My poems can make a difference!

Poet Bio: Nancy Flynn grew up on the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania, spent many years on a downtown creek in Ithaca, New York, and now lives near the mighty Columbia in Portland, Oregon. She attended Oberlin College, Cornell University, and has an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from SUNY/Binghamton. A former university administrator, her writing has received an Oregon Literary Fellowship and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Her full-length poetry collection, Every Door Recklessly Ajar (Cayuga Lake Books) appeared in 2015; her long poem, Great Hunger, was published by Anchor & Plume Press in March 2016. A complete list of her publications is at www.nancyflynn.com.

Author Statement: For many years now, my life has had the daily practice of writing at its front and center. What great good fortune is that! Several months ago—because of some upcoming travel as well as house and summer gardening projects—I decided to "take some time off." It's been a good and instructive hiatus. I've gotten lots of reading done including too much news about often-terrifying current events. My husband, John Laurence, and I road-tripped from Portland to Los Angeles and back by way of San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and San Luis Obispo. Other travels included Haiti and the Dominican Republic; Mount Rainier National Park; and the Finger Lakes of central New York. We had our house bolted down to the foundation as part of a noisy but necessary seismic retrofit. The grass we killed during last year's heat wave has been replaced with drought-tolerant fescue. The new flowerbeds in our front yard are now a riot of zinnias, dahlias, cosmos, and sunflowers; the summer vegetables have begun their abundance parade: green beans, tomatoes and, of course, those ubiquitous zukes. And I've helped not one but two sets of friends move! But now I'm ready to be back at my desk. Participating in the Tupelo 30/30 Project during the month of August seems like a fun—and motivational!—way to return to the pen, the paper, the words.

Your support gives me vital inspiration as I write for thirty days this month.

Tupelo Press provides the canvas, I bring my words, accompanied by other fine poets, writing thirty poems in thirty days, all ours to edit and submit as we wish. 30/30 poems have been taken by over 90 journals and featured in over 40 published chapbooks, all so Tupelo Press can keep publishing exquisite and diverse voices that might never be heard otherwise.

Every dollar gives me confidence to write more, and helps the press place more poems in gorgeous books. Help me to help this distinguished press. Give today!