Koss Works
Writing | Poetry | Art
Jami Macarty wrote a fabulous review of Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect which was published on New Pages today! She expertly wove quotes from the review into an insightful, seamless, and clever. Makes you kind of want to buy it. Find it here on Diode’s site, or purchase a signed copy from me (include a note as to who to write the inscription to if you want one)!
Welcome to 2025 and the lotta things hanging over us… And David Lynch just died. I hope he went out gently. It’s interesting, sort of, to see what he meant to different people. Blue Velvet was one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. I felt disturbed for days by the scissors scene… And the summer after my grandmother died, I tried to re-watch Erasure Head and cried my guts out. The previous viewing didn’t impact me that way, I was with friends in a dingy Detroit apartment, all of us on a wrinkled bed with beer and cold pizza watching a tiny screen. There’s a way company can impact how you experience film (or any art), but I recall how everyone seemed so disconnected in his movies, such an existential feeling… And yet often lacking something human for me, and so, not quite relatable, but still always impactful emotionally. I will probably revisit his work now…
Some people I’m fond of and who I have considered as part of my lit community have vanished due to all the social media corruption. I admit I’m a person with some residual abandonment issues, but having found a small creative community for the first time in my life, I am really saddened by the dismantling of it. If nothing else, I hope people find richer relationships that exist outside of social show-and-tell, character-limited interactions… I’m a bit amazed though at how easily people toss connections, almost as if this were all some kind of simulation (thanks Teresa Mestizo for seeding this concept).
About ten years ago or so, I got off Facebook for a year and mostly never communicated with people including what little family I have because that it the only way they wanted to interact.
This may be time for people to start having more picnics and for lesbians to do potlucks again. Social media has harmed us in so many ways. I think queers tried harder to get along, to build communities before online dating and social made us all seem like disposable objects.
For writerly news, I did an interview with James Diaz about my book in Anti-Heroin Chic in December. If you missed it, it’s here, and there’s another with Kristine Esser-Slentz in (Re) An Ideas Journal soon (maybe this month). Jami McCarty wrote a review of my book for New Pages (also out this month). I will be posting links! We talk some about grief in both of the interviews–also, about privacy issues, grandmothers, and writing trauma.
I have found it increasingly difficult to promote my work on social as my Meta accounts saw a shift awhile back, greatly reducing my reach. I believe it is shadowbanning. A lot of people including creatives are complaining about it. But also, some time last year, all the hashtags I used to tag queers disappeared (or were banned). Instagram won’t publish an actual list, but you can tell when you type or search (through suggestions) if they exist. The problem is that they will penalize your account for using them. I lost track of most of the queers I interacted with–and we used to see each other’s post regularly. You can read about this online. Instagram has been called out multiple times since 2016 for taking negative actions on queer accounts. I have spoken about the recent shift for months, but what I find is people are not alarmed about things until it impacts them personally. Right now, Meta’s tactics are impacting a lot of people, and they’ve given the red light for people to harass queers, not just ignoring it as they have for most of their history.
And Twitter (I still call it that), is another asshole you don’t need me to tell you about. My reach on Twitter, the month my book came out (before the election) was reduced by 75%. I used to count on 4000 views for a post (that is no influencer number), but suddenly, I was lucky to get 1000. Anyone who has been there long knows this isn’t good for a book. I feel really discouraged. But I’m staying–because I’m stubborn, and because there are people who are kind and who enrich my life with their art and their presence. I don’t think people will spring back as they did in previous exoduses, but I don’t know where this is all leading. I hated Bluesky the first time I was there, but some think it has improved. For now, I don’t have the bandwidth for another channel.
I will be doing another post about social soon, but I just wanted to drop in with a ’25 post. I hope you’re all hanging in there. I hope something comes of this cease fire, but I’m already hearing whacky things. Stay sane in the crazy new year, and find people to be safe with and furry creatures to cuddle. And please consider also that if you leave, they win. It’s divide and conquer. These evil people know what they’re after.
xo,
Koss
I’m honored and grateful to receive a Best Small Fictions nomination from Midway Journal for a flash piece, “No One Knew,” one of my most-read pieces, published in 2024. Find the other nominees in this promo…
James Diaz was kind to interview me about my book. We discuss grief, grandmas, metaphors, and humor. Find it here!
(6 minute read)
Thank you for visiting. I’ve decided to post this early because I’m not expecting to have any more publications this year. Some folks do an “eligibility post” because of nominations. To skip to the link list, click here. Republished pieces are clearly marked with a bold “reprint” and many are new. I’m including art publications, interviews, readings, and and other stuff just to be a completest, and you can see the visual pieces on my visual Instagram account.
It has been a mixed-bag year which is ending on a very troublesome note with the election results and its accompanying existential shit. There have also been blessings in the form of people, literary wins, etc. with a big gift being the publication of my debut book (from Diode Editions), a very good thing for which I’m grateful to Patty Paine, Law Alsobrook, and Zoe Shankle Donald for. And there were also many other publications, the joy of seeing some of my friends published, some poetry readings, new writer friends, and a good start to next year’s garden, which is worthy of it’s own blog post. ’24 has included, I’ll admit, some heartbreak and a lot of hard work, but with rewards to accompany it.
It’s also been the year I stopped trying a lot of things, and well, I let go of a lot of STUFF, including some dreams. Some lit journals. I stopped counting publications, stopped tallying rejections, and quit Duotrope, which saved my attention for other things. I muted annoying people also, and I stopped wanting to be published by some journals. I made a big effort to be more intentional and not give my energy to people who don’t value it also. Fortunately there are some who do…
I’m hoping to usher in something good and new in ’25, despite the anticipated political and social upheavals. I’m putting most of my hope for America’s future in millennials and Gen Z as I think they embody the Age of Aquarius spirit… and are not afraid of change… Or at least that’s how my Aquarius brain sees it. The fear of change, I’m afraid, is a very self-sabotaging energy, which I feel certain parties have shown over and over. And there’s my big political statement for the year. That’s all.
I cried my guts out over the 2016 election, but this year, I started planning and preparing the earth for a garden, a glorious, scalable vegetable garden, a resistance garden, a fuck-you inflation, fuck-Trump-humping, white supremacist-hater-crotch-rocket-gun-happy-neighbor-vegetable-haven. I’ll let you know how it goes next year.
My book release nearly coincided with the election (October 30th), but it was a joyful thing despite the election dread as some people in my writing community made it matter, and I’m so very grateful. Seeing people share photos of the book online and share kind words such as, “I couldn’t put it down” and “I laughed and I cried,” really warmed my heart. I don’t think I could ask for a better reaction. Also, some very kind folks volunteered to interview me and review the book. Please see links, my Instagram account (I have two), and for this year, my Unlinktree page for quick links to recent publications.
I published a lot of reprints this year, submitted way less, had a couple of finalist awards, and it’s all great. I’m grateful for the journals/editors who published me−and grateful for the nominations for Best of the Net for art. I received a bursary for a Granta memoir workshop which was an interesting experience (it isn’t quite finished). I didn’t finish the book but will have something significant to pitch.
This year has gone by really quickly, and I’m feeling super-run down as I embark on this last leg of it. Thank you, friends for being in my world this year. I think a lot about support and what it means to “show up,” what a mysterious and sometimes elusive thing it has been throughout my life. My grandparents who mostly raised me were clearly supportive, but many others in my family and circle, not at all, so when I found support accidentally in the lit community, well, y’all showed up at a good time in my life. I appreciate you, your work, your camaraderie. I’m sad to see people dumping Twitter, but they may be back, as this has happened before. And Instagram seems to be changing shape and people communicate more there… We’ll see. Enjoy your holidays, if you holiday, be kind to yourselves, and hang in there. We go on… We keep trying… We persevere.
Thanks for checking out this page. I hope you find/read/hear something that resonates with you here.
*Note if you are here considering eligibility, my ’23 year-end publication list is here!
