Writer
I wrote a story about ghosts and mediums, and Midway Journal was kind enough to publish it. ❤️ The piece was inspired by the Blandwood Mansion, pictured. Read it in full on the Midway website. Grateful to fiction editor Ralph Pennel for all his care!
I’m delighted to share that my personal essay “Multitude of Hosts” appears in the new issue of Barnstorm Journal, from the University of New Hampshire. The piece begins as a meditation on the candle that sits by my side as I write and opens to a range of memories from my childhood across Bosnia and Spain. Huge thanks to the editors!
I was delighted to learn today that I and a few fellow writers have had a panel accepted for the AWP Conference in early March in Baltimore. Titled “Memory as Borderland in Immigrant Narratives: The Refuge & Burden of Remembering,” this conversation will explore how memory shapes identity across geographies in both fiction and creative nonfiction.
I’ll be moderating a group of writers whose work spans Nepal, the Philippines, China, and Russia. Together, we’ll examine memory as both refuge and burden and explore how memory intersects with migration, queerness, and reimagined ways of being.
My new short story, “Birthday at the Hermitage,” is out now in The Los Angeles Review. It’s set at a hermitage on the outskirts of Ávila, Northern Spain, where I spent many summer afternoons as a child. Writing it gave me the chance to revisit those grounds. I even reached out to the hermitage to confirm some details about the preserved crocodile at the sanctuary entrance, and the keeper sent me a wonderfully thorough description and photos. 🙃
I’m excited to share that the spring issue of Crab Creek Review is out now!
After serving as guest fiction editor last year, I’ve stayed on with the journal as a fiction reader, and it was a joy to reflect on the submissions.
Our fiction theme, “Embodied Lives,” edited by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, invited stories that explore how the body—its desires, limits, autonomy, and entanglement with power—shapes identity, perception, and connection. We were delighted to receive and discuss such thoughtful, compelling pieces.
Find copies of the issue on Submittable, and join our virtual launch on June 9 at 8:30 p.m. EDT.
My new personal essay, “The Squirrel at the Monastery,” appears today in World Literature Today Weekly. Huge thanks, as always, to Editor Michelle Johnson for her attention, trust, and care! ❤️
I was honored to serve as guest fiction editor for the fall/winter issue of Crab Creek Review. The theme for fiction was immigration and displacement, and we’ve curated a moving, complex set of pieces that offers variety in both content and form. Big thanks to Julia Hands for the opportunity! The new issue is available through Crab Creek Review‘s Submittable.
My poem, “Through the Window,” appears in the new issue of South Carolina Review. I just received these beautiful contributor’s copies, which look jam-packed with great writing. Can’t wait to dive into the rest of the issue. Big, heartfelt thanks to Editor Elizabeth Stansell and her team! ❤️
Friends, my prose poem, “On the Lido Deck Before Sunrise,” appears in the new issue of Witness. I’m delighted the piece found such a wonderful home. Huge thanks to the editors!
Last week, I held a workshop at the American School of São Paulo, with the 10th and 11th graders who are interested in creative writing. I spoke about my writing path and my childhood in Bosnia and Spain and read them a flash essay about my parents’ weekend house just outside of Sarajevo when I was little.
The students were from Brazil, China, S. Korea, and the States, and during the session, they wrote about their own childhood neighborhoods and the people who inhabited them. One wrote about a man who’d come down the street, piled up with boxes, to bring his family their weekly fruit delivery. A couple of others said the exercise brought up memories they didn’t know they had.
It was an energizing, deeply engaged session, and I was left wishing we could have had more time together. I also heard from one of their teachers that a couple of students asked whether “Miss Lana could come back.” ❤️
Lana Spendl 