Lesley Wheeler
@lesleymwheeler.bsky.social
Poetry Ed of Shenandoah. Author of Poetry’s Possible Worlds, Unbecoming, The State She’s In, Radioland, & the forthcoming Mycocosmic—poetry, fantasy fiction, CNF, scholarship. She/her. linktr.ee/lesleymwheeler
Pinned
Mycocosmic is 6 months old! If you’ve foraged for it already, THANK YOU. I’d love to see photos of it in the wild. www.tupelopress.org/book/mycocos... 🍄 @tupelopress.bsky.social #poetry #fungi #mushroom
The stars are definitely aligning for me this month. Big inner stuff, too lesleywheeler.org/2025/12/04/s...
Stars, luck, and revelations
“The Instagram astrologers says big positive changes are coming for me this week!” I yelled from my reading chair to my spouse at his laptop, although the cats seemed interested, too. H…
lesleywheeler.org
December 4, 2025 at 11:05 PM
The stars are definitely aligning for me this month. Big inner stuff, too lesleywheeler.org/2025/12/04/s...
So excited! Thank you, @swwim.bsky.social and The Betsy Writer’s Room! #poetry #womenpoets #miamipoetry
Join us Thursday, December 11 at 7pm (EST) for a reading & conversation with Lesley Wheeler & Haya Pomrenze at The Betsy Hotel’s B Bar. This event will be live-streamed on our Instagram & Facebook pages.
Join us in person or from wherever you are.
XO
SWWIM Team
@lesleymwheeler.bsky.social
Join us in person or from wherever you are.
XO
SWWIM Team
@lesleymwheeler.bsky.social
December 4, 2025 at 11:03 PM
So excited! Thank you, @swwim.bsky.social and The Betsy Writer’s Room! #poetry #womenpoets #miamipoetry
I know these lists only show a fraction of the great new books out there—but how lovely for Mycocosmic to be on one! I just followed the article’s Bookshop.org link to order books in small press solidarity! lithub.com/100-notable-... @literaryhub.bsky.social
December 3, 2025 at 7:22 PM
I know these lists only show a fraction of the great new books out there—but how lovely for Mycocosmic to be on one! I just followed the article’s Bookshop.org link to order books in small press solidarity! lithub.com/100-notable-... @literaryhub.bsky.social
Thank you for shining a little light on Mycocosmic @angelacv.bsky.social —I just spotted the article & I’m so surprised & delighted! 🍄 ❤️🍾
Notable books 2025 is live on LitHub! #100smallpress
100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025
The idea of 100 Notable Small Press Books was born November 2024, after The New York Times’s annual 100 Notable Books list featured eighty-two books from the Big Five publishing houses (Pengu…
w7r4.engage.squarespace-mail.com
December 3, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Thank you for shining a little light on Mycocosmic @angelacv.bsky.social —I just spotted the article & I’m so surprised & delighted! 🍄 ❤️🍾
“Why do you say / I’m dying when I am reading?” by @catemarvin.bsky.social —the November issue of Poetry was particularly kick-ass. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi... @poetryfoundation.bsky.social
The Death of the Humanities
Why do you say I’m dying when I am reading, holding the hand of an author I know like a lover though they died years before I was born?
www.poetryfoundation.org
November 30, 2025 at 5:55 PM
“Why do you say / I’m dying when I am reading?” by @catemarvin.bsky.social —the November issue of Poetry was particularly kick-ass. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi... @poetryfoundation.bsky.social
@ktcndn.bsky.social Wow, Katie—this poem blows me away www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
The Holy Sacrament of Repression
I am a girlchild who is told I should use the beads to busy my hands. Too busy saving other worms from every shallow driveway pool, the jewelry of God seething on a dented bumper. With age, I notice t...
www.poetryfoundation.org
November 30, 2025 at 5:27 PM
@ktcndn.bsky.social Wow, Katie—this poem blows me away www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
Reposted by Lesley Wheeler
I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.
I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.
November 25, 2025 at 11:07 PM
I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.
Reposted by Lesley Wheeler
Thanks to the @poetryfoundation.bsky.social for giving this piece about my friend Marty Silano, a wonderful poet who passed away a few months ago, a home. We miss you, Marty. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/172...
September 22, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Thanks to the @poetryfoundation.bsky.social for giving this piece about my friend Marty Silano, a wonderful poet who passed away a few months ago, a home. We miss you, Marty. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/172...
Reposted by Lesley Wheeler
On the blog this week: A Week of Poetry Friends And Readings, Horror Poetry, Halloween/Samhain, and Some Real Life Scares: webbish6.com/a-week-of-po... #poets #readings #halloween #horrorpoetry
October 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
On the blog this week: A Week of Poetry Friends And Readings, Horror Poetry, Halloween/Samhain, and Some Real Life Scares: webbish6.com/a-week-of-po... #poets #readings #halloween #horrorpoetry
Thanks to Storyknife for their gift this week—a residency in April!—and @webbish6.bsky.social for photographing Mycocosmic among shrooms! Otherwise this week I’m thinking about rejections—being on both sides of the blade. lesleywheeler.org/2025/11/16/t...
The knife
At one of the many events I attended this fall, a magazine editor, reflecting on downsides of a generally rewarding job, sighed and said something like “so many bad poems.” What’s…
lesleywheeler.org
November 16, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Thanks to Storyknife for their gift this week—a residency in April!—and @webbish6.bsky.social for photographing Mycocosmic among shrooms! Otherwise this week I’m thinking about rejections—being on both sides of the blade. lesleywheeler.org/2025/11/16/t...
Santa Fe in a week! 7 pm, 11/7, Entropy Gallery, very 🍄 in theme. Excited to read in the new Floating Words series with Art—and about seeing lots of lower-case art and scenery over the November 7th weekend.
October 30, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Santa Fe in a week! 7 pm, 11/7, Entropy Gallery, very 🍄 in theme. Excited to read in the new Floating Words series with Art—and about seeing lots of lower-case art and scenery over the November 7th weekend.
Shenandoah and intern Ellis Nicholson did a terrific job with this interview about Mycocosmic. Again, I get a little ecstatic about fungal connections, but that has become a professional liability! www.shenandoahliterary.org/thepeak/an-i... @tupelopress.bsky.social
An Interview With Lesley Wheeler on Mycocosmic
Shenandoah intern Ellis Nicholson sat down with poetry editor Lesley Wheeler to talk about her sixth poetry collection, Mycocosmic, and her writing process.
www.shenandoahliterary.org
October 29, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Shenandoah and intern Ellis Nicholson did a terrific job with this interview about Mycocosmic. Again, I get a little ecstatic about fungal connections, but that has become a professional liability! www.shenandoahliterary.org/thepeak/an-i... @tupelopress.bsky.social
I read with these powerhouses in Bainbridge and am wowed by their books: What We Do by Michele Bombardier and If Nothing by Matthew Nienow. Recommended! #poetry @poetfish.bsky.social @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social
October 28, 2025 at 5:24 PM
I read with these powerhouses in Bainbridge and am wowed by their books: What We Do by Michele Bombardier and If Nothing by Matthew Nienow. Recommended! #poetry @poetfish.bsky.social @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social
Such timely and welcome news!
The Literary Arts Fund is an unprecedented effort to dramatically increase support for and the visibility of the nonprofit literary arts field for the next five years toward ensuring a healthy and more robust U.S. literary culture in support of creative writers: literaryartsfund.org/announcing-l...
October 28, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Such timely and welcome news!
This handsome book arrived, full of essays by poetry scholars I admire wildly. Thank you @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social and editor Mike Chasar! Here’s the song I chose, “Talkin’ New York,” in case you want to give it a listen: m.youtube.com/watch?v=rxIJ...
October 27, 2025 at 5:13 PM
This handsome book arrived, full of essays by poetry scholars I admire wildly. Thank you @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social and editor Mike Chasar! Here’s the song I chose, “Talkin’ New York,” in case you want to give it a listen: m.youtube.com/watch?v=rxIJ...
lesleywheeler.org/2025/10/26/p... —on the good weirdness of this Washington State trip! 🍄
Professor Mushroom listens to strangers
As I filtered out of a particularly fun workshop-reading-open mic at BookTree in Kirkland, Washington, one of the participants called back to me as he ambled down the dark street, “Thanks, Pr…
lesleywheeler.org
October 26, 2025 at 8:34 PM
lesleywheeler.org/2025/10/26/p... —on the good weirdness of this Washington State trip! 🍄
Looped around the outrageously gorgeous Olympic Peninsula today. Tomorrow, 10/22, BookTree in #Kirkland WA: free workshop 5:45, reading at 7, open mic after. #poetry
@chrisbooktree.bsky.social
@chrisbooktree.bsky.social
October 22, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Looped around the outrageously gorgeous Olympic Peninsula today. Tomorrow, 10/22, BookTree in #Kirkland WA: free workshop 5:45, reading at 7, open mic after. #poetry
@chrisbooktree.bsky.social
@chrisbooktree.bsky.social
Tonight, 10/20, I read at 6:30 in Port Angeles Library with Nellie Bridge! Meanwhile we’ve wrapped up the haiku contest at the OlyPen Fungi Festival. The voters elected this little beauty.
October 20, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Tonight, 10/20, I read at 6:30 in Port Angeles Library with Nellie Bridge! Meanwhile we’ve wrapped up the haiku contest at the OlyPen Fungi Festival. The voters elected this little beauty.
Reposted by Lesley Wheeler
The world is falling apart and we’re going to read some poems.
But we’re going to do it together and for a great cause.
Join us. Register here:
beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com
But we’re going to do it together and for a great cause.
Join us. Register here:
beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com
October 18, 2025 at 12:41 AM
The world is falling apart and we’re going to read some poems.
But we’re going to do it together and for a great cause.
Join us. Register here:
beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com
But we’re going to do it together and for a great cause.
Join us. Register here:
beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com
Reposted by Lesley Wheeler
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!
The University of Texas-Austin is beginning a process to eliminate the Black Studies, Latino Studies, and Gender Studies departments in the College of Liberal Arts. This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff, and the people of Texas. 1/
The University of Texas-Austin is beginning a process to eliminate the Black Studies, Latino Studies, and Gender Studies departments in the College of Liberal Arts. This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff, and the people of Texas. 1/
October 13, 2025 at 4:37 PM
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!
The University of Texas-Austin is beginning a process to eliminate the Black Studies, Latino Studies, and Gender Studies departments in the College of Liberal Arts. This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff, and the people of Texas. 1/
The University of Texas-Austin is beginning a process to eliminate the Black Studies, Latino Studies, and Gender Studies departments in the College of Liberal Arts. This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff, and the people of Texas. 1/
On booking events, persisting through the fails, and other poet stuff. Also, please pray to the gods of air travel for me lesleywheeler.org/2025/10/10/w...
Washington-bound (the other one)
I’m packing now for 12 days in the Pacific northwest (not nearby Washington D.C., which essentially seems like Mordor now). Here’s the poetry part of my itinerary: October 16, 7 pm: Bai…
lesleywheeler.org
October 10, 2025 at 5:53 PM
On booking events, persisting through the fails, and other poet stuff. Also, please pray to the gods of air travel for me lesleywheeler.org/2025/10/10/w...
In case you live in the Seattle area and like poetry, the underworld, and/ or snacks…free workshop 10/22 at BookTree in Kirkland, followed by reading/ open mic! @chrisbooktree.bsky.social www.booktreekirkland.com/new-events/2...
Lesley Wheeler - mini workshop-reading-open mic 10/22 !!! — BookTree Kirkland
Special guest, special night, 10/22 with Lesley Wheeler @ 5:46 pm.
www.booktreekirkland.com
October 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
In case you live in the Seattle area and like poetry, the underworld, and/ or snacks…free workshop 10/22 at BookTree in Kirkland, followed by reading/ open mic! @chrisbooktree.bsky.social www.booktreekirkland.com/new-events/2...
Poets, Shenandoah reading periods are coming up fast! The one for Virginia poets will stay open till 10/31, but Samyak’s great call for formal experiment will hit the cap fast (I’d guess 3 days). www.shenandoahliterary.org/submissions/
October 7, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Poets, Shenandoah reading periods are coming up fast! The one for Virginia poets will stay open till 10/31, but Samyak’s great call for formal experiment will hit the cap fast (I’d guess 3 days). www.shenandoahliterary.org/submissions/
Warm thanks to Alexis David, Jenny Grassl, KB Kinkel & Kristina Marie Darling for this critical symposium on Mycocosmic in Tupelo Quarterly. Inspiring reviewers to read about mushrooms while in the bathtub: life goal unlocked. @tupelopress.bsky.social www.tupeloquarterly.com/tq36-table-o...
October 6, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Warm thanks to Alexis David, Jenny Grassl, KB Kinkel & Kristina Marie Darling for this critical symposium on Mycocosmic in Tupelo Quarterly. Inspiring reviewers to read about mushrooms while in the bathtub: life goal unlocked. @tupelopress.bsky.social www.tupeloquarterly.com/tq36-table-o...