iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Delighted to be part of this round up. Thank you @identitytheory.bsky.social & @vicnogaywrites.bsky.social, and happy #smallpoemsunday to @tomsnarsky.bsky.social & all who celebrate. Read 2 more by me & short work by 8 other fab writers at www.identitytheory.com/section/micro/

Public library by Tracie Renee. I leave the lights on at close--all night the building glows like a star anyone could wish on. Published in Identity Theory, September 2026.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Thanks for including me, @iamb.uk ! Proud to be among the ranks of these fine poets.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Would you still think I'm cool if I told you I'm jamming out to "How Far I'll Go" from the Moana soundtrack because what if it's actually a metaphor for how laundry & day jobs keep getting in the way of writing & dreams?

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I'm incredibly grateful. Thank you for supporting my work, @psliterary.bsky.social!

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Embarrassed/excited to share that my CNF essay about accidentally flooding my basement while doing laundry is up now at chicagostorypress.com. Editor Anne Beall was lovely to work with! And I've successfully done 2 million loads of laundry without flooding anything since writing this piece!

chicagostorypress.com

Chicago Story Press

Chicago Story Press is a publisher of true stories and essays that shine a light on a deeper truth.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Celebrating a sweet surprise this #HaikuSaturday! Thanks for sharing my #haiku, @tricyclemag.bsky.social. Poems and commentary from Clark Strand here: tricycle.org/article/best...

Tricycle: The Buddhist Review banner announcing Haiku Challenge Winners for June. Illustration of strawberries by Jing Li.

Screenshot of Tricycle's "Best of the Haiku Challenge" email. Text reads: Thank you for your submission to Tricycle's Haiku Challenge for June! There were 268 submissions. Here are the winning and honorable-mention haikus:

Winner:
Stevie Rosenfeld shares a moment of bittersweet beauty with wild strawberries that are “seemingly aware” of life’s passing.

seemingly aware
of day’s end, wild strawberries
flirt with the last light

Honorable Mentions:
Nancie Zivetz-Gertler fills a “hand thrown bowl” with strawberries in order to remember the child who made it.

your first hand thrown bowl
it’s holding strawberries now
i thought you should know

Tracie Renee rides out a summer downpour “eating just-picked strawberries” that taste like the sun.

caught in the downpour
eating just-picked strawberries
I taste only sun

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Even more pleased to have been promoted to the shortlist! Thank you @fracturedlit.bsky.social. May we all find many writing projects to keep us busy while waiting for results 🤞 fracturedlit.com/ghost-fable-...

fracturedlit.com

Ghost, Fable, and Fairy Tales Prize Judged by Melissa Llanes Brownlee Shortlist | Fractured

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Thank you @bulbregion.bsky.social & @sarpsozdinler.bsky.social for giving a home to this trio of poems about #libraries. This is my 27th year in public libraries. These are three stories I can't forget.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Delighted to be included! And another round of thanks to @doucette515.bsky.social for working with me on this project -- and teaching me so much about sonnets in the process!

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

A fun part of having #ibs is that whenever there's a breakout of a terrible food-borne pathogen, you must ask yourself, with each flush, "is this the normal diarrhea that I will have intermittently, forever OR the kind that means I am now a public health hazard."

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Hungry? Grab a @stanchion.bsky.social ! Most nuts ever! Most satisfying! It's what you want! You're not you when you're hungry, so please feed your soul with this poem.

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Christiana Doucette @doucette515.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

This was such a great experience! 10 out of 10, recommend reaching out to other poets to work on collaborative pieces.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

What a joy it was, to stretch myself & collaborate w/ @doucette515.bsky.social, a #poet I dearly admire, on this sonnet crown! Many thanks to @the-engine-idling.bsky.social for homing it. Teaser below of the first 2 sonnets; click through to read the entire series of 7 interlocking pieces.

Cover of the engine idling, issue 9: Collaboration

Through the Woods: A Sonnet Crown Conversation
About Family by Christiana Doucette and Tracie Renee

1) Fragments: Christiana Hikes With Robert Edwin Wolff
(b. 1934)
When grandpa takes me hiking through the woods
there’s sparks of mica memories to gather.
That path along the quarry, where he stood
covered in suds: A dry well made them lather
dirty clothes and dusty faces outside.
Along the long walk home they slowly dried,
dragging pails of water home for dishes
and drinking overnight. White line granite
shines tales of spectral winter blasts. This is
where frost quakes remind him miners ran it.
I slip a chip into my bag with his
see-through mica sheet. We have this habit
of holding onto fragments of old rock.
We keep them for the stories they unlock.

2) Violets: Tracie Gardens with Dolores (1925-2017) &
Richard Karst (1924-2018)
We lost them—and the stories they unlock.
Grandma first, three years after her last stroke
robbed her of my name and face. The doctors
said she’d never get that back: her mind broke
in ways we couldn’t mend. We lost Gramps six-
teen months later, their deaths paired like bookends,
their garden quickly void of bright tulips,
so unlike the wild beds of my youth, gemmed
with roses, phloxes, stones like secret doors.
Gramps and Gran and I knocked on them, turned up
tiny treasure troves of worms and ants, scores
of stories cached in dirt. But I grew up.
I scrubbed my hands clean with callous silence—
now all I want’s the noise of Grandma’s violets.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Thanks for helping me make strangers cry, @stanchion.bsky.social and Jeff Bogle!

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Stanchion @stanchion.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

The Issue 23 Table of Contents has just entered the chat. What piece of writing, based on its title alone, are you most excited to read?

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Proud to be one of the "many more" with a piece in here! Thanks for including my weird poem about the turtle who lived in my grandparents' bathtub for several decades, @stanchion.bsky.social.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Thank you so much for these kind words, @clairemtaylor.com ! Means all the more coming from a poet whose work I just gifted to my BFF for her birthday because WOW, this book!

Book cover of April and back again, poems by Claire Taylor.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Pleased to have 3 #poems in @wildwillowmagazine.bsky.social's fab MUMS issue, alongside insightful interviews with @kristinwrites.bsky.social & @clairemtaylor.com . Happy Mother's Day to all folx who nurture & love.

Cover of Wild Willow Magazine, Mums issue.

Poem by Tracie Renee, Diagnostic Mammogram. When the doctor calls to schedule
a second mammogram
and ultrasound
to diagnose
the thirteen
-millimeter nodule
in my left breast
first
I hold my breath
but then
I say, yes
—I’m available Friday
and because it isn’t Friday yet
I walk the dog
make ice cream
lift weights
change sheets
prep lunch
make lists
plan dinner
clock in
clock out
run to the store
return overdue books
check out three more
and then
in the dark just before the dream
or the nightmare
takes me
I give my son the last scoop of ice cream
let the dog lick the spoon clean
like it is any other night
and I am not dying
for even while dying
we live.

Poem by Tracie Renee, The Birthmark.
My son is ten (almost eleven)
when I first glimpse
at the barbershop
the cafe au lait spot
hiding
under hair
now scissored
sharply
off,

proof
that being alive
means we never stop
being born.

As I study
the brown
-blushed blotch
that marks now my child
a stranger
to me, who once knew
every inch
of smooth nude skin
on his newborn nob,
every curve where the bones
of my pelvis
molded
his soft and still
-growing
cranium

I wonder
where I was looking
when he freckled and bloomed? and
when I look away tomorrow
what more he will dare to become.

Poem by Tracie Renee, Post Op Notes: My son plays soccer. The other parents don’t know we aren’t supposed to be here, are here only because you were born lucky,
on the right side of the tracks, the side with the nurse who noted the blue in your face after the doctor
knotted the umbilical cord, the side with machines that could breathe for you when I couldn’t, the side

where I knocked knuckles into the wood of waiting rooms and willed you to cry, willed you to keep
crying, willed away the panic of silence, the months and years I feared looking away, feared tomorrow,
feared you’d shed softly the body you had not yet grown into but

one day you kicked a ball.
Chased it. And

now I'm here, sidelined on this soccer field bathed in thin spring sun, your team ranked last in the league.
Zero wins all season; zero goals. You kick and miss, pass to the rival team, inch down the field, forget
to score. Forget that you are anything but wholly and wonderfully alive. Forget that we’re not supposed
to be here, with our dew-soaked shoes and the blue-ribbon sky that guards this now, this moment, this
life where each time you score a grass strain, it feels like
we’ve won.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Thrilled to be in the bin again! Thanks for the prompt @trashcatlit.bsky.social, without which my weird-beautiful little flash wouldn't exist; and thanks for homing this piece, @youcanandyouwill.bsky.social & @therelphian.bsky.social.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Celebrating #HaikuSaturday with this #haiku, up now at Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine. pulsevoices.org/haiku/visit-...

Visit seventeen - my son offers his own arm for the shot. By Tracie Renee, Palatine Illinois. Haiku published in Pulse: Voices from the heart of medicine.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Cheering a #50PreciousWords HM today w/ fab friends & CPs @mariana-domine.bsky.social @lisasbilla.bsky.social @quirkybirds.bsky.social - but as @viviankirkfield.bsky.social says, "The true winners are the ones who don’t give up & who keep on moving forward on their writing journey!" ONWARD!

2026 50 Precious Words Honorable Mention badge.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Amazed and grateful to spot my #RevPit #MG on the Exeter Novel Prize long list. www.wordkitchen.org.uk/exeter-novel...

wordkitchen.org.uk

Exeter Novel Prize — Word Kitchen

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

You should take a minute and vote for one of these.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Delighted to have a tiny poem in the HEAD, SHOULDERS, SPLEEN & NOSE issue of @littlethoughtspress.com , beautiful as always thanks to @clairemtaylor.com's hard work. Check it out @ littlethoughtspress.com & don't miss the stunner by my critique partner @lisasbilla.bsky.social !

Cover of LTP issue 13 features a bald black girl in an orange dress.

Text of poem first period by Tracie Renee. I don't get why they call it a period if everything in me is commas spilling & beginning, curving & swelling & even though I lie here still as stone I'm a river I can flow .

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Grateful to have a piece of flash about memory loss (and memories we'd like to lose) in this gorgeous magazine by @blackfoxlit.bsky.social ! Free download at blackfoxlitmag.com

blackfoxlitmag.com

Black Fox Literary Magazine

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

A lovely tip from Frontier Poetry's latest newsletter. Sharing just in case you also need this reminder today.

Rejection Tips from the Editor of Frontier Poetry: It’s never easy to open your inbox and see a wave of rejections. But try to remember—multiple declines don’t measure your talent as a poet. More often, they reflect your dedication and persistence in putting your work out into the world.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

Any #kidlit writers have tips for formatting #50PreciousWords entries to preserve line breaks and skipped lines? Do HTML tags work in Vivian's blog?

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Tracie Adams @tracieadams.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

This is one of those unforgettable stories haunted by the language of a place you can taste, and layers of emotion that leave you wanting more. Listen to @tracierenee.bsky.social read her @trashcatlit.bsky.social story 👇🏼⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

My story DINNERS WITH GHOSTS is live today with audio! Thanks to @elegantliterature.bsky.social for 1st homing it, @jordankurella.com for choosing it as the Borders & Boundaries winner, & @trashcatlit.bsky.social for giving it a second life in the pre-loved bin (& for being so fun to work with!)

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Tip: the ghosts don't eat, so you'll save time on the washing up. Unless your sister runs away. And then haunts you.

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

The 6-mo. old baby of my former coworker has been diagnosed with a rare cancer, which hospital staff initially dismissed as unsubstantiated child abuse. This family lives paycheck to paycheck and faces a long hard road. Please help if you can. www.gofundme.com/f/support-ma...

gofundme.com

Donate to Support Manon’s Fight Against Stage 4 Neuroblastoma, organized by Tegan Anclade

Our six-month-old daughter, Manon, was recently diagnosed with Stage… Tegan Anclade needs your support for Support Manon’s Fight Against Stage 4 Neuroblastoma

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Thank you @elegantliterature.bsky.social for bringing this piece of flash to light in your Mundane Magic issue (July 2024) and thank you @bulbculture.bsky.social for giving it a chance to shine again! I think this might actually be my origin story.

Link to story https://www.bulbculturecollective.com/read/c5dwrmi9uf62ifkf8lc9ha8ugviz8u .

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Little Thoughts Press @littlethoughtspress.com · 08/02/2026

Our Silly Love Sonnets contest starts tomorrow, Feb 9th and runs through Wednesday, Feb 11th! Come share your small, silly pleasures and help us spread some joy! Read the contest rules here: www.littlethoughtspress.com/post/2026-s-...

littlethoughtspress.com

2026's Silly Love Sonnets Kidlit Poetry Contest!

Valentine's Day is almost here! To celebrate and spread a little kidlit love, we are excited to once again host our"Silly Love Sonnets” Kidlit Poetry Contest! This year, we are happy to welcome our gu...

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Joseph Fasano @josephfasano.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

for Alex Pretti

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Tracie Renee (she/her) @tracierenee.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Very honored to be included on this list. Thank you so much for shouting out my #poem BLANKET FORT, @lozzawriting.bsky.social @frazzledlit.bsky.social @jmcm.bsky.social

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