G. M. Monks grew up in California, where she lived for many years with her husband. They moved to Pennsylvania in 2020. Besides writing short stories, poems, and creative nonfiction, she loves to travel, excluding the pandemic. She has visited Australia, Canada and many European countries. As a child, she visited Mexico. She enjoys visiting National parks in the Unites States. Yosemite and Yellowstone are her favorites. She has traveled to approximately forty-two states. She is over half fluent in French. Some of her favorite writers include: Annie Ernaux, Sandra Cisneros, Ernest Hemingway, James Herriot, Georgia Hunter, Jack Kerouac, Barbara Kingsolver, Frank McCourt, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Anton Chekhov, Willa Cather, and Arundhati Roy to name a few. She thinks Ali Smith’s writing is interesting.
Her poems and short stories have been published in the following journals:
riverSedge, 2025 https://www.riversedgejournal.com/issue-38
Minds Shine Bright, 2025
Medical Literary Messenger, 2023
The Militant Grammarian, a journal of experimental fiction, 2023 https://themilitantgrammarian.wordpress.com,
The RavensPerch http://theravensperch.com, April 2023
The Militant Grammarian, a journal of experimental fiction, 2022 https://themilitantgrammarian.wordpress.com, and nominated for Best of the Net
L’Esprit Literary Review (in the ModernDay 22 issue) lespritliteraryreview.org, and nominated for Best American Short Stories, 2022
Coneflower Cafe, 2022
Birdland Journal www.birdlandjournal.com/issues/spring-2020-issue/,
The Hunger www.thehungerjournal.com/issue-3, 2018
Vine Leaves Literary Journal, 3 poems, 2017
The RavensPerch http://theravensperch.com, 2017
Embodied Effigies, 2016
Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, 2016
GFT Press (twice), 2016
Kansas City Review (formerly Kansas City Voices), 2014
Picayune, 2013
Alehouse, 2010
Tiny Lights, 2010
Bathtub Gin 2006
Awards With Publication Include:
Runner-up in the Big Wonderful Press Funny Poem contest,
Finalist in the 2020 Breakwater Review Fiction Contest www.breakwaterreview.com/issue-27
Finalist in Best of Choeofpleirn Press’ Ben Nyberg Fiction Contest and nominated for Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize. 2022
She was also a finalist in both the Arts & Letters 2020 Unclassifiables Fiction contest and the 56th New Millennium Writing Awards contest. Her prose work was selected as a finalist in the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. One of her poems was reviewed in the New Hope International Review. She also co-authored two published research papers. Her debut novel Iola O, published by Bedazzled Ink, is available for purchase. To find a local independent bookstore near you where you can order it go to: https://www.indiebound.org. It can also be purchased at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.
G. M. MONKS 