Maria McLeod

Creative Writer

United States

Hi there, and thanks for visiting my creative writing portfolio.

The sample clips posted here represent my work as a multi-genre writer. Although my first love, and staple, is poetry, I've also published short stories, flash fiction and monologues. I've also written and staged works of documentary theatre and collaborated on works of theater-dance, both of which involved in-depth interviewing and oral history. In terms of multi-media, I've worked as a videographer (director, shooter, editor) and interviewer for short documentaries.

My early training and work was in journalism and public relations. I also hold a Master of Fine Arts in poetry. Not surprisingly, about half of my creative writing is interview based, or interview inspired. Currently, I work as an associate professor of journalism for Western Washington University.

Fun Fact: The first person to publish my creative writing (back in the 90s!) was Eve Ensler, then co-editor of a literary journal called "Central Park."

Feel free to shoot me a message if you'd like to comment or connect at [email protected].

Portfolio
"Body Talk" - Performance Trailer
11/02/2012
"Body Talk" - A work of documentary theatre written by Maria McLeod

"Body Talk: Sexual Triumphs, Trials, and Revelations" is a performance of true stories about sex, birth, menopause, mammograms, wax jobs, and what it means to be a woman. This work of documentary theatre, based on interviews with women conducted by McLeod, was performed at the Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Bellingham, Washington, in Sept. in 2012 to sold-out crowds and standing ovations. It returned to the stage three months later, December of 2012, by popular demand. Directed by Karee...

Poetry Foundation
The Body Mutiny, Interview with Poet Lucia Perillo by Maria McLeod

Lucia Perillo's most recent book, Inseminating the Elephant, continues the MacArthur Fellow's exploration of what it means to be present in everyday life-to have an active mind and an imperfect body in the manufactured and natural worlds. There's comedy, irony, wit, and philosophy throughout, familiar traits to readers of Perillo's previous five books.

The Harpoon Review
02/28/2019
Soul To Take - Poetry

by Maria McLeod — She is come hither horrific: form of the plague, form in the grass, thistle, nettle, widow's lace pressed between pages, words cast afloat like boats without oars. now I lay me down to...

The Journal: A Literary Magazine
05/15/2017
Rut - Fiction

By Maria McLeod — I grew up next to a collection of shotguns, three brothers and a band of women who butchered freshly gutted deer on the kitchen table top. As they cut and sliced and sawed, the women went silent, gripping their cigarettes between their thin lips.

99 Pine Street Literary Journal
10/25/2017
She Wants - Poetry

By Maria McLeod — She Wants to protect herself from recollection. To think back is to enter her parent's house, nothing left but a child's cryptic script. Her mother's voice is an apparition she reads as warning of her world without end, a loop a daughter hopes to fall out of.

The Brooklyn Rail
02/01/2001
Love Poem No. 9 - Poetry

By Maria McLeod — I have stolen the heart out of your chest. It beat on my bed for days, where I let it run itself out. It wasn't red, but brown, turning deeper so as it lay and rot. I stole the heart; I think, how cliché, how Poe, how macabre.

Arkana
12/05/2017
Mad Woman - Poetry

By Maria McLeod (Hear it read by the author) — She walks through the city with her left eye tripled in size, and her occipital lobe buzzing. She can see inside every body. She sees inside the cops, their eyes so like her father's, a wet brown that bleeds into the iris. The woods...

The Fabulist Words & Art
11/06/2018
Supermodel of the Roman Empire - Fiction

By Maria McLeod — When the blue velvet stage curtains parted, the supermodel entered, turned toward the crowd, and waved like a woman on a parade float—a slow, open-handed fan. Her face was round like an apple: a red delicious, a pink lady.

Cease, Cows
12/12/2016
Poly Di - Flash Fiction

By Maria McLeod — I gave birth to a flame-retardant baby. Born on Ash Wednesday, her hair is gray frizz; her eyes, mini briquettes; her skin crackles, crisp. I named her Poly Di, short for polybrominated diphenyl ethers. I can't call her the light of my life; she's inflammable.

Painted Bride Quarterly
05/13/2011
Boob Job - Fiction

By Maria McLeod — My lover circles my areola like he's an astronaut and I'm a crater on the moon. I'm half expecting him to stick an American flag in my side. He strikes a wicked grin and tells me that the sleazy college bar, Wetland, is advertising a T-shirt contest with a new twist.