Koss Works

Writing | Poetry | Art

Queer Poetry

Lammy Awards 2025 | Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect

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violet background with five book covers for the Lambda Literary Lammy Poetry Awards, 2025.

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.

Front and back covers of Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect with aerial view, earthtones, and black birds on telephone wire on right arranged vertically

Hannah Greico Interviews Koss in Chiron Review 136, Spring, 2025

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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.

collage with text from an author interview and the cover of Chiron Review 136 (Spring) showing a drawing of two people kissing. Multi colors throughout.
Chiron Review 136, Spring, 2025

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.

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.

Dead of Winter III Anthology | Milk and Cake Press

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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. I found another version where two lines got cut, and, well, this is what has happened the couple of times I’ve tried to write sonnets. I am not a forms writer, but I enjoy some Japanese forms on occasion.

An earlier version of it was published in Entropy as part of a very long hybrid piece (they, unfortunately pulled everything, so it’s nice to see part of the longer piece get a second life). “A Modern Highway Death” was first published in Spillway.

The editors, Kim-Jacobs Beck and Miranda Scharf were wonderful to work with and very professional. The cover art of all of the collections was done by Jonathan Scharf and Dan Beck does the layout and design. Grateful also to editors, Jasmine Warner and Heather Phillips.

Purchase the anthology and the cool cover art cards and check out their future calls for anthologies, manuscript calls, and other projects here.

Update, there was a spring equinox reading on March 18, 2024. It is available on YouTube if you’d like to see it. It was a lovely reading, and is a good way to preview some poetry before purchasing the anthology.

dead of winter anthology cover art with skelton rib cage in white, red roses, and black background
Dead of Winter III Cover Art
dead of winter III promotion with postcards from all of milk and cake press's antholgies on a paperbag background with text.
Dead of Winter Anthology Art Postcards

Fifth Wheel Press | Secrets in the Garden Anthology

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Today is the release day for Secrets in the Garden, an anthology from Fifth Wheel Press. I’m really grateful to Nat Raum for including me. It’s online, but I believe it will be available in print. Fifth Wheel Press is a queer press with a unique publishing model; In addition to their collaborative projects, they offer a space for writers and artists to self publish.

Following is an excerpt from the published poem “(Untitled) Earth,” which was first published in Mom Egg Review. Grateful to you editors also!

dark blue box with an excerpt from a poem by Koss in the Secrets in the Garden anthology by Fifth Wheel Press. Text is gray and offwhite
garden image with grass and flowers in browns and greens with secrets in the garden anthology text

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