FORTHCOMING
“When you hug a tree” in Disobedient Futures, a speculative literature anthology from the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, published by the University Press of Kentucky, TBA
Poems in Sacred and Subversive: Queer Perspectives on the Future of Faith Communities, TBA
PUBLISHED
2025
“A new world” in America’s Future: Poetry & Prose in Response to Tomorrow from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, September 9, 2025
“Puberty cookies” in eff-able: a spicy anthology of queer crip poetry, published by fourteen poems, June 2025
“a diagnosis I” and “a diagnosis VIII” in Grey Matter: An Anthology of Contemporary Medical Poems, the poetry journal of the Narrative Medicine program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, April 30, 2025
“Things are still burning” in The Mixtape Review, Issue 3, April 2025
2024
“a diagnosis VI”, “a diagnosis VII”, and “Catalog of gratitude” in Paper Cranes Literary, Issue 2, December 1, 2024 (digital edition, print edition)
“a diagnosis III” and “a body that aches” in Love Me, Love My Belly zine from Porkbelly Press, September 2024
“Living visibly” in A poem for Switchboard: Poetry Anthology Book for Switchboard, the UK national LGBTQIA+ support line, July 2024
“Valuable weight” in DC Pride Poems, June 29, 2024
nominated for Best of the Net: Poetry, 2024
“a diagnosis I” in Grey Matter, the poetry journal of the Narrative Medicine program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, April 30, 2024
“Thank you to a body” in Tiny Moments, Vol. 2, from Bronze Bird Books, March 21, 2024
“Recipe for climate change”, “Climate change is”, and “A hoax” in Stormwash: Environmental Poems, edited by Hiromi Yoshida, March 17, 2024
2023
“Warmer than you ever imagined”, “Women are dirty”, “Sweet”, “a diagnosis II”, and “A visit” in Darling Lit, December 17, 2023
“A visit” in Impossible Archetype, #14, August 28, 2023
“I split this body” in A Body You Talk To: An Anthology of Contemporary Disability (free download) from Sundress Publications, June 10, 2023
2022
“When you’ve got the bugs” in DC Pride Poems, June 17, 2022
2021
“Where the quiet queers are”, “Dayenu”, and “How it feels” in lesbiennale Gallery in Brussels & online, October 2021
“Ode to the Eastern Shore”, “The earth seems closer”, “Migration” in The Forgotten River: Anacostia Swim Club nature anthology, July 2021
“Flirting is a black hole” in Queer Cookies: A Poetry Series and Cookbook (out of print), July 2021
“When you fall” in WMN Zine: Issue 3, May 15 2021
“Forecast: 3018” in Paranoid Tree: Vol. 7, May 10, 2021
“Forecast: 2031” in QueerSpace Force from Neon Hemlock Press, May 2021
“The earth seems closer when it rains” in Unheard Poetry, April 22, 2021
“Forecast: 4086” in miniskirt magazine, April 7, 2021
nominated for Best of the Net: Fiction, 2021
“Earth, swallow me whole” and “Nasty beauty” in Lesbians are Miracles (read the archive), March 11, 2021
2020
“Stunt Reclaims a Successful Black Business Woman’s History” (book review) in Lambda Literary Review, December 10, 2020
“The Future is Disabled: Planning for Climate Change Must Include People with Disabilities” in 350.org (article), December 3, 2020
“Find us” and “Armpit arsonist” in Doubleback Review, October 15, 2020
“Armpit arsonist” was nominated for the 2020 Pushcart Prize
“My body is as old as precambrian earth”, “May the earth love you back”, “Water bear body”, “Dayenu”, “When you’ve got the bugs”, and “a bitch learns” in An Ocean of Possibilities: A Zine for Bisexual Visibility Week, September 23, 2020
“All aflame”, “Landscape”, and “Inhale” in Plants & Poetry Journal, Third Issue, August 1, 2020
“Instances of Head-Switching” in Washington Independent Review of Books (book review), July 22, 2020
“Insomnia in a pandemic” in Split This Rock: Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge, July 9, 2020
“Ancestral nourishment” in Poetry X Hunger: Bringing a World of Poets to the Anti-Hunger Cause, May 2020
“Not weak” and “When you love someone so much” in The Human Touch Journal’s The Curve special issue, April 2020
2019
“Concerning Craft: Ode to the World Before Climate Change” (essay) in Little Patuxent Review, June 21, 2019
“Ode to the Eastern Shore” in Little Patuxent Review, Winter 2019
“The Interplanetary Sanitation Workers Get Sent to Kepler-186F” in Paper Darts‘ (defunct) Cleanliness micro-fiction contest, judged by Esmé Weijun Wang, Jan. 5, 2019
“Where the quiet queers are”, “Marsquake”, “half out”, “a bitch learns”, “When has blood ever stopped men”, and “When you hug a tree”, LOUD & QUEER 11: Queer History Zine, 2019
2018
“Wonder Women” reprinted in Metro Weekly spotlight on OutWrite 2018, Aug. 2, 2018
Poems in Dwarf Artist Coalition’s “Looking Back & Looking Ahead” show at Little People of America Convention, July 2018
“It should be called womenstruate”, “2 minutes and 30 seconds”, and “At 13 I lived in the forest” in Stoked Words: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from the Capturing Fire Slam & Summit, (free download) June 2018
“Two-body problem” in Maryland’s Best Emerging Poets by Z Publishing (out of print), Feb. 16, 2018
2017
“Forecast: 2035” in Paper Darts (defunct), Dec. 13, 2017
“My body is as old as precambrian earth” in Rogue Agent Journal, Dec. 1, 2017
“Sail to Jupiter with me” in Calamus Journal’s Alumni Issue (defunct), Nov. 1, 2017
“How to Make Your Literary Magazine More Inclusive” in AWP’s The Writer’s Notebook, Oct. 16, 2017
“It should be called womenstruate“, “The only awkward one“, “Migration“, and “Unfold me gently” in Noble/Gas Quarterly (defunct), Sept. 15, 2017
“Spider slayer” in Monstering Magazine (defunct), Aug. 9, 2017
“Crumb-sized: Poems” poetry collection from Unnamed Press, Aug. 15, 2017
“This isn’t a poem about motherhood” and “Recipe to reduce pain” in Daughter literary magazine (defunct), May 20, 2017
“On that one-way trip to Mars”, “Application to NASA”, “Moon, or no moon”, “The martian comes to me”, “A speck of pain”, “I give a cosmic middle finger”, “Aging with the solar system”, and “You magnify the universe” in The Deaf Poets Society: an online journal of deaf and disabled literature & arts, “Crips In Space” issue, May 4, 2017
“At 13 I lived in the forest” and “Tin•ni•tus” in Backbone Mountain Review (defunct), May 2017
“I am rotting log of wood”, “Harriet Tubman was disabled”, “Rikkud”, “How to feel beautiful”, and “Tin•ni•tus” in Tiny Tim Literary Review, Feb. 20, 2017
“Short curve II” in Breath & Shadow, Jan. 27, 2017
“2 minutes and 30 seconds” in Sea Foam (defunct), Jan. 15, 2017
“Ilana and the science experiment” in Crack the Spine, Issue No. 206, Jan. 5, 2017
2016
“Application to NASA“, “I am rotting log of wood“, and “Harriet Tubman was disabled” in Noble/Gas Quarterly (defunct), Dec. 23, 2016
“The martian comes to me” in Calamus Journal (defunct), Dec. 2, 2016
“Forecast” in Pilgrimage, Volume 40, Issue 1-2: Protest and Injustice, Dec. 2016
“How to feel beautiful” in The Deaf Poets Society, Oct. 5, 2016
“Wonder Women” in Paper Darts (defunct), Sept. 29, 2016
“As we ran in the backyard” in Wordgathering, Sept. 5, 2016
“Ode to my physical therapist” in Words Dance (defunct), Aug. 16, 2016
“Something happened on the day he died” in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing (defunct), June 11, 2016
“Voyager I lands” and “Voyager II lands” in Alien Mouth (defunct), May 26, 2016
“On that one-way trip to Mars” in River Poets Journal: Signature Poems special edition (defunct), May 17, 2016
“Body remembers” in The Fem (defunct), May 11, 2016
“Body remembers” in The Human Touch Journal, published by the University of Colorado Anschutz Center for Bioethics and Humanities, May 2016
“On that one-way trip to Mars” poetry collection from Bottlecap Press (out of print), May 6, 2016
“Forecast: 4015” in Nebula Rift (out of print), April 22, 2016
“Aging with the solar system” in Black Heart Magazine (defunct), April 17, 2016
“Skeleton Sheriff” in Moonsick Magazine (defunct), March 1, 2016
“&Emma” in Temptation Magazine, Jan. 25, 2016
“Forecast: 2085” and “Magruder Park Underwater” in OMNI Reboot (defunct), Jan. 24, 2016
2015
“Duo-13-trip” in Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction, edited by Kelly Jacobson, Dec. 2015
“Crumb-sized” in BODIES issue of Cactus Heart (defunct), Dec. 2015
“Cemetario General” and “Wind chimes” in Cacti Fur, Dec. 2, 2015
A space poem in PALEBLUE: art and sounds from the Milky Way, curated by Lindsay Cahill (gallery exhibit), Sept.11, 2015
“On that one-way trip to Mars” and “Star searcher” Crab Fat (defunct), Aug. 23, 2015
“Find us”, “Exhibit exploration”, “Desert city”, “Glass grit”, “Armpit arsonist”, “Internal combustion”, and “Test SI-27” in The Syzygy Poetry Journal (defunct), Aug. 8, 2015
“Káktos” in jaffatelaqlam: a haven for middle eastern writers & artists, PLANTS’ issue, July 18, 2015
“On it” in Straight Forward Poetry, No. 9, June 29, 2015
2014
“Futaba”, “The clocks in their homes”, and “Preserved in Alienation” in Words Fly Away: Poems for Fukushima, edited by Holly Harwood, Green Wind Press, a joint project by the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee, Fukushima Response Bay Area, and Fukushima Poetry Anthology, Sept. 2014
“Short Sisters” in Medical Literary Messenger, May 29, 2014
An artistic collaboration between my sister and me, exploring our genetic bone condition spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia (SED). SED causes a variety of issues, including short stature, scoliosis, chronic joint pain, neck instability, collagen deficiency, and retinal detachment. We combined poetry and photography to provide a portrait of how SED affects the body and how the condition presents itself differently, even in sisters. My poems “Short curve”, “Growth chart”, “Human growth”, “Cervical instability”, and “Scoliosis” were published.
“Short curve” in Little Patuxent Review, Jan. 25, 2014
2013
“Buffalo 3” in Lines+Stars, Dec. 2013
“An invisible middle”, “Wind chimes”, and “Buffalo 4 The blizzard of ’77” in Stylus, the literary magazine of the University of Maryland, 2013
AWARDS & PANELS
2026
Selected to participate in the Pride Poet-in-Residence program, Arts Club of Washington, 2026
2025
Invited to serve as guest judge, along with Christopher Heuer and Gregory Luce, for The Mid-Atlantic Review‘s “Amplifying Disabled Voices” special issue, published by Day Eight, 2025
2024
“Valuable weight” was nominated for Best of the Net: Poetry, 2024
2021
“Forecast: 4086” was nominated for Best of the Net: Fiction, 2021
Invited by David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment (2018-2024), to speak on a panel on “Intersectionality & the Environmental Movement” at the North American Consultation on Children’s Right to a Healthy Environment Phoenix Consultation, 2021
Invited by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) to serve as moderator of the panel “Disability’s Influence on Literature: Realism As A Craft Concept” (watch recording), 2021
Invited to serve as final judge for Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House LitFest Poetry Contest, 2021
2020
“Armpit arsonist” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, 2020
2019
“Crumb-sized: Poems” poetry collection was a finalist for the Whirling Prize from Etchings Press, 2019
Invited to serve as guest editor for Split This Rock’s Poem of the Week series, 2019
2017
Invited to serve as initial judge for Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House LitFest Poetry Contest, 2017
“On that one-way trip to Mars” poetry collection was nominated for an Elgin Award from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, 2017
Invited by Jane Hirschfield to participate in the Poets for Science tent at the March for Science, 2017
2016
Served as a reader for 10th annual Split This Rock poetry contest, 2016
“The Place Between Us” won the Stephen Patrick Morrissey Award for Writing Totally Depressing Shit from Mortified podcast’s Tournament of Awkward Teen Poetry, 2016
2013
“An invisible middle” received First Place in the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House Literary Prize Poetry Contest, 2013
“The poem captures a very intense moment of choice and gradually peels back the occasion’s emotional layers—moving beneath the obvious tension, to show how there are even beloved things that must be abandoned in leaving a place of deep suffering. The poem also finds ways to make the ideas of separation and demarcation tactile by grounding them in human interaction and human memory.”
—Kyle Dargan, poetry judge, LitFest Poetry Contest, 2013
INTERVIEWS
2023
2021
How heat waves, climate change put people with disabilities at risk, ABC News, July 8, 2021
2020
How LGBTQ+ Disabled People Are Celebrating Virtual Pride, Rooted in Rights, June 12, 2020
2018
“crumb-sized” packs powerful observations, facts, & experiences into 29 poems, Hyype Online, May 2, 2018
This Maryland Alum’s Poetry is an Out-of-body Experience, Big Ten Network, Feb. 27, 2018
2017
An interview with Marlena Chertock, sci-poet extraordinaire, Paper Darts, Dec. 2017
Universal Truths, Terp Magazine, Nov. 7, 2017
Former Student Publishes Second Poetry Book, The Warrior, page 18, Oct. 19, 2017
Objects of Derision: An Interview with Marlena Chertock, Noble/Gas Quarterly, Sept. 15, 2017
Exclusive Interview: Crumb-sized Author, Paul Semel, Sept. 13, 2017
Marlena Chertock talks about embodied poetry and writing On that one-way trip to Mars, Rogue Agent, Aug., 2017
Interview with Poet and Editor Marlena Chertock, Wordgathering, June, 2017
Wordsmith Interview, Crack the Spine Feb. 3, 2017