Heather Bartel

Founder & Co-Editor

creator

editor

writer

informal Plath scholar

Aries sun; Capricorn moon and rising

the short story

Heather Bartel writes hybrid essays, poetry, fiction, one-act plays, and old-fashioned letters. She holds a BA in English from Webster University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. Beyond writing and editing, her projects include shooting a tarot-inspired Polaroid series, collecting rocks and houseplants, and practicing yoga and emotive dance aerobics. Heather is a deeply rooted Midwesterner currently living with her husband and dog in Athens, GA.

publications

"REFLECTION," forthcoming in Fence Steaming
"MURMURATIONS (II): MIRRORS," forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, 2023
"YET THE PHANTOM WAS PART OF THE FLOWER," forthcoming in Miracle Monocle, 2022
"THE KNIFE SPEAKS," Grimoire, 2022
"MURMURATIONS (I): FIRST MEMORY OF BIRDS," MAYDAY, 2021
"FLOAT," Qu, 2020

projects

EXIT THE BODY

is an essay collection, if a collection of essays can include a tarot reading, a one-act starring dead and dreamed women, conversations with Sylvia Plath in the mirror, letters to a ghost. It is a work about illusion and choice, a meditation on the mind and its place within the body: what escapes, what ruptures, what is created, what echoes. The work considers what to do with an obsession with the mirror when the person in the mirror is either the only person you can trust or the one who is trying to kill you.

This is a completed manuscript and is available for publication.

MURMURATIONS
is an essay collection that considers patterns of birds of and of breath; dialogue in dreams; stars; and the ways in which women disappear. Longlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.

This is a completed manuscript and is available for publication.

services
learn more about manuscript consultations, mentorships, and writing workshops.

We break mirrors inside of each other/to see again.