T. M. Semrad

About
 T.M. Semrad lives and writes across and among genres in the Sacramento area. She is Texas born and returned and Midwest reared. She is an old woman and is of old time southern and Czech Catholic immigrant tangled roots. Her writing has appeared in Entropy, isacoustic, Nightingale & Sparrow, and Pomme Journal. She has been an editor for Black Clock, a leading literary magazine, curated the L reading series and coached writers. She has hosted a weekly writing work space and monthly submission parties for women. She facilitates writing workshops. She has completed an M.F.A. in Writing at the California Institute of the Arts and is the recipient of a UCLA Writing Project Fellowship. In her spare time, she plays in the mud and paint with 2 to 7 year-olds and provides parent education and support.
 
In Progress
She has two book length projects in progress. The first crosses lines between fiction and nonfiction and documents collected family stories and a father-daughter road trip traversing America. Pulling from history, interviews, and memory, Semrad attempts to make sense of inter-generational trauma. The book is elegiac in tone and all loss is conflated with the mother’s death which is simultaneously impending and past. The second is a collection of 52 poems, one poem a week for her 52nd year, exploring the author’s familial relationships. Like family portraits in a hallway, Semrad frames an image, captures a moment in time or hangs a studio triptych of shots. 

Publications
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​Excerpts from Birthmark, (working title from a creative nonfiction book in progress)
  • “Fragment 1”and “Fragment 2” Out of Anonymity Volume 4: La Cañada Flintridge: The Journal of the UCLA Writing Project, 2018. Print.
  • “An Overture.” Ephemera. Valencia: California Institute of the Arts, 2015. Print.
 
Poems
  • "Toward the Unfinished," 44: not dead, just invisible, Orange: The Center in Orange, 2021. Mixed Media Exhibition.
  • "Absent Affirmation," "Three Father's Days," "Dark Lightens," and "The Chair Where I Sit," isacoustic. 2020. Online.
  • "Virtual Realized." Put Into Words, My Love. Monee: A Petite Pomme by Pomme Journal, 2020. Print.
  • “Picnic Blanket Poem: a re-enactment.” After Life. Valencia: Autobiography Club, California Institute of the Arts, 2015. Print. 
  • Untitled Poem. Valencia: Tiny Press Practices, California Institute of the Arts, 2015. Print
  • “Somnambulist,” “For William Grady Montgomery” and “Parallel Lines.” We’re Just Glad You Finally Figured it Out. Los Angeles: UCLA Writing Project, 2010. Print.
  • “wild everything.” Bold Ink: Collected Voices of Women and Girls. Los Angeles: WriteGirl Publications, 2003. Print.
  • Edible. Santa Monica: Mí Conchita Press, 1997. Print.
  
Creative Nonfiction
  • "A Wedding." love. nightingaleandsparrow.com: Nightingale & Sparrow, Issue V, 2020. Print and online.
Essays
  • “Venice of America.” Entropy, 2015. Online.
  • “Parallel Lives: Cynthia Carr and her Subject, David Wojnarwicz.” Black Clock Blog. Valencia: Black Clock, 2014. Online.
  • “Harbor.” Everybody Hold My Hand Right Now I Swear to God. Valencia: Interventions, California Institute of the Arts, 2013-2014. Print.
 
Interviews