I have wonderful news to announce: Tiny Hardcore Press has accepted my full-length poetry collection for publication in 2014! If ever there were a place to abuse the "You get ONE exclamation point in your life" rule, this is it! Oh, people! I am so happy! I am so affirmed! I am so relieved! Y'all … Continue reading Assiduous Me
Category: Poetry
Snow Day Lazy
We woke to snow and ice this morning, so no school for the kids. As I write this, we are all still in our pajamas. I'm considering more coffee. The brownies just came out of the oven. Paul and Josie are engineering various marble run configurations on the living room floor and Rudy is working … Continue reading Snow Day Lazy
Prayer for Not Enough
Prayer for Not Enough --for my daughter, after Newtown Today felt slow in a good way. I tried to look around at the world, its brittle and half-busted beauties, burst milkweed pods and sumac gone to ruddy seed on the trail. I tried to catch fragments of passing conversations-- … Continue reading Prayer for Not Enough
National Poetry Month Check-In
So April has been designated National Poetry month and I wonder: Is it because nobody reads poetry during the other 11 months of the year that we have to force-feed it to folks during April? (yes.) Or, is it a wonderful opportunity for poets to pause and celebrate the air we breathe and for readers … Continue reading National Poetry Month Check-In
Another Near Miss
I have been sending my full-length poetry manuscript, in a variety of iterations, to contests and publishers since 2002, the year I got my MFA. It has never been a semi-finalist or a finalist, and out of literally hundreds of contest and open-reading period submissions, only seven editors have ever taken the time to respond … Continue reading Another Near Miss
The Key
Last weekend, I had the honor of attending the memorial services for Morgan Lucas Schuldt, a man I knew through his reputation as a poet and editor, but more than that, through the place he held in the heart and life of one of my oldest, closest friends. I traveled to New Jersey to be … Continue reading The Key
It Comes in Threes
In my last post, I was musing a little on how the death of Joe Paterno led me to think about my own grandmother's death. In between now and then, I have been up to my neck in the process of applying for a job--the job I am crossing my fingers so hard about--and have … Continue reading It Comes in Threes
Ekphrastic Fantastic
I'm sitting in the window seat at Cafe Lemont and it's sunny for the first time in days. Bright scrim of snow on the gravel driveway, and huge, vibrant, impressionistic oil paintings on the walls. These are new and I'm not sure I like them. Monet colors. Cotton candy. And the one hanging directly in … Continue reading Ekphrastic Fantastic
First Review!
Holy cow, my poems have a life of their own, independent of me! Which is to say, people are reading them and writing about them on Goodreads! Check me out! "In this small but dazzling chapbook, Squillante outlines the ritual and expectation of being both a poet and a mother-to-be. These prose-poems alternate from meditations on the physical … Continue reading First Review!
Early Christmas!
Apparently Santa is a lover of poetry! On Monday the US postal service delivered my first chapbook into my greedy-happy hands and it felt like Christmas Day. Then, on Thursday night, I got to read from that little book to an audience of former teachers, students, family, friends old and and new. My kids behaved … Continue reading Early Christmas!
Sheila squillante 