Summer Online Manuscript Workshop Special
Hey guys! I’ve been doing online one-on-one poetry consulting (along with my National MFA program teaching) for some years now, but I want to try something new this summer, more fun, more interactive. Kind of like summer camp for your languishing poetry book manuscript!
This is something I’ve been wanting to try out for some time. I’d like to set up an online poetry manuscript workshop, using e-mail and a private blog, for about five poets. I’d do my usual manuscript consulting, exercises, and critiques, with discussions of publishing, organization, theme, tropes, and individual poems, but we’d also have discussions and participants could comment on each other’s work as we go along. I’d also have participants read and review a book of contemporary poetry, besides working with your own and your fellow participants’ manuscripts. I might also have a guest mentor come in and “talk” – well, virtually – to the participants as well. All in all, it’ll be a good time!
If you’d be interested in something like this, I’m charging $250 for two months with once-a-week check-ins and assignments. Applicants for the workshop – and I’m only going to take five students, so apply early – should e-mail me a brief writing-oriented bio and a few poems if they’re interested to jeannine dot gailey @ live dot com. Deadline for applications is June 25, as I’d like to get started by July 1.
And here are some qualifications in case you’re curious, in the form of a bio:
Jeannine Hall Gailey is the author of Becoming the Villainess, published by Steel Toe Books. Poems from the book were featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and two were included in 2007’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She has written articles and interviews for The Poet’s Market, Poets & Writers online and The Poetry Foundation Web site., as well as book reviews for The American Book Review, The Cincinnati Review, and many others. Her poems have been published in journals such as The Iowa Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Ninth Letter, and she has won grants from Washington State’s Artist Trust as well as the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg contest’s top prize. She has been teaching at National University’s MFA program for a few years, as well as doing poetry consulting independently. She has a BS in Biology and an MA in English from The University of Cincinnati, and an MFA from Pacific University. Besides teaching part-time, she also works as a journalist and volunteers as a consulting editor for Crab Creek Review.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Empathy, Poetry, Summer Plans
Hey everyone! Since we went on our big weekend last week (San Fran – Fourteen Hills reading/launch party, the de Young art museum’s Impressionism show, many galleries, a teensy bit of shopping, and the Ferry Building Market) we’re just relaxing this weekend – well, I’m mostly grading the chapbooks and papers of my class and two thesis papers and aesthetic statements, but besides that, relaxing. California’s been shaking and storming this spring – we barely got a sunny day last week – but this weekend the sun is supposed to make its appearance anew.
Speaking of students, a study just came out showing that today’s students are more self-centered and less empathetic than students of thirty years ago. Do you think that’s true? This was, after all, a generation raised on “self-esteem” being the name of the game, which let’s face it, is self-esteem more important than caring about other people? If so, it is a shame, because reading poetry itself requires some degree of empathy – of caring what another person is thinking or feeling. To step into another person’s “I” or “You” is to take a leap of imaginative, and yes, empathetic, faith. When I do my persona poetry exercises, I explain to classes about what empathy is, and how persona poetry can help students step into another person’s shoes. It’s also why I purposefully teach books of poetry from many different perspectives in terms of gender, sexuality, race, and class.
I’m looking forward to summer, because now I can focus on writing and sending things out for a bit instead of student work, and maybe setting up some more readings (I had so much fun at the last one it’s made me more enthusiastic – and let me take a moment for a shout out to Seattle poets Michael Schmeltzer and Johnny Horton, who both rocked the house!) and sending out a few manuscripts. I’m still working heavily on revising my latest book manuscript, too – deleting poems, changing lines, updating cover sheets and acknowledgements. Some people take a poetry vacation over the summer, but for me, it’s one of my most productive times in terms of both writing and getting things out into the world. I’ve also volunteered for not one, not two, but three book review assignments in the next month or so. Yikes! A lot of work, but I felt the last year or so with all the health challenges I hadn’t been able to do as much reviewing, and I feel like it’s important for women to get out there and get in the critical conversation, right?
And I’m planning a trip up to Seattle – with maybe a stopover in Portland for my MFA reunion reception – in a couple of weeks, and trying to get things in line for that. Figuring out gluten-free eating is much easier in Seattle than San Francisco, surprisingly enough. Although San Fran did just open up an all grilled-cheese-sandwich restaurant with the option for house-made, gluten-free bread, so points for that. Of course, here in Napa, I have Pica Pica, my gracious fallback in Venezualan gluten-free food.
Fourteen Hills reading
Fourteen Hills throws a mean poetry party! Free food, big bar, good sound, a DJ – and multiple Seattle readers! This is me reading three poems. Video courtesy of husband and videographer Glenn.
Reading in San Francisco with Fourteen Hills and More!
Occasionally I am part of really fun poetry events that include things like DJs and catered food and happen in a motorcycle club. Not often, though, so be sure to come out this Friday!
Fourteen Hills Release Party
Join us for the Spring 2010 release of Fourteen Hills, San Francisco State University’s International Literary Magazine. Fourteen Hills publishes innovative poetry, fiction, short plays, literary nonfiction and art, and is committed to presenting work by emerging and established writers.
Readings by: Jeannine Hall Gailey, Lauren Hamlin, Johnny Horton, Zara Raab, Michael Schmeltzer, and Shanthi Sekaran
Art by: Alec Laughlin
http://aleclaughlin.com/
Music by: DJ Martin Hodge
http://www.djay.com/dj/martin_hodge.html
Catering by: Jason Lujick, Lamont Perriman, Stephen Rosenshein
Raffle Prizes by: Periscope Cellars Winery, Bi-Rite Creamery, Alba Fiore Photography, Mocha 101, Andrew Kornblatt, Fiftyseven–Thirtythree Apparel, and many more!
This is a FREE event, but you’ll want to bring cash to get your copy of the book and to buy lots and lots of raffle tickets.
Start Time: Friday, May 21, 2010 at 7:00pm
End Time: Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 12:30am
Location: San Francisco Motorcycle Club
Street: 2194 Folsom St. (@18th St.)
City/Town: San Francisco, CA
I hope I see you there!
In other news, my in-laws are visiting and it’s been cold and rainy. I’m hoping for some sunshine pre-party…also, I’m wondering what to wear to a poetry reading at a motorcycle club?
The Beastly Bride interviews and Rattle Summer 2010
More contributor copies are rolling in! Rattle’s Summer 2010 issue, which contains a tribute to humor and an interview with Carl Phillips, also has wonderful poems by my friend Martha Silano and wonderful poets like Diane Wakowski and Toi Derricotte, and me! The poem is another one of my series of advice poems, that I’m not sure why but I keep writing, called “I Forgot to Tell You the Most Important Part.”
Remember that awesome anthology called The Beastly Bride I was telling you about a little bit ago? Well, this nice fellow is doing a series of interviews with its authors and I was lucky enough to be a part of it, so here’s the interview up on SF Signal. I talk about why animal brides are interesting to me and reading material that was probably unsuitable for children that made me the writer I am today.
And, if you haven’t checked out this month’s Verse Daily Web feature, you should! Plus, it’s extra publicity for the very kind folks at qarrtsiluni. Also, if you haven’t updated my web link in your blog rolls yet, please do! It’s now http://myblog.webbish6.com/. I know it’s a big pain, so thanks for your trouble. Also, unlike the folks who run Harriet, I don’t think blogs are dead yet. I like a little discursiveness in my poetry discussions – at least more than the character limit at Twitter allows you – and I don’t think news aggregation is content. So there!
LCRW contributor copies, good news in general
Blogging from a beautiful sunny day – so hard to sit down at the computer and focus when the olive trees are blooming, the roses are everywhere shouting from walls and porches, the green field across from my apartment is full of soccer players shouting enthusiastically in Spanish. Took a walk around St. Helena this afternoon, visited the market and poked around inside stores I can’t afford – things like 25-year-old balsamic vinegars, fancy cheeses, garlands of lavender, and locally-made soaps. I have all the windows open. It’s the perfect day to write, and yet…so…hard…to…stay…still…
I had a wonderful surprise in the mail today, contributor copies of Gavin Grant and Kelly Link’s Small Beer Press magazine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, or LCRW for short, and a little check for my three poems. Thanks guys! Not only have I loved this publication for years, it’s just a really good collection of work because the editor’s tastes are so eclectic and fun. If you know Kelly Link’s work and like it, you’ll probably like the stuff inside this magazine. And it’s only four dollars! I mean, a bargain in a world of overpriced lit mags. And they pay their writers! Impressive, no? This is why I love the world o’ speculative writing. (Writers inside include the fantastic Zhao Haihong, Richard Parks, Eilis O’Neal and Jennife Linnaea.)
I also had some promising news on the book front – I sent a query out for a manuscript, and they asked to see the whole thing. That’s a good sign, I think. The publisher would be a very good fit for my work. Send good energy out there for me. I could use a break for that second book manuscript!
Hmrph. Now off to grade, or write, or something productive like that. The big bunch of pink peonies and lilies in front of me remind me to wish you and your mothers a Happy Mother’s Day!
Adjuncting and Another winner, money and poetry, lit mags and politics
So, the second winner, Ron, never sent me his contact information, so I had to pick another winner for my poetry book giveaway: It’s Candace at elisamaza@gmail.com. You can leave me a comment or I’ll e-mail you for your snail mail address. Congrats on being a winner! (All winners selected with random number generators. Much quicker than pulling a literal number out of a literal hat!)
Adjuncting: Neither as glamorous nor as lucrative as you might think. That is all.
This article at the Chronicle of Higher Education talks about how young, female professors are more likely to experience harassment and incivility on the job. Yes.
Poetry and money: Once again, as the summer comes around and the economy creakingly seems to be getting a little better, I’m thinking about how to make a little more money. Freelance writing has been slow. Poetry costs more money than it makes, typically. Contest fees, conferences, travelling for readings, not to mention books and lit mags – all of these take money. See above re: adjuncting paychecks. Worry worry worry.
Speaking of money, how will lit mags stay afloat? Here’s an interesting tidbit: I bought a used book called “The Art of Literary Publishing: Editors on their Craft.” Apparently, back in 1980, the average subscription base of a lit mag was between 200-800. Today, the average subscription base of a lit mag? You guessed it. About the same. Besides the odd rant against how the NEA and feminists were ruining poetry – many of the editors, whose publications are now defunct, sound like today’s editors – problems with increasing readership, staying solvent despite tough times, etc. The literary magazine today, with the decrease in major book publishers doing anything with unknown poets, is probably the only way for a talented writer to have his or her work seen. But who cares about them? Who is reading them? Is there an audience for them outside of writers? It seems very hard to get my own MFA students to purchase a lit mag, and those are the folks that should be motivated to do so.
Someone was complaining about how poets don’t engage politically. I would say, perhaps the publishers of poetry don’t like poetry that engages politically, which is why you don’t see more of it. It’s not that people aren’t writing it – it’s that it’s not getting published. Also I would say, what is “political?” Is it merely talking about military issues or party lines? Or does it include discussions of class, the environment, gender?
Verse Daily Web Monthly feature!
Check out who is up at the Verse Daily Web Monthly Feature this month of May! Thanks Verse Daily – a great post-birthday surprise!
And thanks for publishing the featured poem, Qarrtsiluni!
Winners!
The winners of my poetry giveaway contest are Teresa Dowell and Ron Lewis! (Ron, you didn’t leave your e-mail address, so leave a comment with your e-mail address when you get a chance so I can contact you. If Ron doesn’t contact me by Monday, I’ll do another random generated number and pick another winner!) Thanks to everyone who left a comment – I wish I could afford to give away books to all of you!
