Poets and Artists, Biker Bars, and More Prep for the Book Release
First of all, I want to say that I have really felt blessed to spend time with interesting people in the last few days. I had a good talk with my poet-friend-in-the-Bay-area Natasha (featured in this article on a 14 Hills reading in SF Weekly, with amusing results) and then had a coffee meeting with artist Deborah Scott who talked in a fascinating way about the artistic process of her paintings (see a few of them here) which reminded me of all the ways that poets and artists work in common. We looked at Tarot cards and talked fairy tales, which was really fun.
But Natasha reminded me that she had been reading my blog and didn’t see the full title of my upcoming second book anywhere! Egads, PR disaster! She Returns to the Floating World, due out officially at the end of July, has arrived in ARC (advanced reader copy) form. Contact Kitsune Books (contact at kitsunebooks dot com) for a copy! You can pre-order it now too. I got a copy of the ARC and have become so excited about the physical artifact of the new book – I mean, I can’t imagine getting so excited about the launch of an e-book, can you? Seeing the cover, the back, the little ISBN number…yes, I’m a paper-book-geek all right.
And those of you who’d like to know what this second book is all about? Well, one of the Tarot cards I picked up while visiting with Deborah was a picture of a young woman holding a lion by the mouth. One of the interpretations of the card is about how a person interacts with their animal nature, especially a woman – the being inside us that is instinctive, fierce, blood and lust. That is one of the themes of the new book – one of my abiding interests, including how to be heroic, is the idea of the transforming woman, in between states, from fox or willow tree or seal or dragon and back into a human body again. The book has a series of poems about little brothers and big sisters, another about the frustrations and beauties of married life, and a third about the dangers to our earth, the apocalypse. It is also a book about the intersections between Japanese and American folk and pop cultures.
Good news in tough times
The Good, The Bad, The Sad, and the Ugly…
This week is the last week of the class I teach at National, the week with the most intensive work, and my elderly blonde cat (a little over fifteen) has stopped being able to eat well though the vet couldn’t find any reason. We’ve been feeding her tiny amounts of chicken, which she seems to be able to keep down, and give her plenty of petting, brushing, all the stuff she loves, so in case these are her last days, they’ll be as pleasant as possible. But it makes it hard to focus to anything else. Urgh. You’d think with me growing up on a farm – my first experience with death was finding my beloved gray kitten half-eaten by a local dog when I was about five – would make me better about dealing with animal mortality. But no.
Along with that, my injured ankle – the same foot that I broke a bunch of bones in two years ago – seems to not want to heal – the tendon keeps healing and then re-inflaming with the slightest provocation. It’s frustrating being on and off crutches and a cane months after the original injury.
So, I was feeling a bit down, a little cranky/overwhelmed, and then I received word about a poetry acceptance that is pretty exciting for me – at a magazine I’m going to be really proud of being a part of. (I’ll reveal the deets after I get the contract.) And my publisher is sending me ARCs in the mail, and just sent me a cute little box of bookmarks – aren’t they sweet? I was thinking about the fact that I received word about my Dorothy Prize a few years back the day I got out of the hospital for a horrible respiratory infection and my landlord at the rental house we were in at the time had neglected to pay his propane bill for so long that they repossessed it so we had no hot water or heat in the house.
So what does this all mean? It seems there is never good news without a little balancing badness, and yet, we are never allowed to be utterly miserable because then, that moment when you’re ready to throw in the towel, is when someone will call with the news of some unexpected blessing.
So I’ll go back to taking care of my sick cat and injured ankle with a slightly lighter heart. (I’d give you a reading report on Billy Collins recent SAL Seattle reading, but you know, it was a regular Billy reading, though he seemed a little more tired, with a bit less of a twinkle, than the last time I’d seen him in California. Maybe it was that party at the White House with Aimee Mann and Common.)
A little LA Weekly Style…A California Poetics
Hey readers! A quickie: I just thought you might like to see my poem “Introduction to California Poetics” which was featured today on LA Weekly:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/05/poem_introduction_to_californi.php
Looking Forward To Launch
Not the space shuttle, but the second book. The “advanced reader copies” or ARCs for She Returns are heading out of the printer this week. I’m scrambling to make summer plans for places to stay for June and July mini-trips, as well as fall plans for readings in multiple cities – at least Portland, OR and Cincinnati, OH for sure.
I was thinking and wondering what I’d be doing differently this time around with my second book, what I’d learned from the first book, that might be useful to you all. Here are some things I learned:
–Since my last book came out, things like Facebook and Twitter have been invented. Crazy how technology changes in six years (and that’s not even touching the e-book issue.) It’s true that in some ways it is easier to get the word out about projects…but you’re also competing with lots of other people who are also virtually shouting at the top of their lungs about their own projects. Take advantage of new media, but don’t spam people to death.
–Do as much ahead of time as possible. I didn’t know what to expect with the first book, but this time, I asked my publisher a lot of questions about how I could make this easier on them, what I could give them that might be helpful to promote the book, and started asking for readings six months ahead of the book’s launch. FYI: Six months is still probably not enough lead time. (Or readings are harder to get now than they were in 2006.)
–Do not go bankrupt trying to promote a poetry book all across the USA. This means being excited – but judicious – about reading in other cities. Think about where you have a good audience, maybe family or friends, places you might like to visit, conferences that might be worth attending, and pick a handful. Do not try to hit five cities in five days for readings unless you have an immune system (AND nerves) of steel; know your limits. Traveling for readings can be tough and expensive. It’s hard to sell enough books to make an overnight trip pay for itself, but everything within driving distance is worth doing. You never know if you might meet a new friend, or find out about a magazine/great bookstore/awesome co-reader. I personally get a huge kick from visiting high school classes and college classes, so those, for me, are always worth doing.
–I know some things are out of my control. I can send out review copies, but that doesn’t guarantee a review; and I know now that even if you get a review, it doesn’t guarantee anything about book sales. I can’t control who likes or doesn’t like the book. I can’t control if it gets picked for an award or something like Poetry Daily or Garrison Keillor or a big anthology or other people’s college classes. Those things would be great, but all you can do is put your book out there and hope it gets into the hands of people who will be kind to it. (The corollary of this: don’t freak out too much about a bad review on Goodreads or Amazon. It is not the end of the world. )
–Be gracious, be grateful, and enjoy the good. In the larger scheme of the world, my little poetry book is not that big a deal. I will try to enjoy the little things as much as I can and try to be kind along the way. (Also, avoid obsessing over Amazon ranking or etc.) I will try to return as much love as possible to my publisher, Kitsune Books, who has championed my quirky manuscript and made me things like bookmarks and is kind enough to send out my book to reviewers.
Please post your own wisdom in the comments! I’d love to hear from folks what they’ve learned (from their first, second, third, fourth…books) and their suggestions!
Reading Reports, haibun and Seattle Adventures
A few little reading report details and Seattle adventures. Needless to say I am drowning in new books!
I was so happy to get my copy of American Poet (The Journal of The Academy of American Poets) Spring 2011, which contains a wonderful article by Aimee Nezhukumatathil on haibun, featuring some sample haibun…including Basho’s from The Narrow Road to the Interior, Aimee’s “When Mountains Fang the Sky,” Kimiko Hahn’s “Untitled,” Lee Ann Roripaugh’s “Inquiline” and my haibun, “The Fox-Wife Describes Their Courtship” from She Returns to the Floating World. A great article if you teach haibun! Thanks Aimee! I feel honored to be in such great company.
So a few notes from my four days of whirlwind readings:
C. Dale Young’s poetry reading was funny, dark, moving…Torn is a completely great book. My husband says it was some of the best poetry he’s heard at Open Books. I also got to see Tacoma poet Jeff Walt and Rick Barot, who says he is working on both another book of poems AND a book of prose, so yay for that!
Rae Armantrout read some from Money Shot, and I clocked references to True Blood, Buffy, the financial scandals, Little Red Riding Hood, pornography, and that was just in the first couple of poems! Her poems are full of little inside jokes and references to pop culture, which can seem difficult, but when she reads them, just seem like the natural progression of her thoughts. Glenn also got to catch up with Rae’s very sweet husband (another supportive poetry husband – got to love those guys)
Maya Zellar’s new book, Rust Fish, (http://www.amazon.com/Rust-Fish-Maya-Jewell-Zeller/dp/0984451099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305555769&sr=1-1)captures a girl’s coming-of-age in the Pacific Northwest. One of my favorite poems from the book involves an argument about using Round-Up.
I also got ahold of a few other books, Jeremy Halinen’s What Other Choice (who, among other things, reconstructs the story of the garden of Eden in interesting ways) and a totally charming chapbook about travelling through Japan by Matthew Thorburn called Disappears in the Rain. I also got Eaven Boland’s A Journey of Two Maps, which has a whole essay about the underworld and the character of Nausicaa, so I had to buy it.
In the few spare minutes in between going to poetry readings, we managed to visit Golden Gardens park, going to the beach and pier and seeing the beautiful snowy mountains against the ocean, Pike Place Market (acquiring some giant pink tulips) and my favorite Seattle art gallery Roq La Rue, that was doing an exhibition of tiny sculpted cities and another of Victorian daguerreotype of family members posing with, say, yetis or a giant squid. That was mostly during our four hours of sunshine on Saturday. It’s been a cold and nasty spring, as I think I’ve mentioned, so when the sun shines at all, all of Seattle goes crazy to get out in it. Oh, and a quick fundraiser during Capital Hill’s Art Walk for the Japanese earthquake disaster, at which I got a crazy cute art toy designed by Yumiko Kayukawa and two of her posters.
Back Cover, New Artists, and Locus Awards
Hey there! Are you guys as excited to see the official back cover of my second book, She Returns to the Floating World, as I am? ARCS are next…
Through an artist friend, I’ve discovered this awesome myth/fairy tale artist – her name is Deborah K. Scott. Check out her Red Riding Hood/Target painting here:
http://www.deborahkscott.com/gallery/102551/2011
It’s pretty fierce.
Ellen Datlow was nominated for a Locus Award, as was the anthology she edited that I was lucky enough to be included in, Beastly Bride. Congrats Ellen!
Tonight I’m going to try to sneak in a quick visit to this fundraiser for the Japanese earthquake disaster – where some kickass artists will be donating their work:
http://tsunami.fundraising.iamebi.com/
That’s before I go to C. Dale Young and Luke Johnson’s reading at Open Books.
It’s a whirlwind tour this weekend, with another friend’s book launch party, and poetry, poetry everywhere. If I can make it to a third of the stuff going on this weekend, I’ll consider myself lucky.
Readings, Star Wars and Why We Become Writers
Grading and commenting on student poems has taken up all my time. Adjuncting a creative writing class: the work swells like those little sponge dinosaurs and absorbs everything around it.
I went to see Elizabeth Austen read at Open Books this week, from her book, Every Dress a Disaster. (Oops – it’s Every Dress a Decision. But my version sounds so much more dramatic!) She’s a great reader – she also works at KUOW, our local public radio, and so probably has a greater ear for poetry readings than most. The obsessions of the book: childlessness (or childfreeness), a dead brother, being a woman who wants to go camping alone – are pretty interesting to me.
We also hit the Star Wars Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, which was in its closing weekend and was super crowded. Nevertheless, lots of fun stuff – the sand cruiser, Han Solo’s outfit, original props like light sabres and several giant Wookies. This is how you celebrate Mother’s Day when you don’t have kids and your mother is thousands of miles away! But I did thank my mom for having some really excellent musical taste over Facebook. Facebook is the new Hallmark card!
This week, if all goes to plan, I will see C. Dale Young read, Maya Zeller, and Rae Armantrout. What can I say? It’s a good town for poetry readings. I’ve been reading C. Dale’s Torn and really ended up loving the spiritual/scientific aspects of it, the way he marries the work of being a doctor and the consideration of the powers that be, and of course, the last title poem, which is a killer. I met Rae in San Diego briefly and I will make this observation; besides being kitchen-chef-knife-sharp, she is the kind of professor who attends every single student reading. And that is saying something.
I spent some time thinking about why we become writers. Can we point to any one thing – an encouraging teacher or parent, a tendency towards bookishness for whatever reason – that brought on the madness of trying to write? Here’s the list I came up with – you should try it too!
The Things Which Make Us Become Writers
Because I was colorblind, I wore purple and blue in layers, all shades of lavender to me.
Because I was dyslexic, and could not remember phone numbers or my own street address.
Because I was sickly, and missed family vacations and had all my toys burned.
Because I was allergic to the sun, I spent a lot of time indoors – with books.
Because I loved the images on television, but found the stories boring and so would make up new plots.
Because my father built robots but could not tell a joke without giving away the punchline.
Because my brothers are all much more interesting.
Because I considered myself an outcast in high school, though on greater reflection, I was not as much of an outcast as I thought at the time.
Because I love research and footnotes.
Because I am romantically attached to only one person, which saves a lot of time.
Because in my other life, I am a terrific lipstick sales person or software manager.
Because learning about botanical medicine made me want to draw pictures of plants.
Because I surround myself with words – words in the backgrounds of paintings, words on a screen, words on paper, words jumbled on the refrigerator.
Because my mother loved poetry, my grandmother loved Faulkner and my great-grandmother was the only literate person in her town and therefore postmistress. Yea, this is my great heritage as a woman of my bloodline – to be a person who reads.
Japanamerica, Roland Kelts Feature, and Monkey Business
Remember when I was telling you about hitting all the cons in Seattle in one weekend? Well, the biggest of these was SakuraCon, a huge anime-and-all-things-pop-and-Japanese conference in downtown Seattle in April. And I got to see someone I had corresponded with (I’d read his book, his interviews, even an article he wrote for Japanese Vogue – and had even planned to quote him in an article about Matthea Harvey some years ago…) but had never met in person.
Roland Kelts is the author of Japanamerica, a terrific exploration of the worlds of Japanese pop culture and their impact on American audiences. I’ve seen Roland interview Hayao Miyazaki – a fabulous experience – at Berkeley, and his interview with Haruki Murakami in the very first issue of A Public Space was the reason I bought the issue. I had the opportunity to sit down for coffee with Roland Kelts when he was in town for SakuraCon, and ask him a few questions.
Jeannine Hall Gailey: Roland, I had so much fun reading your book, Japanamerica, particularly because we share a love of Hayao Miyazaki’s work and writers like Haruki Murakami. Can you tell me your recommendations for three writers from Japan (besides the awesome Murakami) you think more Americans should be reading – they can be fiction writers or poets!
Roland Kelts: I would start with Yoko Ogawa. Her elegiac sensibility and normal depictions of abnormalities makes her an elegant distant cousin of Haruki Murakami, as does her simplistic seeming, eerily penetrating prose. I also like Hideo Furukawa, who writes like the world has already ended and we ought to accept the aliens we have already become–to others and ourselves. Finally, I’ve recently been enthralled by the work of Hiromi Kawakami, whose sense of neighborhoods and their absurdities, and our desperate need for them, resonates deeply in a world gone mad with so-called ‘globalization.’
JHG: You know I’m a huge fan of Miyazaki’s movies, particularly because of his strong female heroines like Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa and his haunting post-apocalyptic landscapes. Do you have a favorite anime series or movie you’d like to share? And why do you love it?
RK: There are so many series that are uneven but addictive, as you know. For films, I particularly like Satoshi Kon’s Millenium Actress, Makoto Shinkai’s Five Centimeters Per Second, Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and that enduring classic, Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies. These are all stunning examples of how far Japan has taken animation.
JHG: You’re launching – and co-editing – a new magazine called Monkey Business this week in New York. What is the mission of the magazine, and why do you think people should read it and subscribe immediately?
RK: The mission of the magazine is actually quite humble: To introduce to Americans and other English-language readers the joys and edges of contemporary Japanese writing. Manga is equally thrilling, of course, but manga and anime artists are not the only creative Japanese giving us a vision of our fresh and daunting world. Americans who want to know what our new world will look, feel and smell like would do well to dip into the cauldron of contemporary Japan, a country that experienced apocalypse and lived to tell the tales.
And here’s where you can pre-order your very own copy of Monkey Business, the exciting new literary magazine:
http://www.apublicspace.org/pre-order_monkey_business.html
The manga and interviews alone make this a totally awesome package, but the short fiction and poetry are pretty wonderful, as well!
And, from A Public Space:
Fascinating interview with Motoyuki Shibata here about American fiction’s impact on Japanese writers:
http://www.apublicspace.org/look_heres_america_a_co.html
Big Poetry Giveaway Winner, Redheaded Stepchildren, Upcoming Feature with Roland Kelts
Happy May Day, readers!
The winner of the Great Poetry Giveaway of this blog (chosen by random number generator) is Matthew Thorburn! Congrats, Matthew! I’ll be sending two books – my Becoming the Villainess and Anna Rabinowitz’s Present Tense – your way as soon as you send me your snail mail address!
I would be remiss if I did not direct your attention to a magazine I’ve always loved the concept of, Redheaded Stepchild Magazine, which only publishes work that has been turned down by other magazines. My poem, “A True Princess Bruises,” appears in their Spring Issue, along with wonderful work by writers like Dorothy Barresi and Alex Grant!
I also wanted to announce that I’ll be posting an interview feature with Roland Kelts, the author of Japanamerica and editor of new lit mag Monkey Business, in the next couple of days, so keep your eyes on this space!
Had as wonderful a weekend as possible for my birthday – tiptoed (mostly unassisted on my own two feet a miracle in itself if you’d been in physical therapy with me even two weeks ago) through some tulips, and in a record-dreary April, actually had sunshine all three days I was up in Skagit Valley! La Conner’s Tulip Festival is really something if you’ve never been up this way. Here are a couple of pics – one is the view from our cabin on the water, another of tulips:
