Orion Returns to the Omega Institute June 2025 & Applications Are Open

Orion’s Environmental Writers’ Workshop returns to the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY from June 15th to 20th.

“Join a community of writers, improve your craft, and reimagine how you think about nature. Guided by award-winning instructors, the Orion Environmental Writers’ Workshop provides an intimate space to connect with writers, artists, and editors, spark creativity, and renew, illuminate, and deepen your relationship with place. This week-long workshop is cosponsored by the Omega Center for Sustainable Living.

Whether your passion is nonfiction, fiction, or poetry, the Orion Environmental Writers’ Workshop is a creative laboratory for anyone seeking to reflect their environments through their work. The course features breakout sessions dedicated to intensive craft practice, faculty readings and lectures, student readings, and panels on publishing.

Workshops seats will be limited in size so that each participant receives individualized attention, feedback, and focused time with faculty members and Orion editors to discuss whatever is on their minds. Throughout the week, literary agents and editors will stop by for panels and conversations to answer questions and offer advice on bringing out your work in the publishing world.”

Faculty include Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Sabrina Imbler, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Chris LaTray, Joe Wilkins, and Felicia Zamora.

You can learn more about the program and submit your application here.

"Moving the Saints: Passages from a Deconstructed Homeland" is named a notable essay in BAE 2024.

“Moving the Saints,” from the Spring 2023 issue of Orion, was included as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2024. Read the piece here. Orion’s “The Language of Nature” issue includes work by Lydia Davis, Anne Carson, and others.

“Saussure talk about the signifier and the signified, but what happens when you can’t tell them apart? A mirror, like language, is a construct of duplicitous depth and direction, capable of true and lies in equal measure, and haven’t we always hoped to walk through glass and find a god we didn’t make, pull the moon from water and never drown?”

— Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, "Moving the Saints"

"Brittle Stars" in Orion.

“Brittle Stars” was published in the Winter, 2020 issue of Orion. You can read (or listen to me reading it) here. This essay would not have been possible without my editor, Sumanth Prabhaker. Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2024.

Photo credit: Alvaro Esteves Migotto

“In those days, we were held by water. I came into being by an abyss. The deepest sea in the world. My parents raised me on a forty-three foot sailboat in the Southern Hemisphere. For twelve years, the world settled on us as brine and brushed our toes with kelp. Even now, when I think of touch, I think of ocean.”

"A Box of Winter" is now live at Flash Fiction Online!

My odd, little flash story, "A Box of Winter," about Robert Redford is up at Flash Fiction Online. The first few lines are below, but you can read the whole (quick) affair by clicking here.

"I was watching a documentary about Robert Redford when Robert Redford walked in. He was still dusted over with snow from skiing. In my paint ­covered jeans and beanie, Is howed him around the house. He lifted things gently and asked questions. I answered carefully. ‘Over there is a music box I’ve had since I was a baby.’ He wound the little box, and it played a warbly tune. ‘Here is a stone from the Great Kei River in South Africa.’ He held the stone . . ."

With great thanks, too, to editor Suzanne Vincent.

New poems in Four Way Review. Feeling tired? You can listen while I read them to you.

By some sweet coincidence, Mamie and I are in the same issue of Four Way Review.

You can read/listen to my two poems "Letter in Exchange For" and "Apology to the Narrow Moment" here and to Mamie's "Letter to Yasha in my Third Period AP Lang Class Morning after that Girl She Likes Blocked Her on Instagram" here.

I'm insanely happy to be in her company. And with deep thanks to poetry editor Ross White and the whole team at Four Way--this is a gorgeous issue all around.

A tiny essay for your Monday.

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my mother, rowing the laundry ashore (circa 1984)

Three years ago, I published a very brief, lyric piece of nonfiction in Waccamaw. It's called "Glass House: The First Moment of Her Leaving," and it's about my mother first meeting (or seeing) my father. You can read it here. With thanks to the lovely Cara Blue Adams.

In Ben Steelman's "Bookmarks."

Thanks to the wonderful Ben Steelman at the Star News for this mention of my essay, "Between Dog and Wolf: Essay as Ideolocator" and its notable status in Best American Essays! The column also features a link to a recently published poem, "In the Painter's House" (dedicated to Sullivan Anlyan), in the inaugural issue of the University of Miami's journal, Sinking City!

My poetry and Sully's art now live at Sinking City. Plus, a piece from Emma Bolden.

My poem, "In the Painter's House," accompanies the art of Sullivan Anlyan in the inaugural issue of the beautiful new literary magazine out of the University of Miami, Sinking City! You can read the poem and see Sully's beautiful painting here. We are keeping the loveliest company in this issue, including that of Emma Bolden who contributes "Under the Threat of Eden."

With many thanks to the Editors, and to Chantel Acevedo, in particular. Honored to be included in this beautiful issue.

A new, lyric essay forthcoming in StoryQuarterly.

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My lyric essay, "Three Myths from the Northern Mariana Islands," is forthcoming from one of my favorite literary magazines, StoryQuarterly. The essay is divided into three parts, or three myths, from my native islands, the Marianas, also known as the Isles of Sails and the Isles of Thieves: "Creation Myth," "Myth of the Ancients," and "The Myth of the Lourdes Spring." I'm heart-happy and honored to be included in the issue, and I'll let you know when it drops.

Poems coming out in Four Way Review alongside Mamie Morgan.

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with writer Mamie Morgan in 2014.

I have two poems, "Apology to the Narrow Moment" & "Letter in Exchange For," coming out in the next issue of the beautiful Four Way Review. My friend for twelve years, Mamie Morgan, has work in there, too.

Poems forthcoming in the Olive Press.

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Awaiting the Time for Carrying Out Her Plans on a Large Scale. Pen, ink, and oil on canvas.

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Odyssey. Acrylic, ink, and pencil on wood panel.

Two poems, one dedicated to artist Sullivan Anlyan and one dedicated to, and written after the art of, Severn Eaton, are forthcoming from the Olive Press!

"Sully Writes Haikus" considers, in part, the relationship between memory, desire, and language. Its origins lie in a conversation with Sully about haiku battles.

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Fathom. Acrylic, ink, pencil on wood panel. Hanging here in the Refinery Gallery in Asheville, NC alongside the poem written after it.

"Letter to Severn No. 1" is written after Sev's painting, Fathom, and concerns itself with bliss and transcendence.

"Dog and Wolf: the Time Between" is listed as a notable one in Best American Essays 2016!

My essay, "Dog and Wolf: the Time Between," which appeared first in Southern Humanities Review and was later included in an anthology of North Carolina writers (27 Views of Wilmington), was is in Best American Essays 2016. My thanks to Aaron Alford and Chantel Acevedo.

New poetry in response to art by Severn Eaton here...

My poem, "Letter to Severn, No. 1," an ekphrastic response to Severn Eaton's painting "Fathom," is now hanging alongside its inspiration at The Refinery Co-Op run by the Asheville Area Arts Council.

Severn Eaton is an Asheville-based artist whose work, whether through sculpture, painting, outdoor sound environments, or construction, examines and questions the divisions and barriers we create and rebuild in our daily lives and global interactions. You can read more about the artist and see more work, here.

In print with Sully Anlyan.

I'm thrilled to announce that Sullivan Elaine Anlyan & I are making our ekphrastic debut together as a team in the inaugural issue of the University of Miami's journal Sinking City. My poem "In the Painter's House" will be alongside Sully's painting "Moonage Daydream."

With endless thanks to the irreplaceable Chantel Acevedo.

'She Tells a Story' at the Cameron Art Museum!

Come see me on opening night, Thursday, July 28th, at 6:30pm at the Cameron Art Museum, where I’ll be included in the next iteration of the wildly beautiful 'She Tells a Story' exhibit. In case you've missed it, this is an ekphrastic show in which writers respond to visual art with short, literary pieces that complicate or extend interpretation. Some of my best friends--Chrissy Hennessey, Kathleen Jones, and Katie O'Reilly--and I will be adding our voices to a collection that already features powerhouses Nina DeGramont, May-lee Chai, Emily Smith, Wendy Brenner, and others. Some of the visual art, too, comes from our own, with work, for instance, by Minnie Evans and Abby Spangel Perry. Thanks to Holly Tripman for coordinating. 

"A Box of Winter" forthcoming in Flash Fiction.

This has been a difficult spring in many ways. But there are little balefires here and there. Here is one: my brief story, "A Box of Winter," is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online. I'm happy it's found such an illustrious home.

'Life after Life' published in Arrive Magazine.

'Life after Life,' explores my father becoming unhoused and my becoming a guardian to two small children on three days' notice. The piece has been published in Arrive, Amtrak's on-board magazine.

Thanks, too, to Editor-in-Chief Leigh Flayton, art director Rob Smith, and publicist Whitney Peeling.

Poetry in The Pinch.

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with The Pinch, 36.1 Spring 16

My poem, 'Dear Keeper of Letters,' which I wrote after John Yau is in this issue. And there's an essay by Paul Crenshaw. And Emma Bolden is mentioned and congratulated in the Editor's Note. You know what, the whole issue is gorgeous. You should pick it up. If you visit The Pinch online, you'll find an interview with Lia Purpura, a poem by Philip Levine, and other gems.

"Life After Life" forthcoming in Arrive Magazine.

me, with kan and aaron

My essay about becoming the guardian to my five-year old brother and my six-year old sister on three days' notice is forthcoming in the March issue of Arrive Magazine. Thanks to Editor-in-Chief, Leigh Flayton, and to Whitney Peeling for connecting us.