Darci Schummer
Bio
Darci Schummer hails from the village of Fall Creek, Wisconsin. Primarily a fiction writer, she is the author of the story collection Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), co-author of the poetry/prose collaboration Hinge (broadcraft press), author of the novel The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press), and author of the poetry chapbook The Book of Orion (Bottlecap Press). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Ninth Letter, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, MAYDAY, Matchbook, Necessary Fiction, Sundog Lit, and Pithead Chapel, among many other places. She has been nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and in 2023, she was the artist-in-residence at the LaPointe Center for the Arts in LaPointe, Wisconsin, on Madeline Island. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and the Creative Writing Director at Colorado State University Pueblo, where she also curates the Southern Colorado Reading Series. She lives with her partner Tanner, pitbull Turnip, and cat Cokie Roberts in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Books
About Six Months in the Midwest
In the dark heart of winter, a young boy struggles to understand his mother’s failing health as she teaches him Polish, the language of her dead mother. From a distance, a frustrated English professor dines with her mentally ill ex-husband in a park on which a mansion once stood. A single mother struggles to let go as her teenage son seeks his independence. A drag queen and his partner battle a snow storm while debating the future of their relationship. A retired garbage collector finds solace in the ballet, and the owner of a liquor store tries to find companionship on the streets and in the bars of Minneapolis. Equal parts bitterness and beauty, the sixteen stories in this collection are plotted snapshots of a city in its most unforgiving season.
"In this ambitious debut collection, Darci Schummer inhabits the secret houses of the lost and lonely in the often-overlooked Midwest. Truthful, wise, gifted with empathy and imagination in equal measures--this is a writer to read."
- Sheila O'Connor, author of Where No Gods Came and Evidence of V
"Darci Schummer's Six Months in the Midwest is a potently observed portrait of Minneapolis, an ode to its peculiarities and its characters. Many people call the Midwest 'flyover country,' but the clarity and humanity in Schummer's sixteen stories will make them want to land."
- John Jodzio, author of If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home and Knockout
"Schummer's gift is her deeply felt yet fiercely unsentimental portraits of human beings who struggle to understand their choices and their fates."
- Deborah Keenan, author of From Tiger to Prayer, so she had the world, and 10 other collections
About The Ballad of Two Sisters
At the center of The Ballad of Two Sisters are Stella and Helen, sisters who die on the same day. Struggling to overcome a tumultuous and abusive childhood, the sisters search for connection and certainty in an uncertain world. Intermingled with the stories of these women are those of Stella's husband Gerald, son Jesse, and The Mortician who prepares the women's bodies for burial. Though at times circuitous, the paths the sisters travel ultimately lead them back to each other, until finally, they can never be parted.
"A rich and absorbing read, Darci Schummer’s story of sisters Stella and Helen – one fragile and one strong – is a double helix of individual and very different lives bound by love and blood, spiraling from their difficult childhood through jobs, marriage, children, and aging. What a lovely book of broken, revitalized, and beautiful hearts."
-Linda LeGarde Grover, author of In the Night of Memory
"A dark and haunting family saga, The Ballad of Two Sisters spirals around identity with details that pull you hard into the smallness of Midwest America. Schummer’s writing is emotional and her storytelling gets deep into your head, making you forget you’re reading. She’s dreamy and eclectic and smooth and easy. Time spent with this book will certainly enrich your life."
-Raki Kopernik, author of The Things You Left and The Memory House
About The Book of Orion
How do we protect those we love? How do we cope with witnessing someone we love leave? How do we forgive ourselves and others? In 24 poems, The Book of Orion chronicles addiction, grief, and forgiveness in the wake of a tragic loss.
Links
Fiction
"Topmancy" - Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine
"The Liminal Space" - Bending Genres
"Animals in Winter" - Flash Frog
"The World's Strongest Man" - the Under Review
"Ghost Story" - Sundog Lit
"The Swan of Lake Eola" - Jellyfish Review
"Another Life" - Heavy Feather Review
"Artifact" - Atticus Review
"To Dust We Return" - MAYDAY
"The Veil" - Ninth Letter
"The Interloper" - Necessary Fiction
"The Business of Fathers" - Pithead Chapel
Poetry
"Phosphenes" and "A Dream Before the Woods" - Sky Island Journal
"The Rule of Thirds" - Boats Against the Current
"Little Moon" - Voicemail Poems
"Isabela" - Synaesthesia Magazine
"The Hills of West Duluth" - Sky Island Journal
"Into Fluorescence" and "The Crystal Cave" - Anti-Heroin Chic
Creative Nonfiction
"The Language of the Eye" - Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces, Spout Press
"The Grammar of Tragedy" - Thimble Literary Magazine
"Nine Lives" - Tahoma Literary Review
"Dream Houses" - Jet Fuel Review
Interviews
Southeast Review interview with Casie Minot
MAYDAY interview with Raki Kopernik
Life as a Shorty interview with Keith Lesmeister
Videos
Reading with Lauren Westerfield
News & Events
January 3, 2026
Darci's flash CNF piece "Master List of Love Lost Objects" is forthcoming in late January in Blood + Honey, and her poem "Figs" is forthcoming in Alien Buddha Zine #86 in February. Her story collection Keystone Species, which was a finalist for the New American Fiction Prize, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in August 2027.
Contact
You can contact Darci here: