Holiday Weekend Bits
Open Books has a very kind write-up (plus a sample poem) of She Returns to the Floating World here.
If you are interested in reviewing She Returns to the Floating World, well, now’s your chance – Rattle has a copy and is looking for a reviewer! Info here: http://rattle.com/blog/available/
Had a chance to entertain my poet friend N (newly arrived from the East Bay back the NW) and show her around Woodinville (including the two potbellied pigs at the Herbfarm garden!) during pitch perfect sunny-low-humidity-mountain-is-out Seattle weather. It was a beautiful day and lovely to visit.
Now we are considering going to visit one of the local waterfalls. (It was either that and ick, clean up the house and work. Not appropriate activities for Labor Day Weekend, especially with this kind of weather.)
And I’ve set up a reading in October with my artist friend Deborah Scott and her latest exhibit. I’ll post more about her fairy-tale-themed exhibit soon!
And in case you missed it the first time, Escape Into Life calls my poems “heat sparking” – go check out their digest!
Say Anything Thursday
September 1, or Say Anything Day!
Well, for all you folks who are still in love with Say Anything, Cameron Crowe has posted new deleted scenes from the original script on his blog. I love this movie more now than I did when I first watched it, because I understand some of the subtext of talking about success in blue collar, Boeing-dependent Puget Sound. (This was pre-Microsoft-taking-over-Redmond, of course.)
It’s September, so no more “it’s August, the last summer month in the Northwest” procrastination is allowed. In the last 24 hours, I revised my “Robot Scientist’s Daughter” manuscript, updated the acknowledgments page (three accepted poems since last month!) and sent out a packet of poems. This makes me feel like less of a slacker and more like a real writer.
I am still working on my gigantic job application for desired academic job #1, and I’ve gotten into a sticky wicket where I’m wondering whether the sample syllabus should be my actual syllabus from classes I’ve taught or something else? (Anyone out there with advice, I’d be grateful to hear! Like, do they really need all of the grading and ethics information on there, or just the content stuff?) It also requires a writing sample (do I use poems from both books, or new work?) and a letter of something called a “commitments to creative writing and poetics” statement (no idea what something like that is supposed to contain. And I call myself a book critic!) Whew! My tech writing job applications are way easier to do.
I’ve been angsty about whether I’m doing enough to promote the new book, and how much is too much, and how many readings to schedule and where, and I realized that though having a book come out is something to celebrate, it can also provoke a lot of anxiety. My first Seattle reading will be on the 25th of September at Open Books, my very favorite bookstore of all time, so if you’re my friend and will be Seattle that day, come by and wish me luck! Or better yet, stay for the reading (at 3 PM.) I’m putting together the reading list for that, too, and practicing the new poems out loud. I heard Obama will be in our fair town that day, and I told him it would only be a 45 minute reading, and afterwards we could go out for gelato, so I hope he shows 🙂 I think it would be good for poetry and for presidents if presidents went to more poetry readings. Plus, I’ll read about politically important subjects like nuclear environmental challenges. Fun for everyone!
Today I’m nervous also about going to the dentist for multiple fillings (ouch!) and excited about seeing my friend N who is back in town tomorrow. It’s always good to see old friends. Not sure I can say the same about the fillings!
Tuesday Confession: In Which Things Don’t Get Done, Feminisms, and Closed Doors
Updated: I had two nice poetry world things happen today that caused me to rethink my grumpy post, so I decided to delete the evidence of grumpiness. For those of you who missed it, sorry!
PS You should still read Celia’s excellent post, I am a Feminist poet, here. I think all that stuff still applies.
Positive Movement Versus the Whirlwind
So instead I try to make headway on my projects at hand. Having no classes this quarter, I’m applying for part-time contract work and teaching jobs. I’m working right now on a bear of an application that requires pages of statements and samples. I try to make a little headway each day. I’m also working on a book review of a difficult book. Yesterday I wrote two paragraphs of the review, not too substantial, I’m afraid, but enough to say: I made some positive motion on it. I finished a poetry consult project. I’m trying to create a sane reading schedule this fall, but of course all the readings want to fall on the same weekends, invitations to read out of town inevitably all come for the same three day period. I’m excited for the upcoming readings – the chance to finally introduce my new little book to the public, officially – but of course, nervous as well. How will these poems play to an audience? Which poems should I choose for which reading? I’m trying to design afternoon workshops for teenagers, a talk for community colleges on superheroes and mythology, and something on speculative poetry for a general audience. I’m trying my hand at a little fiction, and I’m still writing poems on radioactive elements (apparently, I thought I was done, but I actually wasn’t. The news on Fukushima makes it seem alarmingly relevant and demanding all over again.)
Tuesday Confessions about the End of Summer
Since the last time I posted, I’ve hosted a party at my apartment and went to a summer concert in the zoo. A social whirl, and it was the hottest weekend (of course!) of the entire year! Sorry, those who came, that it wasn’t a pool party – and that I lack an ice vodka bar!
Here’s a pic of me doing my best Sylvia Plath impression pre-party. Not the suicide part, the part where she rocked being a domestic-goddess-type-in-cocktail-dresses. (Glenn is actually the talented sushi-and-cupcake maker. I’m just appearing in frame.) My favorite thing about the party is that I got to see my artist friends and poet friends and fiction-writer friends all in one place. I wish that happened more often!
We also saw Aimee Mann at the Seattle zoo which was fun, as it had settled down to a comfortable 77-with-breeze by the time we arrived at the zoo, and we enjoyed the meerkats and ocelot cub and other beasties pre-concert. Aimee Mann is a consummate performer – I’ve seen her a bunch of times in a bunch of different venues. She always wears the same kind of outfit – what I call a “cool poet” look – skinny jeans, cool jacket, knee-high boots, and black glasses – and gets up, performs, chats in between songs a bit, and thanks the audience. She’s professional, laid-back, lacking the drama that might usually be attached to pop stars (or poets.) I wish I could pull that off at my own readings. No big whoop, no drama, just get up, perform, thank everyone, get off stage. Note to self.
In poetry news, my book She Returns to the Floating World is now available for $3.50 on Kindle. An e-book! That Kitsune Books is a progressive publisher. I don’t have a Kindle myself, so if you pick it up and see it, let me know how it looks!
Interview with Publisher and Author Anne Petty
I was really excited, as one of my final summer interview series, to get a chance to pose some questions to the editor and publisher of my second book of poetry, She Returns to the Floating World, Anne Petty of Kitsune Books. I hope you all have enjoyed reading the series – I’ve really enjoyed sitting down with some of my favorite people and writers.
Anne Petty writes dark fantasy/horror cross-over fiction, has published three books of literary criticism, and many essays on mythology/folklore, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the craft of writing. She is also a published poet and owns Kitsune Books, which publishes literary fiction, poetry, memoir, and literary commentary.
Anne Petty blogs at http://AnnePetty.blogspot.com/ and her website is www.annepetty.com.
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/KitsuneBooks
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Kitsune-Books/185884136898
Jeannine: First of all, why did you decide to start Kitsune Books? What do you think makes your press different than other small presses? I think it’s very interesting how you tackle fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, for instance!
Anne Petty: I have met many talented writers whose work is amazing but doesn’t fit into the commercial mainstream mold. I wanted to create an outlet for those types of works – excellent content that’s slightly “off the beaten path” – and publish them in well-designed books so that the total package becomes a work of art. We relish the give and take of working directly with the authors and artists who create our books, something that’s often missing with larger publishers.
JHG: What would you like to see more of from poets in your submission pile? What would you like to see less of?
AP: My associate editor Lynn and I are always looking for the writer’s voice that “sings” to us, that effortlessly pulls us in from the first few pages. That voice can occur in fiction, poetry, lyrical memoir, or clearly argued literary criticism. I know instantly when I hear it, especially in poetry. I guess it’s a kind of magic where the poet’s obvious skill and facility with language supports but doesn’t override the personal connection of what’s in the poet’s heart and mind. One thing that still irks me is that we keep getting submissions of good material that’s only chapbook length – the Submissions page of our website clearly states that we’re looking for longer, book-length collections. I hate having to tell a poet that we’re interested in their work, but only if they add more and resubmit. Not long ago I had to reject a submission from a New York writer whose visceral, surreal poetry knocked me out and left my jaw hanging. Her collection was about half the length we normally accept, so I practically begged her to write more and try us again later. I hope she does!
JHG: I don’t know if I ever told you this, but part of the reason I decided to send Kitsune Books my manuscript was the twitter feed, which discussed editorial policies as well as anime, Japanese pop music and tea. I felt I had a better handle of the editorial tastes and mind-set and felt better about sending my work because of that. How do you think a small publisher can benefit from social media such as twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc?
AP: Social media marketing can turn into a huge energy vampire if you let it. Not good when your staff is small and overworked to begin with. On the other hand, you ignore it at your peril. Some of us enjoy being online every day, connecting with people in the writing and publishing business, and in that sense I think social media has been a boon to small presses. It provides us with a presence and a voice that would be difficult to generate without the Internet. As you say, making a personal connection with people in your field is one of the beauties of social media. Besides our website, Kitsune Books has a presence on Facebook, Blogspot, WordPress, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I have the most fun on Twitter. I do the Twitter feed for Kitsune and am highly entertained by sharing things that pop up during the day, writing related or not, and seeing how readers respond. I think it’s the immediacy of Twitter I like most.
JHG: You are a writer as well as a publisher. Don’t you have a new critical anthology and a new novel out? Can you tell us a little about those projects?
AP: My writer’s hat comes in two colors – academically oriented material on mythology and Tolkien, and horror/dark fantasy fiction. Last month I was gratified to finally get the hardback edition of Light Beyond All Shadow (Fairleigh-Dickinson Univ. Press), which contains my long essay on light and dark iconography in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. That anthology has been in the works for several years, with the Tolkien Estate copyright gateway guardians and the university’s change in publication distributors being some major hurdles. I’d given up on ever seeing that essay in print, but finally everything came together and here it is!
On the fiction front, the second novel in my Wandjina series came out August 5, 2011. The first book of the series was Thin Line Between, and this second one is titled Shaman’s Blood. The series got its impetus from the Australian Dreamtime myths and legends I’d studied as a doctoral student with a focus in Mythology/Folklore. Wandjina are part of the Dreamtime pantheon of creation entities associated with rain and wind. The modern-day setting for the series came from my first job out of college – lab assistant in a haunted museum housed in what used to be the old city jail in Tallahassee. Great stuff for an over-active imagination! I’ve always had a taste for the dark side. The very first horror books I read as a child were Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe. Those three books kicked my nine-year-old brain off the rails and into the dark woods of the psyche where it still wanders around and seems to have set up permanent camp.
JHG: Any new books at Kitsune you’re particularly excited about?
AP: Well, I’ll have to list our whole lineup for 2012 in that case! We have another Mythological Dimensions lit-crit volume (focusing on Neil Gaiman this time); award-winner Jesse Millner’s second poetry collection; riveting war poetry from Iraq/Afghanistan vet Jon Shutt; a lyrical “water-color” collection from poet Rachel Dacus; another great middle-grades mystery from K.E.M. Johnston; literary fiction from short story master Paul Graham; and George Drury Smith’s challenging experimental novel, The slant hug o’ time. This last author I must draw extra attention to, because George is the iconic founder of Beyond Baroque Foundation in Venice, CA and editorial guru of The Argonaut newspaper for many years. George is a commanding voice in experimental, avant-garde writing, and I think his novel (scheduled for September 2012) will blow some minds. I’m incredibly thrilled to have him on our roster of authors.
Bonus question: What are you afraid of in real life? Politicians and clowns (not mutually exclusive)
Escape into Life, Disappointment and Longing, Scientist’s Daughters and Poetry
Well, the job I interviewed for this Monday had already been filled in the five days since I had been contacted about it, so that was a bit of a disappointment. I have to admit, the sudden longing for this particular job surprised me in its force. At least now I have an up-to-date portfolio, resume, and sample links.
In other sad news, Booktour.com is shutting down. I admit to never fully utilizing its capacities, but it seemed like a really great place for authors and for people who like to know who is reading in their town on a given date, so that’s too bad.
In positive news, Escape Into Life is featuring a few of my poems today – a couple from my “Robot Scientist’s Daughter” manuscript, one from She Returns to the Floating World, and a brand new poem! Check it out! http://www.escapeintolife.com/poetry/jeannine-hall-gailey/
A poet’s progress: I have been dabbling in fiction writing lately. Do all poets take a flight into other genres at some point? Of course, I have worked as a technical writer, a journalist, a copy editor, and am still an active book reviewer, but as far as “creative” writing, in the years since I started really studying writing, I had stuck to poetry. And now I appreciate what trying out another form, another genre, can do for your ideas about poetry. What can poems do that stories cannot? What can prose offer that poetry cannot?
Tracy K. Smith’s story about writing Life on Mars had a few familiar aspects: she was born a year before me, her father was a scientist (an optical engineer who worked on the Hubble telescope instead of a robotics engineer) and she takes aspects of mythology and science and applies them to autobiography in some interesting ways. It made me think about women poets whose fathers were scientists, including: Rachel Dacus, whose “rocket kids” blog was named after her adventures as the daughter of an actual rocket scientist; Margaret Atwood, who was the daughter of a biologist; Louise Gluck, whose father invented the X-acto knife you might have worked with in science lab or art classes. And Tracy K. Smith. And me. Are there more? Is there something about being a scientist’s daughter that drives us into poetry?
It’s The Little Things
Dear readers, is it possibly the end of August already? How is fall already peeking around the corner when we’ve barely had any sunlight all summer? Oh well. I’m ready to go back to my sweaters.
I had a couple of little things happen that lightened my spirit this week amid all the weird bad news. I had a call about a possible job (my adjunct work temporarily halted when my fall class was canceled) – a job that sounds perfect for me – and I’m doing a little interview on Monday. A little contract work might mean I can more easily afford luxuries like paying my student loans or traveling a bit for readings for my book. I have to admit I feel a wild surge of hope.
And yesterday I finally got to visit Open Books – Seattle’s poetry-only bookstore – and left with an armful of wonderful new books which I am very excited to read. But I seeing my new book on the shelf of a real-life store was even more exciting:
Have I suddenly become like one of those new moms who can’t stop posting pics of their new baby? Well, so be it. Did I mention I’m going to be doing a reading on September the 25th at Open Books, too? The fall lineup of readers looks terrific – the week before I read, Marvin Bell will be there, Christine Deavel will be reading the week after, my friend Joannie Stangeland will be reading from her new book shortly thereafter AND one of my writing superheroines, Dana Levin, will be reading there in November as well. It’s going to be a fun fall for poetry.
So, we welcome fall in, exchanging sunscreen for fireplaces, light colors for dark.
Hope is a Thing with Feathers
In these kinds of times, when the news blares about violence, riots in cities like Vancouver and London famed for their kind and gentle citizens, about ski trips up and down the Dow, about real people having their jobs and houses taken away from them…
This is when we cling to a foolish hope. A thing with feathers.
As writers, we already cling to foolish hopes. Hopes that someone, somewhere will read our words, that they will connect with them, that our words will go out into the world and do something bigger and better than we can do ourselves with our physical bodies. Poets, especially, are considered foolish. (Erasmus had a book, In Praise of Folly, that I just love, which talks about foolishness of various kinds.) We cling to the hope that our poems might earn us enough to buy us a pair of shoes, a dinner out, or at least cover our postage costs and various fees.
We hope that the people we love find happiness, that our jobs might lead to better things for ourselves and our families, that our bodies will not betray us. We strive every day when we wake up to enter the day with hope. And that is good work.
Hope keeps us aware that kindness is what holds humanity together; selfishness tears us apart. In times like these, we must hope more than the situation might seem to warrant. We must write with hope, and love with hope, we must have hope for our world, and the people in it. We must push ourselves to have hope. Let us glue the feathers on if we must.
Happy for You: A Few Pieces of Good News for Friends
I have said in the past that when friends of mine get good news, it is almost as good as getting it myself. These writers are both very talented and so I am proud to announce:
–Karen J. Weyant just won the Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest with her collection, Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt. (http://thescrapperpoet.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/wearing-heels-in-the-rust-belt/) Go congratulate her!
–Rachel Dacus has just signed on with Kitsune Books (whom you may know from such books as, I don’t know, She Returns to the Floating World) to publish her third full-length poetry collection, Gods of Water and Air. I’m so pleased to have Rachel as a fellow Kitsune! And look for an upcoming short interview with her here on the subject! For now, go congratulate her at her blog: http://dacusrocket.blogspot.com/2011/08/big-news.html
And a quick shout out to Justin Evans for his kind words here (http://justinevanspoetry.blogspot.com/2011/07/out-on-limb.html) about She Returns to the Floating World, here. Have you gotten your copy yet?
And Oliver de la Paz is featured today on Poetry Daily, here.
A good week for my friends. If you have more good news, please leave some info about it in the comments! Giant hugs and cupcakes to all!
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.
