Koss Works

Writing | Poetry | Art

Book Reviews

Book Review Dancing Backwards Toward Pluperfect | Carla Sarett | Trampoline Poetry

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Carla Sarett wrote a beautiful book review of Dancing Backwards and Trampoline Poetry published it. It is a very thorough and generous review—I’m sure you will enjoy it. Note that their reviews seems to be loaded on one page, one after the other, so if you arrive on my page in the far future, you will need to scroll down, or, faster, just type “dancing backwards” after hitting control F on a keyboard for PCs and it should take you to the review. Very grateful to both Carla and Trampoline for this.

woman on a trampoline with two kids watching and a windmill in the distance in black and white
Image courtesy of Diode Editions.

Review of Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect by Erin Vachon

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Very pleased and honored by this very queer book review of Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect by Erin Vachon and published in Moist Poetry. Aside from the flattering recommendation, it’s nice to see my work resonating with other queers. And I agree that we need queer poetry right now more than ever as our basic civil rights are being dismantled by this evil regime. I’m also grateful to Han Vanderhart for publishing it in their queer poetry journal, Moist Poetry.

2024 Koss Publications – End-of-Year Report

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red leaves, maple tree, fire rings with mulch and leaves

(6 minute read)

Thank you for visiting. I’ve decided to post this early because I’m not expecting to have any more publications this year. Some folks do an “eligibility post” because of nominations. To skip to the link list, click here. Republished pieces are clearly marked with a bold “reprint” and many are new. I’m including art publications, interviews, readings, and and other stuff just to be a completest, and you can see the visual pieces on my visual Instagram account.

It has been a mixed-bag year which is ending on a very troublesome note with the election results and its accompanying existential shit. There have also been blessings in the form of people, literary wins, etc. with a big gift being the publication of my debut book (from Diode Editions), a very good thing for which I’m grateful to Patty Paine, Law Alsobrook, and Zoe Shankle Donald for. And there were also many other publications, the joy of seeing some of my friends published, some poetry readings, new writer friends, and a good start to next year’s garden, which is worthy of it’s own blog post. ’24 has included, I’ll admit, some heartbreak and a lot of hard work, but with rewards to accompany it.

It’s also been the year I stopped trying a lot of things, and well, I let go of a lot of STUFF, including some dreams. Some lit journals. I stopped counting publications, stopped tallying rejections, and quit Duotrope, which saved my attention for other things. I muted annoying people also, and I stopped wanting to be published by some journals. I made a big effort to be more intentional and not give my energy to people who don’t value it also. Fortunately there are some who do…

I’m hoping to usher in something good and new in ’25, despite the anticipated political and social upheavals. I’m putting most of my hope for America’s future in millennials and Gen Z as I think they embody the Age of Aquarius spirit… and are not afraid of change… Or at least that’s how my Aquarius brain sees it. The fear of change, I’m afraid, is a very self-sabotaging energy, which I feel certain parties have shown over and over. And there’s my big political statement for the year. That’s all.

I cried my guts out over the 2016 election, but this year, I started planning and preparing the earth for a garden, a glorious, scalable vegetable garden, a resistance garden, a fuck-you inflation, fuck-Trump-humping, white supremacist-hater-crotch-rocket-gun-happy-neighbor-vegetable-haven. I’ll let you know how it goes next year.

My book release nearly coincided with the election (October 30th), but it was a joyful thing despite the election dread as some people in my writing community made it matter, and I’m so very grateful. Seeing people share photos of the book online and share kind words such as, “I couldn’t put it down” and “I laughed and I cried,” really warmed my heart. I don’t think I could ask for a better reaction. Also, some very kind folks volunteered to interview me and review the book. Please see links, my Instagram account (I have two), and for this year, my Unlinktree page for quick links to recent publications.

I published a lot of reprints this year, submitted way less, had a couple of finalist awards, and it’s all great. I’m grateful for the journals/editors who published me−and grateful for the nominations for Best of the Net for art. I received a bursary for a Granta memoir workshop which was an interesting experience (it isn’t quite finished). I didn’t finish the book but will have something significant to pitch.

This year has gone by really quickly, and I’m feeling super-run down as I embark on this last leg of it. Thank you, friends for being in my world this year. I think a lot about support and what it means to “show up,” what a mysterious and sometimes elusive thing it has been throughout my life. My grandparents who mostly raised me were clearly supportive, but many others in my family and circle, not at all, so when I found support accidentally in the lit community, well, y’all showed up at a good time in my life. I appreciate you, your work, your camaraderie. I’m sad to see people dumping Twitter, but they may be back, as this has happened before. And Instagram seems to be changing shape and people communicate more there… We’ll see. Enjoy your holidays, if you holiday, be kind to yourselves, and hang in there. We go on… We keep trying… We persevere.

Thanks for checking out this page. I hope you find/read/hear something that resonates with you here.

2024 Art Publications

Publications Poetry

Publications Fiction

  • Prose poem or micro about my ass in Ran Off with the Star Bassoon
  • Hybrid, micro-fiction, prose poem, “The Expatriates” in Harpy Hybrid Review
  • Seven or eight flash and micro pieces, Reprints, in Mythic Picnic
  • Flash fiction, “No One Knew,” in Midway Journal (Nominated for Best Small Fictions ’25)
  • Micro fiction or prose poem, “Wings of (Alternate Version),” in Bull.
  • Micro fiction or prose poem, “About the Author,” in Bull.

CNF

Interviews, Reviews, Etc.

Award Nominations

Awards Received

  • Best of the Net Finalist for artwork published in Sage Cigarettes
  • Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist

Book

  • Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, released October 30, ’24 from Diode Editions

Podcasts

Readings

  • Midway at the Fine Arts Building, Chicago, October ’24
  • European Writers Salon, October ’24

*Note if you are here considering eligibility, my ’23 year-end publication list is here!

Meg Tuite | White Van Review

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dark hallway in abandoned building black and white photo
Photo courtesy of Peter Scherbatykh (Unsplash)

White Van is an important, intense, must-read hybrid book by Meg Tuite. Part of me wants to dub it expressionistic, but the bones of me know it is really a stark, unflinching, representation of what is. Not an exaggeration by any means. Buy White Van here.

From GoodReads, Meg Tuite, White Van Review

In White Van, Tuite creates her own genre of darkness, of inescapable trauma drawn in vignettes that smear into a miasma of despair. Point of view shifts and blurs, creating a disembodied, dissociative vibe. The victim might be the writer/speaker, the girl living in the van with her dad, or a lone urban teenager. The perp might be an ambivalent writer god casting his eyes on horror with no inclination toward moral intervention. And without intervention, you the reader/god will behold in dis-ease, for this is no easy read, nor should any important book be “easy.” You, yourself could be both victim and perpetrator, enmeshed in the text which masterfully induces dislocation.

Sometimes Tuite’s writing resembles poetry, and sometimes prose-verging-on-story, but then it coagulates into an oppressive, immersive victim-feel experience. Don’t expect heroes, justice, or resolutions in this book, this is dark realism served with no apologies. The works read together more like a “state” than “chapters” or a “collection,” a state that shines a mirror on the vile misogyny and perversion of a sick society. An important, confrontational book by a complex, gifted mind not afraid to descend into the blackest recesses of female victim-ness while inventing her own mode of expression.

And in all the beautifully rendered Cimmerian shades, Tuite, at times, startles with some dark comic relief, such as “You have three kids, a husband, and an open-coffin vagina. Sister says it dies when you are eight.” If these lines don’t entice you to read White Van, nothing will.

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