Serena Chopra has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver and an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the author of two full-length books of poems, This Human (Coconut 2013) and Ic (Horse Less Press 2017), as well as two chapbooks, Penumbra (Flying Guillotine Press 2012) and Livid Season (Free Poetry 2012). She is a Kundiman Fellow and a 2016-2017 Fulbright Scholar, for which she is composing hybrid writing informed by her research with queer women in Bangalore, India. She is a multidisciplinary artist, working as a professional dancer, theater/performance artist and visual artist. She is a co-founder and actor in the poet’s theater group, GASP and worked with Denver’s Splintered Light Theater on a full-length production of Ic, for which she composed the soundscore. She has an ongoing text/image collaboration, Memory is a Future Tense, with artist Lu Cong. Serena currently teaches in the MFA program at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
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AstroLushes: A New Podcast for Astrology Lovers Everywhere
ASTROLUSHES is a podcast at the intersection of astrology and literature, ritual, wellness, pop culture, creativity — and, of course, wine. Hosted by Luna Luna editor-in-chief Lisa Marie Basile and contributor Andi Talarico (both water signs!), you can expect guests, giveaways, book reviews, and more. You’ll have fun, but you’ll also go deep.
Episode 1 is an introductory episode during which the hosts chat about astrology’s impact in their own lives, plus they tackle the ideas of reductive astrology memes, pop culture (Rihanna lyrics!), folk magic, family lineage and trauma. They also a Rapid Fire Round of Guess That Sign (which sign is Poe?).
For now, you can listen to ASTROLUSHES on Anchor.Fm (there’s an app and also a website), but the podcast will soon be available on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else podcasts can be found. If you like what you hear, leave them a clap or star the show on Anchor. You can also listen below!
You can tweet them at @astrolushes.
Starting from the Center: Magickal Approaches to Protecting Boundaries
For adult survivors of child abuse, boundaries are a lifelong struggle. We are taught early that chaos reigns and that anything can and will happen at any time. We alternate between hypervigilance and radical openness, and our wires are so tangled that we often cannot figure out which of these responses is appropriate in the moment. We spend our lives letting the wrong people in, and lashing out at the right ones, until we become conscious of the pattern and begin working to rewire our own brains.
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Roy Lichtenstein
Writing the Landscape of Isolation, Trauma, & New York City
When writers talk about writing, they talk about isolation. It’s why Basquiat and Woolf and the Shelleys and Whitman and Holiday all created something with a vicious pursuit—as a means to connect. They needed to—you could say it was somewhere in their marrow or their spirit, or whatever it is you believe to be so deep, it can’t be separated from the human. So, if we’re talking about living with loneliness, what does this actually mean?
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