Koss Works

Writing | Poetry | Art

Poem

Poem in Hyacinth Review | 2024

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Purple promotion for queer poem with large quotation marks in purple and lavender for Hyacinth Review.
Interrupta: Two, a Queer, Romantic Poem by Koss in Hyacinth Review

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.

Living with Dead Poets Poem | Anti-Heroin Chic

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#CW Suicide – I wrote a poem, Living with Dead Poets, for the talented New Zealand poet, Paula Harris, who died by suicide a year ago. I’m glad it has a home in Anti-Heroin Chic and am grateful to James Diaz for publishing it. Most of the poem is in conversation with Paula’s poems including the title. Leading up to her death, she had become discouraged about publishing and was posting on Instagram about her disappointments. One of her unpublished manuscripts was called If Prince Can’t Fuck in Heaven, There is No God. She published a great poem about Prince. She wrote without filters, and I think she’d appreciate the raunchiness of this. I miss her and miss her writing. I hope whoever got it finds a way to get it published.

Paula had severe depression, and meds didn’t work on her. Americans, especially, like to think Western medicine can cure everything. The sad reality is, for some people, they just aren’t effective. I wish there had been help for her. I wish a lot of things, including that she was here, but I’m glad we have some of her work to remember her by.

Find links to Paula’s work on her website including some collaborative projects she did with a filmmaker.  

purple square with lavender text with excerpt from a poem, "Living with Dead Poets"
Excerpt from poem, “Living with Dead Poets”

Molotov Mother | Poem | Koss | Diode Editions

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I’m honored to have another preview of poems from my forthcoming chapbook, “Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect” in Diode’s Substack newsletter, “All Things Diode.” Also find a cover reveal (cover by Law Alsobrook), and other Diode news, including contest information. You can sign up for their newsletter here also! Also, you can preorder the book now. It will be out in October (or sooner)!

vintage yellow volkswagon beetle bug with weathered building, brick road, and promo text for molotov mother, a poem
“Molotov Mother” poem promo from book, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect

Literary and Art Publications 2nd Quarter – 2024

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dog in lake purple and green
Dog in Water, Michigan

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.

You can find links to my latest publications and events on my unlinktree page, but it’s subject to change—and, for the most part, the blog pages will stay.

wombat watercolor with hand, artwork by Lesley Weston with MoonPark Review promo text

My good news as of yesterday is my micro fiction (or short flash), “The Short Lives of Wombats,” published in Moon Park Review, was a finalist for the Wigleaf Top 50. I’ll definitely call it a win, and am grateful to everyone involved in the selection and the publication. It’s a queer piece, so extra happy Pride month. MoonPark had four or five publications longlisted and one winner (also a queer piece).

My publications since the last update are as follows:

I have publications forthcoming in summer and fall from Amethyst Review’s anthology, Hyacinth, Chiron, Fallen (an anthology), Anti-Heroin Chic, and Ran Off With the Star Bassoon (a Rogan Kelly project, Session 3).

On other fronts, I just finished some branding work for Kathy Fish, an extraordinary flash writer and teacher. Check her out on Twitter and sign up for her amazing Substack craft newsletter here. There are free and paid versions—the paid is like a master class. I’ve taken her workshops and she had an amazing way of getting writers to tap into memory (plus, plenty of other tricks).

Kathy Fish Twitter (X) banner and logo design

And if you need a website or some graphics (or a book trailer) done, please contact me on social. I need to set up another contact form, hopefully soon! That’s all for now. Thanks for checking in and enjoy your summer.

Self-Publishing is Publishing Too

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pink and green square asemic piece with wavy striations and asemic writing in purplish and green tones

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 broadside project. I’d love to work together.

I have self published in some form since I was very young from the third-grade comic books, to punk art xerox books made in college and after. But in recent years, I got on the hamster wheel of publishing in journals, and as you probably know, it can be EXHAUSTING!

I’m not knocking it. I appreciate all the labor that goes into publishing, and am super-grateful for my publications. It is nice to see your work in print, online, and to get the recognition and approval that comes with it–and, of course, benefit from the readership a journal has built. I will still publish in zines. I’m not quitting. Just considering other ways to get work seen.

Mythic Picnic, a Twitter Zine (see my publication link below) also got me to thinking about alternative ways to publish work. I think publishing on social is really fabulous and empowering. You should check their account and see what they’re up to (and maybe even send them something. They consider previously published too.

A couple of writers reminded me of what is great about DIY print publishing. Those writers are Jimmy Broccoli and Angel Rosen. Both publish their own poetry books, and Jimmy also publishes anthologies of writers he likes.

Services like Lulu have made it really easy to self publish–and no I’m not endorsing them as a service. But some of these services even allow publishing from Word. No InDesign skills necessary.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I do not have a book I’m publishing yet (I do have a book Diode is publishing in the fall), but I will most likely be publishing an asemic art book–plus I have some prints in the works, which will be listed here on my website once the details are ironed out. Plus, I’ll be offering packages with my Diode book coming out this fall.

So my less ambitious self publishing project is just that I’m going to be publishing more visual work online, both here and on social. I created an additional Insta account. This one, for now, is public. Please follow it here if you need some visual pleasure in your mornings (perusing art on Insta is one of my favorite activities). Koss Visual Poetry should be interpreted in the broadest sense. Consider I’m a hybrid writer with blurry boundaries, although I like to think my real-life ones are fairly intact. All of the works will have a visual element, even if they are concrete poems… Think erasure poems, collage, my crossword puzzle poems, and asemic art.

The coolest thing about online publishing for art is that artists get to show their work without it having to be legitimized by dealers. And there is potential to reach much bigger audiences, and not share fifty-percent with dealers.

Also, did you know that you can self nominate for Best of the Net when you publish on a blog (writing and art)? Most journals don’t nominate for art, so there’s that. And Winning Writers hosts an annual contest, The North Street Book Prize, for self published books with multiple genre categories (I’m sure there are other contests out there also). I believe you can submit to some Lambda prizes too… Also, there is the Eric Hoffer Award, which is open to small presses and self-publishing authors. So maybe you don’t have to wait and hope for a nomination. It’s okay to be a bit proactive about your work.

Self publishing is personally empowering. No Submittable or fees. No waiting. No lost submissions. It’s immediate gratification with no anxiety, no rejection.

And now, the promised links to April pubs. Thank you lovely editors for the publications. And see you, readers, on social. Thanks for stopping by!

And don’t forget to follow my new Insta account. And if you have any thoughts about self publishing, feel free to share in the comments.

Let’s Connect on Social!