I’ll be speaking this upcoming Wednesday afternoon at the Tyler Public Library’s Open Door Writing Group. We meet on the 3rd floor of the Tyler Public Library in the Makerspace from 1-3pm. I’ll be speaking about what I learned at the Poetry Society of Texas’ Annual Conference. Hope some of y’all can make it! 🙂
Category: Speaking

I’ll be returning to the Tyler Public Library on Thursday, June 26th to teach Crochet Basics in the 1st floor auditorium starting at 7pm. The class is technically already full (so I’ve also agreed to teach it again in the fall sometime), but there’s a waitlist to be found here: Crochet Class Sign-up.

This Wednesday from 1-3pm in the 3rd floor Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library, I will present my lesson on “Writing Villains”. Hope to see you there!
As requested by one of our lovely writers, I’ll be talking about creating realistic villains at the Open Door Writing Group this Wednesday from 1-3pm at the Tyler Public Library in the 3rd floor Makerspace. Looking forward to seeing y’all then! #writingcommunity #writinglesson #writingforcontests

I’m going to be teaching Beginning Crochet at the Tyler Public Library on April 8th, 2025, starting at 5:30pm. We’ll be learning basics of crochet and everyone will have a little project to take home with them. Hope to see you there!
I’ll be speaking this upcoming Wednesday afternoon at the Tyler Public Library’s Open Door Writing Group. We meet on the 3rd floor of the Tyler Public Library in the Makerspace from 1-3pm. I’ll be speaking about Using Rhythm in Poetry and Prose. Hope some of y’all can make it! 🙂

I’ll be speaking tonight at the meeting of the East Texas Writers Guild on “Sounds in Poetry” at the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building at 6:30pm.
Tomorrow night I’ll be leading a lesson on “Beginner Calligraphy” at the Tyler Public Library at 5:30pm.

A busy week – I’m so excited! 🙂
In February, it felt like I had written practically nothing, so it was sort of a surprise to find out that I wrote 13,543 words. Of those words,
- 353 were for this blog (three short posts),
- 3536 were for my journal,
- 7203 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for East Texas Writers Guild and one for the Open Door Writing Group),
- 1629 were on various social media accounts,
- 421 were poetry (one short poem and one long),
- and 401 were in short stories (two pieces of flash fiction).
There were only four days that I didn’t write anything. I was sick for a lot of the month. So, I didn’t get any poems or short stories submitted anywhere.
As for reading, I read parts of:
- Sound and Form in Modern Poetry by Harvey Gross (paperback; non-fiction)
- Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
- Storyteller: 100 Poem Letters by Moran Harper Nichols (e-book; poetry)
- A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (paperback; non-fiction)
- If Women Rose Rooted: The Power of the Celtic Woman by Sharon Blackie (audiobook; non-fiction)
- The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky (paperback; non-fiction)
I finished reading:
- The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow (e-book; fiction short stories)
- The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War #2) by T. Kingfisher (audiobook; fantasy)
- Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes #1) by Travis Baldree (paperback; fantasy)
- On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity by Daniel Bowman, Jr. (e-book; non-fiction)
PS. It is totally do-able to read Legends and Lattes #1 AFTER you’ve read Legends and Lattes #2 (Bookshelves and Bonedust) if, like me, you didn’t know it was a series.
I have been rescheduled to speak at the March meeting of the East Texas Writer’s Guild on March 10, 2025. They meet from 6:30pm-8:00pm in the Genecov Room of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building (aka The Blackstone Building) in downtown Tyler. I’ll be speaking on Sounds in Poetry. Hope to see some of you there!
I’ve been asked to lead a a couple of sessions of the Tyler Public Library’s “Try It Tuesday!” programs. On March 11, 2025, I’ll be teaching a beginner calligraphy lesson and on April 8, 2025, I’ll be teaching a beginner crochet lesson. Both sessions are free to the public. They run from 5:30-7:30pm in the 3rd floor Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library. Hope to see some of y’all there! 🙂


