Ali Trotta

@alwayscoffee.bsky.social

11458 Followers 907 Following

Writer,poet (8-time Rhysling nominee), editor,coffee vampire. Supergirl+Buffy+Gilmore Girls. Offerings for Ordinary Gods, @CLASHBooks,July 21 2026 she/her Rep: @ericsmithrocks.bsky.social header @lizlee.bsky.social alitrotta.com alwayscoffee7@gmail.com

A woman with honey blonde hair, wearing a black tank top sitting in a car posing for a photo
A small fluffy grey cat sitting on a woman’s lap with a serious case of derp face
A fluffy grey cat lying under a chair. He is curled up in a ball sleeping.
A photo of my poetry collection, offerings, extraordinary gods, between two Crystal balls. One is clear and one is black.
Blue sky with some thin, gauzy clouds
A black and gold illustration with the cover of my book and the following quote from Gwenda Bond: “Ali Troiia's poems are powerful magic. She builds a new arcana of emotion as she evokes witchcrafi. myih, and ihe monsirous. Wise, sly, devasialing, angry, and genile by jurns, ihis is a colleciion io revisi.”
There is ingredients on a butcher block, including shredded cabbage, sesame, oil, chili flakes, white pepper, dark vinegar, crop of garlic.
A fluffy grey cat with light green eyes standing in front of his pet bed, looking up at the camera. There are various toys on the floor and a deck of tarot cards.
A giant glass of white wine sitting on a butcher block
A black and gold seemed background were they moon and sun, and the ace of cups tarot card with the following quote from Sera Gamble: "ALI TROTTA USES THE ANCIENT TOOLS OF THE WITCH TO CONFRONT THE MODERN WAYS A WOMAN LOSES HER POWER. SUMMONING FIRE, GHOSTS, MONSTERS, THE OLD GODDESSES (ARTEMIS) AND THE NEW (SYLVIA PLATH), SHE TAKES THAT POWER BACK. FIER INCISIVE, FURIOUS LANGUAGE AND STEADFAST COMMITMENT TO TELLING IT LIKE IT IS MAKE THIS COLLECTION RIVETING. IT SLID DOWN LIKE DARK HONEY. WHEN I FINISHED, I FELT LIKE I'D PARTICIPATED IN A SPELLCASTING."
A fluffy grey cat with light green eyes lying on a rainbow quilt
Book launch announcement poster, featuring a photo of me and the cover of my book. Launch details include the date (July 21) and time (7pm) at Inkwood in Haddonfield nj
A woman with long honey blonde hair bent over taking a selfie. She is looking directly at the camera, and wearing a bright yellow dress
A woman with Honey blonde hair wearing red lipstick looking over her shoulder at the camera. She has on a red and beige pattern dress and you can see her arm muscles.
Blue skit with some threadbare hazy clouds and a part of a tree in the lower-left hand corner
A black and gold moon and star motif, with the cover of my book in the middle. And the quote from Fran Wilde: "All great art is a conversation, both within itself, and between itself and its audience. Offerings for Ordinary Gods, by poet Ali Trotta, has bridged that conversation in a whole new way, engaging the mystery of Tarot as a discourse partner. 'Do not take this life / for granted, leaning so far / into the cups that you forget / the word sky' - which begins the collection - is an excellent sample of the protective magic cast for readers who are ready to listen and speak to their own truths. Trotta is an exquisite caster of the kinds of spells we call poems."
**kermit flail** Offerings for Ordinary Gods comes out in TWO WEEKS! I am super pumped! Thank you so, so much for all the support already. It means the world to me. If you've preordered from @inkwoodnj or another indie, or asked your library to snag a copy -- it means the world to me. Shoutout to Kat Foisy for the gorgeous art and Naomi Falk for the brilliant design -- and @kaitscraze at CLASH for being darling! I'm really excited for y'all to have the book in your hands. It's such a strange delight to see a dream made real. See y'all at Inkwood for the launch on the 21 and then in Philly at @theheadandthehand on the 23rd! Also, in case I haven't said so lately, @ericsmithrocks is the best.
Golden gradient colors with tarot cards and the cover of my book with the following quote from Roshani Chokshi: "Trotta's collection is dark and delectable, rich in myth and wry in its treatment. I'll be thinking of this for a long time."
An assortment of items on a butcher block, including garlic cloves, peanut butter, lime juice, fish sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, eel sauce, and rice vinegar.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of Americans signed their names to a piece of parchment and made a promise no nation had ever made before: that we're all created equal, endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ••• We're the only nation in history built not on ethnicity, or blood, or geography but on an idea. That's always been what makes us exceptional. We chose that path 250 years ago but that's where the work began, not where it ended. Every generation has had to choose it again. At Valley Forge, at Gettysburg, on the beaches of Normandy, in the streets of Selma. Americans recommitted themselves to the principles on which our nation was founded. Now it's our turn. There's nothing guaranteed about our democracy. We have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it. Over and over, year after year. That's not a burden. That's what it means to be an American. 250 years in, we still haven't fully lived up to those words in the Declaration. But we've never walked away from them, and this July 4, I hope all of us can commit to one thing: that we never will. I don't believe we're as divided as we're told we are. I've bet my whole life on the American people, and I'm not stopping now. Happy 250th birthday, America. Our story isn't finished. Let's keep writing it together.
@boywonder04.bsky.social referring to me as a female and editorializing poorly. Me, calling him out for sounding like a ferengi
A woman wearing black shorts and a blue tank top turn slightly to the side looking back at the camera. You can see her tricep muscles.
To all the readers out there: My deep love for Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, the subjects of my 2014 biography Charity and Sylvia, has kept me silent, up to this point, about Tillie Walden's new graphic novel by the same title. Charity and Sylvia's story has been so deeply meaningful to so many people-their story has, without exaggeration, saved lives that I've tried to be happy that Walden's book is making their story more widely known, even if she chose to take my title and my cover design as well as my narrative and my research with only a single sentence of acknowledgement at the end of her book in her notes section. Walden's illustrations and storytelling are wonderful, as I told her when she reached out to me during the writing process. It would take nothing away from her hard work to be honest about how it is built on my hard work. But in Walden's publicity tour, she has repeatedly made the claim to have based her book on her extensive research in the archive without acknowledging that her book is, in fact, based on my book. This false representation demands response not only for my sake, but for the sake of all the hard-working historians out there whose work has similarly been taken without credit. No, Walden has not "uncovered a chapter of queer history" in the archives, as her media interviews have claimed. She has adapted my book without credit or compensation, and claimed my research for her own. I don't doubt that Walden spent time looking at letters at the Henry Sheldon Museum, but the story that Walden tells is not to be found there. It is a story that I pieced together from years of visits to at least twenty different archives and locations across the United States, not only in Vermont but in Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and Washington State, as well. This is not just a question of facts but of story: the story of how Charity and Sylvia built a life together based in tailoring, struggled with their faith, and maintained relationships with t…
In black and gold themed, celestial background, with the cover of my book on it. And the blurb from Chuck Wendig, which reads: "The poems in this collection delight and dazzle-each poem infused with magic and fantasy, with darkness and whimsy, with witches and oracles, but also with something deeper and ultimately more vital: truth."
A slightly yellow moon with a drifting gauzey black cloud drifting across it
A fluffy grey cat with his front paws crossed, staring up at the camera. He has light green eyes.
Three fish tacos on an oval plate
The cover of my poetry collection, offerings for ordinary gods. The title and my name, Ali Trotta, are both in a gold script font. And at the center of the book as a woman wearing a red cloak that obscures her face with matching red lipstick.
A woman with long honey blonde hair, wearing red lipstick and a dress that is painted like the cosmos. She is giving the camera, enclosed smile and full eye contact.
A beautiful gold background with my cover in the middle and a quote from CSE Cooney, which reads: "Ali Trotta's Offerings for Ordinary Gods is a merge of witchcraft, myth, love potion, and grief memoir. Feminist, fervent, and at times forlorn, this poetry collection champions female figures who have been done dirty by history and myth's trad narratives (as well as present day voices of the #MeToo movement), dispenses wisdom to the lonely and hurt from unexpected sources, and warns of dire curses awaiting those who do harm. Many of these poems are love poems, and none so deep as the love poems to a lost mother, for whom the poet's yearning sounds the very depths of a siren's sea."
Praise from Kealan Patrick Burke, for my forthcoming poetry, collection, offerings for ordinary gods. The quote reads this way: "Saturated with anger and sadness and everything in between, Offerings for Ordinary Gods is more than just a masterfully written collection of dark poetry. It arrives like a hammer-strike to the heart and is proof positive that Ali Trotta is one of the premier talents of our generation."
The cover of my poetry collection featuring a woman with a red cloak that has obscuring her face and red lipstick to match. The title and the author name are both in a gold ornate font. The title is offering for ordinary gods, and the author name is Ali Trotta.
A statue in Glasgow wearing that one, but two traffic combs. There is a pigeon perched on the statue horse’s tail.
A box on a blue tablecloth and a woman whose face you cannot see opening her book of other copies. There is an almost comical amount of packing paper in the box.
A fluffy grey cat sitting on a carpet with his front paws crossed.
A woman’s hand holding a spray bottle with the word no in red
A woman with long honey blonde hair, wearing a bright yellow dress bent over taking a selfie.
A woman with honey blonde hair wearing a gold lace tank top smirking at the camera
A graphic with a quote I received about my poetry collection from Cassandra Khaw: "Ali Trotta writes like if Nikita Gill told prophecies through the Tarot. Oracular, glintingly beautiful, stories snarled with truths." the graphic is black and gold, seemed with the cover of the book on it as well. There are moons and stars and gold and a Jupiter surrounding everything.
The cartoon character grue, in four panels with an easel. Each panel has different phrasing: I wrote the book! I sold the book! People will read the book! ...People will read the book. His expression in the last panel is bewildered.
A woman with long honey blonde hair wearing a dress that looks like the night guy and a matching teal cardigan. Her eye makeup is flawless.
Quote from Kevin Hearne about my poetry collection: "This collection sings of hope and triumph, grief and defiance, and rouses the sleeping soul in its cage and sets it free. Through allusions to tarot, myth, and magic, Trotta unlocks our emotions and offers both a wakening and a reckoning."The design features the cover and a black and gold color scheme.
A woman with long honey blonde hair, wearing a green dress with lemons on it and a matching yellow sweater. She has red lipstick and excellent eyeshadow.
A fullstar veggie chopper next to the red onions, it diced perfectly.
A quote from Deanna Raybourn about my forthcoming poetry collection: "Ali Trotta is a ferociously talented poet, and Offerings for Ordinary Gods is fierce, heartfelt, and full of marrow deep wisdom—a poetry collection for the person unafraid to look in the mirror and greet their ghosts by name."
A woman with long honey, blonde hair, wearing rainbow dress and bright red lipstick looking imperiously down at the camera.
A floofy grey cat on a rainbow quilt
A woman with long honey blonde hair, wearing a gray tank top and a gray sweat sweater leaning over taking a selfie. She is smirking at the camera.
Girl with long honey blonde hair wearing a gold tank top and beige hoodie taking a selfie in a mirror smiling
Red onions, which are actually purple, in oil in a pot with a wooden spoon
A crow holding a steak knife menacingly
A black-and-white photo of a very fluffy cat, looking like he was assembled by IKEA, with his front half going on direction and his back half going another. He is laying on his back.
A woman with long honey blonde hair, wearing a black tank top looking up at the camera
A woman hugging a very happy, very fluffy gray cat.
Veggie chopper with onions and a cup of coffee and knife
A woman with long honey blonde hair, taking a selfie in an antique gold mirror. She has on a green and purple skirt with a green tank top.
A black-and-white video of Marilyn Monroe waving out the window with the words bye bitch
A screenshot of an article stating that Demi Moore said that we need to find ways to work with AI and not fighting against. That is a losing battle. Absolute garbage.
A woman with long honey blonde hair, wearing a green tank top and chunky green sweater. Her lipstick is bright red and she is looking amused at the camera
My mom and in, both in blue, at a wedding. My mom has short curly grey hair and mine is dark. I am tan af. My arm is around her.