The Weeds Grow Anyway

The Making of The Book
(As of January 2025)

In May 2023 I started assembling the manuscript for The Weeds Grow Anyway. I initially planned on sending it out to publishers, but I wanted to make a single hardcover copy first, so I could visualize the book as a real, physical object.

In the process of making the hardcover book, I remembered my love of book-making. I’d printed and published anthologies previously through Prickly Pear Printing, namely We Grow Anyway: An Anthology of Queer Love, Joy, and Growth (which the title of my book is a reference to). In reflecting on the experience, I decided I wanted to make and bind my poetry collection as well. I loved the idea of crafting each book as a handmade gift to the people who had supported my poetry over the years. The community I’d found through poetry felt so personal, and I wanted each book to feel the same.

In early 2024, I started redesigning the cover as a linocut relief printing design and planning how I wanted to go about printing it. It is then that the community of printers I’d come to know offered their support. Ladyfingers Letterpress offered their risograph machines for printing the yellow layer, and The Press at Colorado College offered me a printing residency so I could print the linocut layers using their printing presses. As of mid-June, 2024, all of the book covers are printed.

During the fall and winter of 2024, I dug into finalizing the manuscript, which is now out for editing with some trusted friends. Once these are finalized, I’ll print them, and then spend the following months binding the books. The plan is to release the book in May or June, 2025.

At first, I planned on using my perfect binding machine to bind the books, but after some experimentation, I’ve determined I’ll be saddle-stitching the books instead.

If you facilitate a venue, book store, open mic, class, or any space in which you’d like me to perform my work and share the poetry within this book, please, contact me. I’d love to work with you!

Published Poems

• blessing from venetucci farm. Sunday Mornings at the River. 2024 Poetry Diary.

• trans day of i love you + interview. High Country News.

• everyone has a queer farm fantasy. the winnow. dual themed issue: home / liminal spaces (purchase here)

• daydream. The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4, Latinext. Haymarket Books.

• a poem in which the word ‘fingernails’ is replaced by ‘gender’. Suspect Press.

• how many times must i mourn this year. Colorado Springs Independent.

• Queer Etymology. Colorado Springs Independent.

• ways i could be buried with you and the train. Crab Fat Magazine. [Now defunct. R.I.P.]

• riverbed Rust + Moth.

• facts about manatees. Cactus Heart.

• the train. Voicemail Poems.

• grind. Hot Poetry Calendar, June poet and model. Olney // Bullshit Lit.

• the bees and the beekeeper speak. co-written with Mackenzie Beninati. Deep Overstock Journal Issue 17: Beekeeping.

Articles

• Peach Press hopes to elevate underrepresented voices. Colorado Springs Independent.

• The spirit of do-it-yourself is in doing ‘it’ together. Colorado Springs Independent.

• Mani Queen talks drag and the Springs scene. Colorado Springs Independent.

• The Origin of Us. Cipher Magazine.

• The Dead Dogs of Dale Street. Cipher Magazine.

• Packing Boxes. Cipher Magazine.

Inauguration by Nico Wilkinson and Idris Goodwin