I'm looking for other poets who have reached a certain level in their craft! I've been teaching creative writing and writing poetry for over 25 years. My last chapbook was published by Finishing Line Press about 6 years ago and I am just starting to think about publishing again. My mom just passed away and my daughter is in college, so for the first time in a long time I can focus on my writing. I'm currently working on my poetry manuscript and submitting individual poems to online/print journals as I revise. I'm looking for a diverse, multi-generational group of poets who want to give feedback on poems, talk about the writing process,  share publishing tips and encourage each other when we feel down.

I am a hybrid author with traditionally published short stories (including a Writers of the Future SemiFinalist placement) and self-published novels (one of which was a Semifinalist in the 2018 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off). My work often deals with the personal impact of either technology or magic on the lives and relationships of powerful women. My first series, The Netwalk Sequence, (cyberpunk science fiction with alien invasion) had a strong secondary theme of the relationships between mothers and daughters struggling for control of a technology and corporate power. My second series, Goddess's Honor, had the themes of sibling struggles between deities affecting the lives of people, as well as reluctant leaders ascending to power and what they do with it. My third and fourth series, The Martiniere Legacy and The Children of Philip Martiniere, both deal with a large and powerful family struggling to not only deal with the legacy of four hundred years of history, but the impact of a sociopathic family head who almost destroys not just the Family but the family-held corporation, the Martiniere Group.

I'm looking more for occasional beta swaps and social contacts rather than a formal writing group. I tend to be a prolific and fast writer, and that doesn't go well with critique groups.

I'm a later-in-life emerging queer feminist writer of color. I've been blogging for several years, and have recently rediscovered my absolute love of exploring life and the world through words and language.

I'm mainly working in the realm of creative and narrative nonfiction, bordering on but not quite memoir.

I'm excited to join this community!

I am putting the finishing touches on my novel and plan on sending it out to agents in the fall. It is a 100,000 word book about the destructive consequences for Black and brown people whose paths intersect with a predominately white family. It follows a Los Angeles-based family through a seminal year in their lives, exploring the corrosive impact of racism on the entire family, especially their Black son.

I am an emerging writer who has yet to be punished. I have been unsuccessfully submitting excerpts to literary journals  but I am focused on completing the second revision of the book. I am sharing a few novel chapters with a friend every few weeks and he should be finished with his review in time to meet my fall deadline. 

I would like to find a supportive community of other newbies who are preparing to attempt to find an agent and/or completing a second (or third or fourth) book draft. I have never written a query letter before so any guidance is welcome!