Happy Thanksgiving Week – Is it really almost December?
- At November 20, 2012
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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OK, I know everyone probably says this every year, but Oh my God how did it get to be almost December? Have I been asleep in some sort of time machine? Is everyone else ready for the holidays now? Because I am not. Yesterday there was flooding around town, some downed tree branches, but nothing big enough to use as a Christmas tree.
Thanksgiving will mean Osso Bucco and crustless cranberry meringue pies this year. We’re adjusting to my new dietary restrictions and plus, meals made in a Dutch oven rule for going out to the movies on Thanksgiving! (James Bond perhaps? Why isn’t The Hobbit out yet?)
I actually felt really good about the last Redmond Poet Laureate event, Kathleen Flenniken’s reading (for a summary and pictures here: http://redmondpoetry.blogspot.com/2012/11/kathleen-flennikens-redmond-reading-and.html) and loved meeting people interested in poetry. I mean, maybe I feel like I’m starting to have a little bit of a community out here in the tech-center-outskirts of Seattle. Yes, I might even say I feel optimistic. I’m looking forward to Kelli and Annette’s talk on December 6th on E-publishing and social media for poets at Redmond Library (7 PM.) Did I mention how great our library system is? Well, I feel thankful for that too.
I’m starting to get a little nervous/stressed/excited about getting all the book stuff for Unexplained Fevers ready by the end of December for a spring launch with New Binary Press – like, getting a new author photo, working with the artist to get cover art, starting to (eek!) think about setting up readings for the new book next year. Maybe a book trailer? (I do not currently have the skills to make a book trailer, so if you ever see one, it’s because someone helped me out. Maybe more than one person.) I may work with a PR service for the book this time around (YouDoPR is a very affordable PR service that is creating services for poets!) This is all new territory for me. Does having a book coming out seem lie it requires a lot more skills than it used to? But I am so thankful to have a publisher and a publishing date for this book.
So Happy Thanksgiving, you guys, however you celebrate, I hope you are warm and safe and loved. I’m going to decorate for Christmas early this year. We don’t have much money to spend – paying mortgages and car repairs and such has really curtailed our usual spending festivities – but we can start the celebration whenever we want.
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World. Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.
