Bio
Bradley David Waters is a gay/queer introvert writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and unclassifiables. His writing and image-work appears in Terrain.org, HAD, Denver Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Exacting Clam and numerous other publications and anthologies. He has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. Bradley earned his B.A. in English from Michigan State University and a master's in social work (MSW) from the University of Michigan. He has a background in crisis counseling, career development consulting, and nonfiction writing & editing. He wrote a career/personal development column at PsychologyToday.com for eleven years. He has also edited and researched for medical journals, articles, and white papers focused on sexual dysfunction, aging, mindfulness, and illness recovery. Focusing now on creative writing, his work is queer-voiced and often explores psychological/emotional state, embodied trauma, sexuality/gender, urban/rural interfaces & ecotones, and the beyond-human world. Bradley and his husband split their time between Southern and Northern California, where they steward land for wildlife habitat, grow heirloom apples, and adopt unwanted poultry.
Addendum
I am strictly casual. I go by “Bradley" or “Brad” or “Bradley David.” I prefer not, however, “Mr" or “Sir” or “Dude” or “Bro” or “Man” or whichever masculine whatnots, because it all feels like sweaty oatmeal on a buttered window. My last name is Waters. The whole thing, then, is Bradley David Waters. But, really, Brad or Bradley will do.
(subscribe to my YouTube channel for outdoor readings, yard peeks, strange animals, hair)
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(jump to published and featured image-based work here)
Selected Published Works (writing, art, audio, video - since 2020)
Closure, Gooseberry Pie, 2025 (forthcoming micro)
Goodbye, Lemon-Feathered Fascinator, Bluestem, 2025 (forthcoming creative nonfiction)
arma-fuma, Action, Spectacle, 2025 (poetry)
Bore Report Part Fore, Exacting Clam, No. 17, 2025 (poetry)
Return to Dogwood, Cowboy Jamboree, 2025 (forthcoming blended-genre)
Adhesives, DIAGRAM, 2025 (forthcoming poetry)
Just In Time For Politics, DIAGRAM, 2025 (forthcoming poetry)
Brunch, Santa Monica Blvd, Sept 28, 2024, 72°, antiphony journal, 2025 (forthcoming poetry)
3 Poems, Terrain.org, 2025 (forthcoming poetry plus audio)
Firewatchers: Backyard to a Burning Los Angeles, jmww journal, 2025 (essay)
Take A Lung Or Take A Lover, Denver Quarterly, v. 59.1, 2025 (poetry)
Enfant Terrible, Exacting Clam, 2025 (prose poetry)
Population Wise, Exacting Clam, 2025 (prose poetry)
Red Tape, Exacting Clam, 2025 (prose poetry)
Wise Owl, Exacting Clam, 2025 (prose poetry)
A Way of Saving, The Milk House, 2025 (essay)
510 Road, HAD, 2024 (poem)
Taking It, Minor Literature[s], 2024 (essay/photo excerpt)
2 Micro, Gooseberry Pie, 2024 (micro)
Putting Too Much Into Titles, miniMAG, 2024 (beyond-genre)
small talk, miniMAG, 2024 (poetry)
Paradise Paranoid, miniMAG, 2024 (poetry)
Let Them Have It, Landlocked Magazine, 2024, (creative nonfiction)
Trunk Tools and Pocket Pastilles, Landlocked Magazine, 2024 (creative nonfiction)
No Quarters -ette Review, 2024 (prose poem)
Seasons Change, If You Let Them, Gooseberry Pie, Issue 12, May 2024, (micro)
Mid-Century Modern, hex, 2024 (flash)
Sources Say, Los Angeles Review, 2024, (flash)
Photograph, Exacting Clam, Spring 2024, (photography)
3 Poems, Unlikely Stories Mark V, 2024 (poetry)
Aroma Therapy, the evermore review #2, 2024, (fiction)
Plenty, Excuse Me Mag #8, 2023, (photography, back cover)
Tracing Letters, JMWW, 2023 (poetry)
Scenes from a Grief Casino, Thirty West, 2023 (creative nonfiction)
Accumulations, JAKE, 2023 (fiction)
6 Poems, Exacting Clam, 2023 (poetry)
Some People Take The Edge Off, Identity Theory, 2023 (poetry) (Winner, 2022 2022-Word Poetry contest)
3 fictions, Always Crashing, 2023 (fiction/beyond-genre)
Some People Have Tell-All Shelves, Opt West, Issue Two, 2023
Dead City Driver, Simple Machines, No. 2: Epochal Shift, 2022
Girl With A Pearl Herring, Exacting Clam, 2022 (fiction)
Five Ways To Learn Fear, Terrain.org, 2022 (fiction)
Queerness, Madness, and Trauma: The Morphology of Narrative Through Lived Experience, Allium, 2022 (craft essay)
Approachable Pedestrian, Bureau of Complaint, 2022 (beyond-genre)
Norman Rockwell Steps On A Lego, Fatal Flaw, 2022 (beyond-genre) (Pushcart nominated)
Artists on Artists, Fatal Flaw, 2022 (interview)
Some People Are Always Accounting For Taste, Fruit Journal, 2022 (beyond-genre)
Some People Catch Cold, Unstamatic, 2022, (poetry)
Some People Gotta Get Outta Here, Unstamatic, 2022 (poetry, Best of the Net nominated)
Some People Watch The Drinking Bird Go Dry, Anti-Heroin Chic, 2022 (poetry)
Some People Search For A Door, Rougarou, 2022 (beyond-genre)
Some People Feel Unsettled By Spaces They Can’t Fill, Scrawl Place, 2022 (beyond-genre)
Some People On December 28, Scrawl Place, 2022 (Poetry)
Some People Are Casualties Of Season Songs, the museum of americana, 2022 (beyond-genre)
Some People Go Home To Their Family, Zoetic Press, “Heathentide Orphans” anthology, 2022 (poetry)
So Much Depends Upon A Rental Car Place (After William Carlos Williams), Mid-Level Management, 2022 (poetry/beyond-genre)
Just Another Night On Fire, Milk & Cake Press, 2022 (poetry, anthology)
photography (2), Olney Magazine’s Magical Midwest: an anthology, 2022 (photography)
photography, Welter, 2022 (photography)
photography, Welter, 2022 (photography)
Preparing For Our Past, Plainsongs, 2021 (poetry)
Noodles, Porridge, 2021 (poetry)
Letter Carrier, Stone of Madness, 2021 (poetry)
Tides of Isolation, Epoch Press, 2021 (nonfiction/blended-genre)
My Allies Underground, Seisma, 2020 (poetry)
Should I Go Back Out There?, Dispatches From The Poetry Wars/Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2020 (poetry, anthology)
As Senior Editor, jmww journal, “Blended & Beyond”
Volume 1 (Erin Murphy, Jacqueline Doyle, Mark Foss, Mikki Aronoff)
Volume 2 (Sara Lynn Poutinen, J.Y. Tan)
Volume 3 (Afton Montgomery, Leia Bradley, Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, Helen Chen)
Volume 4 (Julianna Rappaport, Sarah Starr Murphy, N.L. Jorgensen, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Mary Catherine La Mar, Daniel A. Rabuzzi, Ali Mckenzie-Murdoch, Ann Pedone, David John Baer McNicholas)
Volume 5 (Diane Wald, Benjamin Niespodziany, Mercedes Lawry, M.M. Kaufmann, Maria Said)
Volume 6 (Gayle Brandeis, Ann Gelder, Matthew Bala)
Volume 7 (Karissa Ho, Burgi Zenhaeusern, Emily Brisse)
Volume 8 (Chloe Hooks, Daniel J. Flosi, Nathaniel Lachenmeyer)
Special Edition #1 (AMPYDOO/Alan Michael Parker)
As Columnist at PsychologyToday.com (coming soon)
CV (coming soon)
Writing Craft and Resources (coming soon. please subscribe to Substack below)