Koss Works
Writing | Poetry | Art
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 queer-content piece! So it’s a Pride sorta win. Also, Happy Pride! I hope you’re up to some gay things this June!
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 progress (here and on social).
Rather than make this a 1/4-year post, I’m switching the format and including the entire year’s publications and events on this page. My publication page has grown unwieldy, as has my unlinktree page, which I’m shortening. So here they all are in one convenient place, minus the publications that didn’t appear as scheduled in November. If they miraculously appear online this year, I’ll be updating this and posting on social. It’s Tuesday and I’m glowing inside and grateful to the editors who have published my work, the folks who read and shared my work all year, and especially grateful to Diode who has supported my work over the last few years. I respect their mission to publish diverse voices and am honored to be one of their authors.
Erasure Poem | (Re) Ideas
Erasure Art and Asemic Work x4 | Sage Cigarettes
Photograph | Bonemilk II Anthology
Crossword Poem/Collage | Beaver Magazine
Visual Poetry x 6 | Anti-Heroin Chic
Crossword Poems x 2 | Petrichor, Pebbles Vol. 3
Asemic Pieces & Erasure Collage x 4 | diode poetry Vol. 16., No. 3
Asemic Cover Art and Inside Publication | Cutbow Quarterly
Visual Poem | Beaver Magazine, October ’23
Asemic Pieces x 3 | Up the Staircase Quarterly Nov. ’23
Cover Art | Gone Lawn 52, Nov. ’23
Three Poems | Anti-Heroin Chic
Five Poems | Speakeasy
Storm | San Pedro River Review Vol. 15, No. 2
Color Therapy for Beginners (hybrid, prose, zuihitsu?) | diode poetry
Ms. Liberty | Beyond the Frame Anthology
Two Poems | Bone Milk II Anthology
To the Girl | San Pedro River Review Vol. 15, No. 1
And So On in a Week (hybrid, zuihitsu, prose?) | Bulb Culture Collective
47/August 11/Black Synchronicity (hybrid list poem) | Red Ogre Review
Eight poems | Roi Fainéant
The Short Lives of Wombats | MoonPark Review
Four Micros | Flash Boulevard
Fall of Toby and Lady (hybrid zuihitsu/published in the journal too) | Get Bent Anthology
Friday, Saturday | Anti-Heroin Chic
Backyard Passages (double haibun) | Soflopojo
Photograph BoTN | Anti-Heroin Chic
Artwork BoTN | Sage Cigarettes
Cover Art BoTN | Gone Lawn
Prose Poem BoTN | MoonPark Review
Poem BoTN | Petrichor
Second Sunday Readings | YouTube
Make the Yuletide Gay, Queer Reading & Open Mic (Dec. 24) | Sign up
In 2024, if all goes as intended, I have publications forthcoming in Reckon Review, Action, Spectacle, Sugar Sugar Salt Lit, Bull, Fifth Wheel Press’s garden anthology, Milk and Cake’s Dead of Winter III anthology, and Amy Marques’ Duets Anthology, so lots to look forward to in publishing.
Happy end of the year to you and may the new year bring you love, health, and everything you need.
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. I love their mission, their commitment to inclusivity, and the writers they publish. They are, I believe, in a class by themselves. Here are two graphics showing all the winners and runner-ups. Congratulations everyone!
And here are the names and titles of the winners and runner-ups from both the book and chapbook contests (borrowed from Diode’s website). The books will be published in 2024. Stay tuned for more information, and follow Diode on Twitter and Instagram for updates.
all children., Shabnam Piryaei
No Rest, Jason Koo
Difficult, Rewa Zeinati
BOOT-less →, Trace DePass
Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, Koss
Ofrenda, Anaïs Deal-Márquez
PERISH / ABOLISH, Mia Kang
Book Content to Breathe Inside the Tree, Patrick Lawler
Between the Sun and The Moon, Xiaoly Li
Slowly Our Faces Come Into View, Lea Marshall
Devil Music, Charlie Clark
Occurrence of a Dream Translated by Animals, M. Cynthia Cheung
Dreams of Labrador, Christopher Brean Murray
My Abandoned Poems, Owen McLeod
Frankie’s Daughter, Haro Lee
DIDA, Karan Kapoor
The Mariachi at the End of Time, Christopher Nelson
Landscape for the Lost, Aiden Heung
Beneath Salt, Anna Tomlinson
Tapestry, Kirun Kapur
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.
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 ekphrastic piece about a Joan Mitchell painting. As an artist, this made me especially happy. While ekphrastic writing is popular among poets (and published a lot), mine have always been hard to place. Maybe because they tend to be a bit raunchy. Whatever… This made me happy.
I haven’t previously received any nominations for art, so the following BoTN nominations were also extra special. Anti-Heroin Chic, a journal that has treated me very well over the last few years, nominated a photograph. And Gone Lawn, a journal that also blessed me with repeat publications and previous nominations, nominated my cover from Issue 46 for art. And finally, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, whose staff have been so good to me, nominated my asemic piece, “Love Letter to Queers Who Suicided” for art—and having this come out during Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month makes it extra special. Of course, making it to the finals or getting selected is a super-long shot, but being nominated is a huge honor, and I’m so grateful to the editors for selecting my work.
Following are some screenshots of some of the nominees. I’m wishing you all the best of luck and a huge congratulations. And while I trust the editors’ expertise, I realize there was a huge element of luck in this, and there are lots of deserving published work out there that didn’t receive nominations, and even more who haven’t made their way into zines yet.
Thank you Amy Barnes, Owen Wyke, Seth Copeland, Caleb Jordan, Sadee Bee, L.E. Francis, Stef Nunez, Mary Lynn Reed, Leslie Weston, James Diaz, Roy Duffield, and the staff of these journals for all their dedication to literature.
And lastly, if you are an editor, please know that you can submit art including covers, visual poems, visual erasures, and asemic art to Best of the Net. I felt bad seeing again this year many journals who solicit art not submitting art (when they submitted for other categories). Artists are important contributors to indie lit.
Love Letter to Those Who Suicided | Sage Cigarettes
Untitled Photograph (second image) | Anti-Heroin Chic
The Short Lives of Wombats | MoonPark Review
The Hudson Looks Different | Petrichor Magazine
Issue Cover | Gone Lawn
Also, I’m due to write another publication update. I wrote one in April, but this will probably be in December, as I’m beat. To see my latest pubs, however, check out my What’s New page.
So happy to be among the nominees in Gone Lawn’s Pushcart Nominations 2022 list. Very grateful to Owen Wyke and Amy Copella Barnes. The piece was a flash called The Dictations of Cabbages. Other nominees include Susan Triemert, Betsy Finesilver Haberle, Kim Magowan, James Montgomery, and Olga Musial.
