Today we’d like to introduce you to Loralee Clark.
Hi Loralee, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I became enamored with words in second grade–I thought homonyms, homophones, synonyms and antonyms were magical portals to other words (which, they in fact, are) and I began playing with language–fifty years later, I still am.
Poetry became a way for me to express my feelings and make sense of my world, then as I matured it became a way for me to cope and learn. I was raised by scientists with many interests: a botanist, chemist, zoologist and entomologist, so I learned to look at the world through patterns and questions–a perfect way to develop myself as a writer.
Though I wrote consistently all through my life and one of my degrees is English with a poetry concentration, I decided to take my writing more seriously in 2023 and began submitting to literary journals in earnest. By 2024 I had a significant amount of poems published and began putting together different poetry manuscripts and sending them out to presses. 2025 was when I had three different books published as well one pending for 2026. My latest book came out last month and I have had one other manuscript accepted for 2027. I still have three other manuscripts I am working on writing. It’s been a very rewarding stretch of time for me.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not a smooth road at all! It took me three times of sending my poetry out, over the course of twenty years, for me to find a rhythm in my confidence as well as practice to get where I am today. Writing is certainly an endeavor which can be externally assessed in terms of productivity, but it is also an internal endeavor which requires a lot of learning curves and self-esteem adjustments!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I have four poetry books out in the world right now: Solemnity Rites (Prolific Pulse Press, 2025) which asks the questions, How are we human? and How do we practice our humanity?; Delighting in “To Be”: Poems for Writers (Bottlecap Press, 2025) which examines the ways creativity enriches us; “A Harmony in the Key of Trees (Dancing Girl Press, 2025) is a story of a girl, Mina, who discovers who she is through her relationship with trees; and “Neolithic Imaginings: Mythic Explorations of the Unknown” (Kelsay Books, 2026) creates mythic explanations for 16 Neolithic monuments across Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. In addition, I was nominated for three pushcart prizes for 2026 but haven’t heard anything as of yet!
In addition to understanding the world through writing about it, I understand it through drawing and painting. All four of my poetry books, thus far, have my art on the cover. I did take some art courses in college, though I don’t have any degrees in art; it took a long time for me to feel comfortable thinking of myself as an artist. Since I’ve gotten such positive feedback about my cover art, I’ve begun sending my art out, as well as my poems, to literary journals and have been pleasantly surprised that I have been getting my art accepted for publication as well. I paint mostly with watercolors, homemade walnut and acorn inks, as well as oil pastels. I do mostly abstract art, though my book “A Harmony in the Key of Trees: A Healing Myth” is realistic–a tree stump with Virginia creeper sprawling across.
Art is integral to research for me when I am writing my poems–its a lovely symbiotic creative practice for me. I try to tap into the universal imagery of a subject, drawing as I research, and I always begin my research with a question. As I research and draw, I eventually find the words I want and I can begin to write my poetry.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I have a whole tribe of women to thank for being my mentors and cheerleaders–some I have know for dozens of years, some for a few months. They are not all poets, but they are all women who are connected to their environments and have great empathy and intelligence. I would be a much less productive, much less interesting person without them in my life.
My husband and children are also very important to me as I grow and come to understand myself in terms of who I was raised to be versus who I have the potential to be; their love sustains me in ways I can’t begin to express.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sites.google.com/view/loraleeclark
- Instagram: @make13experiment
- Other: https://nosuchthingasfailure.substack.com
