Koss Works
Writing | Poetry | Art
I’m very happy to have this interview by Patty Paine of Diode Editions in their Substack newsletter. Note you can access it here. I’d be really grateful also, if you share this on social. We discuss working-class writing, humor, and talk a bit about my contest-winning and Lammy-shortlisted chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect. And there are some bonus photos you might enjoy.
Pleased to have work in San Pedro River Review, No. 17, Vol. 3, Fall 2025. This issue has color art pages and work by several artists including JC Alfier. This is a gratitude poem from a series. They are a sort of spiritual pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. Find the issue on Amazon.
I’m humbled and blown away to learn my chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is a finalist for the 2025, 37th Annual Lambda Lammy Poetry Awards! The winner has not been revealed and will be announced later in the fall with an online awards ceremony. Read the entire list and find out more about Lambda here.
I’m very grateful to Patty Paine and the Diode Editions team for the nomination and for awarding the book in the 2023 chapbook contest. Note it was published in October of 2024 and you can get a signed copy on my site, or purchase directly from Diode.
Also, I’m very grateful to the Lambda staff for this and their ongoing support to queer writers, and of course to the judges who generously donated their time.
This came at a good time, a heartbreaking time for this country, and at a very strange time for me. As much as I’ve always liked being an underdog, the last year and a half or so have been challenging on most fronts, so this designation feels like a giant nod from the universe that there’s someone out there to receive these words, these queer words, these grief words. And I’m happy to connect with other queers, here, now, and later; a little bit of me will continue to resonate even when the universe ushers me into the next stage… (not to be morbid), and jeez, previous finalists and winners have been people/lesbians like Minnie Bruce Patt, Audre Lorde, Eileen Myles, and Adrienne Rich!!! It’s such an honor!
I’m very grateful to everyone who generously supported this book in all the myriad ways. Big love to you, my wonderful little community.
I’m very pleased to have a piece selected for the longlist for the 2025 Wigleaf Top 50. The Wigleaf Top 50 is an annual digital anthology of hand selected short fiction work published online. The 2025 selections are based on the year 2024. This year is the last year Shome Dasgupta will be running the series. The website shows the following editors, but I’m not sure this is current:
Gerardo Sámano Córdova was, in fact, the selecting editor this year!
I admire Shome and the staff for all the time they’ve generously donated to the series for years now, and it’s nice of Wigleaf to host it. For those who don’t know the process, there is not a nomination process, so the editors just monitor publications throughout the year, honing a longlist and winner list. It’s a huge undertaking.
For writers hoping to be included, or writers who hope for nominations for other awards like Pushcart and Best of the Net, I recommend staying visible, which gets harder and harder on social, and compiling a publication list each year (for all nominations also) and promoting it before deadlines arise.
My piece was published in Rogan Kelly’s Ran Off With the Star Bassoon, one of two literary ‘zines he helms (he also created The Night Heron Barks). Both are innovative zines featuring an eclectic array of writing.
My piece was a short one about my ass. It also received a Pushcart nomination, which I’m grateful for. While it didn’t win, the nominations are the win… Here’s a link, if you’d like to read it.
Wigleaf doesn’t have links to specific pages as they seem to be posting content in frames, but, for now, you can find the Wigleaf Top 50 winners and longlist at the top of their webpage here.
I’m so very honored to have this interview by Hanna Greico about Dancing Backwards (from Diode Editions) in the latest issue of one of my all-time favorite literary zines, Chiron Review! We discuss process, privacy issues, form and more!
Thank you, Hannah, Michael Hathaway, and all the editors for publishing it and for this fabulous issue. I see lots of familiar folks in here and look forward to reading it! Purchase the issue (and previous issues) on Amazon, here.
Very pleased to have this queer, romantic poem in Hyacinth Review. I rarely write romantic or racy poems, so it shouldn’t surprise me that I spent over five years picking at this. I felt sort of like Sylvia Plath, who was known to pick at poems forever. While I do a lot of editing, I’m more apt to file it than labor as I did this one. It is a strange little thing. I hope you enjoy it. Hyacinth Review is a gorgeously designed journal, is queer friendly, and it’s an honor to have work published with them a second time. They published some photos and other work in it a couple years ago. Read about it here.