How is your new year going so far? I was feeling a bit discouraged yesterday, but was helped by getting out into the watery sunshine in nearby lovely Yountville, where I can’t afford to eat at the many fabulous starred restaurants but I can afford a loaf of bread and lemonade from one of their bakeries.
I finally got my contributor copy of the Fall 2009 The LA Review, which was really fun to read – particularly the poetry – many of which were playful and refreshingly non-downbeat, including those by Deb Ager and Kelli Agodon.
I’ve also got a new poem up at the very intriguing online journal Prick of the Spindle called “Sleeping Beauty Loves the Needle.” Isn’t that a great marriage of poem title and journal title? I enjoyed reading the poetry in this issue as well.
Also got the anthology for the nominees for the Dwarf Star prize anthology, which included poems by editor Mike Allen and Seattle haiku poet Michael Dylan Welch. I was honored one of my own poems was nominated as well! Thanks Poemeleon and SFPA!
Rain is coming back to town, which I guess I can’t complain about, since most the country is in some sort of deep freeze. Ready for spring yet? When do the days start feeling longer?

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.


