Happy Holiday Weekend, Sign Up for a Speculative Poetry Class, Interview with Jason Mott at The Rumpus, New Poem in Los Angeles Review, Pushcart Nomination at Fairy Tale Review, and Feeling Hopeful Despite

Me at Chateau Ste Michelle with ornament art

Happy Holiday Weekend!

I hope all of you had a safe, happy long holiday weekend. Ours was very quiet but I worked on an upcoming class on speculative poetry I’m doing next weekend (sign up here!) took on a reorganization of bookshelves (long overdue!) and we started decorating for Christmas. It always cheers me up to see the lights around the neighborhood and get out our little ornaments – robots, typewriters, penguins, and hedgehogs share space with unicorns, shoes, and ice cream cones.

Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate! We made latkes – a reminder of our early college years in Cincinnati, where we would stop off at Izzy’s deli at this time of year for giant latkes – with baked apples and Greek yogurt, which I heartily recommend for this time of year to ward off chills. It’s been a cold and wet week here, but we made a quick stop off in our brief dry moments to take pictures of holiday decorations at Chateau Ste Michelle’s and Kirkland waterfront clouds. It seems like a big upcoming week for poetry stuff, so…

Kirkland waterfront with clouds

Poetry News: A Pushcart Nomination, an Upcoming Speculative Poetry Class, a Poem at Los Angeles Review Monday, and an Interview with Jason Mott at the Rumpus

First of all, you can sign up – for $5! – for my speculative poetry class (co-sponsored by Prospectus and Spellbinder) and get more information here:  We’ll talk about what speculative poetry is, reading some examples, and even do a few exercises. It’s a great way to brighten a gray day! It’s at noon PST next Saturday, the 4th.

Second, you can read my interview with National Book Award winner Jason Mott on the Rumpus starting Monday. Jason is a wonderful speculative fiction writer who is getting some well-deserved praise for his latest book, but he’s also a terrific poet and one of those really good people you are genuinely happy for when good things happen for them.

I also have a poem coming out Monday the 29th, at the Los Angeles Review, “I Confuse Palm Sunday with Palm Springs.” 

And, for some good news: Fairy Tale Review nominated my poem from the Gold Issue, “Transformation,” for a Pushcart Prize. Cross your fingers that I might actually get in to the anthology this year! For a sneak peek, since the poem is not available online, see below.

Closeup on ornament art at Chateau Ste Michelle

Feeling Hopeful Despite…

As I’m writing this, it’s pitch black outside despite being 7 AM, we’re under flood watch AGAIN and the world is freaking out over the latest variant of covid. A friend of mine – a vaccinated friend – is in the hospital with covid pneumonia. (So please, if you feel sick, even if you’re vaccinated, get tested for flu AND covid and be sure to watch your oximeter for your oxygen levels. Oximeters save lives.)

I’m being very cautious about things for now (postponed my brain MRI and dental work until January, no travel for the holidays, etc.) By the way, if you’re socializing or heading home, maybe be sure to crack a window or run an air purifier. Air circulation is very important with airborne viruses. It’ll help keep you from feeling stuffy as well! Yes, a mask, yes, booster shots, but also, open a window! Stay outside when you can. Keep washing your hands, taking your c, zinc, and D, sleeping when you can, practicing what they call “good self care.” Be kind to yourself. Be kinder to others.

Our Christmas Tree

But despite all this bad news and dismal cold wet weather, I feel…cautiously optimistic about next year. It is a fact that most viruses evolve towards becoming more transmissible and less deadly.  Pfizer has an anti-viral pill I’m feeling positive about with good data, even though the FDA hasn’t approved it YET. (Faster, FDA!) Scientists are continuing to figure out what works and what doesn’t with this coronavirus thing. It has been two years since I first read headlines about China putting a doctor in prison for talking about a strange new virus (and I wrote the poem “Calamity.”) Vaccine makers are already looking at updating the vaccines.

We’re spending the holidays in a pretty isolated manner again this year, which is not ideal. I have an inkling, however, of hope, of light at the end of the tunnel. I have a new book, Fireproof, coming out with Alternating Current Press after my birthday in 2022, which will be almost five years exactly since the release of Field Guide to the End of the World. I know in a poet’s life a new book is a big deal, but especially during the pandemic, not a big deal to the larger world, but still, I feel a little excitement. I don’t know if my readings will be in person or on the dreaded (but now normal) Zoom. Will I be able to celebrate with friends and family in person in late spring? I don’t know if the “roaring twenties” of our century will ever actually roar. But I hope so.

A Friend Wins the National Book Award, the Bittersweetness of being a semifinalist, Thanksgiving Poems and Holiday Decor Weirdness, Struggling with Author Photos

Buried Typewriter with fallen leaves is a whole November 2021 mood

Feeling a Little Better – Good News for a Friend and More

So, if you read last week’s blog post, you might have noticed I was a little down, as a result of what? Terrible, gloomy weather, shorter days, perimenopause, MS, a lot of rejections at once? Anyway, I’m feeling better this week, especially because…

A friend of mine, Jason Mott, won the National Book Award for fiction for his latest surreal Hell of a Book, which takes on author book tours, ghosts, racism and colorism, all with wit and grace. And I have an interview with him coming out soon with The Rumpus – watch this space!

He not only won the award, but wowed people with his acceptance speech. This article in the Guardian has a little quote from it. It could literally not have happened to a nicer person. I’ve been a big fan of his work since his very first poetry book! (He started out as a speculative poet! It gives hope to us all…) I hope you guys check out his book.

November sunset in Kirkland, Seattle in distance

The Bittersweetness of Semi-Finalists and Thanksgiving-themed poems

I has some good news of my own this week – a Pushcart nomination (which the journal hasn’t announced yet, so I’m waiting to announce it) and two of my  manuscripts were semifinalists in a good book contest.

One of the manuscripts is fairly new, so I was really excited – the other is four years old, and so the semifinalist status felt less like a success. Isn’t that interesting? The four-year old manuscript has been a runner-up for the Dorset Prize (so close, but so far) and a close finalist at a few of the bigger publishers, so it’s so hard to keep getting “finalist” and “semifinalist” but no one willing to actually publish the damn thing. On the other hand, being a semifinalist with a new manuscript feels better, because it’s a sign the manuscript’s not totally a messed-up failure, right? So the whole thing felt bittersweet. Isn’t being a writer weird? Or it could just be me.

Speaking of cheerful things, I wanted to post my Thanksgiving-themed apocalypse poem, “Calamity,” that I wrote in late 2019 and was published in April 2020 in Poetry Magazine. Frankly, I think it’s evidence I might be a witch. Or a prophet.

I always get a kick out of holiday decor, and even though it’s still a distinctly odd holiday season, I thought I’d cheer you up with some offbeat holiday decor scenes from around Woodinville:

Struggling with Author Photos

So, in trying to figure out things for my next book, Fireproof, with publisher Alternating Current, I am forced to confront something I haven’t had to think about for awhile – author photos. Many of my author photos taken by actual photographers are fairly old now, and it feels weird to put a picture out there that doesn’t really represent the present “you” – ie the pandemic version of me. Also, I might need to make the photo black and white – a first for me – because Alternating Current usually puts the author photo inside the book instead of the back cover. I’m also thinking about cover art. And honestly, I’m wrestling with my two other manuscripts – where to send them, how to revise them – while I wait for edits for Fireproof from Alternating Current’s editor. So I’m looking at using a pandemic-era photo taken by my husband for the author photo, no professional anything – I did my own hair and makeup (probably pretty obviously.) My weight and hair color fluctuated quite a bit during the last two years, which makes picking a photo even more difficult. Here are some of the finalists. Put your opinion in the comments. I considered paying someone to take a photo of me, again. I just don’t know yet.

PS if you are doing early holiday shopping, remember that people love poetry, and poets love poetry and books about PR!   And if you want a signed copy, you can get one from me!

November Gloom: Too Many Storms and Rejections

November Gloom: Too Many Storms and Rejections

I’m not going to lie: this has been a tough week. The weather has been a series of emergency alerts: wind storms that knock out power, rain that brings flooding and mudslides. Absolutely no outdoor time for me this week, even on my deck or to get mail. My computer (six months old, too expensive) is on the fritz and looks like it needs replacing already. I’m worried about my parents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, many of whom had health crises this week: falls, hospital trips, illnesses, house problems. The news isn’t so cheery these days either. Three snow leopards at a Nebraska zoo died of covid. Damn it covid, stay away from our snow leopards! A GOP school district in Kansas banned books by Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Alice Walter, among others. Book burnings next? Yikes.

The time change, as predicted, has completely thrown off my sleep patterns, and I’m still fighting off a respiratory infection (non-covid) that has lasted three weeks now. I also received some really devastating rejections on my books this week. Some just feel more personal, more life-destroying, than others, right? Rejections that make you think: maybe I shouldn’t really be a writer. Maybe I should find something else and do that. I wish I had a publisher or a mentor who cared about me enough to advocate for me.

Going outside, pretty much my one area of consolation during the pandemic years, is cut off when there is driving wind and rain toppling power lines and trees and you’re running a fever anyway.

I’m still reading – in fact, I ordered some new books – poetry and some fiction on the theme “dark academia” – but not much writing and almost no submitting is happening.

Looking on Insta at friends who are healthy enough to travel and vacation in sunnier climes or visit family or go to conferences just makes me depressed, since as an immune-compromised person, I’m still not out of the covid woods and can’t even consider travel. Heck, I can’t even get over this regular run-of-the-mill sinus/bronchitis infection. My doctors can’t even say if I’m healthy enough to get a booster shot (too many of my special weird health problems interact with too many things to make any booster shot a clear win for me.)

I almost didn’t post this because I thought it would be too much of a downer. But hey, when you’re a chronically-ill, disabled person in a pandemic who is also experiencing a lot of “no” from her passion/vocation and there’s very little happy news – just grueling rounds of MRIs, blood work, doctor appointments, and even more of same- while separated from your family (going through their own stuff) and friends (also going through their own crises) then it’s just hard to rustle up a cheerful post in the darkest days of the darkest time of year. In case you ask, yes, I meditate, yes, I write down a gratitude list, yes, I’m taking vitamin D. Is this MS, SAD, perimenopause? Or “just” the length of the pandemic? I don’t know. But my reserves have been swallowed up.

Time Change, A Poem in Waterstone Review, Surviving November in the Second Year of the Plague

November Sunrise

Time Change and the Pacific Northwest

I am not a big fan of time changes. I wish it just stayed on Daylight Savings Time all year round, which gives Seattle more sunlight when we’re actually awake. We actually voted as a state to get rid of the time change, but turns out states don’t have that power.

This picture is not the sunrise this morning, but a few days ago, when it wasn’t quite so gray and gloomy. In fact, it occurs to me the poem I’m including in this post is very season-appropriate!

November isn’t the most picturesque time in the Pacific Northwest, but I did manage to get a few pictures this week that might fool you into thinking it is. Here’s Glenn and I at Chateau Ste Michelle, their harvest decor, and a rainbow on one of our stormy/sunny days this week, with our last blooming cosmos.

Sylvia with Water~Stone Review

A Poem in the new 2021 Water~Stone Review

So happy to get my contributor’s copy of Water~Stone Review’s annual print issue, which included my poem, “On the Autumn Equinox, 2019” but also poems by friends like Oliver de la Paz, January O’Neil, Todd Kaneko, and Alison Pelegrin.

The letter from the editor for this issue begins: “This issue is haunted.”

Here’s a sneak peek at my poem: (Click to enlarge)

From the Water~Stone Review

Surviving November in the Second Year of the Plague

There’s a spot on the grounds of the Columbia Winery near my house where I can reliably find Fairy Tale mushrooms (or Amanita muscaria) every year, but not until the flowers are nearly done and it’s started to feel like winter. It seems like a metaphor for the hidden beauties of this time of year; sometimes they take a little seeking out.

There was a meme going around on social media, something like, “This month I’m doing a challenge called November. It’s where I try to make it through every day of November.” That feels very true this year, in which we find ourselves confronting the end of the second year of the pandemic, getting booster shots, still unsure of whether it’s safe or not to…travel? see loved ones? have an indoor holiday dinner? It’s deflating to think that we are still dealing with the uncertainty and misery of the pandemic even after vaccines, plus now empty shelves at the stores (supply chain issues,) and a general feeling of malaise that’s hitting everyone from doctors (my brilliant hematology specialist of 18 years is going on “unlimited sabbatical” and my ER doctor friend from Alaska has moved to New Zealand) to mailpeople and retail workers. Don’t feel bad – this is hard. It is not your imagination. Do what it takes to survive this winter, and don’t feel like you have to be your usual ambitious, sparkling, driven self. I know I am casting around, looking for escape – should I move again? Get a job in a different city? Should I just decorate for the holidays way early, put on pajamas for the whole month and constantly stream Christmas specials?

“Adjusting expectations” seems like a continuous lesson of the pandemic. If you can’t get across country to see your family, well, you can still walk around a new neighborhood, try a new apple variety at your local farmer’s market, pick up a new book you might not usually read. If you miss shopping in stores in real life, there’s online shopping – there’s Facetime for talking to friends – and hey, it’s the perfect time to clean out your closet and send a box of clothes to charity or ThredUp. Yeah, these aren’t the options I was hoping to be facing at the end of this year, either. I sort of never want to hear the word “resilience” ever again. Anyway, if you are feeling down, or off, that’s okay. Rest up. Make whatever your favorite fall thing is – pumpkin pie, caramel apples, or just a grilled cheese sandwich or have a hot chocolate. Try to be kind to those around you – your family, friends, and people you interact with are likely also struggling. Don’t try to be cheerful when you’re not feeling it, don’t push yourself to fake anything right now. Read Yeats’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” which feels timely always, but especially right now. Light a fire; hang some lights; burn a favorite candle. It’s Diwali, Southern Asia’s festival of lights, which celebrates the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. I believe in that, in turning away from giving in to despair and trying to hope, to think of light in the darkest days.