Alysa Levi-D’Ancona (MFA ’23) Publishes work in Occulum Journal

Issue 13 of Occulum, an online journal of “prose, poetry, and other peculiarities,” features the poem “molasses traps” by second-year MFA student Alysa Levi-D’Ancona (she/her). Levi-D’Ancona’s writing has also recently appeared in The RavensPerch, UWB Crow, Clamor, and Stories That Need to Be Told 2021. Four of her poems will be published in Querencia Press’s Women, Queer, Trans, NB Anthology series, and one of her short stories will be featured in the second issue of Alice Says Go Fuck Yourself Arts & Lit Mag.

In addition to publishing her work, Levi-D’Ancona has been and continues to be a part of a number of MFA-affiliated reading series in the Seattle area, such as The Underbelly poetry series and Bulldog News Series hosted by Eric Acosta (MFA ’20), The Caffeinated hosted by Dria Simmons (MFA ’23), The Poetry Séance hosted by Emily J. Mundy (MFA ’22), and Gamut, the MFA student-led reading series.

Levi-D’Ancona is working on her MFA thesis, a novel tentatively titled Mist Manifesto. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic marsh where a strange, bright mist consumes the town of Ahpisaw and stops time. Mogyype, a grieving widower, struggles to keep a hold on reality when he sees his dead wife in the blinding mist. As we learn more about the world, the gods, and the mist’s origin, we worry about the fate of Mogyype and what really is lurking in the marshes.

Liminality, surrealism, postmodernism, absurdism, and magical realism are the pepper of her pages; cats, coffee, cooking, hikes, warm blankets, and naps are the salt of her earth. Levi-D’Ancona teaches high school English by day and pursues her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at UW Bothell at every other waking hour. Follow her on Instagram: @alevidancona.

Check out “molasses traps” in Occulum 13!