Recent Awards and Publishing News: 2023
Very grateful to the Friends of the Chautauqua Writers’ Center for choosing “The Leavings” as their 2023 Mary Jean Irion Prize winner — and I’m most appreciative of Poet/Judge Mary Biddinger’s gracious comments on the poem…Chautauqua always has my heart!
Recent Journal Publications:
Love my literary friends at Wild Roof Journal! (Green for how much nature they pack into their fine poetry choices.) Many thanks to Editor, Aaron Lelito, for choosing this poem about one special rose bush…a work that honors both my late father and the people of Dale Borough in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Read the full poem here: https://wildroofjournal.com/issue-19-gallery-1/#SandeeGertz
Getting on my Irish with Sancho Panza Literary Society! (Though Ancestry. com tells me I have zero Irish blood, one can dream…)
Happy to have a personal memoir piece find life in New Square, the Irish-American journal of the Sancho Panza Literary Society. This one is a bit of a hybrid prose poem Creative Nonfiction piece as it began originally as a poem and found its way as a memoir. Take a breath: it’s a ride. You can read “Going to Ninevah” here: https://sanchopanzalit.wixsite.com/newsquare/post/going-to-ninevah
You can also find excerpts of readings and videos on my Author Instagram at @everydaycanbeapoem
2023 Readings:
Some Reading Highlights from 2023 included a glorious and sweltering reading at Chautauqua Literary Arts on the Porch of the Writers’ Center — this one was extra fun because I made a last minute decision to read from the novel in progress, as well as poems — I took a chance and I’m glad I did! That was the first reading from the manuscript, “The Republic of Jerusalem’s Trumpets” that I’ve done — ANYWHERE. Thankful for the encouraging audience and to those who bought books!
Also, I had a lot of fun reuniting with my Dublin Writers’ Tribe members for the Sancho Panza Literary Society reading in Washington, D.C. at the Washington Media Institute (below, first photo) and as a Featured Reader for the Poetry In the Boro Series in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Very thankful to these fine folks who keep poetry alive! Some snippets here and find more at my IG:
Welcome Video:
2021/2022 Publishing News! Good news comes in threes this Spring for publishing...New poem picked up at Cathexis Northwest Press for May with live recording, plus “Steeltown Girls” takes on extended life with reprints in Every Day Poems (with thanks to these wonderful folks for taking several from The Pattern Maker’s Daughter over the years…) AND this same poem was chosen for inclusion in the 20th Anniversary of the Keystone Poetry Anthology — so happy about this as this is the prime anthology of poetry for my home state of Pennsylvania. Thanks editors for the pick! I include a photo here of the last anthology in 2005 — my own copy is very worn as it includes so many fine PA poets and those writing about the Keystone State!
Look for my new poem “The Art of Crying” in this great journal in May, along with an audio reading bonus AND a bit of background on the poem written in Postignano, Italy where I had the opportunity to run in the Umbrian hilltops surrounding an ancient castle — ahh, take me back…thanks to the editors at Cathexis for taking this one!
Looking forward to being in the NEW 20th Anniversary Edition of this gem: The Keystone Poetry Anthology — check out the progress of the book on Facebook at their page!
Thanks for having me, WANA Live!
https://fb.watch/4ASgC5zJcq/ — Check out this great new group of Northern Appalachia — they’re doing some very cool things in Western PA, New York, and throughout this unique geographical areas!
“Some Girls Have Auras of Bright Colors” Memoir Excerpt Featured at The Write Launch:
Finalist News: Happy to be a finalist for the Porch Prize in Fiction, April 2020, for an excerpt of my novel in progress: “The Republic of Jerusalem’s Trumpets.”
Interview with Australia’s History Lab Broadcast: Invisible Hands of the Pattern Maker: I was honored to be interviewed about the work of my father — pattern making in a steel mill — and how it intersected with my poetry and book, The Pattern Maker’s Daughter. Pattern making is a fascinating craft that involves precision math and art — now a lost art in much of the world. It’s an intriguing broadcast, and my portion of the show begins at the 16:00 minute mark.
Join me on IGTV and You Tube!
https://www.instagram.com/everydaycanbeapoem/
My guiding theme is that “EveryDayCanBeAPoem” and I’ll be using that hashtag often — whether I’m featuring poetry or prose. The handle is more about each day being worthy of writing about. This is a clip of my reading from “Some Girls Have Auras of Bright Colors” — a completed memoir — which was part of a LIVE Lit Lunch — Tune in for more of these EACH FRIDAY AT NOON at my IG. Each Lit Lunch will involve a reading and a Writing Prompt for you to get started writing. Look soon for Drop In visitors on my live feed as well! See you there!
On these platforms, the guiding mission will be to see poetry and creative writing become more vital to our “everyday lives.” As William Carlos Williams so famously wrote in “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower…”
“It is difficult/ to get the news from poems/ but men have died miserably every day/ for lack /of what is found there.”
Join me on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms for this new journey. And please share with anyone who would like to incorporate more inspiration and creativity into his or her life!
#EveryDayCanBeAPoem
