News 2021

On Saturday 6th Feb the staff of Whale Road Review, including me, gathered on Zoom from around the world (Nigeria, UK, US) to read poems and short prose together.

Readers included Michael Akuchie, Taylor Crawford, Allen Culpepper, Jen Stewart Fueston, Katie Hamblen, Ellen Huang, Monica Kopenhaver, Eve Linn, Katie Manning, Kyle Potvin, Tania Pryputniewicz, Kathryn H. Ross, Ki Russell, Jacob Stratman, and me.

It was a lot of fun, and wonderful to meet the poets and writers I’ve been working with recently to select fantastic pieces from the many hundreds of submissions we received in December.

We each read one piece and managed to keep the recorded event to just over half and hour. Then we switched off record and hung out together chatting. It was wonderful.

You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XjdO3jFT8Y&feature=youtu.be

Poet Jennifer Wong reviewed ‘Return by Minor Road’ for the wonderful literary journal Ambit recently. I was very moved by her writing about the book, and by how she engaged with the collection. It’s heartening to have such a thoughtful reader who understands the connections between and behind the poems.

Continue reading Jennifer Wong reviews ‘Return by Minor Road’ for Ambit

I’m really excited to have joined the staff of San Diego based journal Whale Road Review. As a peer reviewer I’ll be helping select top-notch poems from the very strong submissions sent in for each edition.

The name comes from an old kenning for the ocean – the whale road – and evokes these unique creatures ‘moving in patterns through the waters of the world’.  Whale Road Review publishes poetry, flash fiction, reviews and micro essays. Please see the submission guidelines for more details.

The editor Katie Manning is enthusiastic, knowledgeable and wonderfully supportive of fellow writers.

I’m looking forward to working with the international staff, and to meeting them at a reading on Saturday Feb 6th. It’s at 7pm UK time (11am Pacific Time) and will be for up to an hour. It’s totally free to come along, but please pre-register here:

https://pointloma.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMrc-CqrzkjGdzMyTEPyTz6YxateKtsgBub

Poet, critic and teacher John Greening asks me about how I became a poet, the process of writing my first and second books, and how I’m approaching my third. 

‘Heidi Williamson speaks with John Greening about inspirations including science and traditional print processes, the importance of pattern in writing poems, her need to surprise herself and her new collection drawing on a painful section of public and personal history.’

You can listen to the podcast here.