Tell us the story of your Accents Publishing book, WOE & AWE.

Katerina’s Poetry Bootcamps made me do it! I don’t know if it’s possible to develop writing skills without the constructive criticism and support of community; without Katerina’s mentorship, I’d still be looking up the meaning of fancy poetry terms like “enjambment”  and “caesura” and “quatrain.” This is the story of Woe & Awe‘s unfolding—it’s voice and physical body in the world are a result of slow writing-muscle growth.

What do you like most about it?

I love how art, whatever its form, allows the-something-greater-of-life to be expressed through human beingness and is so often a balm for the ailing human spirit. When I’m struggling, making art for its own sake and spending time in nature, brings me home to myself. Woe & Awe is a raw and honest poetry memoir about hardship and healing. I really like that the work helps others to see their own stories of perseverance and the unrelenting green of hope. Yes, shit happens, but it’s not all that happens. And anyway, everyone knows that shit is fertilizer.

What did you have to overcome in order to finish and publish a book?

I overcame the inner critic, some poetry craft learning curves, and then several vulnerability hangovers after it was published.

What do you hope people learn/receive/experience from reading your book?

Here’s my sincere-corny-effective response to this question: I hope readers are encouraged to look at their own stories as interesting chapters so far—whatever the details—and realize that what comes next is yet to be written. Write it.

What was your favorite interaction with a reader and/or a fan?

I find the microphone intimidating and have felt supported throughout Kentucky, promoting the book. I had my first drunk-heckler last year and he yelled things like: “Yah! You tell it like it is, girl!” and “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!”, and I hope this will happen to me at least once a year from now on.

What are you working on now? Catch us up one significant event in your life since the publication of WOE & AWE.

It was both the Accents Poetry Bootcamp 2023, and the Appalachian Writer’s Workshop 2023, that made me realize I want to formally learn what I don’t know that I don’t know about poetry, so I applied to the MFA program at Spalding in Louisville, and graduated in November 2025. My first book is full of Bootcamp and first semester work; my graduating thesis is a second poetry collection (still evolving). Through a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, I facilitate art-making and poetry-writing in under-resourced communities of women in Kentucky; I‘m certain that Woe & Awe and my MFA credential have helped open that door.