Summary
Laura Wetherington’s first book, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence Books 2011), was selected by C.S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. Her second book, chosen by Peter Gizzi for the New Measure Prize, was released with Free Verse Editions in January 2021. Gizzi called the book “a welcome addition to a tradition that troubles tradition.” She has published three chapbooks: Dick Erasures (Red Ceilings Press 2011), the collaboratively written at the intersection of 3 (Dancing Girl Press 2014), and Grief Is the Only Thing That Flies (Bateau Press 2018), which Arielle Greenberg selected for the Keel Chapbook Contest.
Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Poem-A-Day, Conjunctions, Pleiades, Narrative, among others, and in two anthologies: Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (Haymarket Books 2020) and The Sonnets: Translating and Rewriting Shakespeare (Nightboat Books 2012). Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The Volta, Hyperallergic, Full Stop, Jacket2, 1508, and in an anthology on the poet Tim Atkins, Nothing on Atkins (Crater Press 2023). Her writing is a two-time recipient of the Nevada Arts Council’s Literary Arts Fellowship and was awarded a 2014 Artist Grant from the Sierra Arts Foundation.
Laura's editorial experience includes co-founding and, for a decade, co-editing : an online journal of experimental poetry and sound. She developed an integrated curriculum in 2013 for graduate and undergraduate students working on the Sierra Nevada Review and for four years taught those classes. In 2014 she joined as their poetry editor.
Laura grew up in Virginia and Nevada and taught English as a foreign language for a year in France between undergrad and graduate school. She lived in the Netherlands from 2017-2023 and is now back in Reno