New Year, Old Stats

Happy New Year from your favorite once-again delinquent blogger!

I would make an resolution to keep better records in 2026, but over the last year I've become especially wary of making any kind of statement or promise I don't know I can keep---this wariness extends out to people who do so as well as my own internal shortcomings. I'm sensible enough to know I haven't had the best track record with this as well as have suffered it with others. However! If there's one thing I can keep track of, it's my writing, it's my reading. So, here are some stats for the not-so-great year of 2025

• Finished rewriting my Hades & Persephone retelling (novel) and began querying agents.

• My short story A MIRROR FOR THE DEAD came out in The Masters Review.

• BAD ANIMAL was featured on Sundress' The Wardrobe's Best Dressed.

• Two of my poems were featured in Painted Bride Quarterly's Issue 108!

  
  

  

• I completed the Tin House Winter Writer's Workshop for short fiction in Farah Ali's workshop---she compared by writing to the story BULLET IN THE BRAIN by Tobias Wolff (which is the best complimnent I could have hoped for.)

• Two poems of mine came out in Modern Language Studies!

  
  

  

• One of my poems made it into Cherry Tree's Issue 11!

  
  

  

• Attended two conferences, NEMLA 2025 in Philadelphia, and Universality Renewed at the University of Minnesota, hosted by their Comparative Literature Department.

• Read with good friend and mentor, Julia Kolchinsky in Philadelphia to celebrate her new book, the fantastic PARALLAX, finalist for the 2025 Miller Williams Poetry Prize.

• The first of my hurricane stories, SINGING AT CLOCKS, went live in The Lindenwood Review! The Lindenwood Review was one of the first outlets to take a poem from BAD ANIMAL, so it's beyond exciting to find my fiction now in their pages.

  

• My short story, WRAITH, was accepted by the minnesota review! It'll be out sometime soon. Ghosts! Sapphic ghosts! Loss! Longing!

• I got to go back to my alma mater, Bryn Mawr College, for reunion and got to read at the Alumn/ae/i Authors event. Talk about surreal.

  

• Finished my first year of my Ph.D.!

• A poem from my second manuscript GRIEF SUITE was chosen by Airea D. Matthews for a curated slate of poetry for June. Find YOU, SON, THE EXECUTIONER here.

• My poem, IT ISN’T UNTIL I’M LECTURING MY STUDENTS ON FIRE SAFETY AND THEY’RE ALL LOOKING AT ME LIKE I’VE GROWN TWO HEADS THAT I REALIZE MAYBE I’M NOT TAKING YOUR DEATH AS WELL AS I THOUGHT – $ was a finalist for Best of the Net 2025.

• Had to cut ties with people I loved very much and clocked 30K of a new novel in two weeks (ouch, said my wrists.)

• My novella, VIEWS FROM A PLAGUE ROOM, was accepted for publication by Querencia Press, release date TBD.

• Started year two of the Ph.D!

• Had the privilege to read at Chelsea Fanning's book launch in Philadelphia!

• BAD ANIMAL was taught in a college class for the first time! Huige, unending thanks to Charles Kell and the students at CCRI for their care and such a great time.

• Two poems of mine were featured in The Maine Review! One & Two.

• Read 55 books total.

• Crocheted a lot.

• Cried a whole bunch.

More proper blog post coming soon, but it's nice to remember I wasn't just sitting on my hands. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Kathryn