#jen fitzgerald

[read-this-now]

Tyson Collier lives out and proud in Las Vegas, a far cry from the oppressive small town he grew up in. He swore he'd never go back in the closet, not for anyone or anything.

Working as an ice crew member for the Las Vegas Gamblers is a dream job. Tyson is surrounded by hunky hockey players--athletes are totally his type even if they're straight.

Semyon "Semka" Novikoff has focused his whole life on playing professional-level hockey. He can't ever come out. Not as a Russian national. His life and livelihood depend on keeping his sexuality a secret.

Playing professional hockey in the United States is an experience like no other. The vast freedoms he enjoys are many. Except the freedom to be publicly gay.

When Semka suffers a concussion, Tyson volunteers to help him with daily life. Over the course of the first few weeks, their friendship blossoms.

Semka takes Tyson into his confidence and reveals his sexuality. Tyson takes Semka to bed.

What started as a simple gesture of kindness becomes a secret relationship with an expiration date. Once Semka is medically cleared to play, the relationship is over.

Semka can't risk losing his job or his life, and Tyson won't be with someone who can't openly present themselves to the world as part of a couple.

When Semka and Tyson part ways, both men find themselves missing the other, but they can never be. At least, that's what they tell themselves.

Read in this order:

No Protocol for Love

Defending the Drag Queen

Rookies at Love

Breakaway for Love

Finders Keepers

Game Misconduct

[thndrstd]

The Art of Work by Jen Fitzgerald My rating: 5 of 5 stars A powerful and beautiful work of poetry that finds art in the lives of those who do manual labor - the waitress, the factory worker, the slaughterhouse employee. Drawing on her family's and her own experiences, she highlights the exploitation and abuse of laborers, but it is never preachy. Instead, she finds nobility and honor in those who bust their physical bodies in a struggle to get by. This book deserves a wider audience and is highly recommended. View all my reviews

[coupletreadingseries]

Thanks to our six fabulous readers for making our fifth anniversary so special last night

[coupletreadingseries]

upcoming reader, Jen Fitzgerald, is featured at TheThePoetry

http://www.thethepoetry.com/2016/08/infoxicated-corner-spotlight-series-2016-poems-by-jen-fitzgerald/

[therumpus]

Writing is born of living. I want nothing more than the poet to tell me what she has seen and can think of no better tribute to life than to render it into art. My own art seeks to create images that use subjectivity as a vehicle for illumination. Our voice, our point of view and the lens through which we see the world is important—it is how we connect, how we reach out to others. Our stories lie in the small spaces between what we have seen and what we say because the events that resonate with us are actually magnifying glasses. They allow us to see the fibers that make up the cloth of experience—it drapes us all.

Jen Fitzgerald’s Poetry Mixtape #4: Poetry That Wants To Tell You What It Has Seen.

[therumpus]

Jen Fitzgerald’s Poetry Mixtape #3: Poetry That Asks You To Sit And Sort This Whole Thing Out.

Poems are invitations to thought. The elite of these thinking poems ask you to pull up a chair and get comfortable because you are about to work through something. It may not be pretty or easy, but at the end of it you will see an event, an image, or an accepted idea differently.

[therumpus]

Jen Fitzgerald’s Poetry Mixtape #2: Poets On Poetry And Art.

The only thing poets enjoy more than talking about themselves is talking about poetry and the creative impulse. And thank God for that. Have you ever heard poets talking about the well-spring of creativity and pulling at the strings of an idea until it has unraveled on the page? Have you been in the room when a conversation about the hymnal prosody of Emily Dickinson bursts onto Elizabeth Bishop in a hospital waiting room or the mustard gas trenches of WWI? It’s enough to make you say “I’ve wasted my life” or “Why isn’t Poetry our national language?!”

[litreactor]

Poetry and Essay share a cerebral kinship. They follow their own paths, but are born of living. In this three-week workshop, learn how to draw from your life to create art.