LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: mushroom

  • Voices in my head

    Voices in my head

    I don’t know how to harmonize the jostling inner voices of the last few weeks into coherent prose, so here’s some cacophony.

  • A D.C. reading, ghost pipes, & more Dickinson

    A D.C. reading, ghost pipes, & more Dickinson

    My new mushroom-patterned dress and I will appear at Kramer’s in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday 7/22, where I’m reading at 7 pm with Steven Leyva and Tonee Mae Moll. (The dress is kind of retro and I think I look like a sci-fi 50s nurse in it, or maybe a waitress at a fungus-themed diner.)…

  • Dickinson’s fungal weirdness

    Dickinson’s fungal weirdness

    This Thursday, 7/17, at 6 pm Eastern, I’m reading with Nadia Alexis in a virtual series, Phosphorescence, hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum. (Nadia’s great book Beyond the Watershed launched on the very same March day as my Mycocosmic so it’s been a pleasure to pair up a couple of times.) The reading is free…

  • Instead of patriotism, fungus

    Instead of patriotism, fungus

    I’m not feeling the red-white-and-blue this year, so I hereby give you an image of the very pink Barbie pagoda mushroom–Podoserpula miranda–from New Caledonia, image drawn from The Global Fungal Red List. You’re welcome. I found stories about its discovery when I was reminding myself of the names of mushroom morphologies for a novel I’ve…

  • Itinerant Poet with Toadstools, Witches, & Shame

    Itinerant Poet with Toadstools, Witches, & Shame

    Mycocosmic is now three months old. Since it sprouted, I’ve done twenty events, recorded a few podcasts, received some nice notice (here’s the latest lovely review, by K.B. Kinkel). Meanwhile I taught very-full-time and kept working to set up summer and fall events, although they’re scheduled more calmly. “How are you feeling about the launch?”…

  • Dark corridors

    Dark corridors

    For the past few years, I’ve thought of this time of year as a lightless tunnel: from late April, when my mother died in pain, till Mother’s Day, after which grief shrinks back to a manageable size. This year, I see my sister suffering through this passage, but somehow I’m okay. Maybe it’s because I’ve…

  • Mycocosmic is in the field

    Mycocosmic is in the field

    My book-spore have been released! Like all wild things, they’re not as calendar-driven in their dispersal as an author might pretend. Tupelo people and I agreed that the official launch date would be March 4th because Tuesdays are traditional in the industry and “march forth” sounds cute–that’s when the local party happens (Downtown Books, Lexington…

  • Fruiting the substrate

    Fruiting the substrate

    Publishing a poetry book involves nourishing your work in what may feel like darkness, growing networks. It can take a long time until the mushroom-poems themselves burst into the light. And who knows if people will find them, devour them, and find them tasty. Am I taking this metaphor a little far for you? Too…

  • Mycocosmic cover & pre-order link!!!

    Mycocosmic cover & pre-order link!!!

    I am SO EXCITED to reveal the cover to my sixth poetry book, MYCOCOSMIC! It’s also available for preorder from Tupelo Press at this link, and it officially marches forth on March 4th, 2025. The cover art is from a series entitled “Radiant Void” by Pearl Cowan, whose other works you can also see on…

  • Mycelial poetry devouring the ruins

    Mycelial poetry devouring the ruins

    For the last couple of years, my muse has been mycelial. I mean both that fungus infests my current mss–I’m revising a poetry collection and a novel–and, in a related way, that a mycelial life seems like what I ought to be aiming for. Spreading tendrils underground, sprouting mushrooms after a storm, metabolizing trouble: these…