Holy Moly 2018!

My big news is that I have a new book! Holy Moly Carry Me is due out on September 11 of this year from BOA Editions! If you pre-ordered the book through BOA directly, it shipped in mid-July, so it should start showing up in mailboxes any day now. For a review or exam copy, contact Ron Martin-Dent at BOA. Here’s a quickie description of the book:

Erika Meitner’s fifth collection plumbs human resilience and grit in the face of disaster, loss, and uncertainty. Her narrative poems take readers into the heart of southern Appalachia—its highways and strip malls, its fragility and danger—as the speaker wrestles with racial tensions, religious identity, gun violence, raising children, and the anxieties of life in the 21st century. With a refusal to settle for easy answers, Meitner’s poems embrace life in an increasingly fractured society, and they never stop asking what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Holy Moly Carry Me was highlighted in NPR’s 2018 poetry preview, and BOA Editions spotlighted my poem “Diaspora” (from the book) on their blog this past week. You can also read an interview with me about the book (and other stuff) over at the Mass Poetry blog. I’m also featured (alongside many other wonderful poet-activists) in an article in Poets & Writers about poets protesting guns in the classroom.

I’ve got a bunch of readings coming up this fall in New York at Hudson Valley Writers’ Center (9/14), Berl’s (10/19), Poet’s House (10/20), and KGB Bar (11/19); in Virginia at New Dominion Bookshop (9/28) and UVA (10/4); in North Carolina at Flyleaf Books (9/29); and in Chicago at the Poetry Foundation (11/29). You can find updated details about all my events here. I’ve also got Boston, NYC, Seattle, and Portland on the docket for winter and spring 2019. If you want me to come read for your college or university, series, festival, or bookstore, definitely drop me a note–I love doing readings, workshops, and craft talks!