Marlena Chertock is a digital storyteller and poet.
Marlena has two books of poetry, Crumb-sized: Poems (Unnamed Press) and On that one-way trip to Mars (Bottlecap Press, out of print). She has had over 130 poems published in literary magazines.
Marlena writes about growing up with a rare skeletal dysplasia. Other common themes in her work include identity, intersectionality, queerness, chronic pain, accessibility, science fiction, and how climate change impacts disabled people. She is an advocate for human rights — including disabled, LGBTQ+, people of color, immigrants and refugees, neurodivergent, incarcerated, and other marginalized folks.
She regularly moderates panels at literary conferences, participates in podcast interviews, facilitates writing workshops, and performs poetry at open mics and reading series. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2020. Her poetry and prose has appeared in the Association of Writers & Writing Programs’ The Writer’s Notebook, Breath & Shadow, The Deaf Poets Society, DC Pride Poems, Grey Matter, the poetry journal of the Narrative Medicine program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, Lambda Literary Review, Little People of America, Rogue Agent Journal, Stormwash: Environmental Poems, Washington Independent Review of Books, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, Wordgathering, and more. Previously, she served as a Co-Chair of OutWrite, Washington, D.C.’s annual LGBTQ+ literary festival, and on the board of Split This Rock, a nonprofit that cultivates and celebrates poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes social change.
Marlena is a writer/editor at UNCF (United Negro College Fund). She is a freelance writer for Electrical Contractor Magazine, where she has written over 100 articles, covering topics such as the power crisis in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, how to ensure safe construction sites during COVID-19, and mental health in construction. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Marketplace, WTOP, NBC News, The Center for Public Integrity, and more.
She is always open for collaborating, meeting writers of all sorts, and geeking out over space and books.
INTERVIEWS
Interview with Poet and Editor Marlena Chertock, Wordgathering