50th Birthday Celebrations with Wine, Cupcakes, Books and Paintings, Poems in American Poetry Review, Feature at DMQ Review’s Virtual Salon, A Visit to the Tulip Festival, a Parental Visit – It’s Been a Week!

Me with Flare, Corona on my 50th Birthday

50th Birthday Celebrations with Wine, Cupcakes, Books, and Paintings

Yesterday was my 50th birthday, and wow, I was so excited to be celebrating with friends of 20 years from all over (including across the water!) and my family (including my parents who flew out from Ohio to be here. We had the celebration at J. Bookwalter’s Winery in Woodinville, there were wines and cupcakes and a poetry reading (I mean, should all birthday parties have poetry?) and Glenn did a toast and Kelli read an old poem I wrote that made me cry and I read poems from Flare, Corona. People brought beautiful flowers, my whole book club was there, and we stayed way past closing time celebrating. Having MS means today I’ll pretty much just rest but it was so worth it – we threw open the doors and windows at the winery and it (almost) felt like the last three pandemic years of isolation were over. Someone (John Campos, who is also J. Bookwalter’s Woodinville manager) gave me a beautiful painting rendition of my book cover (I love to be friends with artists!) and I just felt so much love and support. I didn’t get a ton of pics (even Glenn was too busy to take pics) but here are a few including my family pre-party, the editors of Two Sylvias Press, Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, and my friend poet Ronda who just had her own book come out, Chaos Theory for Beginners.

Family photo – my little brother Mike, my mom, me with Flare, Corona, my sister-in-law Loree, and my father

Literary Birthday News: Two Poems in American Poetry Review and a feature on DMQ Review’s May Virtual Salon

Wow, I am really feeling the literary love on this birthday – I just got the new issue (May/June) of American Poetry Review with two of my poems in it, “Disintegration” and “In the Second Year of the Plague, I Plant a Fig Tree.” Snag the whole issue, but sneak peek of my two poems below.

from American Poetry Review’s new issue

And, DMQ Review invited me (perfect timing!) to do a virtual Salon for May, which means you can see me reading a few poems from Flare, Corona here at their site. Cool birthday present!

Glenn and I in purple tulip field, blue sky

Tulip Festival and Parental Visit

This is already a long post and I am busted from the week’s festivities, but I wanted to post a few pictures from the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival (exhausting but exhilarating to be around so many flowers) and my parents’ visit to Woodinville. We had some sunny weather – as you can see – after a mostly miserable, cold, rainy, April, so all the pictures in sunlight we all look pretty happy (or squinty?) Cherry blossoms, lilacs, apple trees, tulips – Pacific Northwest Spring at its best.

I hadn’t seen my parents in six years – and definitely hadn’t been in the same room with so much family in at least that long, Dad’s health issues keep him from traveling much (at all during the pandemic) so I was really grateful to have this time with them. We played guitar, visited wineries, walked around trees…it was wonderful. Okay, exhausted from a wonderful April – birthdays, poetry, flowers, cupcakes, and wine.