Therese Gleason

@theresegleason.bsky.social

(she/her) poems, essays, a lil fiction, chronic migraineur, public school teacher, poetry chaps HEMICRANIA (Chestnut Review, 2024); MATRILINEAL (Finishing Line, 2021); LIBATION (Co-Winner, South Carolina Poetry Initiative, 2006) theresegleason.com

I'm thrilled to share that HEMICRANIA has won the 2025 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize from the New England Poetry Club, selected by Matthew E. Henry, a phenomenal poet I have long admired. A thousand thank yous to him, NEPC, and Chestnut Review for publishing it.🤩 Congrats to the incredible finalists!!

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Thank you again, Jeannie E. Roberts and Halfway Down the Stairs, for selecting my poems for publication in 2020 - and again for this 20th anniversary feature. Your generous comments on each poem mean the world to me. Congratulations on 20 years of curating beautiful writing, art, and community!

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Congratulations to Halfway Down the Stairs on 20 years of publishing! I have such gratitude and affection for this wonderful journal, and it's such an honor to have two poems included in "Best of HDS 2005-2025." - special thanks to ed. Jeannie E. Roberts halfwaydownthestairs.net/2025/09/01/t...

The Best of Halfway Down the Stairs, 2005-2025

For this special occasion of our twentieth anniversary, we are pleased to pull the band back together, giving editors past and present the chance to highlight some of our absolute favorite submissi…

halfwaydownthestairs.net

So happy to learn that my story, “Motherlode,” was longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50! With gratitude to @cincinnatireview for publishing it last spring in the miCRo series - which was an honor in itself🤩 congrats to all!

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The Cincinnati Review@cincinnatireview.bsky.social · last yr.

Congratulations to miCRo contributor Kelle Groom on the inclusion of her piece, "Murder City," in the @wigleaf.bsky.social Top 50! "Motherlode" by @theresegleason.bsky.social also made it to the longlist!

Thank you so much to New Ohio Review, especially Bridget Rexhausen, for a lovely, generous, and insightful review of Hemicrania! What a gift to have your words read and considered so deeply. Love that it's out just in time for #migraineawareness month this June. 🤩 newohioreview.org/2025/06/01/p...

New Ohio Review

Poetry, Pain, and the Power of Expression in Therese Gleason’s Hemicrania  By Bridget Rexhausen Therese Gleason’s latest book, Hemicrania (Chestnut Review Chapbooks, 2024), focuses on migraine…

newohioreview.org

Happy to share one more recent piece in my bounty of April showers: after a dry spell, it's wonderful to have new work out in the world. Thank you much Midwest Review editors Tara Sparbel, Jeff Snowbarger, Jill Stukenberg for including "Photophobia," a version of which is in my chap, Hemicrania.

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My essay on a couple of Anne Sexton's poems in the dance-themed New Ohio Review Issue 35 is available online, along with an array of stellar work. With gratitude to the editors for their awesomeness (they are so great to work with), and for including this piece. newohioreview.org/2025/03/01/d...

“Doing the Undoing Dance”: Anne Sexton’s Brutal—and Brave—Struggle for Agency

By Therese Gleason Dance imagery abounds in Anne Sexton’s ouevre, but the waltzes and allusions to fairy-tale-inspired ballets in her poems are characterized by compulsion and madness like that of …

newohioreview.org

Before - and after - our presentation, “Exploding Head: Writing Migraine and Other Manifestations of the Wayward Brain” 🧠 at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture. Thanks to Cynthia Marie Hoffman, Sarah M. Sala, Maria S. Picone, and Shee Gomes for their brilliant contributions!

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Getting excited to present "Exploding Head: Writing Migraine and Other Manifestations of the Wayward Brain," with Shee Gomes, Cynthia Marie Hoffman, Sarah M. Sala, and Maria S. Picone at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture in my hometown next week!

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So saddened to learn of the death of @daniellelegrosgeorges - I had the pleasure of attending her talk and reading at the American Antiquarian Society this past June. She was brilliant, gracious, and warm and I’m so grateful I had the chance to meet her, and to have her work in the world.

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