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Koss Poetry & Art

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Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect – Now Shipping!

cover aerial view of book dancing backwards towards pluperfect by koss with brown tones and black wire and telephone pole with birds

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect

by Koss

Diode Contest Winner and Lambda Literary Lammy Lesbian Poetry Finalist (2025)
Published by Diode Editions
Release date: October 2025
Now shipping!

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is a poetic assemblage of a life sown outside the predictability of middle-class, straight America, one where the aftermath of repeated trauma and loss is allayed by unexpected moments of connection, empathy, and love.

Koss pens inventive textual routes through life transits, forging head-on through the debris with unflinching vision and grit in a timbre that shifts from existential dread to dark comedy. Part dirge and part survival story, Dancing Backwards transmutes the rubble of trauma, abandonment, grief, and suicide loss into a queer, hybrid elixir, their lived story worthy of telling.

PURCHASE a signed copy


Blog Posts

Pink cartoon nerdy person with glasses and striped t-shirt with book title also in pink.

Diode Substack Newsletter | Koss Book Update

I haven’t really talked online about what my forthcoming chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, is about, but you can read the book description on Diode Editions’ Substack which also showcases my “Therapist Sez” poem, first published in diode poetry and winner of the 2021 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest. Know you can also sign up […]

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eyeglasses with round excerpt images of a swamp and a tornado on a beige background with promotional text for the publication

Sage Cigarettes Magazine | Sketches & Erasures

Honored to have work included in Sage Cigarettes Magazine just before they change their format. Featured are two sketches, one of a tornado and one of a marsh, and a diptych made from two Wuthering Heights erasure/collages, previously published in Permafrost. It’s lovely to see this online as well as in print as they’re sure […]

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querencia press text over black, green and purple galaxy with pub day text for the winter 2024 anthology.

Querencia Winter 2024 Anthology | Poems

Today is pub day for the Querencia Press Winter 2024 Anthology. I’m honored to have three poems published. They’re important poems to me, “Dead People Don’t Dream Hamburgers,” “Conversions: I Appeared in Your Suicide Dream,” and “Max, Carrie’s Mother, [No Wonder].” These were published (in order) in Eunoia, Spillway, and Anti-Heroin Chic but I’m thrilled […]

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Fifth Wheel Press | Secrets in the Garden Anthology

Today is the release day for Secrets in the Garden, an anthology from Fifth Wheel Press. I’m really grateful to Nat Raum for including me. It’s online, but I believe it will be available in print. Fifth Wheel Press is a queer press with a unique publishing model; In addition to their collaborative projects, they […]

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angels on antiqued paper background with brown promo text from a micro fiction by koss in bull magazine

Bull Magazine | Micro Fiction by Koss

Pleased to have two micros in Bull Magazine, also known as Bull, Mr. Bull Bull, and Bull Men’s Magazine. Don’t ask me why so many names but it has evolved into something more inclusive than a men’s-only magazine, and they publish some really great fiction.

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Wuthering Heights erasure poem with colored pencil and coat hangers.

Permafrost | Winter ’24 Issue

After a very long delay, Permafrost Magazine’s Winter ’24 Issue Has Arrived. Note that this was supposed to be a March ’23 Issue, and I’m not sure how it will be listed on their website. From what I can tell, you need a Submittable account to purchase it from their site. I have two Wuthering […]

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Koss 2023 Year-End Publication Update

2023 has been a year of uncertainty, change, and loss, but it ends on a welcome high note as Diode Editions has picked up my long chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, for publication. See more about this in my contest announcement post. The book will be published in 2024, and I’ll post updates as things […]

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Diode ’23 Poetry Contest Chapbook Winners

I’m very honored to have my manuscript, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect chosen for publication in Diode’s ’23 Poetry Chapbook Contest. I’m very grateful to Patty, Law, and Zoe for this publication. Diode has been a wonderful supporter of my work, publishing multiple text poems, visual poems, and including me in their anthology, Beyond the Frame. […]

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Fiction 2023 by Koss

I see people doing eligibility posts for the fiction award nominations on Twitter. I’m not sure about the etiquette here, but here are my fiction, flash, and microfiction pieces published in ’23. And they could benefit from some more reach. Grateful for the publications, y’all. Thank you for checking these out.

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asemic writing characters with earth tone watercolor and ink black characters in square format on white background

2023 Three-Quarter Year Publishing Update | Koss

It’s been a busy publishing year and since creating a “What’s New” page, I’ve been really lazy about updating the site. I see people are actually looking at my blog, so I should be writing something brilliant for you (thank you for checking it out). Truth is, my Aquarian brain is sometimes visual, sometimes verbal, […]

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girl on top of building monochromatic drawing with list of Gone Lawn's best of the net winners 2024

Best of the Net 2024

I’m blown away to have received five 2024 Best of the Net Nominations from five literary journals this year. I haven’t published much written work, so I was extra pleased that MoonPark Review, a gem of a journal, nominated my “The Short Lives of Wombats” piece for the prose poems category. And Petrichor nominated an […]

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Linktree Alternative | Stop Giving Your Web Traffic Away

Stop giving your web traffic to Linktree and create your own page with buttons. You have more customizing options and you can improve your page ranking, while encouraging people to click around your site, read your poems, look at your art, read your blog, and more.

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