Happy Shamrock Day! Took me a few days to recover from AWP (especially the un-fun 16 hour-trip home, remind me never to go to Texas or anywhere else that doesn’t have direct flights from Seattle.) My proof book copy was here the day after I got back, and it has some minor issues, which I’ve been stressing about, but I’m happy the book is on its way to being “real.” So much work to catch up on it’s not funny, the literary magazine (argh – the process is soo inefficient it makes me want to snap pencils,) my freelance work, and now homework and book reviews are starting to stack up too. And getting my list o’ reviewers together, mailing lists of bookstores and such, still on my list of things to do.
I finally got an e-mail today confirming that the NEA had received my application, which I sent in January. So that’s at least a relief. And I found out I’ll be in the print version of Wicked Alice, a journal I hold in high esteem.
I was thinking about all the applying for grants, and contests, and sending to lit journals – it’s like every time you do it, you are asking the universe, “Am I a writer?” and every act of sending out is a reaffirmation to yourself, “I believe I am a writer.” And a lot of times the world responds by punching you in the gut and stepping on your foot, but you have to elbow your way out again and again. Okay, this is too cliche for words, so I’m going to shut the hell up. Anytime you start to sound like Paul Simon lyrics you have to stop blogging. Obviously I have still not yet had a full night’s sleep since I’ve been back.
Interesting article in Slate on the Virginia Quarterly Review getting some love from the National Magazine Awards, which I think gives smaller lit mags hope for the future.
If I can keep my head above water here in the next few weeks, I’ve been writing a bunch of poems, a series of them, so I might actually be able to work on putting together a coherent second book manuscript. Not like I have publishers knocking on my door or anything, but it gives me a creative project to focus on, which makes me happy…
Cracked open Gluck’s Averno last night, and found a different, choppier, dare-I-say-more-experimental voice in it than I expected. Some parts are so sharp they cut you like a knife.