Lauren Henley

Award winning poet, essayist, fiction writer, and visual artist with over 15 years writing, publishing, and teaching experience. Co-founder and editor of Apercus Quarterly online literary magazine.

Current Research Interests

• Environmental impacts of tourist industry on hometown of Joshua Tree, CA
• The Salton Sea
• The housing crisis
• The history of housekeeping
• "Pink collar" work
• The "spiritual retreat" industry in the Mojave Desert

Teaching Interests

• Online and hybrid coursework; low-residency models; writing mentorship
• Profile essays and essays focused on place
• Eco poetic essays
• Personal essays, memoir, illness memoir
• Flash fiction and flash CNF
• Collaborative practices in poetry and art
• Persona poems
• The novel in verse
• Hybridity
• Erasure, collage, blackout poetry
• Literary magazine design

Editorial Experience

• Apercus Literary Magazine 2009-2020
• Editor-in-chief
• Original co-founder since 2009
• Created widely read, well-respected, online journal with international submissions of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, art
• Selected work from all genres and paired with visual art
• Advertised in Poets & Writers, Duotrope, Submittable, and elsewhere
• Interviewed over 30 award-winning, critically acclaimed writers (i.e. Marvin Bell, Lia Purpura, Nathan McClain, Jeffrey Davis, Marsha de la O) and visual artists
• Nominated for pushcarts and Best of the Net
• Retired the magazine in 2020; archived all issues as full-color PDFs

Beatnik Lounge Reading Series 2018-2019

The Beatnik Lounge, Joshua Tree

• Co-hosted well-known reading series that connected award-winning poets and writers with locals in rural area
• Connected local high school and community college students with visiting authors
• Advertised events through ads, radio, and online platforms

Book Publications

• Ordinary Light: A Correspondence (with Laura Maher; forthcoming from Bamboo Dart) 2023
• From the Moon, As I Fell: poems and paintings formed during the pandemic (with Zara Kand; Nightjar Press) 2020
• Whole Night Through: A Novella in Verse (What Books Press) 2019
• Starshine Road: Poems (Perugia Press) 2017
• These Friends These Rooms: Poems (Big Yes Press) 2016
• The Finding: Poems (Orange Monkey Publishing) 2014
• Desert with a Cabin View: Poems (Orange Monkey Publishing) 2013

Unpublished Manuscripts

• Dear Question: A Conversation (chapbook with Jennifer K. Sweeney)
• Animism: a Fable (chapbook with Kristin Bock)
• Skeleture of Night (full-length poetry manuscript)
• Everything Abandoned is Kin (novel)
• Untitled personal essay collection on illness and recovery

Writing Awards and Recognitions

• Winner, Arts & Letters/Susan Atefat Prize for CNF 2020
• Winner, CNF prize through PSWG chosen by Sue William Silverman
• Winner, Perugia Press Prize 2017
• Winner, Poet’s Billow Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize 2016
• Winner, Poet’s Billow Pangea Poetry Prize 2016
• Finalist, Hillary Gravendyk Prize in Poetry 2016
• Finalist, Academy of American Poets University Award 2014
• First Place, Al Landwehr Poetry Contest 2014
• Semi-finalist, Crab Orchard Review First Book Award 2013
• Finalist, Patricia Bibby First Book Award 2013
• Winner, Duckabush Prize in Poetry chosen by Lia Purpura 2012
• Winner, Orange Monkey Publishing Poetry Prize 2012
• Finalist, A Room of Her Own Orlando Prize in Poetry 2011
• Nomination, 50 Best New American Poets, nominated by Marvin Bell, 2011
• Nomination, 50 Best New American Poets, nominated by Joseph Millar, 2010
• Finalist, River Styx International Poetry Prize 2011
• Winner, Academy of American Poets University Award 2008
• Third place, Byzantium Fiction Contest 2007
• Winner, HOWL Fiction Prize 2004

Selected Creative Nonfiction in Periodicals

• The Los Angeles Review, "The Last Resort," August, 2022
• Bellingham Review, “Where the Green Grass Ends,” issue 84, 2021
• Brevity, “Night Patrol,” summer, 2021
• Smokelong Quarterly “Essay with Wet Bee,” issue 20, 2020
• American Literary Review, “Unusual Clouds,” fall, 2020
• Ninth Letter, “Insect Woman,” fall, 2020
• Arts & Letters “Drive! (You’re Lost Little Girl, You’re Lost) fall, 2020

Selected Poetry in Periodicals

• Tinderbox “How do you resist longing?” Volume 6, issue 3, 2020
• Zone 3 “The Boy and the Hare,” “The Taxidermist and the Black Bear,” Spring, 2019
• DIAGRAM “Prom Night in Branford,” issue 18.1, 2019
• Spillway “Echolocate“ issue 27, Summer 2019
• Diode “What have you abandoned,” “When do you start over?” volume 12, no 2, 2019
• Superstition Review “From water to water,” “Call it Cloud” issue 24, fall, 2019
• Phoebe “How to deal with your first death,” issue 48.1, winter, 2019
• Stirring “How do you let yourself be fooled?” volume 22, edition 1, 2019
• Waxwing “She was dancing like something that twists,” “It’s true I seen them kissing,” issue XIV, spring, 2018
• Cider Press Review “The Orchard Spider & the Grub” Volume 20, issue 2, 2018
• Glass “Everywhere Is the Finding of Not Wings,” September, 2018
• Bateau “The white doctor gave me white pills,” issue 7.1, 2017
• Entropy “The Grackle,” Winter, 2017
• Exposition Review “On Light and Leaving: call and response,” vol.IV, 2017
• Rust + Moth “There Is so Much to Say about Lightning,” spring, 2017
• RHINO “Buying Food,” fall, 2015

Selected Artwork/ Visual Poetry in Periodicals

• Adroit "Span," "The Heart is A Bridge," "We Met in a Shared Dream," issue 42, August, 2022
• Rappahanock, "The Incomplete Field Guide to Pain" (cover), issue 9.2, June, 2022
• Adroit, "Gatherings of Ten of More, " issue 36, 2022
• Meat for Tea, various photos of my paper dolls, June, 2022
• Waxwing “Avoid seating two people next to one another” Volume 21, June 2020; chosen as cover image
• Thrush “One fills and refills,” “If there is no spoon in the saltcellar,” July 2020
• Timber “Party Planning” Summer 2020

Interviews and Reviews

• NPR, KVC_aRts, interview, October, 16th, 2019
• Mojave River Review, interview, December 5th, 2018
• Glass, review of Starshine Road, April 9th, 2019
• The Bind, review of Starshine Road, November 29th, 2018
• Sticks & Stones, review of Starshine Road, January 10th, 2018
• Rhino Magazine, review of Starshine Road, September 5th, 2018
• Main Street Rag, review of Starshine Road, Spring, 2018
• Desert Lady Diaries Podcast, interview, episode 54, August 28th, 2018
• NPR, interview, July 26th, 2018
• NPR, KVC_aRts, interview and reading with Jonathan Maule, November 7th, 2018
• The Poet's Billow, interview, April 26th, 2018
• Badlands Literary Journal, review of Starshine Road, August 19th, 2017
• Luna Arcana, review of Starshine Road, August, 2017
• The California Journal of Women Writers, interview, January 26th, 2015
• Menacing Hedge Literary Magazine, interview, Fall, 2015

Selected Public Poetry Readings and Lectures

• Ojai Poetry Series, June 16th, 2020 via Zoom
• Cal State Long Beach, April, 2020 via Zoom
• Olive Market, Redlands, CA, October 2020
• Staged reading of novella in verse, Furstwurld Art Gallery, October, 2019
• Crafton Hills College, Yucaipa, CA, October 2019
• The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, CA, September, 2019
• USC PhD in Creative Writing Department, Los Angeles, CA, April, 2019
• Art Queen Gallery, in conversation with artist Christiane Cegavske, Joshua Tree, CA, March, 2019
• Oxnard Library Reading Series, Oxnard, CA, June, 2018
• Claremont Library “Fourth Sunday Readings”, Claremont, CA, May, 2018
• Lecture, reading, “In Too Deep: The Art of Persona”, USC, Los Angeles, CA, April, 2018
• Joshua Tree Art Gallery, in conversation with visual artist Barbara Spiller, Joshua Tree, March, 2018
• Steynberg Art Gallery, San Luis Obispo, February, 2018
• Central Coast Body Therapy Center, Los Osos, CA, February, 2018
• EP Foster Library, with Marsha de la O, Ventura, CA, February, 2018
• Beyond Baroque, Venice Beach, CA, December, 2018
• Westfield University, Westfield, MA, November, 2017
• Mocha Maya’s Café, Northampton, MA, November, 2017
• Broadside Books, Northampton, MA, October, 2017
• Olive Market, Redlands, CA, October, 2017
• Space Cowboy Books, Joshua Tree, CA, October, 2017
• Gatsby Books, Long Beach, CA, October, 2019
• Rapp Saloon, Los Angeles, CA, October, 2017
• The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, CA, September, 2017
• Beyond Baroque, Venice Beach, CA, April, 2016
• Master Class, reading, “Violence on the Horizon: Writing the Disturbed Landscape,” Joshua Tree Art Gallery, Joshua Tree, CA, December, 2015
• Master Class, reading, “The Early Works of Pablo Neruda”, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA, May, 2014
• Master Class, “Widening the Aperture: Lyrical Photography”, in conversation with Lee Marmon, National Museum of the American Indian, New York, NY, March, 2005

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