Introducing Contributing Editor of Fiction Max Delsohn
Introducing Contributing Editor of Fiction Max Delsohn
Welcome, Max! We’re excited to have you as the Contributing Editor of Fiction for Vol. 29 of Water~ Stone Review. Your debut collection of short stories, Crawl was published by Graywolf Press in October of last year. Since then it’s received a lot of praise and appeared on several “Best Books” lists. Congratulations!
Thank you so much. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year already–It’s all still very surreal!
What are the themes and topics you find yourself returning to in your writing? What are your obsessions?
I write about trans men near-exclusively. I’m interested in the unique relationship a given trans man has to the world around him. Transitioning thrusts you into a very different kind of life than cis people. When I transitioned, I didn’t know how to think about it. It’s hard to think about transness because trans thought, speech, art, etc is so aggressively suppressed. When I first came out as trans it was very difficult for me to find rigorous, nuanced writing about the experiences I was having. Relatedly, I have always been obsessed with the concept of desire. I love trying to find language that maps desire.
I noted on your website that you’ve worked as a stand-up comedian. How does your comedy influence your writing? Your writing influence your comedy?
I no longer work as a stand-up, but I do draw from it sometimes in my fiction. There’s a character in Crawl that is just starting out as a comic. I quit stand-up because I realized I only wanted to write jokes, I didn’t really want to perform them onstage or have to organically engage with the crowd. I think doing stand-up taught me, above all, not to waste a second when you have your audience’s attention. In stand-up, this can be as small as how you hold your hands on stage, or when you take a breath, which syllables of which words you emphasize, etc. Short stories benefit from this degree of scrutiny–every sentence, word, and sound should land somewhere between very good and perfect. It should be doing something–maybe it’s only a tonal flourish, maybe it’s information that complexifies a character, whatever, but it should strike the reader as useful or pleasurable or interesting or valuable in some way.
As an editor, what draws you to a piece of writing? Is there a particular lens you read through? What makes a piece stand out?
Boldness. I like when writing really shocks me–with its originality or strangeness, its edginess, its beauty, its vulnerability. So much in this life is boring and the same. I would like to see some really weird, personal shit.
What will you be looking for in the fiction submitted to Volume 29 of Water~Stone Review?
I am looking for stories that use language in surprising, intentional ways that serve the greater ideas the writer is pursuing–My favorite stories have real stakes, stakes for the writer that I, as the reader, can feel. Like, why did you write this? What’s the burning question at the heart of this story, where’s the desperate grasping for insight?
What writing project are you currently working on?
I am working on a novel about a trans man who goes to an orgy in New York.
Current favorite writers, fiction and otherwise?
This is an absurdly difficult question! I just finished reading Harron Walker’s new novel, Veronica Place, and I loved it so much that I can’t even speak about it. I have been recommending it to people but it’s mainly been me telling them the title of the book then looking into their eyes meaningfully? I don’t know, I haven’t found the words to express how much I love this book yet. Some other books I read recently and loved: Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patrick Cottrell, The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink, and Early Work by Andrew Martin come to mind.
Max Delsohn is the author of Crawl (Graywolf Press, 2025), a short story collection about trans men living in 2010s Seattle. Crawl was named a best book of the year by Vulture, Them, Electric Literature, Debutiful, and Chicago Review of Books, as well as a November Indie Next List pick. His short fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, VICE, Joyland, The Rumpus, Triangle House, Lit Hub, and Nat. Brut, among other places. He received his MFA degree from Syracuse University and now lives in Los Angeles.
Introducing Contributing Editor of Creative Nonfiction Jax Connelly
Introducing Contributing Editor of Creative Nonfiction Jax Connelly
Welcome! We’re excited to have you as the Volume 29 Contributing Editor for Creative Nonfiction. Your essay “Not So Soft” appeared in Vol. 26 of Water~Stone Review back in 2023. Since then you have had a ton of publishing success including winning the Red Hen Press Quill Prose Prize. Congratulations! Can you share a little about the forthcoming book?
Thank you, I’m so excited too! This is my first book, and I’m calling it a “memoir in essays and experiments.” I think “Not So Soft” is a good touchpoint for what to expect from it—that essay interrogates a difficult family relationship alongside a shared history of eating disorders, and the whole thing takes place while the narrator is on a run. The “container” creates a sense of almost false momentum and doomful circling that mimics the feeling of being trapped in a cycle, either with your own body or with someone you love.
A lot of the essays in my book are like that, too. Unstable bodies and the limitations of love/connection are thematic “wells” I return to in a lot of my writing, and I’m always interested in playing with form and structure in ways that either elevate mundane daily experiences (going on a run, turning thirty, adopting a rescue dog), or capture in language something that usually feels ineffable (an eating disorder, liminal queer intimacies, trauma of any kind).
Most of the essays in the book first appeared in literary magazines and journals like Water~Stone Review, so just a reminder to everyone to keep submitting. It matters, and it can lead to other opportunities later down the line.
There is a certain vulnerability in writing Creative Nonfiction. What attracts you to the genre?
I think readers tend to have more solidified expectations for fiction and poetry than they do for creative nonfiction. Those other categories have been around longer than creative nonfiction, which, in my opinion, is kind of a Trojan Horse of a genre. That starts with its name—people hear “creative nonfiction” and they think it’s a paradox. If it’s nonfiction, then how can it be creative? But that “contradiction” is exactly why creative nonfiction can be anything you want it to be. It takes what most people associate with the word “essay,” which is a piece of writing that argues for or against something, and it breaks it apart and then drops all the pieces outside where there are no boundaries or rules anymore.
In creative nonfiction, an essay can be an argument, but it can also be a prose poem, or a story, or a collage of scenes or dreams. It can hide in the form of a worksheet or an intake form or the footnotes. It can move around on the page in unexpected ways, and it can use erasure and white space and run-on sentences to make a point without actually making it, or to make a point and then un-make it, and it can jump and circle around something to force the reader to engage with the text on a different level than what they’re used to, to find a different way in.
I agree there’s a certain vulnerability in writing creative nonfiction, but I’m not sure it’s any more vulnerable than writing poetry or fiction. Across genres, writers put themselves in their work. Essayists need to be as rigorous about craft and technique as any other writer. Sure, I’m writing about “real life,” and I may be putting more of myself onto the page than a novelist, even someone who’s writing autofiction. But I’m still making decisions about exactly how to write it, what to leave in, what to leave out, what to layer on top of and underneath it, how to organize everything, what ideas and emotions and philosophies these “facts” and truths relate to, where I’m asking the reader to follow me and how far.
Creative nonfiction is vulnerable, but it’s not raw material. It’s not a diary entry. I think the best creative nonfiction is vulnerable and voice-y enough that it invites the reader in, but intentional and crafted enough that it also leaves space for the reader and the unknown experiences and ideas and wounds they might be bringing to the page.
What are the themes and topics you find yourself returning to in your own writing?
I was drawn to Quill because it’s an award specifically for queer writers. My work is inherently queer, and not just because I am queer and I write about queer themes and experiences. I think of queerness as a disruptive/disrupting force that is alive in more than just the literal content of a piece of writing. I’m often working in experimental prose forms and calling attention to the artifice of craft in an attempt to push back against the kind of narrative “truth” we believe we are owed when we’re reading genres like nonfiction and memoir.
As an editor, what draws you to a piece of writing? Is there a particular lens you read through? What makes a piece stand out?
I’m a sucker for a braided essay that contains several threads which maybe don’t seem all that related to each other on the surface, but which interrogate and complicate each other more deeply as you keep reading, and then the author drops you in an ending where it’s suddenly so clear why every single one of those threads was necessary to making the essay what it is (the classic example here is “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard, but I recently came across “Habibi” by MM Gindi and it knocked me over in the same way). Cascading variables, echoes, recurring image systems—all of that really makes my brain light up, when reading an essay almost feels like a puzzle you’re solving alongside the writer in real time (Jenny Boully is really good at echoes and image systems, unsurprising since she’s a poet at heart).
On that note, I love flash that feels like prose poetry (River Teeth’s Beautiful Things series has some really good examples, like this one by Jo Rzepiejewski), and I love anything collagey and nonlinear, and I LOVE a hermit crab or anything formally experimental, where the container of the essay is as important to what it’s saying and doing as its contents (“5 Variations on Submissions to the Texas Right to Life Heartbeat Act Anonymous Tip Form” by Coyote Shook is a great example, and so is this incredible series by Daniel Uncapher where every line is foraged from a work in the public domain).
What will you be looking for in the CNF submitted to Volume 29 of Water~Stone Review?
Dark humor, repetition, obsession, rhythm and momentum. Anything about embodiment, loss of all kinds, big irrational feelings alongside big rational ideas, mundane experiences that feel important for a reason only you can explain. Anything only you can explain! And break it up, break it apart. Don’t give it to me straight. I know a lot of people say that with essays you’re allowed to show AND tell, but I find that most of my favorite essays trust the reader to make up their own minds, and leave space for them to do so. Make us work a little bit. It’s scary to trust your reader, but I’ve found it’s usually worth the risk.
Current favorite books?
I try to read a book a week so I have a lot of favorites lately! Here are my top 10 so far this year:
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
- Not A River by Selva Almada
- Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
- Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel
- Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America by Sarah Kendzior
- Mega Milk by Megan Milks
- Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson
- All Fours by Miranda July
- Three by Ann Quin
What writing project are you currently working on?
I have a few projects in the works, including a family memoir and a second essay collection, and I recently started a monthly Substack where I’m writing about the intersections of “creative nonfiction” with whatever thing I’m obsessed with lately (so far that’s included Love Island USA s8 and the new Phoebe Bridgers album). But the project I’m most excited about is one that has been eluding me for five years. It’s about the dissolution of a relationship between two gender-nonconforming people with eating disorder and addiction issues. I’ve rewritten it and rewritten it and rewritten it, pulled it into two separate projects and then braided it all back together again, added and subtracted and expanded. The current version contains nonfiction vignettes along with some fictional elements and poetry. I’m about to dive back into it after a bit of a hiatus, so we’ll see if it’s as done as I remember it being.
Introducing Contributing Editor of Poetry Mai Der Vang
Introducing Contributing Editor of Poetry Mai Der Vang
Welcome! We’re excited to have you as the Volume 29 Contributing Editor for Poetry. Your poem, “I the Body of Laos and All My UXOs” appeared in Vol. 19 of Water~Stone Review back in 2016. Since then you have had a ton of publishing success publishing three collections with Graywolf Press. Congratulations!
Thank you! It’s my pleasure to serve as a contributing editor. I love Water~Stone Review and I remember feeling thrilled at the acceptance of that poem. It’s hard to believe that was a decade ago! I have such fondness for journals like Water~Stone Review that took a chance on my work before I even had any books.
In addition to poetry, you also write and publish essays. What draws you to write in each of these genres? What attracts you to each?
While I stick mostly to poetry, I’ve also written essays and recently published my first piece of fiction. I think I’m drawn to prose when I want to write something that lets me linger in the language as I attempt to spell out a particular thought or idea, however realized or unrealized it may be. I never can tell where my prose will go as nothing ever feels certain. I’m always changing my mind and working through transmutations of lines into sentences, stanzas into paragraphs.
With poetry, it’s somewhat similar. I might come to a poem with a sound or a word or an image, but I can never predict where the language will take me. I think I will always love the poem more because I prefer the linguistic surrender that feels so inherent to the act of writing poetry. It involves letting go of control and allowing myself to fall through the ruptures of language. Something about that just feels more honest.
What are the themes and topics you find yourself returning to in your writing? What are your obsessions?
I find myself returning to themes of exile, war, and refugee displacement in connection to the lasting and destructive repercussions of empires past and present. I write about being Hmong and about the tragic human and environmental outcomes of war as it relates to the Hmong experience of being forced to serve as proxy soldiers for the CIA during the US war in Vietnam. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop writing about that. But I also love writing about the natural world, whether it’s the oceans or the heavens or the land in between. I think a lot, too, about the growing fragility of our world’s climate.
As an editor, what draws you to a piece of writing? Is there a particular lens you read through? What makes a piece stand out?
I love poems that ultimately surprise me, poems that are unafraid to leap in their own wild, miraculous, and spontaneous ways. Maybe there’s something happening in the varied syntax of the lines or in the distortion of details. Maybe the poem is visually or stanzaically structured in a way that encourages me to investigate. Maybe the poem is prodding at a deeper truth about something happening or that has happened in the world. Or maybe the poem is pushing through a wall of uncertainty while coming to terms with the continued questions ahead. I also love poems that experiment with sound and musicality, poems that invent their own rhythm, and poems that teach me to rethink language. I’m open to it all!
What will you be looking for in the poetry submitted to Volume 29 of Water~Stone Review?
To the submitters out there, I would love to see everything – poems you’re proud of, poems you hold close, poems you loathe, poems that have been rejected, poems that amplify the rage of our time, poems that speak to who you are as a poet and what you love about the craft. Revise your poems. Give me your very best. Throw in a few you’re skeptical of. I’m excited to read your work!
Current favorite poets?
My list is always growing, but I’m currently enjoying the work of Jake Skeets, Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, Mai-Linh Hong, and Gbenga Adesina, to name a few.
What writing project are you currently working on?
I’m all over the place with multiple projects floating around in my head and scattered on my desk. At the moment, I’m experimenting with some new poems that practice concision on the page and in the line. I’m a bit excited to throw myself into another documentary poetry project. And I’ve been trying my hand at short stories while testing my language in ways that feel new, different, and somewhat uncomfortable. I get bored easily so I love a good challenge when it comes to what I can produce as a writer. I’m grateful to be at a place in my work, however brief it may be, where I can play and experiment without deadlines or defined outcomes. Here’s to the possibilities ahead!
Mai Der Vang is the author of Primordial (Graywolf Press, 2025), Yellow Rain (Graywolf Press, 2021), and Afterland (Graywolf Press, 2017). Her honors include the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an American Book Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets, among others. The recipient of a Guggenheim and Lannan Literary Fellowship, she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State and recently served as the Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.
Welcome! We’re excited to have you as the Volume 29 Contributing Editor for Poetry. Your poem, “I the Body of Laos and All My UXOs” appeared in Vol. 19 of Water~Stone Review back in 2016. Since then you have had a ton of publishing success publishing three collections with Graywolf Press. Congratulations!
Thank you! It’s my pleasure to serve as a contributing editor. I love Water~Stone Review and I remember feeling thrilled at the acceptance of that poem. It’s hard to believe that was a decade ago! I have such fondness for journals like Water~Stone Review that took a chance on my work before I even had any books.
In addition to poetry, you also write and publish essays. What draws you to write in each of these genres? What attracts you to each?
While I stick mostly to poetry, I’ve also written essays and recently published my first piece of fiction. I think I’m drawn to prose when I want to write something that lets me linger in the language as I attempt to spell out a particular thought or idea, however realized or unrealized it may be. I never can tell where my prose will go as nothing ever feels certain. I’m always changing my mind and working through transmutations of lines into sentences, stanzas into paragraphs.
With poetry, it’s somewhat similar. I might come to a poem with a sound or a word or an image, but I can never predict where the language will take me. I think I will always love the poem more because I prefer the linguistic surrender that feels so inherent to the act of writing poetry. It involves letting go of control and allowing myself to fall through the ruptures of language. Something about that just feels more honest.
What are the themes and topics you find yourself returning to in your writing? What are your obsessions?
I find myself returning to themes of exile, war, and refugee displacement in connection to the lasting and destructive repercussions of empires past and present. I write about being Hmong and about the tragic human and environmental outcomes of war as it relates to the Hmong experience of being forced to serve as proxy soldiers for the CIA during the US war in Vietnam. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop writing about that. But I also love writing about the natural world, whether it’s the oceans or the heavens or the land in between. I think a lot, too, about the growing fragility of our world’s climate.
As an editor, what draws you to a piece of writing? Is there a particular lens you read through? What makes a piece stand out?
I love poems that ultimately surprise me, poems that are unafraid to leap in their own wild, miraculous, and spontaneous ways. Maybe there’s something happening in the varied syntax of the lines or in the distortion of details. Maybe the poem is visually or stanzaically structured in a way that encourages me to investigate. Maybe the poem is prodding at a deeper truth about something happening or that has happened in the world. Or maybe the poem is pushing through a wall of uncertainty while coming to terms with the continued questions ahead. I also love poems that experiment with sound and musicality, poems that invent their own rhythm, and poems that teach me to rethink language. I’m open to it all!
What will you be looking for in the poetry submitted to Volume 29 of Water~Stone Review?
To the submitters out there, I would love to see everything – poems you’re proud of, poems you hold close, poems you loathe, poems that have been rejected, poems that amplify the rage of our time, poems that speak to who you are as a poet and what you love about the craft. Revise your poems. Give me your very best. Throw in a few you’re skeptical of. I’m excited to read your work!
Current favorite poets?
My list is always growing, but I’m currently enjoying the work of Jake Skeets, Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, Mai-Linh Hong, and Gbenga Adesina, to name a few.
What writing project are you currently working on?
I’m all over the place with multiple projects floating around in my head and scattered on my desk. At the moment, I’m experimenting with some new poems that practice concision on the page and in the line. I’m a bit excited to throw myself into another documentary poetry project. And I’ve been trying my hand at short stories while testing my language in ways that feel new, different, and somewhat uncomfortable. I get bored easily so I love a good challenge when it comes to what I can produce as a writer. I’m grateful to be at a place in my work, however brief it may be, where I can play and experiment without deadlines or defined outcomes. Here’s to the possibilities ahead!
Bio: Mai Der Vang is the author of Primordial (Graywolf Press, 2025), Yellow Rain (Graywolf Press, 2021), and Afterland (Graywolf Press, 2017). Her honors include the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an American Book Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets, among others. The recipient of a Guggenheim and Lannan Literary Fellowship, she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State and recently served as the Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.
Welcome Assistant Fiction Editor Xander Bilyk
Welcome Assistant Fiction Editor Xander Bilyk
Welcome Xander Bilyk as Assistant Editor of Fiction for Volume 29
I know you write poetry, fiction, stand up comedy, and songs. What is it that draws you to each of these genres? Do you have a favorite right now?
I talk to the Muses. Sometimes things come as an energy, and I have to decide what specific shape they want; are you a poem, are you a song, a stand up bit, a story? Sometimes it carries across all genres, and sometimes it’s like, “hey, I just like being played at the piano,” or, “I just want to make people laugh.”
I enjoy working in different genres, maybe out of procrastination because if I’m supposed to write a fiction story I find myself writing music or poetry, but I also tell people that’s the cure for writer’s block; if you can’t write a sestina, write a limerick, or paint a giraffe. Switch mediums and figure out where the muses are taking you. Currently, my focus is fiction because that’s where I need to learn the discipline to build something bigger, love something enough I can carry it for hundreds of pages, polish and revise until I can bring it into the world.
Also, I want to back up and say that everything is poetry.
I’ve had the pleasure of hearing you read some of your poetry. What inspires your poetry? What topics do you find yourself returning to in your writing?
Every single thing is inspiration. I really love a good writing prompt that challenges you to write something about insects, or squirrels, or shoes. I say if an inkling of an idea for a poem pops in your head: write it. I don’t shy away from topics; I write about a sack of potatoes as much as I write about love or death or queerness or politics. Writing with my own voice is what makes it art. I love bending mythology and retelling a story. It’s like storytelling is evolution and stories adapt and change with every generation, and now it’s my turn.
Over the last few years, you’ve been a screener/reader for Water~Stone Review. What attracts you to a piece of writing? What do you look for in the work that you read?
Something bold. Something has to happen that is memorable. If something sticks in your head after reading 20 more submissions, give it another look. I said it three times, so I believe the magic word I’m looking for is, “something.”
As an editor, what makes a piece of fiction stand out to you? What will you be looking for in the fiction submitted to Volume 29?
Well, Meghan didn’t give me the job because she wanted me to publish “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Maybe Mary has a thirst for vengeance. Maybe she was born with the head of a fish.
Where can readers find your work? (Include a link or two to things you’ve published if you like)
You’re likely to catch me at Unlikely Stories
Who are some of your favorite authors? Favorite books?
My poets are, like, Sylvia Plath. Anne Sexton. Sharon Olds. Patricia Smith, Patti Smith. If you read my work you probably wouldn’t guess my favorite poet is Syliva Plath, but once you see it you can’t unsee it.
My fiction crushes are NK Jemisin, Phillip Pullman, Octavia Butler, Tom Robbins, Queen Ursula.
What are you working on now?
I’m synthesizing a poetry collection called, “The Passion of the Fly” and a novel/speculative memoir titled, “The Fruit of the Month Club.”
‘Xander Bilyk (he/they/whatchamacallit) is a third year MFA student at Hamline. They are a writer of fiction, poetry, music, and stand up comedy. They recently received the Deborah Keenan Poetry Award, and were voted top five queer performers in New Orleans FLAME magazine. Aside from being the assistant fiction editor for waterstone, were last year’s associate editor for Runestone Journal, a mentor for the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop, a graduate assistant event coordinator for the creative writing program, and they work providing in home support to disabled adults.
Welcome Assistant Poetry Editor Beth Forsyth
Welcome Assistant Poetry Editor Beth Forsyth
Welcome Beth Forsyth as the Volume 29 Assistant Editor of Poetry.
I know you write poetry almost exclusively. What is it you love about poetry
Concision! I’m pretty short-winded and I really admire that in poetry every letter, space, and punctuation mark has the opportunity to make meaning. There’s so much care that comes with attention.
I’ve had the pleasure of hearing you read some of your poetry. What inspires your poetry? What topics do you find yourself returning to in your writing?
Thank you! Sometimes I think I’m just writing the same poems over and over again; I write about my dad, my truck, my dogs, and my best friend. If I had to give it a category, I’d say my work always comes back to love and its symptoms: the anxiety, the wanting, and most importantly the joy of it.
Over the last few years, you’ve been a screener/reader for Water~Stone Review. What attracts you to a piece of poetry? What do you look for in work that you read?
I think as a reader I’m always looking for something that makes me feel with the poet, even if I can’t explain what the feeling is. I also love a piece that is playful with language; as a reader you can feel the relationship an author has with their words. There’s a certain intimacy that comes with a piece that is completely comfortable with itself.
As an editor, what makes a piece of poetry stand out to you? What will you be looking for in the poetry submitted to Volume 29?
Sincerity. I think it always starts there, if I believe a poem, if I feel a poem, if the poem moves me, it always starts with sincerity, even before understanding.
Technically, I always love a piece that feels tight. What I mean by this is a piece where every part of the poem is working together to create a larger meaning. I especially adore pieces that use the line to their advantage.
Where can readers find your work? (Include a link or two to things you’ve published if you like)
To be honest, I haven’t done a lot of submitting since undergrad. But I do have a piece I was lucky enough to place in Plumwood Mountain Journal a few years ago.
https://plumwoodmountain.com/poem/on-having-to-leave-my-dogs-alone-to-come-into-work-on-my-day-off/
Who are some of your favorite authors? Favorite books?
My all time favorite poet is Wendy Xu, especially her collection YOU ARE NOT DEAD, which was my first introduction to modern free verse. I also really admire Franny Choi, Ada Limon, and of course some Mary Oliver. I love poets that have a playful relationship with language and an eye for the ordinary. Recently I’ve been revisiting Terrance Hayes’ How to be Drawn, and Anthony McCann’s Thing Music. If I had to pick something outside of poetry, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong will always be a favorite.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently in my thesis year at Hamline, so I’m working on a poetry collection. It’s a lot about love and the grief that comes with it, and also about redefining intimacy through queerness. If I’m lucky I might sneak some art in there.
Beth Forsyth is a poet whose work has appeared in The Laurus and Plumwood Mountain Journal, and is a recipient of the Deborah Keenan Poetry Prize. She is currently creating in Minneapolis MN.