One day, nationally acclaimed poet Maria Kelson hit “a poetry wall” for no identifiable reason. “It was frustrating,” she says, “because I had devoted myself to poetry. For 15 years, it was my primary focus.” What happened next–she followed an emerging passion, crime fiction. ‘As i was casting about I thought, I want to explore the dark side.” In this episode we talk with Maria about shedding layers of creative identity, finding new community, art as a way to explore and expose issues of social injustice, and the surprising ways poetry informs her new award-winning thriller.<a target="_blank" href="https://mariakelson.com/">Maria Kelson</a> has two collections of poetry (as Maria Melendez) with University of Arizona Press, which were finalists for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Colorado Book Award. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/764169/not-the-killing-kind-by-maria-kelson/">NOT THE KILLING KIND</a> is her debut novel. If you're a mystery/thriller reader drawn to strong female leads, the scary beauty of the redwood country, moms who push it to the limit, or crime-fighting ESL teachers, she wrote her debut novel <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/764169/not-the-killing-kind-by-maria-kelson/">NOT THE KILLING KIND</a> for you! It received the inaugural Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for Crime Fiction Writers of Color from Sisters in Crime and just won the WILLA award for best mystery/thriller. She has served as an American Voices arts envoy in Bogotá, Colombia. A Mexican-American educator from California, Maria lives near Yellowstone. She’s writing a new thriller set there. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://emergingform.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">emergingform.substack.com/subscribe</a>

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