This was a huge writing year for me. I published a chapbook with a press that I love, I published poetry and fiction in some of my dream journals, I’ve got some exciting collaborations coming up, and some big projects I hope to finish this next year.

2018 in review:

I published a chapbook and hosted my first launch that was for my own work. I got to read with Katie O’Brien and Kyle Flemmer, two poets I really admire, and celebrate at Loft 112 in a room full of friends and family. Ladybird, Ladybird is in its third printing (!!) and a Conyer Clayton will be reviewing it for Canthius in the new year. If you wanted to order a copy, click here.

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I won the Brainstorm Poetry Contest for mental health consumers and survivors with a prose poem about domestic abuse that was really close to my heart. You can listen to an audio recording of it here.

I read over one hundred books this year and a total of 27.062 pages. I have the photos of the covers below, but some of my favourites were: Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), The Changeling (Joy Williams), Burial Rites and The Good People (Hannah Kent), Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado), The Marrow Thieves (Cherie Dimaline) Mrs. Caliban (Rachel Ingalls), The Lady and Her Monsters (Roseanne Motillo), Judith (Aritha van Herk), Sodom Road Exit (Amber Dawn), We Were Witches (Ariel Gore), Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent (Liz Howard), Ana Historic (Daphne Marlatt), and Holy Wild (Gwen Benaway). My full year in books (with titles and authors is here).

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I sent out a ton of submissions and I had one hundred and ten rejections with over fifty pieces of poetry and fiction published. Some of my dream journals that printed me this year were Room, The Feathertale Review, EVENT, The Antigonish Review, and Frontier.

I became non-fiction editor at filling Station Magazine (a magazine I’ve loved for ages) and passed management of NōD Magazine to the new Editor-in-Chief after launching my last (and favourite) issue.

I was nominated by the lovely editors at Antilang for Sundress Publications Best of the Net Anthology.

I read at Single Onion, Woolf’s Voices, and Soggy Pages and met so many amazing writers and performers in the process.

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My poem “Waxwings” was turned into two gorgeous pieces of art by Fran Schlosser as part of the People’s Poetry Festival. I also led a poetry walk around the East Village which was so much fun.

I attended the Emerging Writers Intensive at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity where I got to work with Elizabeth Philips on my poetry. I met so many incredible emerging writers that are all going places and I’m still so thankful for the opportunity and the funding that made it possible for me to go.

I participated in CDWP’s CANOPY reading led by Margaret Christakos. This was one of my favourite readings I’ve ever done since we each picked a piece of art at the Nickel Gallery and wrote a creative response to it. The result of the piece I chose was my short story ‘Nectar and Nickel’ written in response to “In the nickel” by Walter May.

I started rewriting my little novel which has been in the works for over three years. Nothing is guaranteed, but I’m making changes and polishing it up for April to send back to a publisher that my be interested in printing it.

If you want to read some of my work from 2018, click here.

Looking ahead to 2019:

Two of my poems “Bugs in Jars,” and “River” will appear on Village Brewery’s summer 2019 variety pack with my photo and bio. I love poetry and I love beer and I love this collaboration.

I’ll have a short story in Calgary’s short story dispenser in the new Central Library. It’s a small piece that’s one of my favourites and I can’t wait for it to be out in the world.

I’ve submitted my grad school applications for both the University of Calgary and Cambridge to complete a Masters in English Literature (fingers crossed that one/both of these work out).

I’m going to keep working on the novel and focus on doing the best writing I possibly can.

I’ve been submitting a full poetry collection that grew from my chapbook and hopefully there’s some interest.

I’m going to continue submitting poetry and fiction, but I’m going to take a huge step back from the quantity of submissions I send to focus on writing and editing. I’m going to choose 10-15 journals that I’d love to see my work in and try my hardest to get accepted there.

I also have work forthcoming in Honey & Lime, Train, Paperplates, Contemporary Verse 2, Literary Orphans, and Door is A Jar.

Thanks to everyone that made 2018 such a great writing year and to everyone that read a poem, came to a reading, gave me a hug, bought me a decaf coffee, or was just excited about what I’m trying to write ❤