Writings & Readings

Creative Arts Journals

Poetry

Kingman Island, Anacostia Watershed

Poetry and reading by: Sheila McMullin
Cinematography by: Krysta Schlyer and Michael O. Snyder
Created by: Courtney L. Sexton and Michael O. Snyder

Aqua4: An exploration of how water has shaped and been shaped by culture and development in our capital city. A collaboration between 8 D.C. based poets, photographers and filmmakers.
aqua4water.com

Sponsored by Our City Festival
Washington, DC, June 2015

Maine Ave Fish Market

Poetry and reading by: Sheila McMullin
Cinematography by: Bryan Richard Martin and Barbara Oliveira
Created by: Courtney L. Sexton and Michael O. Snyder

Aqua4: An exploration of how water has shaped and been shaped by culture and development in our capital city. A collaboration between 8 D.C. based poets, photographers and filmmakers.
aqua4water.com

Sponsored by Our City Festival
Washington, DC, June 2015

CIACLA Micro Moments, 2020
Artists Living Through the COVID-19 Crisis
“Vows”

Barnhouse Journal, 2019
“I was Lying (1)”
“Thank You”
“I was Lying (2)”

The Ocean State Review, 2017
“Beating Belly” Pushcart Nominated!
“Proof”

Barrelhouse, The Unintentionally Grim Issue February 2017
“Bad Woman, Sinkhole Variation”

ythm, Issue 2 May 2016
“If I Should Rename Myself”
Podcast

Free State Review, Issue 6 Summer/Fall 2015 Best New Poets Nominated!
“Maine Ave Fish Market”

AQUA4: (di)VISIONS of water in Washington Sponsored by Our City Festival
Washington, DC, June 2015
“Kingman Island, Anacostia Watershed”
“Maine Ave Fish Market”

Poets are Present Anthology, Shakespeare Theatre Company April 2015
“Paper Trees”

Big Lucks, Vol. 6 January 2015
“Hey, Big Wild (in which Frank Bends and lifts Mateo)”

Construction Magazine, January 2015 Best of the Net Nominated!
“Hey, Big Wild (in which Frank buries his hands and clouds Mateo)”
with audio

NAILED Magazine, January 2015
“Bad Woman”
“Keeps Walking, Walks”
“Firelight Meditation”

The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, November 2014
“Bad Woman”

Winter Tangerine Review, October 2014
“My Brother is a Magpie”

The Fem, September 2014
“Luna Communicate”

Quail Bell Magazine, September 2014
“Apple Tinsel”
“Desert Woman”

Boog City Issue 89
“Clara’s Book”

The Strip, No. 1, 201
“Translated: All is Wisdom”

Lime Hawk Literary Arts Collective No. 1, 2014
“Moon Spit”

A Bad Penny Review, Spring 2014
“daughterrariums I-V”
“Olga’s Book”

1913: A Journal of Forms #6, 2013
“Ruth’s Book”

ROAR Magazine: A Journal of the Literary Arts No. 3, 2013
“Like Water”

Yew: A Journal of Innovative Writing & Images by Women, December 2012
“Hey, Big Wild (in which Frank closes eyes and builds Mateo)”
“Hey, Big Wild (in which Frank opens mouth and sees Mateo)”
“Bitten”

Interviews

2019 Interview with Sheila McMullin on daughterrarium with Penelope Jeanne Brannen, CSU Poetry Center

2018 “Documenting the Collection of Removal: A shared interview between poets, Kristi Carter and Sheila McMullin” Tinderbox

VIDA Reads with Writers — Sheila McMullin!, VIDA Review, October 2017

Interview with Writer and Editor Sheila McMullin on “The Day Tajon Got Shot” from Shout Mouse Press, Wordgathering September 2017

PEN Center USA Member Profile

Contributor “33 LIFE-CHANGING BOOKS IN HONOR OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: A READING LIST FROM THE STAFF AT VIDA” The Literary Hub

Interview with Sheila McMullin, #FemaleGaze: A Nonfiction Literary Review December 2015

Contributor “Young Poets Bare All: What Is a Culture?” by Amy King, Poetry Foundation Harriet Blog August 2015

Featured Friday | Meet Sheila McMullin, The Fem: A Feminist Literary Magazine May 2015

SELFIE INTERVIEW | Sheila McMullin, The Doctor J. Eckleburg Review November 2014

Imaginary Homelands “My Brother is a Magpie” Interview, Winter Tangerine October 2014

Essays

“On Comics and Disability” Reading Loop, Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature December 2015

“Spotlight On! Wordgathering” VIDA: Women in Literary Arts May 2015

“Spotlight On! Poem-a-Day” VIDA: Women in Literary Arts October 2014

“Spotlight On! Weave Magazine” VIDA: Women in Literary Arts July 2014

“Spotlight On! Ninth Letter” VIDA: Women in Literary Arts May 2014

“VIDA and How We Can Number Up, Part II” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web April 2014

“VIDA and Why We Should Number Up, Part I” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web April 2014

“The Artist Activist Online” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web February 2014

“Final Thoughts from StS’s Poetry and Blog Out-Going Editor, Sheila McMullin” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web A personal essay on how I understand feminism and equality activism. June 2013

“Ocean Fragments: The Bikini Atoll and Plastic Seas” HER KIND: A Literary Community Powered by VIDA July 2013

“The Mission” Library of Congress, Poetry and Literature Center From the Catbird Seat November 2011

So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web collection as Contributing Blog Editor & Staff Writer 2011-2014

Interviews with Writers

“Documenting the Collection of Removal: A shared interview between poets, Kristi Carter and Sheila McMullin” Tinderbox. April 2018

““We’re Looking for Quality Literature by Women. Period.” Lisa Duffy on ROAR“ The Review Review. April 2015

“Language’s Tag-Along: An Interview with Poet Diane Raptosh” ROAR Magazine: A Journal of the Literary Arts by Women. Spring 2014 Print Issue. Reprinted Online on MoonSpit Poetry July 2014

“The Shape of Blue: Interview with Writer Liz Scheid” MoonSpit Poetry. January 2014

“When They Make You Smile: An Interview with Dana Walrath” MoonSpit Poetry. January 2014

“Interview with Poet Paisley Rekdal” Library of Congress, Poetry and Literature Center Interview Series. July 2013

“Upsetting to the Mind: Art by Alison Strub” MoonSpit Poetry. July 2013

“The Constant of Change: Art by Ceci Cole McInturff” MoonSpit Poetry. January 2013

“Ballads of the Appalachians” Interview with folk singer Elizabeth LaPrelle So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art. August 2011

Book Reviews

“Poetry Micro-Review: Green-wood by Allison Cobb” MoonSpit Poetry March 2014

“Hibernaculum: Dissecting Story and Fable like an Animal” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web March 2014

“Wild, But Not Lost: A Review” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web January 2014

“6 Reasons to Love Laura Redniss’s Radioactive” The Lit Pub August 2013

“Book Review: Arco Iris by Sarah Vap” So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web May 2013

“Danielle Pafunda and the Manhater“ So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art web October 2012

Praise

Collection on reviews for daughterrarium.

“Sheila McMullin took us on an emotional journey with her poems. Her invested performance left me on the edge of my seat. I am grateful she trusted us with her story. Poems revolving around sexual assault are a large part of the reason why I began the series, as I said last night. I want Feats to be a place for women to tell stories they might not otherwise feel comfortable sharing. Sheila’s three poems really transcended entertainment to create a deep bond between audience and poet.” -Shevaun Brannigan, host of Feats of Poetic Strength Reading Series

“Sheila McMullin’s four-part prose poem “Translated: All Is Wisdom” is not a translation in the traditional sense–but the title fits. Birds and thorns and fences are made into a language we can begin to understand, or at least to understand just how much we don’t.” The Strip

Book review on Sarah Vap’s Arco Iris called “A fresh, smart review” from Saturnalia Books.

Discussion of “Hey, Big Wild (In Which Frank Closes Eyes and Builds Mateo)” and accompanying artwork by Stephenie Foster in Yew Journal on Rebecca Farivar’s podcast series, Break the Line.

Praise for “Like Water”

“I love the way the grandfather’s strange eloquence kindles the speaker’s (“Your hands are resurrections,” “He needs me to be an owl”) and also the way the first-person voice finds itself only after the grandfather “urges her into the steam and wild mirror surface,” —the hot water acting as a remedy and also as a sort of cauldron for the imagination. Bravo!” —-Sally Ball, author of Annus Mirabilis, associate director of Four Way Books, and Professor of English at Arizona State University.

Praise for “Ruth’s Book” and “Olga’s Book”

“The poet has married the clinical and the metaphorical in a poem of deep psychological resonance. “Cervical cancer at 39 and 14 married years,” it opens, then moves into a collage of stanzaic structures pasted across the page, some lines standing out with stunning clarity (“God was in the movement and in the helmets”) and others remaining mysterious (“the bees weren’t told of the death”). The quick dismantling of narrative provides a loamy ground on which to build, now with sound: and so this poem burns on the surfaces of language and image and thinking. Formally the piece tightens in parts two and three, but the thinking continues to thrust outward (“the dragonfly landing on a lip then flying away/then dragonfly landed on a lip then flew away/arms becoming seaweed/then seaweed becoming arms again”). In the final section the speaker reaches a peak of something like sorrow, something like reverie. In what seems to be the morphine fog of the dying, the speaker remembers “under my foot in the ocean, like glass I step on and hold there some sort of fish.” It is the shatteredness of memory being translated for us as, through strong language, images, and an evolving form, the poem beautifully contracts into a kind of hive of pure lyricism, at the center of which is someone thinking, being. ” —-David Keplinger, author of The Prayers of Others, Director of Creative Writing and Associate Professor of English at American University.