Creative Writing

I earned my MFA with incredible faculty at the Rainier Writers’ Workshop. There I wrote poetry and began to dabble in Russian poetry translation. Since 2013, my main focuses have been essays, creative nonfiction, and teaching. I’ve been awarded grants from Portland’s Regional Arts & Cultural Council (2023, 2016), a special mention in Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of the Small Presses (2017), and writing residencies.

Featured
“When Free Writing Will Not Make You Free,” Brevity Magazine
essays
“When Free Writing Will Not Make You Free,” Brevity Magazine
essays

In July 2013, I ran a marathon up Mount Adams near Trout Lake, Washington. Nobody questioned my physical prowess, because the accomplishment was indisputable. But, if you actually pressed your fingers against my belly, you would have felt pudge, and you probably would have been surprised to not feel functioning abdominal muscles (you’d also be surprised to have your fingers on the belly of someone you had just met, but let’s skip that part). My abs weren’t important unless I found myself in the plank position, and why would I attempt plank when I could lie down, sit or run 13 miles? I learned how to engage my gluteal muscles for the first time in early 2014, when my new gym membership included sessions with a personal trainer. However, the fact still stands that I was able to complete a mountain marathon with scant help from my abs or glutes.

essays
“On the Death of a Difficult Parent,” published in Water~Stone Review
essays
“On the Death of a Difficult Parent,” published in Water~Stone Review
essays

Abstract nouns serve me poorly when I speak of my father. Consider these: autodidact, addict, narcissist, scholar, suicide. I want a clearer picture of that afflicted human who made me. So in this piece, I will compare the death of my father, William Cameron Pulman Jr., also known as Bill, with the death of my guinea pig Harry, who was alternately known as Prince Harry, Harry B., Ice-Cold-Rapper-Harry, and the Queen.

essays
“Warning Label,” published in the Los Angeles Review
essays
“Warning Label,” published in the Los Angeles Review
essays

If my face were my heart, I would tear it to ribbons. If I could pick it open to reveal its insides, sear it with a hot compress, slow it with an ice pack, prick it with needles to release the infection—more exactly, the grief— or pinch it till it bled, it wouldn’t be beating now. The exposed parts of me have been healed through time and the help of an incredible aesthetician. Most of the inner parts have healed through a similar delicate and aggravating process

essays
“Nobody,” published in VoiceCatcher
essays
“Nobody,” published in VoiceCatcher
essays

You go to Thessaloniki, Greece. Not to the parts of Greece rebuilt to escort tourists towards white statues of petty gods that no one believes in anymore, but Greece where the Grecians live and the water meets them.

essays
“Prelude to the Performance,” published in Under the Gum Tree
essays
“Prelude to the Performance,” published in Under the Gum Tree
essays

I insert my fare card and two wings open wide enough for me to pass through Farragut West station towards the Kennedy Center. Gleaming in the silver dress my grandmother found at the Jewish women’s resale store and forty-five minutes away from my fifteenth opera, I am ready…

essays

Published Poetry (use slider for more)

Featured
“The Catch,” published in Two Hawks
poetry
“The Catch,” published in Two Hawks
poetry

When you were ten you caught a fish

and showed your parents that pink flesh.

They whooped loud, mercury eyes! Silver guts!

That day all guzzled more than enough.

and that night, you grasped a new way to sit

that made the family round and perfect.

poetry
“Relearning Solitude,” Russian translation published in the “Penguin Anthology of Russian Literature”
poetry
“Relearning Solitude,” Russian translation published in the “Penguin Anthology of Russian Literature”
poetry

I’ve been trained in solitude.

I understood once how it went,

knew this job:

waking up earlier, laying down later,

with no one to bother,

and delighted

by no one.

poetry
“Regarding the Dead Lobster on 60th and Stark Street” and others, published in Prime Number Magazine
poetry
“Regarding the Dead Lobster on 60th and Stark Street” and others, published in Prime Number Magazine
poetry

I don't know why it's there either.

His thick shell has turned maroon.

Flies circle the fetid patch of pavement.His feelers

Fell limp, green, down. He makes me think

Of you.

poetry
“The Meek Shall Inherit,” published in Drunken Boat
poetry
“The Meek Shall Inherit,” published in Drunken Boat
poetry

The whole earth? I’ll take one plot,

Small, to die into and one to dance

Upon. Beyond that,

If you’ve got plenty of nothing,

Well, that’s something, in fact. Devil you know aside,

There’s a way that havings string

poetry
“The Butterfly,” translation from Russian, runner up for Spender/Brodsky Translation Prize
poetry
“The Butterfly,” translation from Russian, runner up for Spender/Brodsky Translation Prize
poetry

Shall I say that you are dead?

But you lived just a day.

The joke played

by the Creator is so sad.

poetry

Published Interviews (use slider for more)

Featured
"Interview with David Biespiel," The Writer's Chronicle
interview
"Interview with David Biespiel," The Writer's Chronicle
interview

“David Biespiel was born in 1964 and grew up in Houston, Texas. He is a poet, literary critic, memoirist, and contributing writer at The Rumpus, American Poetry Review, Politico, New Republic, Slate, Poetry, Bookforum, and The New York Times, among other publications. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Charming Gardeners and The Book of Men and Women, which was chosen one of the Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation.”

interview
“Dream-Cheating with Jay Ponteri,” Interview for Oregon Arts Watch
interview
“Dream-Cheating with Jay Ponteri,” Interview for Oregon Arts Watch
interview

“Confession: From his prose, I wasn’t expecting Jay Ponteri to meet me so freshly groomed, polite, and soft-spoken.

It was sloppy for me to assume that Ponteri, the director of Marylhurst University’s undergraduate creative writing program, would appear slovenly or depressive or altogether not-hip in the fashion that he portrayed himself to be in “Wedlocked.”

interview
“Poetry and art from the archives of Big Brother,” Interview with Kaia Sand for Oregon Arts Watch
interview
“Poetry and art from the archives of Big Brother,” Interview with Kaia Sand for Oregon Arts Watch
interview

“Before entering the Portland Archives and Records Center on the fifth floor of the PSU’s Student Recreation Center, I had to leave my purse in a locker, hand over my driver’s license, sign a form, and promise not to lick my fingers before touching anything, which is apparently a common unconscious gesture.”

interview
“An Interview with David Mason,” The Writer’s Chronicle
interview
“An Interview with David Mason,” The Writer’s Chronicle
interview

“Born in Bellingham, Washington in 1954, David Mason was the Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2010 to 2014. He received a BA from Colorado College and an PhD from the University of Rochester in New York. His first poetry collection, The Buried Houses, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and his second, The Country I Remember, won the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award.”

interview
""Poet Annie Lighthart's Cures for Poisonous Thought," Interview for Oregon Arts Watch
interview
""Poet Annie Lighthart's Cures for Poisonous Thought," Interview for Oregon Arts Watch
interview

“My conversation with poet Annie Lighthart, debut author of the book Iron String published in 2013 by Airlie Press, took place at TaborSpace in Southeast Portland. It seemed predetermined by the poems that Lighthart writes—lyrical, imaginative, tender, metaphysical writings that begin in the things of this world—that our conversation would touch down on topics like the imagination and the soul. How apropos, then, to meet at TaborSpace, founded five years back by the clergy of Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church and community leaders as a donation- and volunteer-based coffeehouse and meeting space.”

interview

Let’s work together.