Gemma’s poetry book We Might As Well Be Underwater was published by Unsolicited Press. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than forty journals; she is a many-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Published chapbooks include Too Much Like a Landscape (2015, with Warren Tales) and “Bedside Manner” (The Head and the Hand, 2020). Gemma’s plays have been produced in Syracuse, Chicago, Boston, and New York. She was a runner-up for the 2016 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and has been awarded artist’s residencies from Catalonia to Virginia and a grant from the Barbara Deming Fund.

As a playwright, most recently, Gemma was commissioned to write Come Like Shadows, an alternate queer exploration of the early life of Lady Macbeth, for Breadcrumbs Productions, Syracuse, NY. (2022). She was the resident playwright with The Theater Offensive’s Creative Action Crew (2015-2016), generating the new plays Reporting Live from Under the Rainbow and Through the Glory Hole and What We Found There based on the work of a queer youth ensemble. Once I Was a Kingdom was presented on Zoom for the Women+ in Theatre Conference (2020). Recent workshops include Break (About Face Theatre, Chicago, IL, 2018), This Not That (The Depot for New Play Readings, Hampton, CT), and You Want Them to Look Away (Breadcrumbs Productions, Syracuse, NY, 2020). The Dating Game was performed in New York and Boston in 2015. Her light opera adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, co-written with Joshua Tyra, has been workshopped at colleges in New York and Chicago. Her play Blindside was produced in Chicago in 2008. She is a member of both Honor Roll! and the Dramatists Guild of America.

See more of my plays on the New Play Exchange.

Books

• “Bedside Manner” (chapbook, The Head & the Hand Press, 2020)
• We Might as Well Be Underwater  (Unsolicited Press, 2017)
• Too Much Like a Landscape (chapbook), with Warren Tales  (2014)

Honors and Awards

• Writer’s Residency, Saltonstall Foundation, Ithaca, NY (2023)
• Artist’s Residency, Bethany Arts Center (2021 [accepted but did not attend due to COVID-19] & 2022)
• Highly Commended, Bridport Prize, Fiction (2021)
• Finalist, Breakwater Review Peseroff Poetry Prize  (2019)
• Finalist, Breakwater Review Fiction Contest (2018)
• Finalist, Central New York Book Award (2017)
• Artist’s Residency, Millay Colony for the Arts (2017)
• Best of the Net Nominations (2017, 2018)
• Runner-Up, James Jones First Novel Fellowship (2016)
• Grantee, Barbara Deming Fund for Women Writers  (2016)
• Artist’s Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts  (2016)
• Artists’ Residency (with Rasha Abdulhadi), Sundress Academy for the Arts, Knoxville, TN (2015)
• Artists’ Residency (with Rasha Abdulhadi), Wildacres, Little Switzerland, NC (2015)
• Artist’s Residency, betterArts, Redwood, NY (2015)
• OUTSpoken Poetry Contest Winner, Sundress Publications  (2014)
• Writer’s Residency, Writers’ Room at the Betsy Hotel, Miami Beach, FL (2014)
• Artist’s Residency, Can Serrat Centro de Actividades Artísticas, El Bruc, Catalonia, Spain (2014)
• Pushcart Prize Nominations (2013, 2015, 2017)

Publications: Poetry

• “The marriages” & “She takes the el, the T, the subway,” Meetinghouse Magazine (2023)
• “Immunesuppression,” A Body You Talk To (anthology), Sundress Publications (2023)
• “The Marriages: The mermaid” & “Once on a Ghost Ship [10],” Fifth Wheel’s come sail away anthology (2023)
• “The Marriages: The ghoul,” Bennington Review (2023)
• “Once on a Ghost Ship [17]” and “Once on a Ghost Ship [21],” Snarl (2023)
• “Newton,” The Sunlight Press (2023, forthcoming)
• “The Marriages: The dybbuk,” Apparition Lit (2023)
• “Securities Against Aging,” Ethel (2022)
• “She’s on the aisle this time” & “The Marriages: The fox,” Peculiar Journal (2022)
• “What You Want Is What You Get” and “Broccoli Daikon Spinach Mustard,” Paramanu Pentaquark (2022)
• “MRI Lovepoem,” The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet (anthology, 2022)
• “The Marriages: The catfish,” “The Marriages: The pigeon,”  & “The Marriages: The stray,” K’in Literary Journal (2021)
• “The Marriages: The camel,” Claw & Blossom (2021)
• “Once on a Ghost Ship [14],” Rough Cut Press  (2021)
• “Antisocial Media,” Gingerbread Ritual  (2021)
• “Someday Olivia Will See You,” Angel Rust (2021)
• “She takes a Lyft or something,” House Mountain Review (2021)
• “Once on a Ghost Ship [13],” “Once on a Ghost Ship [3],” and “Once on a Ghost Ship [5],” Sinister Wisdom (2020)
• “Wealth of Nations,” Writers Resist (2020)
• “The Marriages: The park,” What Are Birds? (2020)
• “Once on a Ghost Ship [7],” Human/Kind Journal (2020)
• “She walks behind the theater,” 8 Poems (2020)
• “Mane,” Stone Canoe  (2020)
• “She takes a taxi,” PanoplyZine (2020)
• “Vesuvius,” SWWIM (2019)
• “The Marriages: The remains,” Breakwater Review (2019)
• “Once on a Ghost Ship [8],” Stirring 20^th Anniversary Edition (2019)
• “She finds another country,”  “Oceanpurian” (solicited submission), & “Endings,”  Glass Poetry (2019, 2018, & 2016)
• “What We Wore,”  Rogue Agent Journal (2019)
• “Once on a Ghost Ship [6],”  Lavender Review  (2018)
• “Patterns of Attraction,” I Can Count to 10  (2018)
• “The Marriages: The tumors,” “The Marriages: The deer,” and “Lycanopterror,” Curious Specimens (anthology), Sundress Publications (2017)
• “Vertex,”  Lambda Literary Poetry Spotlight  (2017)
• “The Marriages: The selkie,” “The Marriages: The bear,” and “The Marriages: The marionette,” (Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominations), Midway Journal (2017)
• “Dislodged” & “That’s Not Why,” Amethyst Arsenic (2016 & 2014)
• “Cicadas”  & “Tulsa,”  Cider Press Review (2016 & 2014)
• “Protocol,” “Asbestosis,” “The Ventriloquist Poems,” “Not Going to Khayelitsha,” The Saint Ann’s Review (2016, 2009, 2006, & 2004)
• “Ghost Stories” and “Barbara,” Iron Horse Literary Review (2016)
• “Searchlight,” “All Creatures,” “My Cabin Never Leaks When It Doesn’t Rain,” and “Wanderings,” Maps for Teeth (2015)   
• “After coffee,” Incessant Pipe (2015)       
• “Bruised,” Sharkpack Poetry Review Annual (2015)
• “Privacy,” Bellevue Literary Review (2015)   
• “Stand Up Eight,” Jabberwock Review (2014)
• “Straight Girls,”  Stirring (2014)
• “Thaw,” “Heat,” “Aubade,” & “Yesterday and Australia,” Hanging Loose (2014 & 2011)
• “Make No Bones” & “Landscaping,” Belleville Park Pages(2013)
• “I Don’t Belong Here,” “It Isn’t Stillness,” “Luxury,” Tampa Review Online (2013)
• “Mulberries”  and “Round,”  Construction (2013)
• “Thresh” (Pushcart Prize nomination), “Float,” Ballard Street Poetry Journal (2013)
• “Like His Hand,” “Three Sheets to the Wind,” “Later,” “In the Bedroom,”  PressBoardPress (2013)
• “All This,” Spry Literary Journal (2013)
• “Considerations,” “Migration,” Lyre Lyre (2013)
• “Ben and Andrew, 1992,”  Blast Furnace Review (2012)
• “Anaconda Sunrise,”  Rufous City Review (2012)     
• “Shooting the Rat,” “Porn,” “As the Child Prodigy Grows Up,” Shooting the Rat (anthology), Hanging Loose Press (2002)
• “Sometimes She Dissolves,” Euphony (2002)

Publications: Fiction

• “Mission Accomplished,” Bridport Prize Anthology (Highly Commended) (2021)
• “Skin in the Game,” Breakwater Review (fiction contest finalist, Best of the Net nomination) (2018)
• “Devil’s Thumb,”  Santa Fe Writers Project (2014)
• “Mars” (from Go Home Faster), Elsewhere (2014)
• “Home Repair” (from Go Home Faster), Printer’s Devil Review (2013)

Produced Plays

• Come Like Shadows (commissioned work), Breadcrumbs Productions Syracuse, NY (2022 & 2023)
• This Not That, workshopped at the Depot for New Play Readings,  Hampton, CT (2021)
• Once I Was a Kingdom,  Zoom performance for Women+ in Theatre Conference, Howard Community College, Columbia, MD (2020)
• You Want Them to Look Away, workshopped at Breadcrumbs Productions’ Scratch Series, Syracuse, NY (2020)
• Break, workshopped at About Face Theatre, Chicago, IL (2018)
• Through the Glory Hole and What We Found There (commissioned work), The Theater Offensive’s Creative Action Crew/True Colors Out Youth Theater (2016)
• Reporting Live from Under the Rainbow (commissioned work), The Theater Offensive’s Creative Action Crew / True Colors Out Youth Theater (2015)         
• The Dating Game, SLAM Boston, Open Theater Project, Boston, MA (2015)          
• Watch, One Acts and Snacks, read at Casa de Beverley, New York, NY (2015)
• Sense and Sensibility: A Comic Opera (librettist/lyricist, with composer/lyricist Joshua Tyra), workshopped at Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL (2012); excerpts workshopped at “Inspired by Austen” Conference, Manhattanville College, White Plains, NY (2010)
• Blindside, produced by Stockyards Theatre Project, Chicago, IL (2008); workshopped at Stage Left Theatre, Chicago, IL (2005)
• Chicago Chronicle #1 (co-author), American Theatre Company, Chicago, IL (2008)
• The Book of Esther, Anshe Emet Synagogue, Chicago, IL (2007–08)
• Set (co-author), workshopped in Stockyards Theatre Project’s Play for Keeps (2006)
• I’m Coming In Soon, produced by Young Playwrights, Inc., New York, NY (2000)

Reviews