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Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect – Now Shipping!

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect
by Koss
Diode Contest Winner and Lambda Literary Lammy Lesbian Poetry Finalist (2025)
Published by Diode Editions
Shipping in October 2024
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.
Blog Posts
Literary and Art Publications 2nd Quarter – 2024
Happy summer and happy Pride! I hope you’re tan, active, and gay (one way or another). I thought I was finished publishing last report, but I got a second wind and took some workshops, so I will have a few things more in the coming months in addition to my chapbook publication in the fall. […]
Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist 2024
It was nice to see my name on the longlist for Wigleaf Top 50. Congratulations to all of the winners and longlisted folks. I see lots of writer friends on the list, and there’s lots to celebrate today. My piece was The Short Lives of Wombats published in MoonPark Review in ’23. Bonus, it’s a […]
Asemic Art by Koss | MER Literary Feature
Pleased to first have this cobalt blue iteration of my asemic crow in the MER Lit spring print issue. It is collaged over a page from Wuthering Heights and mounted on plywood. They included it in an online selections feature along with another piece of art, plus poetry. Check it out here (you can also […]
Lannie Stabile – When the Forest Finds You | Poems
Lannie Stabile’s awesome new book, When the Forest Finds You is available for pre-order! I was honored to design the cover for it. Published by Variant Lit, the chapbook follows several of Lannie’s other books including Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dog Zeus. This book is a unique hybrid of poetry, […]
Self-Publishing is Publishing Too
It has been a very busy month, so I thought I’d do a quick post with some links to things. But along with these publications, I want to share that I’ll be doing more self publishing, along with producing some prints, and further off, some broadsides. Please keep me in mind if you have a […]
Literary Publications | 2024 First Quarter
It has been a busy year so far, but I’m not complaining at all, as I’m happy to have so many works published. Many of these are re-publications. Since I’m not a famous person, I value re-publishing as it’s a great way to find new audiences for one’s work. It’s also great for getting print […]
ANVIL TONGUE PUBLICATIONS 2024
Thrilled to have work in Anvil Tongue as a nice entry into March, and, hopefully, spring, but you never know where I live! Daniel Garraun has put together a nice issue with the following writers: I have several republished pieces in this issue (most were in print), some photos, and some of my earliest, experimental […]
Dead of Winter III Anthology | Milk and Cake Press
The Dead of Winter III Anthology by Milk and Cake Press is out and it’s gorgeous. I’m happy to have two poems, “A Modern Highway Death” and “February” in it. “February” was originally a traditional sonnet in iambic pentameter, if I’m remembering right, but it didn’t have a volta. It later relaxed into this one. […]
Action, Spectacle Winter ’23 Issue
Grateful to Adam Day and the guest editors of the literary journal, Action Spectacle, including Lyn Hejinian, Timothy Liu, Kevin Prufer, Caitlin Horrocks, Daniel Tiffany, Frank Bill, Graham Foust, Meera Ganapathi, Rob McLennan, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Kristin Bock, Catina Bacote, Clifford Thompson, Dorothee Elmiger, Wayne Miller for publishing my snarky dating poem in the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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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