Caitlin Coey is a queer poet and playwright. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles where she served as a lead editor for Lunch Ticket and a B.A from Antioch University Seattle where she served as the managing editor for Knock Magazine. Her full-length plays The Language of this World and Careful Girls have been workshopped in Seattle by Parley Productions. Her 10-minute play Candy Hearts and Lemonade was part of Eclectic Theater’s One Act Play Festival. Her writing focuses on gender-based violence, mental health, queer love, and the importance of friendship. Her poetry has been published in Shambles, The Roadrunner Review, Sad Girls Club, and Awakened Voices. She is a 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee for her poem “The rope and the hole”, a piece about the ways trauma can effect the voice and body. Her debut collection of poetry Without the Cliff (Finishing Line Press, 2023) is available through Bookshop, other online outlets, and your local bookstore.
Designed by Sean Coey
Without the Cliff is a narrative exploration of how the reality of trauma and healing can co-exist. Sometimes stepping forward, sometimes stepping back, this collection provides the reader with glimpses of the possibility of healing and change without the magical promise of "happily ever after." By highlighting the rebellious joys that can emerge through queer love and friendship, Caitlin Coey tells a story that intertwines the truths of pain, healing, love, and survival.
Reviews
Coey's Without the Cliff uses poetry to unfold childhood traumas others insist didn't happen. Sensory images become a necessary grounding for difficult memories no one wants remembered. What is the fall without the cliff? Who is the savior without the fall? Coey reflects on these questions with vulnerability and honesty, invoking the innocence of fairy tales, heroines, and first kisses. She walks a complex terrain that at each turn asks her to choose what should be told and what should not.
-Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge
In her debut poetry collection, Without the Cliff, Caitlin Coey's voice shines with strength and a succinct clarity that makes each poem crisp and the entire collection spark. In this robust lyrical memoir, Coey's poems investigate ways of sharing and reshaping deeply complex and precious stories as a pathway to tenderness, truth, and even love. Readers of all ages, bring your wounded inner-child to this collection, and let Coey's poems bolster you. This is truly a collection needed for our time, as even when the world is full of darkest nights, her poems bring us back to a place of beauty, healing, and joy.
-Jeri Frederickson, Author of You Are Not Lost and Editor of Awakened Voices