Happy Halloween! A Rough Week, Election Sunday Scaries, When You Feel Like an Outsider (and How to Deal with Professional Setbacks)

Glenn and I at local pumpkin farm McMurtrey’s (with pumpkin and pumpkin sweater.)

Happy Halloween Week!

Yes, it’s almost Halloween, the day of the thinning of the veil between the natural and unnatural worlds, that celebration of ghosts, candy, and pumpkins. What I love about Halloween is the nature of the neighborliness of it, the sweetness of kids in costumes and handing out candy (without asking about your neighbor’s country of origin or voting record or anything else). Glenn loves Halloween and often decorates our house to a degree that I never really saw growing up.

It’s also almost November 5th, which seems much scarier this year than mere ghosts and goblins. Having already voted early (thanks, Washington State), we are watching the polls in other states in a definite state of anxiety.

Pumpkins!

A Rough Week

So, this was a tough week, beyond the election day anxieties. My MS symptoms ALL raised their ugly heads after an infusion last week that didn’t go well, and I also had a personal and professional setback that, well, knocked me back a bit. I had some days where I felt—despair. Chronic illness, professional setbacks, and wondering if your country is actually so fascist that they’re going to vote for a fascist a la Germany in the thirties (not to mention a racist, rapist, felon who’s also deeply stupid) can be a lot, even for the most resilient among us. And this week I didn’t feel resilient. I felt sick, I felt crippled (I’m disabled, but some days I don’t feel it as much), and I felt like a failure. I felt despair. I wondered if I needed to make some big changes, one of which would be to quit trying to be a writer, another of which would be moving countries, to Ireland or France (both of which have pretty good policies towards disabled people and both of which we have family ties in, but could both be as susceptible to fascism as we are?) I thought about applying to a PhD program in another country and not in English, Biology or Creative Writing (my previous three degrees). I am looking at starting over again in some really tough things. I have a lot of friends recently who have had worse crises than mine—terrible accidents, cancer, death of loved ones, and divorce. I wish I could do more. I am so emotionally exhausted I don’t even know how to support these friends; I know I’m not as energetic as normal right now, and I make allowances for that (some of that is the MS, I know). If you read this blog regularly you know I’m not a great faker in terms of pretending things are fine when they’re not. And right now, for several reasons, they’re not.

Me at the pumpkin farm

Feeling Like an Outsider and Dealing with Professional Setbacks

On top of the professional blow that left me reeling, this week I was reading my new copy of Poets & Writers and there was an article, written by a friend of mine, that quoted exclusively people I would also consider friends. Is it possible to feel like an insider AND an outsider at the exact same time? Or that, given the number of years you’ve been working in your field, that you should be doing…better than you are? I am surely not unique in this feeling, but I just felt it more acute than usual after reading this article.

One way of dealing with professional setbacks is to simply say that you’re better off without that press, or editor, or job, or agent, or whatever, and look to the next thing. I’ve never been laid off or fired from a job, but I sure do feel “fired” from the job of poet these days. I’m trying to get up the energy to pick myself up, dust myself off, and get back into it, but I’m also thinking, maybe it’s time to stop? Maybe it’s a sign? I’ve struggled with this thought many times since I started writing as a kid. In fact, I did give up creative writing for at least a dozen years or more. Turning 51 last April, I did think to myself that wow, am I STILL trying to get published in X journal, or get any professional recognition at all in terms of grants, awards, prizes, good review venues? Am I still trying to find the right publisher, the one who really believes in my work? After all the years of volunteering and AWPs and writing and submitting and getting degrees and even teaching for four years in an MFA program? What am I doing? Why do I feel like I need a mentor more than I ever have at my age? I do not expect you, dear readers, to have the answers to these questions. Just know that I’m struggling. I am visiting pumpkin farms, and eating kettle corn, and watching horror comedies, trying to keep up morale. But sometimes it’s just…hard. It’s maybe harder than it seems.

On a Somewhat Brighter Note…

Thanks to everyone who signed up for my Zoom class on Sunday with Kelli Russell Agodon! Despite feeling a little under the weather, the “Thinning Veil” class went great (despite a thunderstorm threatening power and internet – but very spooky!) and was super fun! I’m glad I had something to look forward to during this difficult week.

I’ll leave you with a spooky-ish poem from Flare, Corona, first published by Seattle Review of Books, “This is the Darkest Timeline:”

A Trip to Skagit Valley, Surviving Infusions during Supermoons, Last Days to Sign Up for Spooky Season Poetry Class, and Voting

Glenn and I with dahlias and Mt Baker in Skagit Valley

A Trip to Skagit Valley in October

Knowing I had a tough week in front of me, we decided to take a spontaneous trip to Skagit Valley on one of the sunnier days before my infusion date. We stopped by RoozenGaarde and admired their dahlias and bought tulip and daffodil bulbs to plant for next spring. While we were there, a woman recommended a local pumpkin farm called Gordon Skagit Farms. We then stumbled upon it as it was really close, but it was only fifteen minutes to close. We got coffee and pumpkins and kettle corn for the drive home, but it was incredible to be there at sunset, all these gorgeous farm settings (their logo is a fox!) and kids taking picturesque shots with tractors. If you’re in the area, check out Gordon Skagit Farms—it is gorgeous and huge. How had we missed it on all our other trips to the area in the fall? No idea!

Surviving Infusions During Supermoons

Hunter’s Moon Supermoon

The day I was supposed to get my infusion was also the day of the Hunter’s moon Supermoon, which was pretty spectacular. The infusion experience? Not so much. The infusion center had NO saline bags—the shortage is real, people—and my doctor had forgotten to order ANY of my pre-medications (last time I had four). It lasted longer than my last one and I was in a public room instead of a one-person room, too, so no television or audiobooks (didn’t want to be rude to the other people in the room, but it makes four and a half hours with a painful needle in a vein seem much longer). I had side effects—headache, itchiness, muscle cramps—and was pretty wiped out for two days. I hope this was worth it! My immune system doesn’t really “do” vaccines properly, so these antibody infusions are important to keep me out of the hospital with more serious disease, but they really aren’t fun. But right before the infusion, I walked out into my garden, and I saw the first butterfly of the season: a Red Admiral. Seemed, along with the Supermoon, to be a good omen.

Red Admiral Butterfly

Today was the first day I was able to get out and about, and it was crazy windy. We visited our local pumpkin farm, JB Family Growers. I voted too! If you have election anxiety, you’re not the only one. The only way this vote is close is because people would rather vote for a deranged, hate-filled criminal than vote for a woman, because this country has a LOT of deep-seated misogyny. “I just don’t like her voice” I’ve heard people say—which is a terrific reason to not vote for someone, right? I mean, who cares about women’s rights or health care or the Ukraine—against “a candidate’s voice is annoying (and by that, they mean female.)” Anyway, I hope you get out and vote because every vote is going to count this election.  I am going to hope for the best. In Washington State, we also had Senator and Governor votes, as well as some important initiatives, so it seemed like a good one to vote early on.

After we went to the pumpkin farm, a squall blew up, but afterwards there was a beautiful double rainbow. And it was nice to get some fresh air (even if it did come with 40 mph wind gusts!)

This might be your last chance to sign up for Kelli and my Spooky Season Poetry Zoom class!

Spend Sylvia Plath’s birthday writing new poems! Just in time for Spooky Season, a poetry class exploring how the natural world intersects with the supernatural with poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Jeannine Hall Gailey. Kelli and Jeannine will discuss their fascination with the natural and supernatural worlds, sharing poems by Plath and others that blur the lines between the familiar and the unknown. Together, we’ll harness this energy in our own writing, drawing inspiration from the unknown and the uncanny. This two-hour Zoom class will end with a Q&A for a deeper dive into this hauntingly beautiful topic. Join us to stir your imagination and leave with fresh drafts of new poems!

There are only a few spots left, so don’t miss out! 🦇👻🎃

Spooky Season Zoom Class with Kelli Russell Agodon, Sunflower Festivals and Local Pumpkin Farms, An Elgin Award for Flare, Corona, and Turning in a New Book

Spooky Season is Here! Sign Up for Our “Thinning Veil” Zoom Class!

Are you in the mood to write some spooky poems? Sign up for our class on “Writing Poems Where the Natural World Meets the Supernatural,” with me and Kelli Russell Agodon! October 27th from 4 PM to 6:30 Pm Pacific.

Here’s the class description and a registration link:

The Thinning Veil: Writing Poems About Where the Natural and Supernatural Worlds Meet

Register Now!

Sunflower Festivals and Local Pumpkin Farms, Manic Energy and Reading

Hot air balloon over sunflowers, JB Growers Pumpkin Farm

We’ve been very lucky with our October this year, with many days in the sixties with sunshine. JB Growers held a sunflower festival during one of these sunny days, and we arrived just as a hot air balloon went up over the sunflower fields. I mean, picture-perfect! So there are a few pictures of Glenn and I goofing around at the festival at the JB Growers Pumpkin Farm and Puzzle Patch.

I know that there are not a lot of warm sunny days left in this season, which lends these days a kind of manic energy, jumping out of bed too early and going to bed way too late. Plus, a comet and auroras—it’s a weird time for solar weather! If your energy feels unsettled, maybe that’s part of it. I’m calming myself down with reading Ina Garten’s memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens (which has great book PR tips in it, surprisingly) and re-reading Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (for my book club). Also, I submitted the manuscript for my next book! That should help. I usually write (and submit) much better when I get finished with one book and can start a new project. Are you this way too?

An Elgin Prize Nod for Flare, Corona

Very honored that Flare, Corona won third prize in the SFPA’s 2024 Elgin Award for full-length collections. Congrats to all the winners! My previous book, Field Guide to the End of the World, won first prize, so I have to say they’ve been very supportive of my work.

This little piece of good news was so encouraging. Every little review, award, mention, and sale for a poetry book matters. So thank you to the SFPA voters. And thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of Flare, Corona, read it, reviewed it anywhere, said something nice about it to a stranger, etc.

Hot air balloon rising over sunflowers, JB Growers Pumpkin Farm

When You Turn In Your Next Book…

When the editor of BOA Editions Ltd. called me and told me they wanted to publish Flare, Corona, I was so happy. BOA is a dream press for me. So turning in my next book manuscript has been a little fraught. You want the book to be perfect, to live up to expectations, to be funny and moving and exciting. I have been working on the manuscript for years, but I never felt it was close enough to be “done” before this.

The phenomenon that accompanies this is like…oh no! I should have done x, y and z to it too! But there is such a thing as over-editing a book before you get some feedback from your editor. (Yes, I have had poet friends read it over, which is an important step too.) And just like the hot air balloon over a field of sunflowers, you feel a little lighter once you turn in your book. Like, you can now start a new project. Do I know exactly what the new project is yet? No. But I’ll keep writing poems, and eventually, a picture or story will emerge, and it will become the next book. Which is to say—this is all an exercise in hope. Hope that BOA likes my next book; hope that I will continue to write new poems; hope that there is an audience out there for my work. Not just hope, but maybe an exercise in faith.

McMurtrey’s Pumpkin Farm pumpkin display

I hope that as fall continues, you will stay safe, write and read wonderful work, and take care of yourselves. There is a LOT of bad news out there right now—wars, the election, hurricanes and their aftermaths, plus the regular ups and downs of life. What can we do in the face of all that? Yes, we can donate to charities, spend time on the most important causes volunteering, and doing what we can to make the world a better place. We are not completely powerless, though it may feel that way sometimes. (And of course, please register and vote, vote, vote, because even if it doesn’t feel like we make a difference, we can.)  I believe in the value of art, of creativity, of kindness. I’m worried, too—about friends and family struggling with health issues, and I’m supposed to spend four hours on Thursday getting an un-fun infusion at the hospital downtown (so think good thoughts for me if you can spare them). But I hope that we can find enough beauty and joy to battle our anxiety, anger, fear, and grief. Wishing you all a week ahead filled not just with worry, but with hope.

Away at a Writing Retreat on San Juan Island, Chance to Rethink My Manuscript and My State of Mind

At a Writing Retreat on San Juan Island, a Chance to Rethink my Manuscript and State of Mind

Thank goodness for writing residencies! I’d been in a bit of a funk lately, and what I really needed was a chance to change my focus (I almost wrote foxus, and you’ll see why later) and think about my project in a new way. The residency is at a marine wildlife center in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island (WA). There’s no television or radio (or guarantee of electricity all the time), but it’s right on the harbor and perfect as a place to write. In fact, I wrote two new poems, sent out two submissions, and reconsidered my next manuscript in a way that I hope will make it much better. But it wasn’t really about productivity—it was about not listening to the news but listening to the ocean—not looking at screens but looking into fields for foxes—about paying attention to the light instead of listening to my anxieties.

Dancing foxes

Besides spending time in nature, I ended up talking to people on trails, nature photographer hobbyists like me, grandmother-aged skinny dippers. Besides leaving me wishing for more zoom on my shots (almost everyone there had a more expensive, better zoom lens than I did, which allowed them to get better fox pictures! Jealous!), I felt like I was part of a community. Loving nature is something I had in common with these people—all so joyous. And I got to witness the coolest thing ever—fox dancing! A black fox and a red fox both got up on their hind legs, put their paws together, and twirled around for about four minutes. My pic isn’t spectacular, but you have to realize it was so amazing to see.

In the five days or so I was away, I took a look at my manuscript not poem by poem, but the big picture—how do the sections hang together? what’s the trajectory of the book? what’s the story behind the story? Turns out it was time for some reshuffling, some deletions, some additions, and focusing on the story. And also, something about taking photographs—and waiting for the light—got me thinking about the right timing in books, the right light, so to speak. It takes time to see your own books—the shifts in tone, the difference in cadences—in the right light.

California quail

I was also thinking of the changes I’ve seen on San Juan Island over the last 20 years I’ve been visiting. In some ways, more dramatic than those in my neighborhood in Woodinville. This year, for the first time ever, I saw two gigantic bevy of quail. Like, 13 or 14 at a time. The rabbits—nearly non-existent in 2021 due to a disease that killed many—have recovered to numbers I hadn’t seen in ten years. The deer were fewer. The foxes were shyer but looked healthier—which meant they weren’t begging humans for food due to starvation, which was good. (Although I miss having foxes that came right up to me, I’d much rather they be healthy.) Besides the fox dancing behavior, I also learned that the black fox mutation in red foxes, pretty rare in nature, is really prevalent here. So just like me, the black fox is a mutant! Some distant pics below. But on the whole, taking this break helped my outlook, and reminded me of why I bother to write and fight for my health despite setbacks. With even limited internet and phone service, it was also a break from a constant stream of media, mostly negative.

So, we had a lovely boat ride home, but we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back. One thing we didn’t see on the island…any pumpkin farms or U-pick apple farms, which since the island is covered in farms (including an alpaca farm!), seemed like a missed opportunity. Good thing the Sunflower Festival started at the pumpkin farm in Woodinville. I’ll post about that in the next post! Hope you are all well, and wishing you a happy mid-October.

Also, there are still some spots left for my upcoming class with Kelli Russell Agodon: The Thinning Veil: Writing Poems Where Natural and Supernatural Worlds Meet. Don’t forget to register here.

A New Poem in MAR, A Rough Week, More Pumpkin Farms, and How to Cheer Yourself Up

A Rough Week and More Pumpkin Farms

It’s been a rough week for me, not going to lie. Drove across town in different directions on different days (three-hour round trips) to meet with endodontists who, surprise, said on the phone they could work with me on my root canal, but after charging me a $250 exam fee, decided they couldn’t. (Also had a day with three different doctor appointments, which always is hard on me.) The physical and emotional drain of doctor appointments for chronically ill people is real.

The winners were announced for the WA state book awards (congrats to all the winners, esp. friends Rena Priest and Jane Wong!) I hate to admit this, because yes, I am very grateful to have been nominated, but Flare, Corona (a finalist for the WA state book award) failing to win hit me a bit harder than I thought it would. I tried not to get my hopes up, telling myself I was lucky just to be nominated, but there it is—my emotions said otherwise. My MS symptoms were also acting up as I was running a small fever all week with a cold, so I had to reschedule my covid antibody infusion (which might have been too much this week anyway, with all the tooth stuff). Unexpected expenses, wasting time on not-useful appointments, and just feeling like “why do I even write poetry?”—all capped by a terrible hurricane that hit areas where I had family harder than we expected (luckily, they are all fine, but a lot of people aren’t) and more war in the news. Let’s not even talk about how close this election is. I am not usually a depressed person, but I certainly struggled with getting anything done this week, or even feeling like it was worthwhile getting anything done.

Flowers at McMurtrey’s u-pic garden

Cheering Yourself Up in Hard Times

I tried to do some things to cheer myself up, including getting out in nature and visiting a newly opened local pumpkin farm, McMurtrey’s, which also had beautiful u-pick flowers like dahlias, zinnias, and sunflowers. I tried to write but had more success reading—especially interesting articles in, of all places, the New Yorker—an article on Ina Garten’s success (for instance, she gave her first cookbook’s publisher $85,000 for half the print run, and then spent $200K more on PR and photography) now she makes millions on her cookbook contracts. So that’s how to be a successful book writer, LOL! $285K!) plus an article on AI and antibiotics which was fascinating. And I got my contributor’s copy of Mid-American Review, in which I had a new poem. And I had a lovely book club meeting discussing Yoko Ogawa’s Mina’s Matchbox, which was great. We’re reading St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves for October, spooky season. I ate kettle corn from two different pumpkin farms. And I have a writing retreat to look forward to. So, maybe this stuff didn’t fix everything, but it did help.

Sylvia with new issue of Mid-American Review

New Poem in MAR, “Crows Splinter the Rain”

In other news, I was very excited to have a very spooky-season appropriate poem, “Crows Splinter the Rain,” in the new issue of Mid-American Review. (My issue came a little late as the first issue was lost at an old address, but better late than never.) It is a great issue, order yourselves a copy, and here’s a sneak peek at my poem:

Double rainbow visible from my window yesterday

Wishing Everyone Out There a Happy, Safe Turn to October

I am hoping everyone affected by hurricane Helene is safe and recovering. I know many mountain communities in Appalachia have been absolutely devastated. I lived and traveled throughout those areas for many years, and never had a hurricane affect us, so this is definitely a shock for those of us who used to live there and those that live there now.

As the days grow shorter and colder as we turn to October, I wish you all a good book, good friends, and as much hope as you can hang on to. And those of you who are already voting? Please keep in mind exactly what’s at stake.