Running Out of Ink

[shanmonster]

I'm still not finished my manuscript. It's hanging there like a loose tooth. So close to being finished, but not quite there. I've been stalled by my health (chronic health conditions are a serious pain in the arse), but I finally finished a chapter which has been stalling me for weeks. Forward momentum has once again been achieved. Onward! This manuscript is sponsored by the Waterloo Arts Fund.

My poem This is the Time Just Before Spider Woman Meets Kiviuq is live on West Trestle Review.

I wanted to apply for the Masters program at Northwestern University, but when I learned they only want a 2,500-word writing sample, that waved a big red flag right in my face. How can they get an idea of someone's breadth of writing in such a small sample? I'm not a one-trick-pony when it comes to writing. I'm a buffet table! I'm a playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, memoirist, and short story writer. I write book reviews, smut, literary fiction, speculative fiction, and uncategorized weirdities. I'm also a proof reader and have experience as a copy and line editor. Though I crave structured learning and mentorship, I will find it another way: possibly through the private sector.

Once a month, I run a co-writing group for Indigenous writers in conjunction with the Indigenous Poets Society. It's been running on the first Tuesday of the month since November. It's a small group, but one I'm grateful for. We get a lot of writing done, and have a fun time with it. If you are an Indigenous writer and would like to write along with us, contact me at shanmonster at gmail dot com. We vet people beforehand to avoid Zoom bombers.

Here are my publications for 2023. I hope I have even more this year!

• “Wolf Mother.” Fiction in Augur 6.2.
  
• “The Redcoats Are Coming.” Micro fiction in NUNUM’s Done in a Hundred Anthology.
  
• “How the Blubber Boy Came to Be.” Poetry in The Deadlands Magazine.
  
• "The Snow Hath No Queen." Winner of Seminal Edits' Dystopian Fiction Competition.
  
• "The Anxious Writer." CNF in Fall 2023 issue of Open Minds Quarterly
  
• “The Silent Madness of Whales.” CNF in About Place Journal.
  
• “Sibyl Has a Heart of Gold.” Short fiction in The Temz Review.
  
• “Original Sin.” Poetry in Arc Poetry Magazine: Disability Desirability.
  
• Featured book reviewer in month of August for CAROUSEL Magazine
  
• “The Ghosts of Forests Past.” CNF in Solarpunk Magazine Issue 10.
  
• “Anirniliit: Those Which Breathe,” “Nuliajuk’s Promise,” “Seasons of the Nattiq. Poems in Spring 2023 issue of Yellow Medicine Review
  
• “Monkey Business.” Short YA fiction in Spring 2023 issue of Yellow Medicine Review.
  
• “How to Make Boiled Potatoes.” Memoir in 2023 Festival of Literary Diversity Program
  
• “Lost and Found.” Memoir in Grande Dame Literary Journal
  
• Various book reviews for Cloud Lake Literary
  

Comments

[valkryor]

I am in awe of your output. *applause*