Zoeglossia Manuscript Mentoring:

Space-making and Collaboration

Zoeglossia fellow Stephanie Heit believes it’s a gift to have another poet read her manuscript Psych Murders, a poetic hybrid memoir about her bipolar experiences with suicidal ideation and electric shock treatments.

Heit has the opportunity to share her manuscript with Meg Day, a Zoeglossia board member and critically acclaimed poet, as part of the manuscript consultation program. 

“In the case of Zoeglossia, the gift [to have a reader] widens and amplifies with the addition of a disability culture framework with diverse crip aesthetics,” Heit said. “I’ve worked on this for years. I really value Meg’s work and appreciate being able to get their take and perspective.”

The manuscript consultation program at Zoeglossia pairs prominent writers who identify as disabled with fellows to create an intimate one-on-one workshop experience. The workshop is an opportunity for fellows to improve their manuscripts and prepare them for publication, while established poets have the opportunity to mentor emerging writers.

“My students talk a lot about how scary it is to forfeit your work to the world because you no longer have any control over the ways it moves, who it touches and how,” Day said. “When we workshop— and especially when we work one-on-one—we can tune in to the priorities of the poet while [the manuscript] is still being shaped. What a gift, no? To get to move alongside someone as they make a thing? I feel it’s a joyful obligation and an honor.” 

Heits feels that a poet can get too close to their work, and she is happy to have Day as an outside reader provide objective feedback.

“I think it’s difficult to find good mentors when everyone is spending so much of their energy just trying to survive. I know this is the case for my communities, especially queer and trans and disabled poets,” Day said. “So to participate in our lineage of space-making & collaboration is a real honor. So far, we’ve made it. We’re still here. We’re changing the landscape together and we are lucky to have an obligation to our kin.”

Kinship is also something that Heit has felt as a Zoeglossia fellow. She’s experienced joy and a sense of community around her work.

“Just knowing that the other Zoeglossia fellows are out there in the world creates a web that I’m grateful and honored to be a part of and that acts as a buoy in my life,” Heit said. “I value the supportive exchanges, opportunity to read in crip company, publish poetry together, network, and help each other in this vast poetry world where Zoeglossia feels like a bastion of allyship.”

Zoeglossia is a nonprofit created to build a community for poets with disabilities. The annual conference retreat will be hosted by New Mexico State University in May 2021. Applications for the 2022 fellows will open in Fall 2021. Information will be posted on their website zoeglossia.org and interested people can subscribe to a monthly newsletter on their website.