Fall 2016: Publications

Y’all, I’m so excited and grateful to say that three of my stories were published this fall!

  • “Star Stories” in JuxtaProse Literary Magazine [novel excerpt]
  • “Alive Daughter” in Profane
  • “Today we go to Noah’s Ark.” in Black Candies 2016: Gross and Unlikeable. Black Candies is a journal of literary horror published annually by So Say We All, a literary nonprofit based in San Diego. This year’s issue includes only work by women-identified writers.

If you’ll be in San Diego on Thursday, December 8, I’ll be reading at the Black Candies release party! Stop by and say hey! <3

star-stories
profane
noahsark

The Second Coming

second coming

September’s issue of Las Vegas’ Downtown Zen magazine is here, and ya girl’s on the cover & the homepage as the fiction feature. My short story about Elvis returning to Sin City, “The Second Coming,” with original illustrations by Salvatore Napoli, is available in the print magazine throughout downtown Vegas & online now!

sep cover dtzen

#DykesOnHikes

What do you do with a shiny new MFA degree?

Take it on the road, of course.

Pictured: the Grand Canyon, rafting the Colorado River, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon, Zion National Park, Mt. Charleston (NV), Bryce Canyon National Park, the Narrows (Zion), Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park

Melissa Etheridge & First Drafts

On Friday, August 7, I had the opportunity to review Melissa Etheridge’s solo tour, This is M.E., at the Palms Casino.  I have been a fan literally my entire life!

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The review went live yesterday and is available here!

PS: This happened.

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Finished my first full draft of the novel, baby!  Yeehaw!

Pages

I made it a goal this semester to complete a full first draft of my manuscript for the novel.   I started the semester with about fifty pages of material.  Decided to write ten pages a week.

Currently, I have about 160 novel pages total.  I’ve stuck to this 10-page-a-week goal so far; there are four weeks left to the semester.

I am not ashamed to say I struggle with sadness.  And need reminding that I can still make things.

2015 has been kind: January in San Francisco, March in New Orleans, April in Minneapolis.  And the novel, though it feels like a mess, is at least a mess with some kindly discernible edges.

2014, Literarily

2014 has been such an amazing year — one of the most exciting and surprising of my life. In it, I finished up my first term in UNLV’s MFA program & started my second, traveled my ass off, and got a few stories/essays published, too.

January: Published the essay “in an effort to resist leaving every piece ‘untitled'” in Gravel Magazine and the story “Love Letter to Lady Lazarus” in the Winter Issue of Five [Quarterly]. Road-tripped with Ms. FILA to Los Angeles, California to read at Five [Quarterly]‘s Winter Issue launch party. Saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

Five Quarterly LA readingScreen shot 2014-01-23 at 9.22.57 PMFebruary: Published the story “When the Animals Turned on You” in the “Monsters” special issue of Gesture Literary Journal and read at the Fort Collins, Colorado issue launch party digitally via Skype.

March: Visited the Pacific Northwest for the first time to attend AWP in Seattle, Washington. Road-tripped to present a creative reading at the University of Nevada, Reno’s interdisciplinary conference on the material implications of risk. Visited Lake Tahoe while in Reno.

IMG_2781IMG_2953April: Presented a creative reading at the Far West Popular Culture Association’s conference in Las Vegas.

IMG_2697May – June: Traveled to Spain! After being awarded the University of Memphis’ Talbot International Scholarship, I spent over a month writing in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, and Alicante, Spain.

IMG_1655 IMG_1587 IMG_1505Also in June: Won Five [Quarterly]‘s second-annual E-Chapbook competition with my short collection of stories, See & Be Seen & Be Scene. Was interviewed by the Las Vegas affiliate of NPR, KNPR news, regarding the contest & publication.

millerphoto-page-001-791x1024July: The essay “Coronation of Mrs. Presley” was published in the print journal Soundings Review.

presleyAugust – September: Visited the Grand Canyon for the first time!  Also, started my second term at UNLV.

IMG_6023IMG_6243IMG_6268October: Published the essay “Still Writing About Grief” in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review and completed their “Selfie Interview.”

November: Friendsgiving, finals, FILA.

December: Published “Chimp” in Tahoma Literary Review, in print and online, in addition to a digital reading of the work.