Pushcart Prize nomination for "Native" by Bainbridge Island Press!

The lead poem, "Native" of my latest poetry chapbook, Simultaneous States (Bainbridge Island Press, 2025) was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the wonderful editors of said press.  

I'm very excited and honored that they thought the poem was worthy of the recognition!

"Native" is two-part poem that begins in my childhood in Puerto Rico attending a school on a U.S. Army base and ends with my current life in Miami, Florida.  It deals with identity issues that many Hispanic persons face when growing up in this country.  It was a very timely honor to receive during Hispanic Heritage month!

Back in July, Tamarah Rockwood of Bainbridge Island Press dedicated an entire podcast to "Native" as part of their Poetics Podcast series.  Her incredible insight and sensitivity surpassed all my expectations.  

Arte Latino NOW 2022!

Very gratified to be included in the virtual exhibit Arte Latino NOW 2022. which includes my poem in two parts--"Native."

Beatriz F. Fernandez: Writer - ARTE LATINO NOW 2022 Virtual Exhibition, Performance and Readings (dropmark.com)

This poem was inspired by a class I attended in the Fall, 2021 with Presidential Inaugural poet Richard Blanco, and by his new book, How to Love a Country.  

Celebrating National Poetry Month 2022 with two publications!

 

A little late, but now announcing two of my historical poems were published during National Poetry Month in a new Copperfield Review anthology, Made by History: An Anthology of Historical Fiction!

Copperfield Review publishes "Abelard's Lost Letter to Heloise"

The Copperfield Review, " the world’s online home for short historical fiction and historical poetry" and  (20 years this year!) published my poem "Abelard's Lost Letter to Heloise" on July 6th!

First acceptances of 2018--New Reader Magazine

I haven't been sending out poems as often as I used to, so it was very heartening to receive my first acceptances of the new year from New Reader Magazine, an Arts, Literature & Cultural Quarterly. They have an exciting mixture of prose and poetry from writers all over the world. Their site is very fresh and visually pleasing as well!

My two poems, The Little Sunfish and Mistress Prynne Dreams of Her Youth were accepted for their June issue. The Little Sunfish is my latest poem, written about the robots used to clean up after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2017. The robot they called Manbo, which means "little sunfish", was the one that helped discover the source of the leak and thus saved many lives.

Mistress Prynne refers to the epilogue about Hester Prynne's later life in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter which not everyone remembers after reading the book, but which obviously made an impression on my imagination!

FIU campus authors reception at Barnes & Noble

At the FIU Provost's office reception for faculty authors. I got there late (I was on the desk) and was the last one to get my picture taken! Thanks to the campus Barnes & Noble for hosting the reception and purchasing two of my books!

The Dean of Libraries, Anne Prestamo, gave a speech and mentioned both librarians who had books out this last year and the faculty authors book display I had put together the night before! As I was leaving the desk to go to the event, there was already a faculty member looking for the display and happy to find his book there.

Happiness is seeing your own book in your library!

Today I walked into the Green Library at Florida International University, where I work, and found that some nice person had displayed my new poetry chapbook, The Ocean Between Us, in good company on the New Books shelf!  They obviously intended that I see it, since I'm the one who usually organizes the display shelves!  A few minutes later it was gone...maybe someone's actually reading it?  Uh, oh!

Call number:  PS 3606. E7334.O33 2017

Alsina Publishing to present my flash fiction trilogy

I'm excited to announce that Alsina Publishing will present my fantasy fiction trilogy via LingoBites, their app for language learning via story-telling.

I'm also so pleased and grateful that Selina Fenech, an incredible Australian artist and author, agreed to let me use her beautiful artwork for the trilogy cover!

This gorgeous piece, entitled "Saviour" perfectly illustrates my stories! Check out Selina's website for all her fiction, artwork, coloring books, figurines, etc. You will be amazed!

Update on this post:  LingoBites is in Beta launch mode and I have a limited number of free trial codes to give out--contact me if you are interested!

June publications!

June has been a good month for me!

First, Alsina Publications accepted two flash fiction fantasy pieces, with a view to a third to complete the trilogy.  Alsina is launching a new language learning app, LingoBites, that will help students and other customers learn languages by reading stories!

Then Highland Park Poetry republished my poem "The Last Thing I'll Lose" in their Muses Gallery bird themed summer issue.

The Ginger Collect, self professed publishers of "The Weird, the New Age and the Strange" were kind enough to publish two of my poems in their Issue Two:  "The Story of the Stones" and "Under a Graveyard Sun."

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review also featured my poem "Plague Graffiti" on their page.
This poem was based on a BBC news article:

(Songs of Eretz Editor’s Note:  "This is a unique and moving elegy that resonates as much today in the age of indiscriminate terror attacks as it would have 500 years ago during the black plague that struck Cambridgeshire.")

Thirty West Publishing House's beautiful hand-bound chapbooks!

Thirty West Publishing House produces hand-bound chaplets and chapbooks.  As I previously posted, they recently chose my poem "The Surest Poison" as winner of their sonnet challenge (part of their celebration of National Poetry Month) and now editor Josh Dale is publishing a chaplet of all the weekly challenge winners!  It will include work from four different writers and four different genres/forms, and will include my winning sonnet as well as a second sonnet "Blood Pacts."  Many thanks to TWPH for their support of poetry and writers!  I would like to learn to make hand-bound chaps like these!  In Josh's picture, you see some of the tools he uses and the resulting chapbooks.

P.S.
If you look closely at the picture, you will see that my two poems happened to fall in the middle pages of the chaplet!

Looking back at 2016 -- the year of the anthology

It was the year of the anthology for me, as four anthologies have accepted my poems, three of which will be published in 2017.  Also, it will be a first for my work to be included in an art exhibit!  

2016: Year in Review

Publications: 14

The Quarterday Review print and online (Maid Marian’s Many Silences ghazal)

The Ghazal Page online (3 ghazals, From Dante to Beatrice, From Beatrice to Dante and Rilke Returns to Ronda)

The Copperfield Review online (3 poems, Maid Joan’s Gethesemane, Genesis, 1880, and the Lost Colony)

The Australia Times Poetry Magazine online (4 poems, The Last Thing I’ll Lose, Inspiration, Bahia Honda Beach Conch and Mother Re-gifts)

Stonecoast Literary Review (1 poem, Monody for a Leading Man)

Anthologies/Collections: 2

Pay Attention: Poems for Oral Interpretation (2 poems, Her Last Cotillion, Richard the Lionheart’s Mummified Heart Examined)

Total 14 publications

Acceptances

Spark: A Creative Anthology (2 poems not published yet.)

Street Voice journal (3 poems, not published yet, Poem for My Father, In the Shadow of the Miami Metrorail Overpass, Departures)

Fiolet & Wing Domestic Fabulist anthology) (1 poem, A Modern Day Amazon visits the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

Feminine Rising: Voices of Power & Invisibility (with Ellen Bass!)   (1 poem, Reunion)

               Shabda Press’s Nuclear Impact Anthology: Broken Atoms in Our Hands (1 poem)

               

               Arte Latino Now 2017 exhibit in January 2017 (1 poem, Calle del Cristo, Old San Juan)

               Whale Road Review (1 poem, The Astronomer’s New Eyes, for their June issue)

               Total acceptances and publications: 24

Interviews:

FEM website interview

Queens Center for Latino Studies interview—Meet the Writers—published online on their tumblr page.

Reviews:

Literary Arts Review of Shining from a Different Firmament

Svetlana’s Reads and Reviews blog: review of Shining from a Different Firmament

Nomination/Honors:

"Calle de Cristo, Old San Juan" chosen for the Arte Latino Now 2017 exhibit at Queens University in a nationwide competition!

Words Dance—actually last year, my poem Late Night Shift was a finalist in their nomination list for Best of the Net and I didn’t realize it until recently! 

Workshops/Classes:

Key West Literary Seminar Writing Workshop with Campbell McGrath  --  this workshop yielded three new poems, two of which have already been published and one, "Calle del Cristo" which was chosen for the aforementioned Arte Latino Now exhibit!

Speculative Fiction writing class (online) with best-selling, award-winning science fiction author C.S. (Celia) Friedman!  This class yielded my first completely edited short story--about a robot!  I also began a story about Death as a character.  It generated many ideas for future stories and I also had several magic world-building ideas that Celia said were original and promising for novel-length works.  I don't intend to write novels, but maybe I could manage a novella or novelette!  I also met a great group of writers who are willing to read and critique my work.

   

Stonecoast Review publishes my "Monody for a Leading Man"

My poem, "Monody for a Leading Man" has been published in Stonecoast Review's Winter 2016 issue 6.  Stonecoast Review: a literary arts journal published by the University of Southern Maine's MFA program in Creative Writing.

Pay Attention: Poems for Oral Interpretation

Pay Attention: Poems for Oral Interpretation, edited by John Pierce, now on sale at Amazon,  contains two of my longer persona pieces: "Her Last Cotillion" about Doc Holliday and his cousin Mattie (whom Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind was modeled after) and "Richard Lionheart's Mummified Heart Examined" a piece in various voices about the recent discovery of King Richard's heart buried beneath a church in Rouen.  The editor's intention is that this collection of poems be used for high school dramatic interpretation competitions.  I thought it was a great idea, especially as he says it is difficult to find good pieces to use for this purpose.  When I was in Forensics in high school, I couldn't find a piece I liked and I ended up writing my own, and after I left it was used by others.   

The Australia Times Poetry Magazine features "Bahia Honda Beach Conch" on their Facebook page.

The Australia Times Poetry Magazine has published a few of my poems: two in the October issue, "Inspiration" (a sonnet) and "The Last Thing I'll Lose" and now has accepted two more, and featured "Bahia Honda Beach Conch" on their facebook page!  It was accompanied by a beautiful picture of a conch shell. I wrote the poem right after I attended the Key West Literary Seminar Writers' workshop led by poet and FIU professor Campbell McGrath.

FIU Provost office and Barnes & Noble bookstore honor faculty authors

Jim's cd Reaching for the Stars and my poetry chapbook Shining from a Different Firmament are now both on sale at FIU's Barnes & Noble bookstore!  The Provost's office and the bookstore had a reception honoring faculty authors with recent publications and the Dean of Libraries mentioned in her speech that we might be the first husband and wife team to have publications come out the same year!

Jim has an ebook textbook coming out later this year and I hope to get my 2nd chapbook published at some point, so hopefully we will repeat the feat at next year's event!  I also put together a display of FIU faculty authors' books at the Green library in the new books area.

Green Library display of Faculty authors' books (I left my own out of this display)

Street Voice will publish three of my poems!

Andreas Weiland of the international, multilingual online journal Street Voice has accepted three of my poems:

Poem for my father (previously published at Label Me Latina/o),  
In the shadow of the Miami Metrorail overpass,
and Departures,

for publication in a future issue.  Street Voice's themed issues feature poetry, translations of poems, and articles from poets all over the world.

Mr. Weiland also edits an online art journal: Art in Society and he would like to encourage those writing on Latino/Latina art and theater to send pertinent articles for a future issue.  He also accepts
poems in Spanish, with an English translation

March 6th marks the anniversary of my father's death many years ago, so I'm very happy this poetical tribute to him will once more appear online. In the shadow is based on an encounter in downtown Miami with an unforgettable homeless man.  Departures is a poem about the internal and external voyage immigrants make and honors my matriarchal ancestors, beginning with my great-grandmother Rosa, to my mother, Luisa.

Ghazals galore for Valentine's day!

Valentine's Day month, is also very appropriately the month several of my ghazals about famous pairs of lovers are appearing:  first, "Maid Marian's Many Silences" was published by Quarterday Review in their Imbolc issue.

This poem, as I mentioned in an earlier post, was inspired by the film "Robin and Marian" starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as an older Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

Another pair of ekphrastic ghazals, "On Viewing 'Dante and Beatrice' by Henry Holiday, 1884" was republished by The Ghazal Page, in their Issue 58.

These ghazals are companion persona ghazals, written in the voice of Beatrice, then Dante, and inspired by the painting by Henry Holiday:

First acceptance of the New Year!

Ah, how sweet it is!  The first acceptance of the year comes from the Quarterday Review for their Imbolc issue. (The editor also offered candid feedback from her and her staff readers, so that was very helpful.  It's always interesting to see what other readers focus on when reading your poems.)

They accepted my latest ghazal Maid Marian's Many Silences!  This poem was inspired by the film "Robin and Marian" starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn which must have made an impression on me since I have never forgotten it!  Contrary to most portrayals, this film showed an older Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

Right now I'm working on a free verse poem entitled Plague Graffiti and another one about Joan of Arc.  I guess I'm sort of mentally stuck in the Middle Ages right now!

2015 Writing Year in Review

Wow, this year ended with the Big Bang of Book Fairs: my Miami Book Fair  presentation/reading experience was eye-opening and even fun on some levels.  But it was a banner year in many other aspects as well:  first of all my chapbook, Shining from a Different Firmament came out in March, (very appropriately for Women's History month); I also had a record of 20 acceptances (for me!--I know this number may be laughable to some people but I wield a slow pen!)  and 15 publications, not including the 20 poems published in the actual chapbook, 5 interviews or articles featuring my poetry, 2 book giveaways, 1 book auction,  1 review of my chapbook in the Quarterday Review and 1 judging experience!

Along with the publications came precious feedback from readers and fellow poets, who were very generous in their comments and it was very encouraging to realize that I am not delusional but actually making some progress in my poetry.

I was fortunate to begin this year by publishing one of my favorite poems "Nothing in the Dark" and ended with the publication of another:  " "Emily Brontë Addresses Her Creation" -- as well as the acceptance of some hard-to-place longer poems in the perfect venue which I hope will go forward.

Next year begins auspiciously, (I hope!), with 1 writing workshop acceptance (with poet Campbell McGrath).  They have so many activities planned--readings, receptions, sunset sailings--that I'm wondering when exactly we are supposed to get any writing done!  But it all sounds like fun.

What do I want to accomplish next year?  I think my main preoccupation is to learn to self-direct my writing so I'm not so dependent on outside stimulus.  Since my tutorial with Andrea ended, I think I'm suffering from the equivalent of the post-M.F.A. limbo that many students find themselves in.  Our tutorial lasted about the same length of time as an M.F.A. and I think accomplished the same, more or less.  Now I have to learn to do it on my own.

Another highlight of the coming year:

Portland-based Poetry Press Week will be debuting in Miami and they have invited me to be a judge, so that will be a new and fascinating experience!

Sparrow's Trill - Minerva Rising's special issue on Race in America

I'm very honored that Minerva's Rising's special issue on race in America:  Sparrow's Trill will include my poem "In the flesh."  Poetry editor Emily Shearer's revision suggestions improved this poem quite a bit and I'm happy it will appear in such an important issue.  From their page:

"After the racially charged act of hate that killed nine people in a Charleston church in June, Minerva Rising no longer wanted to be silent. We wanted to start a dialogue for social change--a dialogue based in love. We wanted to fuse the schisms and unite as one voice writing to heal the open wounds of the heart, writing to change the world we inhabit. That dialogue created this special edition."

 The title, Sparrow’s Trill, comes from the poem "Tapestry I (Mississippi, 2015)" by Jessica Lanay.

the thick
rope groans against a high
bough and it sounds
so much like
the end of a sparrow’s trill that
I look for birds

Subscribe to Minerva or purchase this issue here.