Subscription Drive over at Weave, SPF, publishing, etc.

First, if you have not yet checked it out, I would like to direct you to Weave Magazine's subscription drive. We're attempting to get 30 subscriptions in 30 days and we've fallen a couple subscriptions behind, so we'd really appreciate the purchase if you were to make one! Subscriptions are at a discounted price for the next 4 days only! $12.00 gets you two issues of Weave. $19.00 gets you issues 1-3. So go forth and purchase!

I'm also very excited to say that four of my poems are going to be published in an anthology edited by Naomi Shihab Nye titled Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25. I'm thrilled to get to be a part of this anthology and cannot wait to read the rest of the anthology. The book is to be published by Greenwillow Books, which is an imprint of HarperCollins. Exciting stuff.

In some local poetry news, Pittsburgh will be hosting a small press festival called SPF this upcoming July. The festival is being directed by and was conceptualized by the good people over at Open Thread. If you have a small press and are in the area you should consider getting a table before the July 1st deadline. There are a lot of presses already signed up and, of course, Weave is happily one of them.

I am so very thankful that it is Friday and I am no longer at work. It is a bit sad that I go through the entire week anticipating the weekend. Don't get me wrong - I am extraordinarily grateful for my job. I like my boss. The work isn't terrible. But auditing is certainly not something that makes me get up in the morning all excited. Ever. Maybe some day I'll be able to afford to go to graduate school and get my career redirected somewhat. Or perhaps it's just a grass-is-greener sort of thing and I should be happy with the work I am doing. I'm editing Weave with Laura, I'm running The TypewriterGirls with Crystal, I'm writing, and I'm publishing. Really, I've got nothing to complain about. I just get so despondent at work sometimes. This heavy feeling between my chest and my stomach. If only I could just get past it.

On a less depressing note, this weekend my friend Bill and I are sitting down to talk about the cover art for issue 03 of Weave. I've sent him a bit of the poetry we've accepted and he may be creating a response to the work as the cover. He also does portraits with the poet Huang Xiang that you can take a look at through the above link, and we're also talking about potentially using one of those. I'll also be heading to Windber this weekend for my friends' performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is bound to be an interesting time.




I've noticed I'm terrible at titling my blog posts. Perhaps I should just abstain entirely.

Busy busy busy

I finished up two drafts of poems this weekend, which is quite a lot for me. I usually don't work on more than one poem at a time, either, so this is sort of a breakthrough in a moderately pathetic kind of way.

I know I don't write nearly as much as I should and this has been proven by the fact that I am literally out of poems that I am happy enough with to send out the door in hopes of publication. I have five poems that are in varying stages of completeness, but none that are truly submission-worthy right now. And of course there is the glut of poems that will never see the light of day.

I was looking forward to doing a round of submissions to a number of literary journals I really like that are open during the summer months, but, barring a miracle, this will clearly not happen. My writing hasn't been able to keep up with my submitting.

Submitting is so easy, so, so much easier to do on my lunch break when my mind is still half auditing. It's quicker, it gives me an instant sense of accomplishment, and it doesn't involve switching from that part of my brain that deals with numbers and the rules of hospital accounting to the part of my brain that works creatively. I also get a weird sort of high from having five to ten submissions out at a time, even when they come back as rejections. I can't quite explain it, but I definitely get some kind of rush from it.

Lately I've been feeling pressure (from myself alone) to produce more, as though I am not busy enough already between the TypewriterGirls, Weave, being a mother, working for 8 hours a day, the Pittsburgh Small Press Festival (SPF), and the writing that I do do. Clearly I need to put more pressure on myself.

There is just so much that I want to do, so much that I want to write. I don't have enough time each weekend to get it in and still relax a little bit, and I certainly don't have time during the week.

This is all very frustrating. And let's not even get in to my chapbook angst.

In other new altogether holy crap Gary Snyder is going to be at next year's AWP. I must shamefully admit that I have only recently begun reading Gary Snyder's work, and in part because I saw him in a documentary on Buddhism, but really The Call of the Wild is just as lovely a poem as my dear friend Crystal assured me it would be.

I'm in a panel proposal for the 2010 AWP, so there's a decent likelihood that I will have to be there (oh, the tragedy). Crystal and I are already looking into plane tickets. Hah.

I feel like something is about to happen.

Wow, it's June

And I haven't written here since March. So much for actually being a blogger.

I've never been good with keeping up with a blog. I have these ideas that seem grand when I come up with them and then for one reason or another they don't work out.

But I will persevere! I will try to be more reliable!

The past few months have been very busy for me. I got married. Bit of a time-devourer, that. We had a very fun wedding after party and were fortunate enough to also have a Buddhist ceremony, in addition to the legal ceremony. I cried a lot.

There have also been two TypewriterGirls shows (The TypewriterGirls Try Drag and The TypewriterGirls Try Politics) since March. Both went exceptionally well by my estimation - good crowd, great readers and performers, great music, and amazing friends.

I always love putting on TypewriterGirls shows and working with Crystal. She's hilarious (unlike me) and constantly full of energy for the shows. We've been lucky in that we have found talented performers and poets like the lovely Mary Biddinger. We have also had wonderful audiences with good energy who enjoy themselves and are happy to get involved (after a few swigs of whiskey, sometimes). I feel all fuzzy after a show, and that's probably a good thing. In fact, I think I'm still on the high of Sunday's show, The TypewriterGirls Try Politics, today, and I can't wait for the next one.

Show highlights:
- Sing-along/burlesque to "16 Tons"
- Recitation of the Exquisite Corpse which lead to "all the CEOs in all the world" getting behind every detail of the Employee Free Choice Act.
- Citizen Kane... In space!
- Culminating the evening with a rousing and passionate round of Bohemian Rhapsody at the end of the dance party.



You know you want to come to a TypewriterGirls show.

The Month of Busy

April is going to be the most insanely busy month that I've had in a while.

First and foremost, I'm getting married. May 16th. Very soon. I'm very excited, but also in "rush around like crazy" mode.

I have a dress, a registry, rings, a party space, an officiant, marriage license, wonderful DJ, and a guest list.

I do not have clothing for Mihnea, or catering picked out. There will be no ridiculous and non-tasty cake.

We wanted so much to keep the wedding on a budget, and I think we've done all right so far. The party is the most expensive part and my mother is paying for that. I got two dresses, each for under $40.00. The rings were a bit more expensive than anything else, but I expected that. I did not, however, expect to pay $80.00 for a marriage license. Ouch.

Also, the Weave issue 02 release event will be taking place on April 26th. I am very excited about it, but it is another event to get my proverbial ducks (poets?) in a row for. The party should be very very fun. If you're in Pittsburgh you should of course check us out. So far we have Frank DePoole, Andrew Mulvania, Damian Dressick, Michelle Stoner, and Alayna Frankenberry lined up to read. Should be a good show if that list is any indication, in my humble opinion.

Crystal's putting together some sure to be awesome sketches for the show and we may have a very special music act coming on board. It's all very exciting.

Two days before that, on April 24th, is the second Poetsburgh reading wherein Weave Magazine and Open Thread collaborate and lovely, lovely poets read. We'll be at the Zany Umbrella Circus' space this time around.

And on April 18th I'll be doing a reading in Cleveland for Burning River at Visible Voice at about 7pm.

Oof.

Busy Busy!

Post-AWP wrap up

My third AWP was by far the best yet. Here are some highlights:

- I got to meet Frank X. Walker, perhaps my current favorite poet. He ranks up there, for sure. He signed my copy of When Winter Come and I got to tell him his book was the best I had read in a very long time. He also stopped by the Weave table and was very, very sweet.

- The whole Affrilachian poetry reading, in fact. Every one of those readers was fantastic. Patricia Smith read an absolutely amazing crown of sonnets. I got the chance to tell her this.

- The Weave table! I burned out a little by the end of each day, but I got to meet a few more of our contributors for the first and second issues there; Michael Ogletree, Karen Schubert, and Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán. Also, Weave sold fairly well (especially, I have been told, for our first AWP!) and we have some new subscriptions! Yay!

- Getting to escort Mary Biddinger on stage at the Anti/diode poetry reading.

- Meeting the absolutely lovely Dana Guthrie Martin (another issue 01 contributor) at the Anti/diode poetry reading.

- Talking to M. Bartley Seigel, the editor of Pank, whose third issue features two of my poems. He is also lovely. I'd gone to a panel he was on last year and recall completely agreeing with his editorial policies. Also, he gave me a free Pank tshirt! It has a typewriter on it!

- The one and only panel I was able to go to; Poet as Oracle. It was amazing. They talked about stepping out of the ego when writing poetry and poetry written during meditation (among other things, of course). The panel really spoke to me and reflected a lot of what I have been trying to do in my own poetry lately. It was wonderful.

- Starting up the dance party on Friday and Saturday night with Crystal. There were people who thought we had been paid to do so.

- Spending part of Saturday with my old friend Natalie who I literally had not seen in ten years. We worked at Girlscout camp together. It was wonderful to get to catch up with her.

- Hanging out with the lovely people of Akron; Mary Biddinger, Jay Robinson, Frank DePoole, and Eric Morris. Hopefully I will get to see all of them again very soon!

- Guerrilla poetry readings for Judy Johnson. Fantastic. Also lunch with Judy Johnson. Also being informed that the TypewriterGirls can now "officially" be affiliated with 13th Moon Press. Also planning a reading with Judy Johnson for April.

And, of course

- Spending the week with my two favorite girls; Crystal and Laura

I know a lot of superlatives were used in this post, but it's because I had such an amazing time and got to meet and spend time with so many amazing people that I can't help but gush a little bit. Pictures to come.

Hope your AWP was fantastic, too!

New Issue of Goblin Fruit...

...is live and contains a lovely poem by the ever-so-talented Susan Slaviero.

Apotropaism is also an interesting one -- though my favorite part of Goblin Fruit is always listening to the readings posted with the poems. I haven't had the chance to take a listen yet, but certainly will at work tomorrow. I always find a poem that I didn't properly appreciate until I heard it.

This is one of the things that I love about journals like Goblin Fruit, The Dirty Napkin, and The Pedestal Magazine (to name a few) -- they give the poet the opportunity to send in a recording of them reading their poem, which I think is a simply lovely idea. It's one of the advantages of the internet. Not only is a poem readily accessible to the general public, but it can also be multimedia in such a way that it shows a poet's multiple talents and gets not only the poem out there, but also the poet's voice and reading. I don't think it is an idea that is properly appreciated by enough poets.

So take a look and a listen!

New Issue of Pedestal Magazine...

...is up and I'm in it! You can read and listen to me here. I love that Pedestal will also post an audio file of the poet reading their work and am very surprised that not many people seem to take advantage of that opportunity. Then again, I needed my lovely boyfriend Mihnea to help me record myself and it is quite likely that not every poet has a Mihnea in their life.

Also, I am, as always, smirking in my photo. I can't seem to stop doing that.