Today in Checking In: Where Are They Now: Carol Stephen an active blogger and poet. She was the rep for the Canadian Authors Association and has been on the board for the Tree Reading Series. Although living outside of Ottawa, she often trekked to Ottawa for poetry events. Her previous chapbooks include: Chromatic Beliefs (group chapbooks, phafours, 2011), Above the Hum of Yellow Jackets (2011), Architectural Variations (2012), Ink Dogs in my Shoes (Nose In Book Publishing, 2014), collaborations with fellow poet, JC Sulzenko, Breathing Mutable Air (Nose In Book Publishing, 2015) and Slant of Light (Nose In Book Publishing, 2016), Unhook (Bondi Studios, 2018), Lost Silence of the Small ( Local Gems Poetry Press, Long Island New York, 2018), Winning the Lottery (Crowe Creations, 2019).
PP: What have you read lately that lit you up? why or how?
CS: Things That Join the Sea and Sky, by Mark Nepo. It’s a series of short prose pieces that help “when someone is struggling to keep their head above water”.
PP: What’s life’s focus these days, literary or otherwise?
CS: My focus right now is on my health; have just started undergoing dialysis treatments 3 days per week among a few other issues.
PP: Since you have poems born of ICU and Clostridium Difficile as Winning the Lottery, perhaps this too will become fertile poetic ground. What is underway or forthcoming?
CS: I have my first full collection coming out later this year, What I Carry With Me (Friesen Press, 2022)
I also have two other manuscripts: one is ready to go, the other is in final process of edits. It’s already been out to beta readers.
PP: Congratulations! Any author site or social media urls you’d like to drop?
Yes, Quillfyre