April 2022:
I’m celebrating National Poetry Month by offering consultations until April 30th through Black Lawrence Press! Here’s the link for more information and to send me your work!
December 2021:
Poetry is doing well in the world! Happy to be reading and helping judge poetry entries for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards.
November 2021:
Excited to read and judge entries for the Southern Chapter Award from the Illinois State Poetry Society 28th Annual Poetry Contest.
Honored to be nominated by Still: The Journal for a 2022 Pushcart Prize!
November 2020:
SLO Radio Collective! Excited to be part of this transmission art project in collaboration with SIU, the Clemens, and the Yeiser Art Center:
November 2020:
After serving as VP for the Kentucky State Poetry Society last year, I am now proud to begin my term as President! Time to start planning an awesome 2021 KSPS Annual Conference!
Ursa Minor went into a second printing! And there’s a beautiful new cover for this edition!
August 2020:
I’m thrilled to be offering Poetry Consultations again through Black Lawrence Press! I’m open for individual poems, portfolios, chapbooks, and full-length collections–until the end of August!
The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing has generously shared my Bill & Ted’s Excellent (Poem) Adventure writing exercise!
April 2020:
It was a pleasure to judge the Poetry of Courage Award for the North Carolina Poetry Society 2020 Adult Contest; congratulations to all the winning poets!
March 2020:
Please support the small presses who were unable to attend this year’s AWP conference; visit their sites through the #AWPVirtualBookfair! Then remember these presses when you’re shopping for books in the future!
September 2019:
Stunned by the news that my poem “American Commute, 2019” won the Jacar Press Broadside Contest, judged by two poets I admire–Nickole Brown and Jessica Jacobs! They said this about my poem: “‘American Commute, 2019’ is a poem of impressive movement. There is the literal trajectory of a car on its way to work in ‘the Age of Brutal Existence, the age of Morning Despair.’ But then there is, too, the movement in time: reeling back before the terror of September 11, meeting a beloved father at the airline gate, and then peering forward into a future of possible tragedies, forcing a reader into the poem’s final truth, that ‘we are animals among animals.'”
July 2019:
Thrilled to have a new poem, “A Spaghetti That Grows on Trees” included in the new issue of ALIVE MAGAZINE! (There are so many good articles to read in this issue…)
I’m excited to share four new poems, published this month in great company, at The American Journal of Poetry
June 2019:
Received a beautiful box of my poetry pamphlet, PRAISE THESE DAYS, now available from Blue Satellite Press. Please contact Blue Satellite or send me a message and I’ll put a pamphlet in the mail to you ($5).
February 2019:
Poems from Ursa Minor featured on Poem of the Week! Thanks to Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum.
August 2018:
My new prose poetry chapbook, Ursa Minor, is now available from elsewhere (free shipping) OR send me a message (if you’d like a signed copy)!
July 2018:
And now I’m floating on a cloud. I’m honored to be included in the ranks of writers being recognized with a 2019 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.
July 2018:
It’s summer! It’s hot! If you need fresh eyes on your poems, I’m available for poetry consultations (single poems, folios, chapbooks) through Black Lawrence Press!
June 2018:
Three new poems–Stephen Hawking is dead...are up at Pidgeon holes! I’m so excited to be accepted into this flock of weird birds! **Update: The first of these Stephen Hawking poems has been nominated for Best of the Net!
January 2018:
If your work is ready for a new set of eyes: I’m thrilled to be doing poetry consolations again through Black Lawrence Press. Send your work in by the end of January!
January 2018:
Check out Justin Lewis’ Something From Nothing Podcast; it was a great interview experience and fun to talk about my on-going experience as a poet.
November 2017:
Feeling grateful to The Indianapolis Review for a Pushcart Nomination of “Dear People of the Near Future” (Issue 1, Summer 2017)
Awesome sauce! Elsewhere just selected my chapbook, URSA MINOR, as their prize winner! Super excited to have these Little Girl and the Bear poems together out in the world.
Had a wonderful time with the students and faculty of the 15th Annual Millikin Literary Festival! Thanks, Dr. Frech!
October 2017:
Honored to be part of the Carnegie Center’s Kentucky Great Writers Series!
September 2017:
Check out my review of Kathleen McGookey’s HEART IN A JAR on the wonderful new review site, The Bind
July 2017:
Enjoyed a wonderful, productive week at Rivendell Writers’ Colony, thanks to a SAF Fellowship!
July 2017:
If you’ve got a poetry manuscript (chapbook or full-length) ready for feedback, please send it in to Black Lawrence Press! I’m open for consultations until July 31.
June 2017:
Thrilled to be selected for a 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship at Rivendell Writers’ Colony!
February 2017:
Had such fun reading before AWP with Monster Magazines of the Midwest. Thank you to The Journal for this photo! A dream evening, where I read right before the incredible Maggie Smith!
Good mail = Pushcart Nomination! Thank you, Board of Contributing Editor
I’m thrilled to have three new poems in Ninth Letter’s Winter 2017 Web Edition featuring Southern Writers.
January 2017:
I’ll be teaching this July at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing–and you could come for free (two 1st prizes) or reduced tuition (two 2nd prizes)! Entry the 2017 Writing Contest; deadline is March 20.
December 2016:
I am honored to be selected by the Kentucky Foundation for Women for a 2016 Artist Enrichment Grant.
The mission of the Kentucky Foundation for Women is to promote positive social change by supporting varied feminist expression in the arts.
November 2016:
Black Lawrence Press Announcement
Dear Friends,
We are broken-hearted, but not broken. Here is how we triage our sorrow: we organize. Here is how we channel our fury: we act.
From now until the end of 2016, Black Lawrence Press will donate $1.00 to the American Civil Liberties Union for every book that is purchased through our site. You can learn more about the ACLU’s current efforts by following this link. We will post regular updates detailing the number of books sold and the amount of our donations both on our blog and our social media accounts. This donation will come 100% out of our company’s profits, and will not affect our authors’ royalties.
Our hearts, despite their heaviness, are still full and lucky. We believe that love and ideas and compassion will ultimately prevail over hate and myopia and greed. We believe in the transformative power of writing and reading.
To our friends in the LGBTQIA community, to our friends of color, to our friends of marginalized faiths, to our fellow women, we see you and we hold space for you.
In Solidarity,
The Black Lawrence Press Senior Editorial Team
Diane Goettel
Kit Frick
Yvonne Garrett
Angela Leroux-Lindsey
October 2016:
Thrilled to have two poems in the 50th anniversary (double-issue !!) of Southern Humanities Review! Woohoo!
July 2016:
I am doing poetry consultations, a few poems all the way up to full-length manuscripts, through Black Lawrence Press!
I have three new prose poems included in The American Journal of Poetry, Vol. 1.
June 2016:
Nin Andrews selected my poem, “Someday We Will Be Scientists, or Farmers” for New Flash Fiction Review‘s Prose Poetry Issue!
April 1, 2016:
Literary Hub included The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat on their list of “10 New Must Read Collections”
March 12, 2016: ONE month from today is the official publication date of THE SPOONS IN THE GRASS ARE THERE TO DIG A MOAT (Sarabanade Books, 2016). Want to see a preview? https://www.behance.net/gallery/32911151/The-Spoons-in-the-Grass-Are-There-To-Dig-A-Moat
If you’ll be in Paducah, join us APRIL 8 @ 6pm: Book Release Party for The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat: Bricolage Art Collective– 107 Market House Square, Paducah KY. https://www.facebook.com/events/1679818342258715/
October 2015:
I’ve been invited to teach a class at the 2016 Indiana University Writers’ Conference! Woohoo! Come join me: June 4-8 in Bloomington! http://www.iuwc.indiana.edu
June 2015:
Purgatory and A Series of Faults are both
now available at Bricolage Art Collective in Paducah.
107 Market House Square
Paducah, Kentucky
(270) 538-9625
https://www.facebook.com/bricolageartcollective
September 2014:
Sarabande Books has selected my full length poetry collection, The Spoons in the Grass Are There To Dig a Moat for the 2014 Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature. The book is all prose poems and I am thrilled to be associated with such an awesome press!
June 2013:
Santa Claus in June?! So excited my chapbook, Clatter, is out from Floating Wolf Quarterly.
http://floatingwolfquarterly.com/13/amelia-martens/
February 2013:
Three poems on their way to Pushcart Press…thank you universe for the nomination!
Amelia Martens 