I’m proud to share that Pikes Peak State College has awarded me a faculty sabbatical for fall 2026. Right now, and for a few more precious months, I am a full-time author working on two new books from Unsolicited Press: Exodus with Red Delicious, a collection of poetry and short fiction to be released in December 2026, and I Drink from an Ear: Real Ghazals, a collection forthcoming in December 2027.
Exodus with Red Delicious explores death, grief, loss, and transformation from multiple angles, fictional, personal, and lyrical. While its creation was difficult emotionally, the work of writing it was an animal I was familiar with. The ghazal, however, is an entirely different beast.
The ghazal is an Eastern poetic form with roots in 7th-century Arabia. Its unusual formal constraints have made it notoriously difficult to write in English: my collection will join less than five verified single-author collections in existence.
There is an element to writing anything that is absolutely mysterious. The route to the most powerful poems is not recorded on any map. As poet-songwriter Leonard Cohen put it, “If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.” Sometimes the lightning of inspiration strikes in a minute, or an hour; every writer knows it can also take much longer.
With ghazals, it has been a different journey than writing fiction or even other poetry. Ghazals need more time, more silence: they can circle for weeks in the sky before uttering a word. Having the luxury of emptiness has helped me make a space for them to land. Not emptiness exactly–there are still bills to pay and weeds to pull and children to pick up from play rehearsal. But not having essays to grade and textbooks to wrangle for a few months has created a small emptiness, a clear space where I am able to stand with my eyes closed for a while, waiting for ghazals.
Before the sabbatical began, I believed deeply in both of these books, in the transformative power of writing creatively, in the heart magic of teaching, and in the significance of the tradition of sabbatical leave in academia. Sabbatical leave provides teaching writers the most valuable gift in the world: time to write, which can mean time to wait for the mystery. A month in, I don’t know how I would have done it without it. Thank you, PPSC!
My gratitude also goes out to Unsolicited Press, especially my editor, Summer Stewart, who’s investing in me, too: believing in me so much she thinks even my future books are going to be good. Trusting me to catch falling ghazals. Reading my drafts carefully enough to know when I should have said John Lennon instead of the Beatles, and when I’m playing fast and loose with em-dashes–which is more often than I’d like to admit.
Finally, it’s worth noting that, on my sabbatical application, I requested to not be relieved of one special duty: facilitating the Nearby Universe, the PPSC employee creative writers’ group I founded almost nine years ago. This group continues to be an integral part of my writing community, and their feedback and support have undoubtedly made both my forthcoming books better. Thank you, Nearby Universe!
