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Tupelo champions writers on their journey to put their work into the world!

For me, the journey to complete a manuscript begins with a concept, and I have two that are now primed to come to life. This is where your support for my 30/30 journey comes in.

About me:

I am a teacher and recent graduate of Wilkes University, where I earned an MA in Poetry and an MFA in Creative Writing. Writing and reading have been my salvation since grade school, and I believe in giving back to the communities that supported me. Now, with your help, I have a chance to support Tupelo while bringing my new project to life.

Perks (why you should donate):

Since your support is giving life to my new projects, it's only fair that your support lives in the manuscripts.

• $10 donation- Your name will be included in the acknowledgments page (or the final poem if it becomes a signature piece, as I suspect Ugly Chickens of the Apocalpse might) of the published manuscript (when that happens.
• $25 donation- You can choose a theme for me to write about (even if it is not in one of the projects listed below), or you can suggest a name for one of the "nine tales" or "nine lives" in my Nine concept.
• $50 donation- You get a walk-on role in the Ugly Chicken of the Apocalypse! The sarcastic narrator sets the scene, but I need a Millennial who is trying to convince the chickens to do the job they are reluctant to do. Why not let it be you? Every $50 donor will have a walk-on role in one of these scenes.
• $100 donation- Limited to the first four donors who give $100. You'll become a recurring "tethered human" companion to one of the chickens. Picture zombie-like figures (or exhausted Millennials) on leashes, chiming in occasionally, each with their own quirks. Currently, the one tethered to Lady Edggdred is a doctor.
• $150 donation--Send me one of your poems, and I'll provide thoughtful feedback.

Concept one: Ugly Chickens of the Apocolypse.

You can thank my son for the title. We visit our local library every week for their youth workshops (you should too), and he sees a neighbor's chicken that looks... erm, shall we say, lacking in the aesthetic department, and he blurts out (he's six), "It's the ugly chicken of the apocalypse!" One, I have no idea where he heard the word "apocalypse," but I am glad he found it somewhere in his journey, because it sparked the gears in my head to begin churning up a concept. If you were like me growing up in the '90's you will be familiar with The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieska and the works by Shel Silverstein. So I asked myself, if these two forces merged in my brain, laid an egg, what would this satirical surrealist collection of poetry look like? I conceptualized a satirical book of persona poems where the four (chickens) of the apocalypse are in a meeting with a millennial who is trying to convince them to "get on with it already" by beginning the apocalypse. We have "Henrietta the Molting Hen" to represent Pestilence, "General Peckbeak" to represent War, "Miss Cluckless" to represent Famine, "Lady Edggdred" to represent Death, the panicking, unnamed narrator, and the Millenial who speaks for all of us (I am taking poetic license here) who just wants them to get on with it already.

What shananigans will they get into? What arguments will they have? Who knows? Help me find this out by supporting my 30/30 journey.

Concept two: Nine

While corresponding with the incredibly talented and brilliant poet/writer/photographer/speaker/performer, Shanta Lee Gander (buy her books, she's brilliant), we were discussing the silence of the page, among other things, and she turned me on to the concept of the nine types of silences and my brain exploded into potential. Nine has always been a powerful number for me (and others for the same reasons), so I took that concept further and forced myself to generate nine groups of nine concepts, exploring what those could mean through poetry.

Here are the groups I came up with that are waiting for poems to fill them:

1) Nine Silences (as I define them), for which I have one poem already written for--"the suppressed silence of what cannot be said" which is about circumcision

2) Nine Lives. Each is a portrait of a real person whose life embodied change and had a profound impact on the world. Each poem would be an homage to their life's work. I seek to draw from history, activism, science, art, humanitarian work or local unsung heroes (sponsors could send their ideas for individuals who meet the criteria that deserve a poem to memorialize their lives and their life's work).

3) Nine Tails (in this case, I mean tales). I am examining specific moments of an arc, moments in a person's life of unparalleled significance that have caused them to grow, moments that demand to be captured in verse. This is similar to nine lives, but instead of the person's life's work, this focuses on a moment, as if they had to tell a tale of their deeds. I am experimenting with form in these, where I lean into the tall tale mechanics to fictionalize or amplify the larger-than-life deeds of real people. Sponsors can send me candidates for me to look into and experiment with

4) Nine Gates. These poems juxtapose the nine inner doors with the nine realms of Norse mythology as a metaphor for the inner realms of trauma and spiritual rebirth.

5) Nine Muses. Allusion to Greek Mythology

6) Nine Circles. Allusion to Dante

7) Nine Knots. Allusion to the nine-knot spell. I seek to experiment with form/poetics a lot in this section

8) Nine Months. The gestational period for a developing fetus. I want to explore metaphorically the development of humanity/personhood/identity through this lens

9) Nine enneagram types. I want to explore what this means. I don't have a clear vision yet, but it piques my curiosity, and I see potential in subverting these prescribed desires and traits in some manner.

Throughout this month, during the 30/30 project, I will be bouncing between these two projects, focusing on whichever one calls me in the morning (I write early) or based on the suggestions of my sponsors.

Just a small donation will go a long way to helping me meet my goal for Tupelo Press