Now who the danged heck is Seth Thill?

Seth Thill is a poet, author, and Monster Energy Drink connoisseur from Dubuque, Iowa. Their work has been published in Indiana Review, Plainsongs, West Trade Review, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. They are also the Assistant Editor at North American Review, America's oldest literary magazine. In September 2022, as part of their tenure as Visiting Artist at Hartman Reserve in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Thill published Cover, Recover, a chapbook of poems examining intersections of identity, nature, and pop-culture. They enjoy wearing too many necklaces and staring pensively into the distance against a backdrop of wildflowers.

Bearded man with clear-framed glasses, silver chain necklace, and a yellow floral camp shirt stands in front of a field of yellow wildflowers.

***Hi, everybody! Just a quick note for anyone who may be here from the Visiting Artist Blog: my time as Hartman Reserve Visiting Artist has ended, and so from this point forward, this site will function more as a general author site for myself. But for the sake of archiving my HRVA project, I am keeping the About page the same (besides this note and the biographical information above). All of the information about me and my writing is still true, with the one exception that the What I will be doing this summer section should be changed to past tense, I suppose. The future is no more. The present never was. Oh no.

Anyway, here is the archived description of the original Visiting Artist blog.

Hello, guys, gals, and non-binary pals! Welcome to Poetry Prints at Hartman, your premier source on all things 2022 Hartman Reserve Visiting Artist, Seth Thill. If you're in the 'About' section (and you must be if you're reading this), you may be wondering, "Well, who is 2022 Hartman Reserve Visiting Artist, Seth Thill, and why should I be reading their blog?" Great question! Go ahead and keep reading to find out.

Who I am

I am Seth Thill. I am a person, a poet, an amateur print-maker, a failed power forward, and well, I have run out of things to keep the alliteration going so let's stop there. I was born and raised in Dubuque, Iowa, a very pretty city with a nice limestone welcome sign that dubs it the "Masterpiece on the Mississippi" in Comic Sans font. For the last six-plus years though, I have been in the Cedar Falls/Waterloo area, the last five with my wonderful partner and our sweet but demanding hound dog, Luna. I am a big fan of root beer, the Los Angeles Lakers, experimental literature, and rivers. I used to be scared of birds, but have come around on most of them. Still afraid of heights.

A block-printed image of a pig with pink ink and a black border with hash marks in the design. — Oh, and my favorite animal is pigs. So here is a linocut block-print of a pig I made. I mean, I made the print, not an actual pig. This is not an artistic rendering of a pig I somehow created Frankenstein-style.

What I have done

Unmentionable horrors. Just kidding! In the Spring of 2020, I Mastered the Arts of English (with a Creative Writing Emphasis) and received a diploma from the University of Northern Iowa to prove it. My poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction has been published in a handful of magazines, including Indiana Review, Drunk Monkeys, Plainsongs, West Trade Review, Into the Void, and more. I have presented my creative and critical work at various conferences and events and have even won a few awards for doing so. In the 8th grade, I pulled a 12 point, 15 rebound double-double for the Washington Wahawks B-team.

What I will be doing this summer

I will be spending time at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center here in Cedar Falls, taking in my surroundings, processing my thoughts on those surroundings, and working towards a mini block-printed chapbook of poetry to be distributed at various community events that I will be coordinating with the help and sponsorship of the wonderful folks from the Hartman Visiting Artist committee and the Hartman Reserve Nature Center (keep tabs on upcoming events here). In particular, I will be exploring the competing, or maybe peacefully coexisting, roles that nature and pop-culture play in how we process and cope with grief and trauma in our modern lives. So, essentially, I am using the fun stuff to talk about the not-so-fun stuff. Think riverside tire swing in the middle of a thunderstorm. Or Super Mario with a single tear rolling down his cheek (*pulls out notepad* make linoprint of a crying Mario). If this sounds like it's your speed, read the first proper entry to this blog/newsletter here, and make sure to get each new post sent straight to your inbox by subscribing!