WE MADE IT!

Surviving 2025

Hello and happy new year! 2025 was one for books and by that I mean shove it to the back of your bookshelf and never look at it again. Because 2025 was HARD. It was HEARTBREAKING. It was exhausting and frustrating and scary and overwhelming. And I wish I had words to make it better. I wish I had a crystal ball I could gaze into and tell you the future looks good. Instead I’ve just got a shitty Magic 8 ball and it keeps telling me to ask again later. Thanks for nothing Magic 8 ball.

Amidst all the chaos that was 2025, there were some good things: my fourth collection of poetry, Her Dark Everything, was published and I once again went on book tour across the country. I survived the longest government shutdown in American history. I traveled, I laughed, I worked out. I read poems and books. I taught workshops and I mailed postcards and I cooked dinner for friends. I baked, I yoga-ed, I wrote poems. I survived. And you did too. I hope the next year is better and brighter, for all of us.

I filled five notebooks with poems in 2025. How many did you fill?

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You may recall in late 2024, my friend Jason coerced me (HA!) into setting a high reading goal for the year (365 books) and I proceeded to blow it out of the water and read 446 books that year. While I didn’t read quite as many in 2025, but I did still read quite a bit, coming in a 430 books for the year. Here were my favorites for the year:

What were your favorite reads this year? Also, if we’re not friends on Goodreads please add me — I love seeing what others are reading!

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In 2026 I’m taking a (short) break from teaching workshops as I am a little burnt out. But I’m still leading my monthly Poetry Coven, the generative writing workshop I host. Read more about it here and I hope to see you at a future Poetry Coven! We kick off the new year of Poetry Coven on 13 January!

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My press, Riot in Your Throat, is open for full length poetry manuscripts! I hope you consider submitting, we’re looking for 2-4 collections to publish in 2026/2027.

What I’m Reading

After falling in love with this poem by Morrow Dowdle I knew I wanted to read their chapbook, Hardly, a short collection about suffering from and surviving a prolonged eating disorder. I felt these poems. Highly recommend. I really enjoyed The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, if you like historical fiction this is a good one. And in non-fiction I enjoyed We Should All Be Birds: A Memoir by Brian Buckbee and Carol Ann Fitzgerald. It gave me new insight into chronic fatigue syndrome (and how truly devastating it can be) and how animals — in this case a pigeon — can save us.

What I’m writing

December brings one of my favorite traditions, the December Poets. Founded by my dear friend Laura Passin, a group of us aim to write a poem a day for the entire month as a way to bring light into the darkest time of the year. While I didn’t quite write a poem a day I did write 20 poems, of which 5-6 are solid and are worth editing a bit. It’s a great way to close out the year.

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I hope you are healthy and safe, and I wish you a better, brighter 2026.

Courtney