The Yara-ma-yha-who, ‘Real’ Vampires, and Aboriginal Erasure
I am SO PLEASED to share that Global Perspectives on the Liminality of the Supernatural: From Animus to Zombi, edited by the wonderful Rebecca Gibson and Jay VanderVeen, is now available as an e-book (with physical copies coming in July!).
I contributed to the concept by focusing on vampire lore that originated in Australia and addressed how Oceanic literature was impacted by Western popularity – until recently. Gone are the days of sparkling vampires and Australian vampires planted in cityscapes like New York and Chicago; and in are the legends of real vampires, bunyips and drop bears, classic Australian landscapes and wildlife, and of course (a creature I’m now sort of obsessed with), the Yara-ma-yha-who.
Find me in Chapter 4: “The Yara-ma-yha-who, ‘Real’ Vampires, and Aboriginal Erasure: The Uncovered and Retold Vampires of Australian Horror Fiction.” I LOVED writing it, and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
And, I’ve had a sneak peek at the rest of the book, and oh my goodness, call me biased, but it is GOOD. It’s theoretical, it’s horror-focused, it’s smart, and it’s wildly interesting and entertaining. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Read “The Duplex” Free!
Sprawled out across cornfields and a man-made lake the kids say plummets forever, the small town of Cresentstance feels isolated, a little ominous, and anything but small. But with tragedy just behind them and nothing to look forward to, Sonya decides this move to the town will be a good thing. Sonya and her daughter, Maddie, move into an old farmhouse renovated into a duplex, and when she discovers the other half of the house is occupied by another single mother and her son, who is the same age as Maddie, the situation feels like fate. But when Maddie starts to physically change and her new friend exhibits some dark behaviors, Sonya decides staying as far away from their new housemates as possible would be best. That’s until Maddie goes missing in the middle of the night, leading Sonya down dark hallways on the other side of the house where there’s laughing and screaming in the walls, and secrets the rest of the town would rather stay far, far away from.
A perfect short story to read by the light of your creepy Black Flame Candle this fall season—and to get ready for the full collection, What We Find in the Dark, which drops right in time for spooky season.
Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea: A Literary Anthology
I had such a great time contributing to great weather for MEDIA’s literary anthology, Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea. Shortly before being invited to contribute to this anthology, I saw this incredible video of a hologram of a whale breaching in a gymnasium floor, water splash and all, and it was so realistic, the students leaned back in surprise. My poem, “Exit Strategies,” was born from that.
Here’s a little more about the anthology from great weather for MEDIA:
Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea is an exhilarating collection of contemporary poetry and fiction from established and emerging writers across the United States and beyond. The anthology also contains an interview with musician/artist Walter Steding.
“These annual anthologies and other work by great weather for MEDIA are an admirable contribution to arts and culture.”- The Compulsive Reader
Contributors: Daniel Aristi, Oliver Baer, DeMisty D. Bellinger, Guy Biederman, Thom Cagle, Zac Cahill, Billy Cancel, Neeli Cherkovski, Douglas Cole, Brittney Corrigan, Adina Dabija, Steve Dalachinsky, John Paul Davis, Daniel Dissinger, Carol Dorf, Merridawn Duckler, Alexis Rhone Fancher, SaraEve Fermin, Rico Frederick, Joan Gelfand, Christian Georgescu, Robert Gibbons, Isa Guzman, Janet Hamill, Aimee Herman, Ngoma Hill, Amy Holman, Juleigh Howard-Hobson, Matthew Hupert, E Penniman James, P J Jones, Deborah Kennedy, Craig Kite, Tanya Ko Hong, Ptr Kozlowski, Christopher Luna, Katharyn Howd Machan, Mira Martin-Parker , Julian Mithra, Anthony Morales, Tatyana Muradov, Richard Jeffrey Newman, Anointing Obuh, Frances Ogamba, Valery Oisteanu, Jose Oseguera, Yuko Otomo, Mario Poncé Pagán, Ania Payne, Dan Raphael, Erik Richmond, Ellen Pober Rittberg, Sarah Sarai, G.G. Silverman, Alena Singleton, Jared Smith, Paul Smith, S B Stokes, Michael Sutton, Denise Tolan, McKenzie Lynn Tozan, John J. Trause, Sharmini Wijeyesekera, Tamia Williams, Francine Witte, Annie Woods.
Puma Perl interviews Walter Steding.
Cover art by Noel Aquino
All We Can Hold: Poems of Motherhood Anthology
I remember when I was invited to contribute to this anthology, I was still working on my MFA and still teaching, while also spending much more time at home with my newborn daughter, physically healing, and processing everything that had happened in the hospital that no one warned me about. This call came forward for poets to share the RANGE of what motherhood is—not just the beautiful moments, not just the isolation, but the range—and I knew in my staggering pile of “motherhood poems” that I must have something there – and that’s when “Caterpillars” found its home.
Here’s a little more about the anthology:
This anthology features the work of over 100 poets writing about all the wonderful, wild, sorrowful, ecstatic, tragic, and joyful experiences that are contained by “motherhood.”
“Twenty-five years ago when I began writing, poems about motherhood were still called ‘women’s poetry’ and their practitioners ‘women poets.”’How far we’ve come. Here is a fresh, powerful, and varied new collection on motherhood—one of the great subjects—to remind us that poetry about women’s lives is poetry. Period.”
—Kathleen Flenniken, author of Plume and Famous
“The poems in this collection distill the moments, both large and small, that make up not only the ‘dailyness of mothering,’ but the dailyness of life itself. Full of love and beauty, pain and humanity, these poems have the power to knit us back together when we are broken. This is a stunning collection, one I will return to again and again.”
—Kate Hopper, author of Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood and Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers
Lit Shark’s Best Of 2023 and Best Of 2024 Anthologies
Though my writing is not in Lit Shark’s Best Of annual anthologies, I could not be more honored and pleased to curate and design these collections, and otherwise make them a reality.
Each year, Lit Shark selects its 50 favorite pieces it published throughout that year and invites those 50 writers back to share another piece. The Best Of anthology is a collection of 50 “something old” and 50 “something new” and always “something to sink your teeth into.”
These first two collections were unique celebrations of marine life, nature, identity, grief, and most importantly, all the best ways Lit Shark has grown in the past two years. I cannot wait to see what the rest of 2025 will bring and how that will be reflected in this year’s anthology.