Editorial Experience
Judge, The Dilettanti, 2025
Board of Directors, Gateway Literary Press 2020-present
Editorial Assistant, Sundress Publications 2016-2017
Judge, Fabulist Fiction Contest, The Gateway Review 2016, 2017
Founding Director, New Tech Odessa Writing Center 2013-2015
Nonfiction Editor, Rougarou: An Online Literary Journal 2011-2012
Assistant Fiction Editor, Rougarou: An Online Literary Journal 2010-2011
Editor-in-Chief, Sandstorm Literary Magazine 2009-2010
Editor-in-Chief, The Mesa Journal 2007-2010
Event Coordination
Director, Evolving Voices Reading Series, UT-Permian Basin 2015-2016
Founding Director, Hector Mendez Reading Series, New Tech Odessa 2013-2015
Director, Thursday Night Reading Series, University of Louisiana 2011-2012
Logistics Coordinator, Robert Coover reading, University of Louisiana 2011
Creative Publications
Note: the hyperlinks in this section are not regularly checked, as I have been primarily focused on academic publication for quite some time. However, I am a great supporter of all the small presses and literary journals in which my creative work has appeared.
“The House Where Wheels Live,” in Gingerbread House
It’s a story about a giant bat living in someone’s garage and features amazing artwork (of a bat)! What more do you need to know?
The bat in the garage was hanging from Jason’s bike rack, its body longer and thicker than Margaret’s dusty motorcycle, which, under its tarp, had fooled her some nights into thinking that it was a monster, lying in wait.
“Golem” and “Witch Burn,” in Three Drops from a Cauldrona
These poems (yes, poems!) feature in the Issue 10 and Issue 8 of this fabulous British journal of myth, fable, folklore, and general magic goodness. “Witch Burn” will also appear in the Imbolc “Best of” issue of Three Drops from a Cauldron.
“For Zelda,” Come As You Are Anthology, forthcoming
More news to come on this exciting publication!
“Godfish,” Menacing Hedge
This publication is very near to my heart. Of course, Menacing Hedge is amazing, but this story in particular stars a goldfish who is the protagonist of my current novel-in-progress.
Inside a plastic bubble, tied at the top with a rubber band, the goldfish swims and swims and the desert woman whispers to him.
“RACHE,” NonBinary Review
This Study of Scarlet themed issue of NonBinary Review is a must-read for any fans of Sherlockian poetry and prose.
“Buildings can and do billow, when they’re angry. This building, with the narrow corridors and the lace curtains and the dead man’s body, is furious, bulging, and there’s a sense, when you walk up the stairs, that the house is trying to swoop past you, that the ceiling seems too close, that the ceiling is trying to fall in and rap you in its anger, like the detective, who is running out of the room, with his hand over his mouth, pushing past you too hard, jostling your elbow and making you lean close to the banister while he gets sick on the landing.”
“The Circle of My Throat is Empty of Words,” Sakura Review
Read a copy of the Spring issue of the elegant Sakura Review for only $2 (that’s less than the cost of a cup of coffee) and discover this Sisyphean fable about a woman whose feet only travel in circles.
“The grooves in the dust are worn deep where I tread, the mesquite brush bent over, my
ankles and skirt shredded as the shriveled trees bow lower and lower each time I pass.
I have been walking here for many days, maybe months, maybe years.”
“Tell Me, Glass,” Hermeneutic Chaos
Check out Hermeneutic Chaos for a twisted little fairy tale. This piece was nominated by HC for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2017!
“Little times ago, a blinking light in the sky over the desert. We watched and watched until the light fell and splintered on the tall towering edges of an oil rig. There was an explosion. We watched that, too.”
“The Mindful Zombie: An Exercise to Enhance Tone,” Whale Road Review
“The Mindful Zombie” is a short pedagogy paper featuring an excellent exercise in exploring tone and emotion in creative writing, adapted from an ethos, pathos, logos exercise given to me many years ago by the outstanding Craig M. Biddy. I use this exercise every semester, and I hope it’s helpful to you, as well! Out soon in the Summer 2016 issue of the beautiful Whale Road Review.
“Cave Stories,” Dunes Review
In October 2015, check out “Cave Stories” in the fabulous Dunes Review.
“What she could not know was that the man was slipping away, too, slipping away to the sea with her, and when he arrived there, dropping into the depths, the way he should have when his car went catapulting off the cliff, he heard a chorus of voices trickling up at him.”
“Track Me With Your Words, Speak Me With Your Feet,” Puerto Del Sol
“Track Me With Your Words, Speak Me With Your Feet” has won the 2015 Fiction Contest of the fabulous Puerto del Sol. Check it out in their 51.1 issue. Contest judge Melanie Rae Thon said of it:
I love the weirdly quiet, almost familiar post-apocalyptic atmosphere of this piece. My dear, brilliant friend Michael Martone once told me that the most interesting parts of a story are not the crises or the climax, but the denouement—the years and hours and days following violence, loss, transgression, humiliation . Track Me takes us into the world after, a place I find terrifying and strangely beautiful.
“There is the girl whose hair gallops like horses when she walks. From the front, she looks a little like Elvis, with a strong jaw and sad eyes but from the back, she is a band of colts.”
“The Theme Pastoral,” The Gateway Review
The Gateway Review is a biannual print literary journal that features the best contemporary magical realism, surrealism, and new fabulism written by new and emerging along with established and seasoned writers.
“Those two people who never fell in love sit on the back of the star’s sofa at night.” Support this amazing literary journal by buying a copy of their inaugural issue here.
A Narrow Line of Light, Boneset Books
This chapbook contains one beautiful, eerie story, and is a half-chap with a hand-stitched binding.
“It flutters through the door, not walks; or if it walks, you couldn’t prove it. ” Buy it here.
“Octopus Hands,” Sleet Magazine
Check out this great flash fiction, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Micro Award. “He married the Octopus Lady for her hair, not her tentacles. ”
“The Frenchman at the Kitchen Table” in Media, Technology, and the Imagination, from Cambridge Scholars Press.
Order this amazing collection of essays and fiction here. “The dynamic, precarious relationship between technology and imagination, or more broadly, between the sciences and the humanities, is a thrilling crux, offering possibilities scholars and artists of previous generations might have only hoped for in the most abstract way.”
Readings
- “Boom or Bust,” Marfa Public Radio, aired multiple times throughout 2017
- “The Circle of My Throat is Empty of Words” and “A Telling of Things that Are True Here,” SAFTA Reading Series, February 2016
- “A Narrow Line of Light,” Books in the Basin Author Series, October 2014
- Excerpts from Nesting, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, May 2012
- “Cave Stories” and “The Key,” read at Thursday Night Reading Series, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, February 2012
- “The Fool,” read at Thursday Night Reading Series, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, March 2011
Kristen Figgins, Ph.D. 