Publishing updates, poetry salons in Kansas City, and musings on becoming a snake

One foot in reality, one foot still in the mansion

I’m writing to you today from the comforts of my couch and a cozy blanket. I woke up at 2 am with the ‘rrhea…thankfully it stopped by around 10 am and you’re probably wondering, jeez, Nina, why the hell are we talking about your butt so early on into this newsletter?! I promise I have a point so stick around and you’ll know why soon :)

On Friday I took a solo trip to Kansas City, Missouri, to participate in a women’s only poetry salon hosted by Chelsie Diane (Insta is poemsandpeonies). I belong to Poems and Power, her community of female artists, poets, authors, singers, dancers, dreamers, believers, and more. I’ve connected with a number of these women online through DMs and through our Zoom classes, but I’ve never met any of them in person. I had so much anticipatory anxiety going into the event about meeting these women who I had formed real relationships with online, but had never hugged IRL. Perhaps you’ve had the experience before, but it was new for me, and I was worried about keeping track of everyone. Plus so many of those woman publish on Insta anonymously with no names or pictures, so I only knew them by their handles! But my fears were unnecessary - we were all in the same boat, and it was so fun gathering and being like, “hi, I’m Nina, nontoxnina on Instagram.” “Wait, what’s your handle on Insta?” I think we all felt like mini celebrities that weekend, “oh I follow you!” :)

From the minute I started connecting IRL with these women, it was easy, effortless, comfortable, and lacking in a very important thing…judgement. Not once all weekend long did I feel judged or shamed or misunderstood by these women. Do you know how rare that is? In any other situation, I would be fairly intimidated to walk into a room full of women I didn’t know - will they judge me, will they like my outfit, what will they think of my poetry, etc. Instead these women WITNESSED ME and UPLIFTED ME and VALIDATED ME and provided this echo chamber of love and gratitude that I have been unable to shake. When I got on the plane ride home, I thought I’d just wallow and reflect for my two hour flight home, but instead I got into the clouds and channeled God and wrote a poem that you should really check out :)

A photo of me absorbing poetry in the Kansas City Mansion, holding The Forty Poems, photo by Natalie Rempalski (my new profile pic on Insta!), 5/23/26

By showing up so authentically and unequivocally, we created something palpable, something you could actually reach out for and hold onto and build things on. There will always be a mansion in our minds! And the synchronicities and collaborations building out of this event are worth a post in and of themselves! So, then the focus became, how do I step back into reality without losing sight of the magic we created? How do I go back to my black-and-white day-to-day when I just experienced the technicolor Oz of Kansas City?!?

I actually don’t have all the answers yet, despite my Capricorn tendencies to desire otherwise :) As cliché as this potentially sounds, there is always Instagram. If I need a dose of Kansas City in my veins, I just gotta hit the Insta and find my queens. There is always someone online, always a new poem to read and appreciate, a friend to support or receive support from. But I find that it’s slowly creeping into who I am in other ways, too. As a mother, it’s changing the way I parent and speak to my kids; knowing firsthand the power that validation can provide, I speak love into everything they do. I’m trying to judge less and less - we never know what people are carrying (a dead parent, a dead child, an illness, a crab omelette…).

All weekend I kept thinking about salon as a debutante ball - I have officially come out to society as a poet. So I’m carrying that identity everywhere I go now. On Monday, I submitted my final edits and sent my manuscript to my editor for final review. On Wednesday we met to review it, and then I officially submitted my manuscript to Cooper with Poems and Power Publishing! The Forty Poems is a manuscript! OMG! Now it is time to format the manuscript for publication and start building my plan to promote it. I’ll be getting another draft of my cover this week, too, and I CANNOT WAIT! Perhaps I’ll give you all a little sneak peek :)

And now we’re back onto the couch and my tender bottom. Some experiences alter you in visible ways - a scar, a tattoo, a souvenir. But some leave something far less tangible behind - the way you move through the world, the way you speak, what drives your decisions. I knew that this experience in Kansas City would alter my DNA forever, but I didn’t foresee how. This morning I learned that I am a snake shedding her skin for something new, the only difference is I’m shedding from the inside out :)

(see what I did there!)