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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.

Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist 2024

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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!

wigleaf top 50 graphic 2024 brown, yellow, and red oxide text

Asemic Art by Koss | MER Literary Feature

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black crow with asemic writing and asemic text over a wuthering heights page carrying a baby sack. cobalt background. collaged.
Asemic Crow Artwork from MER Literary

Pleased to first have this cobalt blue iteration of my asemic crow in the MER Lit spring print issue. It is collaged over a page from Wuthering Heights and mounted on plywood. They included it in an online selections feature along with another piece of art, plus poetry. Check it out here (you can also buy the issue). They are lovely editors to work with. I’ve been published with them a couple of times. One of the poems they published was about abandonment and will be in my forthcoming book from Diode Editions. There have been several different versions of this previously published in Up the Staircase Quarterly and Anvil Tongue.

Lannie Stabile – When the Forest Finds You | Poems

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Lannie Stabile’s awesome new book, When the Forest Finds You is available for pre-order! I was honored to design the cover for it. Published by Variant Lit, the chapbook follows several of Lannie’s other books including Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dog Zeus. This book is a unique hybrid of poetry, horror, and trauma. It’s definitely an interesting read. Pre-order at Variant Lit.




screenshot of lannie stabile's book, When the Forest Finds You, watercolor with green trees and mysterious figure. Includes blurb text from Variant Lit website.
Screenshot from Variant Lit of Lannie Stabile’s poetry book book, When the Forest Finds You

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!