Am turning up, turning out, and reading

Am currently brain-fried from submitting for that good ole NEA grant. These things always feel tedious and like a longshot. But I am happy that I put myself out there. And that I got good ole Meg Wade to get hers in, too.

Wanted to spotlight two great books that I’ve been reading. Both women poets who are truly one-of-a-kind as humans and writers:

For Today by Carolyn Hembree + High Lonesome by Allison Titus. I will write more once I have finished both and share favorite poems. So far, wow, wow, wow.

<3

I miss blogging. So I am about to start back.

I don’t know who blogs or reads blogs anymore. It used to be a real thing in my life back in the day. That ole blogspot was a steady reg and was honestly an incredibly healthy and cathartic outlet. Looking back at it, it really was/is just a little journal for myself that I’m glad I held to—such good memories Maizie will perhaps look at one day. I hope so. I’ve linked it here on this website because I am still so in love with it as a forum. But it is a old thing I’m going to leave there, and switch to writing consistently here: this new venture. This new year (kinda). This new me kinda thing.

Speaking of my tiny tornado with dinosaur teeth, she is almost 19 months old. Time sure is fleeting, as they say. It keeps us honest. I am 42 and most days I feel it, what with a tractor loving, T-Rex of a girl running full-blast from sun-up to sundown. Seriously. I never knew anyone could love tractors more than Maizie. She just lives for them. Every night before I go to bed, I line them up, along with her horses, so that when she rounds the corner it is like Christmas morn every morn. Such delight, hand clapping, which one to drive first.

So, I feel like I should ask, how are you doing out there? I’d love to hear from each of you. I miss my people. I miss community. Living in the middle of nowhere has its perks. But it is truly easy to get lonely.

So, how am I? Fair-to-middling is a response I was given from old school southerner recently, and it is an apt one. That seems to undercurrent of now, if not just plain out nose above the waterline. Or as Uncle Jim Harrison put it in Yesenin: scarcely a wobbling pivot.

Social media has made grand proclamations and declarations the thing of the moment. And entitlement (yuck). Really just wanted to say, I’m back! Onwards.

B-SIDE GIRLS IS AVAILABLE!

I’m so so so excited to announce the book is finally available! You can purchase it as Small Press Distribution here, or from The Magnificent Field here .

I would also love to sign and send you a copy for $20. Get in touch with me here.

Thank you so, so much for your support,

Shelly

been a min!

with a new book coming out, i got fresh headshots. big thank you to Daniel Shippey for shooting them. this third book is due out later this year from The Magnificent Field. i’ll keep ya posted. xx

it's a new year. today is thursday. the sun is not out. the world seems to be going damn crazy. i finished my book.

it’s, no kidding, hard to call a thing done. wrench it from my hands. but i’m done. turned it over to the one and only jen tynes. look for that sucker here soon from my fav press, the magnificent field. i’ll keep ya’ll up.

stay sane and well in ‘21! will be a fight, no doubt.

a poem from my forthcoming third collection just got nominated for a Pushcart Prize!!

Big, big gracious thanks to Bear Review for nominating my poem “Lay me down in a manger not cold with war” for this prestigious prize. It’s my first nomination in all these years of making poems, so I am truly smiling.

Weber State reading with the one and only Michael Earl Craig

Prob be a good idea to post these kind of things ahead of time, but I’ve just been pure slacking. I adore Michael Earl Craig as a person, a poet, and fellow horse person. Thanks so Abraham Smith and Ryan Ridge for inviting me to read. It was a good one.

Hello, friends

from south Georgia, where it’s currently hot enough to perish if you walk out the front door. I look forward to interacting with you all here and will use this blog as a news update on all things going on in writing, with horses, and in life.

In the words of Jane Miller, “make it vivid!”

As Flannery O’Connor would say, “When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.”