The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz (Gyroscope Press, 2023).

My Wisteria

Stagnant in December, a bare stick clinging
                                                                  to a trellis—like a woman
stranded in the wind without the proper overcoat.

                   Memories of Cicada filled nights, 
                                                                                      and perfume, 
its scent misting the veranda lamps with ribbons 
                                                                                       of light pouring on purple petals,

                                                                    she remembers:

A lilac shawl draped over her,
                                                              In her season,
she was cloaked in everything that flowered.

Now, another year etches itself on her gnarled branches,

She has no choice but to be content  
                                                                         until the murmurs 
                                                                                                          Of all that blooms purple 

                                                 happen, yet once again.

Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
She has published six poetry collections: That Infinite Roar, Talking Me Off The Roof, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Simple Gestures, Women at the Onsen, and Somewhere in the Telling. Her book, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.
She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, OneArt, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The New Virginia Review, The South Florida Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
She produced the documentaries, Do Tell, on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and Strangers to Peace, a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia.
She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pen. She currently resides in Florida, where every day is a political poem waiting to be written. Retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.


Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz (Gyroscope Press, 2023).

Steven, Steven

To each other we’d taunt:
What are you gonna do when I’m gone,
think of distant lands, forbidden romance,
and none of the tedium of who left the kitchen light on.

Then, there came the night you were dying—
splayed across black and white
checkered tiles on the bathroom floor.

I can not fathom what I felt then,
only the image of your fading eyes
rolled back in your head,
far away from me.

But you came back, asked: 
did I worry not knowing the password
to the latest bank account,
or the location of the key
to the safety deposit box.

I did not think about that, not at all.
I do not know what I thought then,
I only remember screaming your name,
I can only remember screaming your name.

Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
She has published six poetry collections: That Infinite Roar, Talking Me Off The Roof, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Simple Gestures, Women at the Onsen, and Somewhere in the Telling. Her book, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.
She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, OneArt, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The New Virginia Review, The South Florida Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
She produced the documentaries, Do Tell, on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and Strangers to Peace, a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia.
She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pen. She currently resides in Florida, where every day is a political poem waiting to be written. Retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.


Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz (Gyroscope Press, 2023).

Possibilities for a Girl on a Dirt Road

In the news, it was a pastoral scene, 
what could go wrong, but something did,
the girl on the bike on the dirt road 
snatched and unheard of forever,
but what about the flip side of the record,
where the vinyl does not scratch– 
now the girl on a bike avoids the ruts, 
finds where the sand is solid
and the back wheels do not skid
into scripted disaster, 
but glide smoothly past 
fields of wildflowers,
and the girl will grow 
and learn to call them by name–
aster, periwinkle, Queen Anne’s lace,  
and have a safe place with an ample table 
and a porcelain vase waiting to be filled.

Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
She has published six poetry collections: That Infinite Roar, Talking Me Off The Roof, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Simple Gestures, Women at the Onsen, and Somewhere in the Telling. Her book, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.
She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, OneArt, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The New Virginia Review, The South Florida Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
She produced the documentaries, Do Tell, on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and Strangers to Peace, a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia.
She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pen. She currently resides in Florida, where every day is a political poem waiting to be written. Retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.


Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz (Gyroscope Press, 2023).

Old Married Couple Cutting Watermelon

There are some things 
we just don’t do well together.
I am not your tennis partner.
There are some mountains you climb alone. 
I cannot sing while you tune your guitar.
But, we have learned the rhythm of 
a couple with a cleaver.

We both know how to check for ripeness.
A lawn green skin with a yellow sun 
bursting at its center.      
An ear to the rind,
checking for the sea caught in a shell sound.

At home, we prepare the counter 
find a balance so the orb does not roll,
fill containers with a ruby red squares 
that will quench our aging thirst.

One July day, while you napped 
the temperature grew thick 
as a watermelon skin.
Alone in the kitchen, I tackled the green ball
with a serrated edge,  
found the sweet spot on the counter 
to conquer the roll, sliced the fruit 
in halves and quarters until tins were glowing 
with squares looking like polished gems.

What I thought was a job for two, 
I could do by myself–
handle a knife, square a slice, dispose of rinds,
fill a bowl that only I would gorge from, 
a selfish appetite quenched.

Alone, in the kitchen,
I picked the ripest pieces, 
but the juices did not burst, 
nor run over my tongue
with the same coupled sweetness. 

Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
She has published six poetry collections: That Infinite Roar, Talking Me Off The Roof, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Simple Gestures, Women at the Onsen, and Somewhere in the Telling. Her book, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.
She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, OneArt, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The New Virginia Review, The South Florida Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
She produced the documentaries, Do Tell, on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and Strangers to Peace, a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia.
She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pen. She currently resides in Florida, where every day is a political poem waiting to be written. Retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.


Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Eating Knife by Ayelet Amittay

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from The Eating Knife by Ayelet Amittay (Fernwood Press, 2025).

                              Exhibit S: Pa’ que me quieras por siempre

Leaves on fire, something to hold the loss. The only jar deep enough is the flower at the base of the skull. A flame blossoming in my hand and a knife in the opposite palm. The darkness kneeling with its hands full of wheat. Knee deep in the threshing, oh stand back. Wheat is feathers, wheat is the delicate plates of the skull fusing, refusing. Belkis, cross my back with plate darmor, my knuckles with scales. Let my palms be the ones puckering with fish.

Ayelet Amittay is a poet and psychiatric nurse practitioner in Oregon. Her first book, The Eating Knife, was published in April 2025. Her chapbook, Therapy Room, won second place in the 2024 International 3-Day Chapbook Competition and was published by Harvard Square Press. Ayelet’s poems appear in Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Rattle, and others. She was a Yetzirah scholar in 2025. She runs a private psychiatric practice, Wild Geese Mental Health, and serves as an instructor for the Touchstone Institute.  


Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.


Sundress Reads: Review of Whish

Sundress Reads logo of a bespectacled sheep sitting on a stool drinking tea and reading a book.
Whish by Jackie Craven book cover. A beige border with a collage of small items at the center.

The more I read about time, the more I contemplate my relationship to it, and its fleeting nature, the more overwhelmed I get. I become so tangled up in my own bewilderment, I could never really imagine trying to tackle the subject of time head on in my writing. But what if you had the wisdom, unlike me, to let time’s chaotic nature liberate your writing, rather than frustrate it? That’s exactly what happens in Jackie Craven’s thrillingly original poetry collection Whish (Press 53, 2024). Rather than trying to get a grip on time, Craven embraces the contradiction and fragmentation of memory, allowing her to create poems that are funny, poignant, heartbreaking, disturbing, and always surreal.

Like the majority of the poems in Whish, “Management Has Hired Three New Seconds” is a small paragraph of prose poetry, wherein the title is actually part of the first line. “Management has hired three new seconds, but they mangle every task. One flutters through ceiling vents, one twiddles with the computer fans, one…jams the copy machine” (Craven 3). In response, “Management shrugs—adds a jiffy and a zeptohour. I slump at my desk and pretend the day is round” (Craven 3). The poem, apparently, is about “leap seconds.” The rotation of the Earth is actually often shorter than 24 hours, and the deficit builds up, so roughly every two years, three new seconds are added to the year. Craven writes, “These adjustments are imperfect and can cause technical mishaps and scheduling snafus” (65). The speaker here draws a funny comparison between convoluted, often bad management decisions and being at the mercy of time. Both are confusing, both cause headaches. Indeed, the day may as well be round. Why not?

This poem also includes Craven’s personification of time, another technique she employs throughout the book. Usually they are times of day or specific (but also vague) moments that eventually become characters, complete with their own arcs and esoteric, personal meanings to the narrator. On this, two stand out: “Half Past Yesterday” and “63:13.”

The former first appears in the poem “Half Past Yesterday Has Abandoned Me.” In this short prose poem, the narrator is left to “sulk in the rain-slicked plaza outside the computer repair shop and the delinquent hour doesn’t come…I slog through puddles, a statue learning to walk” (13). Craven seems to have a specific talent for evoking sadness and its many refractions. Here, the speaker has obviously been spurned by “the delinquent hour” (13). Given its peculiar name, maybe it represents the speaker’s inability to move on from the past, still using yesterday as a frame of reference.

We first meet 63:13 in “63:13 Shivers on the Marquee,” a prose poem in which a broken electric clock displays the time 63:13. The narrator poignantly asks “When they fix the clock, where will the broken hour go? / 63:13 blinks, plots a getaway.” 63:13’s meaning is even more elusive than Half Past Yesterday’s, but both reappear throughout Whish, hiding in a freezer, presumably killing a sister, their arcs eventually culminating and colliding in the fourth-to-last poem, Craven writes,

“63:13 Raps At My Door and claims to be Half

Past Tomorrow. I want to believe this. I arrange

anthuriums in a vase on the credenza and my

sister’s ghost follows, sweeping up the rust. She

knows the broken hour is an imposter. No rational

person would mistake 63:13 for an actual time. But

what’s the harm?

The anthuriums are replicas, and the credenza, too.

Everything  in our house, down to the framed portrait

of Half Past Tomorrow, imitates something that the

broken hour spirited away. My sister offers to call

the police, but what good would that do? We are

all replicas, too” (60).

There’s something undeniably eerie and haunted about this poem, and that’s not just because of the presence of the ghost in it, either. If chronology, to quote Einstein (and the epigraph of Whish) is “only a stubbornly persistent illusion,” how then are we to conceive of our selves? Our past? Our griefs, our traumas? It could be a freeing idea, a joyous one even, but the tone of the poem strikes me as being resigned—which I find to be relatable and even poignant. Our illusory nature isn’t bad, and it isn’t good, it just…is. It’s a truth you can spend decades repeating to yourself; to have the wisdom and poetic skill to actually evoke its emotional truth is something few writers ever possess.

This almost hidden storyline is just a glimpse into a truly dazzling masterwork. Some of the best poems in Whish are the ones that break from the prose poetry format. In “Someone Should Do Something About The Clock At City Hall,” a clock breaking down unleashes dinosaurs on an urban landscape: “Soon megalodons will swim into the harbor / and swallow the paddleboats…Pterodactyls collide with flights / from Baltimore” (16). It’s a poem packed with chaotic juxtapositions and great lines. “My Misery Sleeps Through the Sunrise” is a perfect poem for our times in which “Glaciers weep, pathogens carouse, / and in Martha’s Vineyard, manatees / was ashore” (44). And then, in a series of poems throughout the book, there is a deeply unsettling story about a Human Clock, a character held against her will, her speech broken and her skin literally left out to dry. All this in only 60 pages. The only thing to do with a collection like Whish is to dive in with open arms and enjoy the submersion, even when it feels overwhelming, like drowning. Maybe I should do the same thing with time.

Whish is available from Press 53

Joseph Norris has brown hair and stands in front of book shelves.

Joseph Norris graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in May of 2025. He has had short stories and poems published in Gauge magazine, and Emerson Green Mag and has won the Humans of the World Summer Poetry Prize. He lives in Berkeley, California with his girlfriend Macie and their cat, Dory, and is learning how to play the guitar and the banjolin.

Project Bookshelf: Savannah Roach

If you want to know who I am, look at my bookshelf. It’s stacked with stories that explore where and how women fit in our world, particularly through the lens of Southern culture and complicated love. I was born and raised in the South, so I’ve always been drawn to books that understand the heaviness and beauty of that inheritance. The sweet tea, the unspoken rules, and the expectations. The contradictions of being a Southern woman, soft-spoken but sharp, raised to be strong yet always remain passive in society, echo in so many of the stories I love most.

Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina lives at the heart of my collection. It’s raw, aching, and rooted in the dirt and pain of South Carolina. It tells the kind of truth that Southern women often whisper behind closed doors, and it always brought me a strange sense of nostalgia and an urge to retaliate. This book showed me what true heartbreak and hopelessness mean and where to go after.

My next pick is admittedly a bit sappy, but it will always remain on my bookshelf. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks tells a story of enduring love, societal pressure, and a Southern landscape that continues to resonate. This book is definitely a comfort read, and the one that reminds me that softness doesn’t always mean weakness. I find myself returning to The Notebook for a taste of true love and Southern charm.

Then there’s The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It might not be Southern, but Gloria Gilbert is one of those women who refuses to settle, even as the world tries to drown her in expectations. That tug-of-war between self and society feels familiar, like something Southern girls inherit through more than just words.

Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing has everything my kind of book has. Love, mystery, societal pressure, classism, curiosity: it’s a story about nature, loneliness, and survival. Kya’s life is shaped by the Southern wilderness, as well as by the social hierarchies that attempt to confine her.

And finally, Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors is the newest addition, but one that resonates deeply. While it’s more cosmopolitan in setting, the emotional unraveling of a young woman trying to figure out how much of herself she’s allowed to be feels incredibly familiar.

My bookshelf tells stories of women who don’t fit neatly into the roles society hands them, especially Southern women who carry the weight of tradition and the fire of rebellion. These books remind me that we are allowed to be messy, bold, hurt, hopeful, and everything in between.

Savannah Roach (she/her) is a senior at the University of Tennessee, where she majors in English with a concentration in technical communication and minors in advertising and public relations. She is a travel enthusiast, bookworm, amateur baker, and nature lover. While she enjoys books of all kinds, she’s especially drawn to the haunting beauty and rich atmosphere of Southern Gothic literature. With a great love for Knoxville, she looks forward to serving the writing community in this position. 

Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents December Poetry Xfit

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Alexa White. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, December 28th, from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with the password “safta”.

Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!

Alexa White

Alexa White is a mixed-race, neurodivergent writer and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her BA in creative writing and studio art. Alexa lives in Knoxville, her semi-hometown, and is the Creative Director and Assistant Editor at Sundress. She takes delight in backroads, quarries, and the last few seconds of sunset and redefines her bedtime nightly.

This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.


While this is a free event, donations can be made to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here.

Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents “Word/Play: A Generative Poetry Workshop”

Word Play: led by Aerik Francis

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Word/Play: A Generative Poetry Workshop,” a workshop led by Aerik Francis on Wednesday, December 10th from 6:00-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta)

Wordplay is time traveling: it is an opportunity to explore the history of words and languages while also crafting new futures and directions for words and language. Wordplay can bring fun
and pleasure back into the craft of writing. Words can also enact dramatic plays, exploring the
nuances of language using sound and employing multiple meanings at once.

This generative writing poetry workshop is an invitation to play with words and engage critically with craft. We will begin with an opportunity to sandbox and play with language based on impulse and intuition. Then, after our warm up writing activity where we will gather a bank of words and sounds, we will spend the workshop discussing tools and poetry related to wordplay with a special focus on homonyms, homophones, and puns.

We’ll draw inspiration from work by authors like Christina Sharpe, Evelyn Berry, Franny Choi, Emily Pérez, and Haryette Mullen before experimenting on our own. By the end of the workshop, we’ll all hopefully have seedlings of poetic writing for future work and more craft tools to bring back into our own craft practices.

While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Aerik Francis via Venmo at @Aerik-Francis or via Paypal at aerfrancis@gmail.com.

A Black Latinx person stands in front of a wooden fence and smiles while looking off into the distance. They are wearing glasses with blue frames, a denim jacket, and a white shirt with red flowers on it. They are bald with a dark beard.

Aerik Francis is a Queer Black Latinx poet born & based on the lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples currently known as Denver, Colorado, USA. Aerik wants us to come together and gum up the gears of the machinery of the empire toward all of our collective liberation. Their poetry chapbook MISEDUCATION (New Delta Review 2023) can be purchased online or in person, and their newest poetry chapbook BODYPOLITIC is forthcoming with Abode Press in 2026. Find more of their work on their website phaentompoet.com or via social media @phaentompoet.

This event is brought to you by a grant provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Eating Knife by Ayelet Amittay

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from The Eating Knife by Ayelet Amittay (Fernwood Press, 2025).

Landscape with Animated Deer

                                              Now winter, thorny boughs, the cold
                                              to stand against, everything
                                              visible as breath, near-breaking.
                                              And this herd, their bodies spooled
                                              wire and lights. The rigid bow,
                                              lift, bow of their heads just hammers home
                                              how useless grazing is to them
                                              in their empty frames. Even so,
                                              their faces seem familiar and kind,
                                              and I see myself in the tight
                                              wire armature, studded with lights
                                              that blink and flicker into wind.
                                              They shed their pale glow over the lawn,
                                              casting themselves against the house
                                              and shrubs with a selfless animal grace,
                                              as when, in a predawn blur years gone,
                                              I walked the spine of a hill in the thaw
                                              of another winter’s death, and saw
                                              a deer step to the edge of the wood.
                                              I was lit by that flare, the electric blood.   

Ayelet Amittay is a poet and psychiatric nurse practitioner in Oregon. Her first book, The Eating Knife, was published in April 2025. Her chapbook, Therapy Room, won second place in the 2024 International 3-Day Chapbook Competition and was published by Harvard Square Press. Ayelet’s poems appear in Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Rattle, and others. She was a Yetzirah scholar in 2025. She runs a private psychiatric practice, Wild Geese Mental Health, and serves as an instructor for the Touchstone Institute.  


Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.