Howdy! As always, I’m here to share good news. I won’t bury the lede: I escaped working in higher education. I am tremendously relieved. Circumstances for professors have been bleak, as I’m sure you’re all aware. If you know me, you know where I landed. Of course, I’ll always be an educator somehow. I’ve got a workshop about Edna St. Vincent Millay and the sonnet coming up this fall with The Writer’s Garret, in fact. It’s going to be so much fun!
In other news, remember that Praisesong for the People project I mentioned? It has generated more good things, as terrific projects tend to do. Amanda Johnston, the brilliant 61st Texas Poet Laureate and creator of the project, mentioned my work in this beautiful essay over at The Academy of American Poets about the importance of poetry and praise. Also, I was quoted in this Texas Observer article rightfully giving Johnston her flowers. The anthology of all the praisesong poems will drop November 4th, 2025! The timing is wonderful, as my Inner Moonlight feature for November 12th is none other than Amanda Johnston! I can’t wait.
Back in June of this year, I had the great honor of having Welcome to Midland featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed series at Sundress Publications! They shared five blog posts featuring poems from the book: “Welcome to Midland,” “Permian Sea,” “Dream in Which I Am Wile E. Coyote,” “Rules,” and “Rainmakers, 1891.” Big thanks to editor Krista Cox for showing my book some love!
I’ve also had the tremendous pleasure of collaborating with Dallas nonprofit Badge of Pride. From June 6 to September 28, 2025, the Irving Archive and Museum hosted Badge of Pride’s queer history exhibit, “From Silence… to Celebration!” I performed at their opening event on June 5th along with some other fantastic queer performers.
Like I said, great projects tend to create more amazing things. This powerful and moving exhibit inspired a community member to write a poem, which she shared on social media. That poem sparked a project called “Say It Loud! Queer Poets Respond to History,” which I had the honor of co-curating with poet LyriK Hunter. LyriK and I gathered poets who each wrote a poem in response to an artifact from the exhibit. Those poems were performed on October 5th at a beautiful event to commemorate the closing of the exhibit. You can find videos of all the poems and more information about the poets at the Badge of Pride website. I am deeply proud of what we created. North Texas is home to so many talented queer artists, and we will not be erased.
Stay tuned! There’s even more good news that will come out of this project. Check out this photo of me from the “Say It Loud!” event:
Photo by Kali Rhe
Finally, I have so many things to tell you about Inner Moonlight. Since I posted last, I’ve had some very special events. In February of this year, I added an extra date so I could host Rachel Richardson’s Dallas book launch for her latest collection, Smother. We were in conversation with Dallas poets Nomi Stone and Tarfia Faizulluh and we had a great time!
In April, we celebrated Inner Moonlight’s 7th anniversary with a huge poetry party, like always. It’s wild that the show has been going on that long! I am so grateful to the poetry community for continuing to make the show absolutely magical! Also in April, we celebrated The Wild Detectives’ 11th anniversary with another collaboration with storytelling event Talking Dirty After Dark. I loved the storytelling collaboration last year and I’m so stoked we got to do it again!
In June, I decided to try something a little different. I hosted my first-ever all open mic show celebrating Pride! Inner Moonlight always has lots of queer folks in the audience and on the mic, both as features and open mic participants. I figured an entire event focused on celebrating queer poetry would be super fun and a much-needed relief and I was right. Poets were invited to read original queer poems or a poem by one of their queer heroes. It was such a powerful night! I aim to do it again next year.
Alright, y’all. That’s all I have for now. Y’all be good out there—keep writing, keep showing up for poetry, take care of each other. I’ll see you next time with more good news.