UPCOMING READINGS & WORKSHOPS

• 11/13/25, Thursday, FEATURE READING: Art at the Cave, 108 E. Evergreen Blvd, Vancouver, WA 98660. Starts at 7 pm with an open mike.
• 1/11/26, Sunday, Seattle Public LIbary Writersroom Residents Reading! Central Library, 4th Floor, 1:30-3:30 pm.
• 1/17/26, Saturday, FEATURE READING: Willard Art and Frame (Formerly TSUGA Gallery), 10101 Main St A, Bothell, WA 98011. Starts at 7 pm, with an open mike.
• 2/7/26, Saturday, In Our Own Hands: Women’s Wellness Series: Writing as a Healing Cauldron—Writing into health, strength, and suvival. Starts at 11 am Pacific Time, on ZOOM, runs three hours. All levels of writers welcome, come with paper and your favorite pen. To register, either for the series, or for individual workshops, click here.

Trip East & to Edinburgh

2025 was a year with several trips. I visited my sister and nephew in Philadelphia for the first time since COVID. We celebrated his graduation from Drexel University, where he achieved a degree in animation.

In August we took a bucket-list trip to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. I arranged a lunch date with the former Maker of Scotland (National Poet for Scotland similar to our US Poet Laureate), Elizabeth Rimmer. We had a lovely afternoon discussing poetry. The last five days, John and I traveld north by train to Findhorn and explored the Findhorn Eco-Village. A mecca trip where we connected with two friends we’ve not seen in over thirty years!

Poetry GEMS

In February I was feature reader at Honeymoon Cider & Beer in Bellingham, the night of Bellingham’s inaugral Poetry Pop-up! We had a blast, the final open mike was at a bowling alley! Thanks to Rena Priest for organizing this wonderful event, I was delighted to be featured at the first stop on this open mike trail!

In May I ran two “Poeming Health” writing workshops at the Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference in Wisconsin. Plus, I read my poetry before their featured speaker, herbalist Gail Faith Edward. It was the weekend in the woods I didn’t know I needed.

In September I hosted Dana Snyder’s book lauch at Folio for his intriguing book Pocket Fairytales. What a joy, he invited everyone to dress in fairy regalia, and he dressed as Peter Pan for his reading! Handmade crafts and yummy treats were offered. Opening was poet Scott Ferry, who read from his two most recent books, Sapphires on the Graves and dear tiny flowers.

POETRY PUBLICATIONS & Residency

• Hard Fall, publshed in the Washington Queen Poetry Anthology, read here.
• Shoe Watch, published in the Washington Queer Poetry Anthology, read here. THANK YOU TO WASHINGTON STATE POET LAUREATTE: Arianne True, and CLARE JOHNSON who assisted. I’m honored to have my poems in this project.
• Pick Your Battle, published in Second Coming, read at Indolent Press.
• To Love a Car, published in Silver Birch Press, read here.
• Robot Wives Coming Soon, published in Mad Swirl, read here. Plus, it was featured in The Best of Mad Swirl: 6-21-25.
• Fires Burn Our Tomorrows, Verse Daily Book Prize, read here.

Other News

• I’ve started an Amazon Author Page, please check in and follow me here!
• Find my book in a brick & mortar store! Open Books, BookTree, Village Books (Bellingham), Geromino’s Books (Santa Fe).
• Slow Now with Clear Skies and truth be bold: Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS are available at the Seattle Public Library.
• This year I was accepted into the Seattle Public Library Writersroom Residency Program. I love traveling downtown to this special room to work on my memoir.

I hope to see you soon! Please make comments on Amazon or Goodreads when you read my book!

2025 Readings from “Slow Now with Clear Skies”

Cultivating Voices Zoom Reading! Sunday, January 12th, 2025 at Noon. No fee. Registration Link!

Honey Moon Mead and Cider! Thursday, February 20th, 2025. Feature reader with Open mike. Come out to hear me read live. Address: 1053 N State St, Bellingham, WA 98225

Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference! May 22-24, 2025. I’ll run two “Poeming Health” Workshops & give a reading.

Ghost City Feature Reading in Vancouver, WA! Thursday, November 13th, 2025 with Open Mike. More information will follow.

Additional readings will be announced.

Buy “Slow Now with Clear Skies” for yourself or for a gift!

Five brick and mortor stores: Village Books in Bellingham, BookTree in Kirkland. Open Books a poetry bookstore in downtown Seattle, Nook and Crannie a friendly store on 15th Avenue on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and at Geronmio’s Books in Santa Fe!! And of course online in all the usual places: Amazon, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, indiebooks.org. And . . .Seattle Public Library now has copies!!!

My book is recommended on The Poetry Department . . . Aka The Boyton Blog community creativity from Watcom County to promote author’s books on their “Gift wrap your local poet” list as Christmas and other holidays approach.

AN ASK!! If you read my book and like it, please consider writing a review, or a few words or sentences about your experience! On any of the sites online where books are purchased, or on Goodreads. This means so much to help me get the word out. A note a friend in the SW sent, “I have been reading your beautiful, brilliant book. Holy cow, your visual writing is both powerful and such a great read.”

A Second ASK!! Ask your library to carry “Slow Now with Clear Skies.” It has a Library of Congress Number and is ready to be entered into any libraries system.

Publications: Poems & an Essay!

“Trail of Dust” and “No Means No” were published in Anti-Heroin Chic, 8/4/24

“Skymall Year” was published in Mad Swirl on 9/3/24, and included in their monthly, The Best of Mad Swirl,

“A Witch Blessing” and “Coming Out of COVID” were published in Verse-Virtual, 10/1/24

“Entering where Truth Resides—Our AIDS Memorial Mandala” was published in HEAL, Humanism Evolving through Art & Literature, 11/15/24

“a spring memory of love” was published by Periwinkle Pelican, 11/24/24

“There was a time” was published on Lana Hechtman’s blog Poem to Poem, 11/25/24

I”m thrilled to announce, my prose poem, “Those of Us Who Aborted,” in Slow Now with Clear Skies was nominated by MoonPath Press for a PUSHCART PRIZE!!! Plus, it is published in Ghost Town Anthology 3, out of Vancouver, WA.

My poems, “Election Grief” and “Decision About Owning a Pet,” are published in Anti-Heroin Chic, 12/3/24.

Essay, “My Mentor: Audre Lorde, Hunter College” published in the Bi Women Quarterly for their theme, Mentor. 12/24

Virutal Valentine’s Art Extravaganza

Get ready for Valentine’s Day with an electrifying afternoon of live performance, photography, and personal storytelling by Edward & Andrew.

Date: February 12, 2021
Time: 1 PM UCLA Sex Squad
& 2 PM Through Positive Eyes
No need to Register: Zoom-in Here!

Banishing Stigma: Black Voices and HIV

In recognition of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD) on Feb. 7 and Black History Month, featuring voices from the Black community exploring the power of storytelling, the impact of HIV and thoughtful ways to take action. Edward, Kia & Positively Positive will present their stories.

Date: February 24, 2021
Time: 12 – 1PM PDT
Register Here!

I’m not presenting my story in these two events, but I will keep you informed when I’m scheduled for a public event.

The Gates Foundation Discovery Center has announced the opening of the exhibition: Through Positive Eyes.

This storytelling project and traveling museum exhibition that has empowered more than 140 people living with HIV/AIDS in 11 cities around the world to tell their story by using their own words and images. The exhibition coalesces around one core tenet: the belief that challenging stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS is the most effective method for combating the spread of the virus. Please check the Discovery Center website for information on events you can join at https://www.discovergates.org/.

Julene’s News

FEATURE READING: Poetry Bridge Series

This monthly reading series, housed at the C&P Cafe, went online weekly since covid. I read at their Inauguration Day Tournament on January 20th. Although my poem did not win, the top winner, John Groski, as part of his prize selected me to be a featured reader.

I’m excited for this 20 minutes! I will read a series of pandemic poems written since last March!

Date: Feb. 24
Time: 7 PM
To get Zoom link send me a message with your email! It is changed for each reading and I’ll have it the day of, so if interested reach out and I’ll forward the link. OR, Subscribe to the Poetry Bridge email list putting the word SUBSCRIBE in the heading: info@poetrybridge.net 

Publications

“Grand Funk Railroad,” was published in Mad Swirl! Yes, I waited on line to get tickets! 

“First Burroughs at Sunrise, Mt. Rainier,” was published on WA Poetics Routes, a map with poetry created by our Washington State Poet Laureate, Claudia Castro Luna. See if you can find it! On my website you will find the recording that goes with the poem! 

 

 

Word Chaser @ Cafe Racer was cancelled in March & April; further readings are uncertain. We will keep you posted.

Julene’s National Poetry Month News

It’s write a poem a day month! A challenge I’m doing for the fourth time. So far it’s going well. One I wrote was even published in The Decameron: stories from the pandemic, there is a link below so you can read it!

My poem “Teenage Nights” was republished in Writing in A Woman’s Voice on March 26, 2020. First published in Cliterature, it was lost when they redid their web page. I’m thrilled to have it back online!

Chrysanthemum 2020 Literary Anthology has two of my poems included, “Born Rusty” and “The Revival of the Blackwing Pencil,” it is published and available on Amazon.

“What is Right“ was published online at HIV Here & Now on April 14, 2020.

“The Crossing,” published in their online journal, is in the Mad Swirl Best of v2019 Anthology! They are doing a launch on their Facebook page 4/20/20, 7 pm Central Time.

“That Soft Middle Place,” published in The Decameron: stories from the pandemic live on April 16, 2020.

“One World Infected,” an ekastrastic poem written for a posted image, published in With Painted Words on April 16, 2020.

 

 

 

This will be my first time attending & presenting at the 8th Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference

The theme of the conference is: Nourishing Ourselves & Our Communities

My workshop: Giving Our Health Word Power

This workshop will provide a clearing space to crystallize what is necessary for your health, no matter the challenges. We will explore our personal experience through writing to our illness, to our loved one, to our pain. Through timed writing and discussion, this presentation will encourage finding one’s voice, developing our inner resources, and the healing power of epression to confront stigma and promote strength. Bring a notebook and pens.

I will read my poetry before the Keynote Speakers on Friday Evening:

Venice Williams, Herbalist, Community Organizer and Director of Alice’s Garden 

Mimi Hernandez, Herbalist and Director of the American Herbal Guild

There will also be a talent show on Saturday night! I’m so looking forward to attending this herbal conference; they have 400 women registerd, although some of the Pre-conferences are still open and they have started a wait list. Please check out their website.

Publications

Two poems were published in March! And five poems accepted for the Stonewall Legacy Anthology! 

“Starting Over” published online at MookyChick on March 15, 2019, for their theme “Kintsugi,” the Japanese art of repairing  pottery with a lacquer that is infused with gold powder. This journal is published in the UK!

“The Crossing” an ekphrastic poem after Debra Frites art, “Empty Buckets,” published online at Mad Swirl on March 19, 2019. My third time publishing there, I now have my own page featuring poems of mine they’ve published with my bio and picture! And, on March 23rd “The Crossing” was featured with The Best of Mad Swirl for March!

Hoping you had a wonderful National Poetry Month generating new work. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year! From my yearly taking stock of my writing, 2018 was a very busy year, especially for my book, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, and also for submitting poems, writing new work and expanding creatively.

In June, I traveled east for two back-to-back Book Award Ceremonies: truth be bold was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and for the Bisexual Book Award, which it won! What a great honor to win one award and to be at both these events.

My book won four Human Relations Indie Book Awards: the Silver Winner for Life Challenges, the Silver Winner for Medical Challenges, the Gold Winner for Personal Challenge Poetry, and the Director’s Choice Award for the 2018 Humans Relations AIDS Awareness Book of the Year, presented by Susan Peterson, Director.

Last year an English professor, and author Patrick Horrigan, taught my book at Long Island University-Brooklyn in his class, “Art Inspired by the AIDS Epidemic.” This course work was paired readings with David France’s book How To Survive A Plague. He has continued to teach individual poems in his Western Literature class pairing them with Walt Whitman’s poems. Next year he is teaching my book next to Terrance Hayes book, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin! 

In March, I was the “Intern” at the Seattle Review of Books! They first published a poem of mine in 2016, so I was delighted when they requested me to intern in 2018! This means they published four of my poems, one each week, and an interview! Plus they advertised two readings I had that month: one for the Ice Cream Anthology at SoulFood Books and the featured reading with Tara Hardy at Open Books.

Presentations, Readings & Performances

 

I presented my book at the International Forum on Psychoanalytical Education, for their theme Unsilencing, at their three-day psychology conference in October!

On Women and Children’s AIDS Awareness Day, March 9th, I read on a Webinar that was broadcast live.

On World AIDS Day, December 1st, I read in Bremerton at the Kitsap Public Health District celebration, “HIV is Still Here.” It was very moving to hear the remembrances’ and to do a ritual with candles to honor those who died. 

In December I had a new and exciting opportunity to perform my poetry in a three-day Mosaic event at Gay City: AIDS—It’s In Our Blood: Stories of Love, Loss, Rage, and Survival. Selected from a call for work representing Long Term Survivors, I created a new piece composed of lines from poems across my book to form a new 10 minute piece. The performances presented were storytelling, singing, poetry, and a one-act play. It was a phenomenal one-time event funded by the Department of Health.

Anthology Readings: I traveled to Portland  to read with the Poeming Pigeon, in September. And, I was part of a group reading at Soulfood Coffee House in Redmond for the Ice Cream Poems Anthology; Also, I hosted a reading for this anthology at Poetry in the Park in July.

Joint Readings: It was an enormous pleasure to be featured with Tara Hardy at Open Books in March. I did two readings this year with my good friend Penelope Scambly Schott who lives in Portland. We were featured together in April at Another Read Through Bookstore in Portland; and at the It’s About Time reading series in Ballard in August.

Publications

It is very exciting that 36 of my poems were published this year!! 22 in journals that I have not been published in before: my first International publication from, the Bosphorus Review in Turkey, which took one of my Istanbul poems! The Bees Are Dead  took a poem I’ve been sending out for years while maintaining faith it would find a home! Mad Swirl: A Creative Outlet published two of my poems, one more and I will have my bio and picture added as a regular! Other new journals for my work: Spillwords, Voices on the Wind, Poetry Breakfast, Feminine Collective, AntiNarrative Journal, Eunoia Review, Minute Magazine, Poetry Pacific, The Literary Nest, and last but not least What Rough Beast, which is a daily online journal that started after the last election! I’m thrilled to have poems in so many excellent journals online. All can be found with links on my website on my Poems & Video Page, just scroll down.

Three anthologies published poems of mine this year:  the Poeming Pigeon, for their theme In the News, for the second time I’ve had a poem in one of Shawn Aveningo Sanders excellent publications, a poem in Ice Cream Poems: reflections on life with ice cream, and a poem was republished in an invitation-only Anthology for Cliterature.

Writers expect rejections, and I received at least 13 through the year, and I’m still waiting to hear from a few journals. I’ve come to accept rejections are subjective, not personal. 

Generation

The last two years I’ve been writing a poem a day during National Poetry Month, April. 

In September, I took a six-week workshop, The Words To Say It: Writing About Illness, Trauma and Healing, at Hugo House. This was a very productive workshop led by Suzanne Edison who is steeped in this work. If you have a chance to take her workshop, do! I highly recommend this workshop and Suzanne as a guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publishing my book, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was a bold thing to do in 2017, it was coming together during the approach of the presidential election. In the book I ‘came out’ as a long-term survivor. This public reveal was frightening at many levels, even though I had a circle of support and knew many people would be open and accepting. What I feared most was the Republican candidate might win, which I did not think was possible.

HIV/AIDS is still highly stigmatized, even though it has changed dramatically over the years; now, if one’s viral load is undetectable it is untransmittable: U=U is the slogan to convey this information. News was available as early as 2012, but even many positive people have not received the message. 

The support I’ve received has been remarkable, even as my worst nightmare came true. After the election the acronym AIDS was removed from the Federal website, and this president continually tries to destroy the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care); this would hurt many and people living with HIV/AIDS would be hit especially hard. So in actuality, my book is timely, because getting the word out to help destigmatize HIV/AIDS is important.

I am pleased to announce I will be on a panel talking about stigma and reading from my book at an international psychology conference on October 26th in downtown Seattle. It is open to the public but very expensive, so I am sharing this with you without expectation of your presence.

The Boldness of Truth, Silence, and HIV/AIDS
Room: Green, Moderator: Laurence Green

Speaking Out to Stigma: Truth be bold, a long-term survivor breaks her silence
Presenter: Julene T. Weaver, M.A., LMHC (WA)
Speaking Out to Stigma will invite participants to think about chronic illness as a hidden trauma and how societal taboos impact your healing journey. Through timed writing and discussion, this presentation will encourage finding one’s voice, developing inner resources, and the healing power of expression that builds strength to confront stigma.

The Conference Schedule can be found here. I will also moderate a presentation on Thursday, October 25th, at 4:20—5:30 PM, How Poetry Informs and Shapes Silences, featuring Fredrick B. Davis, MD, and Laurie Burns, MS, MFT.

Additional writing news: 

• On October 1st my poem, “The Things I Do Become Calendar,” was my second poem published online at MadSwirl: A Creative Outlet. 
• On October 14th my poem, “Road Side Wonder,” was published online at Minute Magazine.

• On October 20th I will read at the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytical Study (NWAPS) event, Potential Space, held at the Golden Gardens Bath House, 8498 Seaview Place NW, Seattle, 98117. Cost is $20 and there will be refreshments. It runs from 6 to 9 pm.

Thank you for reading my blog and my writing! My books are available at Open Books in Wallingford.