Bio & Links

Editor-in-Chief of DoveTales, An International Journal of the Arts from 2013-2022, Carmel Mawle now serves as Managing Editor of Panhandle Creek Press, publishing life stories and lifting unique voices into our collective body of literature.

Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her short stories, essays and poetry have been published in literary journals and anthologies, including VOX Populi, Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts, Smokelong Quarterly, KNOTS Literary Magazine, Literary Mama, Lucid Moose Lit, Hive Avenue Literary Journal, and others. Carmel’s short story, “Heading South,” earned Honorable Mention in the 2022 Rick DeMarinis Short Story Prize, and was published by Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts. Her poem, “Enough,” is forthcoming in HerWords, a publication of Black Mountain Press.

Carmel lives in the Colorado Rockies at 8750′ elevation with her husband and Max, a 10 lb. mountain dog. They are building a literary home for readings and workshops in the Rocky Mountains, a place where writers can draw inspiration from the natural world. She founded and serves as Managing Editor of Panhandle Creek Press and provides manuscript preparation, page layout, editing services through Panhandle Creek Publishing. Carmel leads a weekly writers group in Fort Collins, encouraging writers to share their work through readings and community events. She’s currently working on a novel set in a fictional Colorado mountain town.

Explore My Work

Here are a few of my pieces that are available to read online. My work reflects my own life, values, and the principles of Writing for Peace. While some of these stories were a personal stretch, my goal is to find the humanity in even the darkest places. I believe it’s through these universal truths that we gain empathy and compassion.

Exploring Life Through Death: A Review of Double Negative

Published in Literary Mama

To say that Claudia Putnam’s Double Negative is about the death of her son dismisses that the bulk of the book’s focus is on life. She explores the nature of life in general while remembering her son’s life and the small space between its beginning and its end. But Putnam does not flinch from the reality of his death. “Jacob died of a broken heart. He died in agony. He drowned in fluid backed up in his lungs.” Putnam’s clear and muscular prose echoes the lyrical concision of her poetry.

Nobody Knows

Published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal

I wonder, sometimes, whether our spiritual beliefs come more from religious training,
or from trying to make sense of the experiences we have in life. My family wasn’t very
religious. We prayed at bedtime but didn’t attend church on a regular basis. We
celebrated Christmas and the Easter bunny, and I remember a couple of Midnight
Masses when we visited our grandparents – the candles, the carols, the incense and
stained glass…

Autumn in the Rockies

Published in KNOT Literary Review

Republished by Winslow Writers

I’m crouching in worn leather boots and jeans on a lichen covered boulder in an aspen grove. A lodgepole spreads its dark green branches above me, but this little spot at the base of the ravine is dominated by aspens…

Jamila

Published in Smokelong Quarterly (Read author interview)

The first time I went to kill my sister I couldn’t do it…

The Calisia

Originally published in KNOT Literary Magazine

Republished in Vox Populi

Mama used to say music belonged in the light. She would rise early to help me wash, recite the Surahs, and pray, and then she would open the blue curtains, waiting for the sun’s rays to hit the piano before settling her fingers onto the keys…

Grip

Published in When Women Waken

Held at gunpoint

in your custom Econoline…