.
27 August 2022: Elated to see my story "Mama Yaga" in Lindy Ryan's super cool anthology INTO THE FOREST.
11 August 2022: "Vlad's Cat", a poem I wrote for my children and our cat, appears in this month's Penumbric.
1 August 2022: Happy to see my one-line haiku in this month's brass bell: after a run my cat licks my arm
20 July 2022: Happy Launch Day to Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology, edited by Vince Liaguno and Rena Mason! I'm so honored to have my poem "Other Fears" in this incredible volume.
1 July 2022: My haiku appears in this month's brass bell, a throwback to when my son's voice first changed. Thank you so much, Zee!
crackling
19 June 2022: My story "History of our World" appears in the June 2022 issue of Penumbric!
19 June 2022: Thrilled to see my poem "A Life of Many Splendors" in New Myths #59.
11 June 2022: So lovely to see my painting "Falling" in the May 2022 edition of Scifaikuest! 11 May 2022: Elated to see my painting "Family Tree" on the cover of Marcie Lynn Tentchoff's poetry collection MIDNIGHT COMES EARLY!.
6 May 2022: The beautiful anthology Musing of the Muses by Brigids Gate Press and edited by Heather and S.D. Vassallo contains 65 stories and poems based on Greek myths, including my short story "The Girl from Sarpedon".
1 May 2022: So lovely to see my work in this month's issue of brass bell on drinkable haiku. Thank you, Zee!
emerging
11 April 2022: Thrilled to see my poem "Wolf Girl" in the April 2022 issue of Penumbric.
9 April 2022: Thrilled to see my haiku translated and selected for the Haiku University's Weekly Best for the week 14-20 March:
birdsong
le chant des oiseaux
canto degli ucceli
1 April 2022: So lovely to see my haiku in this month's issue of brass bell. Thank you, Zee, for giving my work a home!
duvet
27 March 2022: Yesterday, the kids and I went to Dad's favourite restaurant Apolo to celebrate his 88th birthday. I brought his photo in a clear sleeve and our birthday cards to him tucked behind it so it felt like he was there too. While ordering, I told the server that it was my Dad's birthday and he said, "Your Dad should be here today." I replied that he had passed away last year but he used to eat here for the past few decades. I showed him this photo and he recognized him! He said, "I remember him! He always came by to order takeaway. I was wondering why I didn't see him for a while now." I thanked him for remembering Dad. It felt like part of Dad was still alive in this man's memory. AFTER WE ARE GONE For Charles who remembered Dad on his 88th birthday
All that we are Ashes in an urn.
Imprints on items
Images on photos
Our thoughts in letters;
Memories in the hearts
Memories in the minds
25 March 2022: Delighted to see my art "They're Here" and tanka "every dream" and "the newfangled" in the February 2022 online issue of Scifaikuest. ~~
every dream ~
the newfangled
24 March 2022: So lovely to see my story "One Dark Night" in Penumbric alongside many wonderful friends and colleagues.
21 March 2022: Thrilled to see my haiku selected in the Haiku University's Weekly Best for February 28 to March 6, 2022 by Paul Callus!
nuit calme
calm night
21 March 2022: Deeply honored to be included in Nadine Leon's beautiful video Ma Maison la Terre with my haiku "matin de printemps" alongside many poet friends on Tree and Forests Day. Merci infiniment, Nadine!
matin de printemps
10 March 2022: So happy to see my work selected and translated in the Haiku University's Haiku Column for the week of 7-13 February 2022 by Nadine Leon.
seule je porte les courses
alone I carry the groceries
da sola porto la spesa Merci infiniment, Nadine, pour cet honneur!
5 March 2022: Lovely to see my 2-line haiku in Haiku University's selection for week of 21-27 February 2022:
anniversaire de la mort de papa
dad's death anniversary Merci infiniment, Paul Callus et Mine sensei.
1 March 2022: A beautiful moment with my daughter immortalized in haiku.
beach day It appears in brass bell this month! Thank you so much, Zee!
1 March 2022: So lovely to see my poems "How Long Do Monsters Live", "The Land of Fire and Ice", and "Diamond Planet" in Star*Line 45.1 with "How Long Do Monsters Live" selected as an Editor's Choice.
28 February 2022: My interview with The Fantastic Ms Yuriko Smith is live at Interstellar Flight Magazine. 14 February 2022: Super excited to see my digital drawing "The Humans are Flying" in Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine this month! This is the first time Biscuit & Gray from my comic series are featured in a magazine! "The Humans are Flying" depicts an alien invasion as seen from the eyes of a cat, a rabbit, and their forest friends. Read the rest of the fabulous issue at http://penumbric.com.
10 February 2022: Elated to share pages with Stephen King, Josh Malerman, John Langan, Christa Wojo, Tonya Liburd, Gary A. Braunbeck, Hailey Piper, Sheree Renee Thomas, Sara Tantlinger, Lucy A. Snyder, Marge Simon, Cindy O'Quinn, Shane Douglas Keene, Jamal Hodge, Maxwell Ian Gold, Wrath James White, and Linda D Addison in the CHIRAL MAD 5 anthology, edited by Michael Bailey, with my poem "The Infinite Lives of the Little Match Girl".
9 February 2022: Thrilled to see my painting "Against the Storm" on the cover of the Winter 2022 issue of ILLUMEN!
8 February 2022: So happy to among friends and colleagues in AGAINST THE CURRENT, edited by Lori A Minor. Thank you, Lori, for this beautiful and important book.
I remind myself
some things
another stillbirth
wildflowers
5 February 2022: Delighted to see my haiku in the Winter 2021-22 Issue of World Haiku Review. Neo-classical Haiku:
winter storm Vanguard Haiku:
second booster
cold change
the massive void
3 February 2022: My poems "Medusa" and "The Mimics" appear in Spectral Realms 16.
6 January 2022: Happy to see my haiku in Haiku Dialogue on the topic of Ad Astra this week: second chances
6 January 2022: Thrilled to be a part of CHIRAL MAD 5 with my poem "The Infinite Lives of the Little Match Girl"!
3 January 2022: Lovely to see my first haiku of/2022 in the January issue of brass bell. dark morning
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