Welcome to October, Chaos Edition: Smoke in Seattle the Remake, A Week of Chaos and Uncertainty, A Salon Article on Reading for Mental Health, and A Book Giveaway

Sylvia in her pumpkin bed

Welcome to October: Chaos Edition

Well, anyone who was looking forward to crisp air, blue skies, the election being almost over…sorry! Seattle was once again immersed in smoke from California’s massive wildfires, we had maybe the worst Presidential debate in history (in which Trump made fun of Biden for wearing a mask, refused a Covid test before the debate, and his family refused to wear masks…just saying.) And now Covid is sweeping the GOP, putting several, including Trump and Chris Christie, into the hospital.

This Ursula Le Guin thought seems apropos right now: “People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.” —from A Wave in the Mind. 

Is uncertainty making you anxious? It is me. So here’s a picture of apples on the tree in Woodinville. See? Do you feel better now? Good. Because I have a little more to say.

Apples on the tree in Woodinville

I’d feel sorrier for Trump if he didn’t go out of his way to minimize the danger of the coronavirus months after he knew it was an airborne killer, didn’t encourage masking in the White House or among his followers (leading to me constantly, on a cane, having to dodge obnoxious Trump supporters without masks every time I go anywhere in public). If he didn’t  not prevent the deaths of over 200,000 Americans by not providing masks (that were ready to be mailed out to Americans in March until Trump cancelled them), or even encourage them until midsummer, then barely seem to be sorry for these deaths, if he didn’t purposefully expose people after he knew he was sick…Well, a lot of things.

I hope that this helps people realize that mask-wearing, keeping social distance, staying out of crowded indoor rallies, and not being evil really does protect you from Covid. (I can’t really prove that last one.) I saw film of GOP-ers hugging and touching each other indoors after the Barrett nomination which they were pushing through against the will of the American people, and I was like, well, I haven’t hugged anyone besides Glenn since FEBRUARY. I was afraid to go the dentist for a broken tooth while Trump went knowingly to an indoor fundraiser positive for Covid. So we could say: stupid behavior leads to bad outcomes, and it’s hard to feel sorry for people who bring their problems on the themselves and others with willful ignoring of safety regulations. Especially since I have a lot of friends who got Covid, didn’t get top-notch experimental, expensive treatment, couldn’t even get tests, and were often left to die – or not – at home instead of getting any treatment. Is this the America we want? It’s not the America I want. So, please: vote like your life depends on it.

Smoke in Seattle, a Harvest Moon and Mars

So I haven’t been able to go outside the last couple of days without coughing, a sore throat, and nosebleeds. Sound like a repeat of just a little bit ago? We are lucky that we, unlike some of our friends in Napa and northern California, aren’t losing their homes to yet another gigantic evil wildfire. 2020 – the year that just keeps giving us terrible, terrible things!

This was my picture of the Harvest Moon the first night of the smoke. It was an even deeper red than this at moonrise, almost invisible except a, let’s face it, evil? spooky? foreboding? smudge in the sky.

We did have one day before the smoke descended on us where we went on a Monday afternoon to a very empty pumpkin farm and masked up to get pumpkins, corn, apples, and took some pictures in the empty field in the sun. This was the last sunshine I’ve experienced, so I’m glad we got some fresh air and sun when we did. That’s my 2020 Fall motto: grab sunshine and fresh air while you can.

My Salon Article on Reading for Mental Health

Salon Article on Reading for Mental Health

This year has been tough on all of us. One thing I did with my nervous energy was read through books by Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Joan Didion, Rebecca Solnit, poetry by Ilya Kaminsky, Jericho Brown, Lesley Wheeler, and Matthea Harvey, start a book club with my mom, read a terrific book recommended by my little brother…Check out the article to read all about it.

Salon: Reading List for the Pandemic for Mental Health

I hope this article might be helpful to you and you pick up at least one of the books for yourself!

The Robot Scientist’s Daughter

Book Giveaway: The Robot Scientist’s Daughter from Mayapple Press

Another book giveaway: this week, my third book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, a book about growing up in one of America’s secret city, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It has robots, radioactive wasps, redacted government documents, wildfires, fox fire…

Anyway, if you want to enter the giveaway…and you’ve made it this far in this post…leave a comment on this blog post with your e-mail so I can contact you if you win.

I’ll choose the winner using a random number generator next Sunday (10/11/20).

Warning; I can’t ship Internationally, so American entries only. And good luck!

Stepping into Fall (with Anxiety,) What Are You Reading, and New Bird Sightings

Stack of pumpkins in Woodinville

Stepping Into Fall (with Anxiety)

The autumn equinox came and went in a deluge of rain, bringing with it the anxiety of a fall with an important and scary election, doomscrolling, the increasing cold and dark, and for me, a bunch of rejections (because why not?)

Now I have decided to embrace fall, with its waning daylight, and increased need for sleep or hot chocolate and cider. I have embraced doing the things I can to decrease dread and panic. (Donations to political causes? Yes! Phone calls to friends who live across country? Yes! Reading books to increase empathy and resilience? Absolutely!)

Sunflowers

What Are You Reading?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how what we consume, culturally, affects our moods. There have been a lot of articles about avoiding “doomscrolling,” overdoing news vs staying informed on everything from coronavirus to the Supreme Court to the Presidential election. But not a lot of articles on what we can do to help our hearts and minds stay resilient, empathetic, and not totally stressed out and doing things like breaking our teeth in our sleep.

Right now I’m reading Margaret Atwood’s recent sequel to Handmaid’s Tale, Testaments, and Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower. Both terrific books that remind us of our responsibilities in the middle of chaos to do what we can to make the world a better place. And I was so impressed with the quality of writing in both books – both writers truly at the top of their games in these books.

So, what are you reading that has helped you cope during the pandemic? Leave your choices in the comments!

Scrub Jay on my back porch

A New Bird Sighting, and Other Natural Phenomenon That Keep Me Sane

Speaking of things that keep you sane…I saw a brand new bird here – a pair of scrub jays! They usually are up in mountains or farther away to the north, so I felt very lucky. I think the pair was a mother and juvenile because one kept begging to be fed! I also have some pictures of hummingbirds in the rain. We’ve had a lot of rainy days since the smoke, but we’re supposed to get some pleasant fall weather coming up this week. I think weather does affect my mood more than I like to think, though I’m hardly what you’d call the “outdoorsy” type. I’ve noticed my garden starting to wane, only dahlias and sunflowers and a few late roses left.

Last night our Ring camera captured a pair of black-tailed coyotes in the back yard. It’s not quite a bobcat, but a reminder that we live in a semi-wild place here. I’m going to make an effort this year to stay connected to nature even when the temptation is to stay inside.

Field Guide Book Giveaway Winner, a Heck of a Week: Broken Teeth, Birds in Smoke, and Saying Goodbye to RBG, Poetry Reading Corner – Rewilding

During smoke a sign of hope – Painted Lady butterfly on dahlias

A Heck of a Week – Broken Teeth, Seattle Smoke, and Saying Goodbye to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

This has been a rough week for us – the Seattle smoke and bad air quality lasted until yesterday morning, and then yesterday was too cold and rainy to do much outside (although I tried.) I’m hoping to really get outside today and enjoy a little bit of fall and fresh air. The stress of being locked in a room for 12 days really took a toll for me.

This week was so stressful, among other things, I broke a tooth in my sleep. My regular dentist couldn’t get me in because three other patients had done the same thing that day. Hoping to get it fixed on Monday, but of course every dental trip brings anxiety because of Covid risk. I also tried to get in my Guggenheim application – it was a “distraction” (ha!) from the stress of not being able to breathe the air, and so, cross your fingers for me – I’m sure I’m a long shot. Big shouts of appreciation to the people that agreed to be recommenders! It’s a difficult application, and it had changed since last year, but at least I tried.

And then there was the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the eve of Rosh Hoshana, a blow that I’ll admit brought a few tears. She’s been such a champion of women her whole life, and someone we could count on as an advocate on the Supreme Court. Who will we count on now? Too bad we can’t put Margaret Atwood on our Supreme Court. I also donated to some worthy causes in RBG’s honor. A good time to fight for what we believe in.

Field Guide to the End of the World cover – felt like real life this last week!

Later on in the blog I’ll post some pictures of birds in that continued to visit during our wildfire smoke, but here’s some good news…

Winner of Field Guide to the End of the World Book Giveaway

I did a random number generator on our comments from last week’s post to choose a winner, and the winner was commenter Amy Poague! Congrats, Amy!

Amy, contact me (jeannine dot gailey at live dot com) soon so I can send out the book! Hopefully it will make someone’s week a little brighter!

I’m happy to do these book giveaways during a stressful time when people need books and poetry more than ever. I’ll do another book giveaway at the beginning of October – probably a copy of She Returns to the Floating World, which seems like the most Halloween-appropriate book. By the way, if you want to get a copy of Field Guide to the End of the World yourself, since there are still distribution issues that make it appear “Out of stock” on Amazon, you can go here to order a signed copy directly from me. I’m signing with gloves and even use a UV light sanitizer on the book before I send out it out, so it should be totally safe!

Speaking of poetry reading…

Sylvia with Rewilding and “Fall Mood”

Reading Corner – January Gill O’Neil’s Rewilding

The enforced enclosure of the terrible smoke did result in one good thing – I got to catch up on my reading. Besides reading Joan Didion with my mom (this month: The Book of Common Prayer), I finally read the wonderful third book from January Gill O’Neil, Rewilding. (Pictured to the left: Sylvia loved my “fall mood” table so much that she came and put her paws directly on January’s book! She really does love to cuddle a poetry book!)

This book addresses the natural process of rewilding – what happens when we leave a field or a stream alone for a while – and the dissolving and building of bonds between family members during a divorce. January’s language is clear and straightforward, but lovely, in this collection that will move you and make you rethink your own search for your rewilding self.

And speaking of rewilding, did you think there would be a week with no bird pictures?

Birds (And One Butterfly) in Smoke Gallery

So, it’s sunrise here while I’m writing this, and I’m about to go out on my deck and enjoy the newly fresh air, even though it’s a bit chilly. I’ll leave this blog post with a gallery of pictures I took of birds during the Smoke Weeks. The Seattle Times did a story on how birds fared during the smoke and I wanted to give you the pictures from Woodinville during the wildfire smoke event. We kept our bird feeder, bird bath, and bird fountains full, and we had woodpeckers, jays, juncos and hummingbirds abundantly, but the finches and flickers only came back in the last couple of days with the rain.

Fire Season: September 2020

Sunrise, smoke

Fire Season: September 2020

I don’t usually do a mid-week post, but I thought I’d just let you know what’s happening in Washington State. Since Monday, we’ve had 500,000 acres burned across the state. (That’s more acres than usually catch on fire in WA in an entire year.)

Wildfires are in every direction, and the air quality started at about 150 Monday night and stayed that way all yesterday. Even running several air purifiers inside, the air quality is still a little troublesome, causing scratchy eyes and throat, a little cough. The news is full of people crying, evacuated from homes. Our firefighting force is stretched thin, fighting huge fires all across the state, many of whom having just come back from volunteering in California’s fires. The Oregon Coast, where you might think you could go to escape the fires, is on fire. It’s just wildfires in every direction, along with dangerous heat and high wind.

Monday, the day this started, I spent two hours outside, gardening, reading. Air quality was fine. When it got to be almost dark, Glenn and I looked at a black and red cloud on the horizon, and knew the smoke was coming for us. This picture was the sunrise on Tuesday, when it came up and the sky was red.

Smoke Map, early Tuesday, West Coast

I have read many of my friends all along the West Coast being evacuated, and we are preparing a bag just in case, ourselves. The smoke, for now, is enough of a hazard – and they’re saying our hazardous air conditions will not go away until next Monday. That’s a full week of me not being able to go outside at all due to my asthma and lung scarring. Still, it’s much worse for the firefighters, who are working in the worst possible circumstances.

Also, WA State emergency systems has the nerve to suggest we use “N95” masks if you go outside. Where are we supposed to get those, since you outlawed us buying them for the last six months? Are we supposed to knock over a hospital? Come out, please give us actual advice we can use, people!

So, think good thoughts for your friends along the West Coast, the firefighters here in terrible conditions, and I guess hoping to find some N95 masks…

I wrote an apocalypse book and published it in 2016. (Which Amazon is having trouble delivering right now, so if you want a copy, click on “signed copy” and I’ll send one to you!) Turns out I was just a couple of years early..

Adventures During a Plague Year: A Full Corn Moon, First Trip to a Store (with Miyazaki), and First Visit with Family (and Unicorn)

Full Corn Moon, with Woodinville Trees

Adventures During a Plague Year: Full Corn Moon

This week, as I continue to feel better, was full of firsts “since February.” If you know me, you know I have an immune deficiency and I’ve basically been isolating since February. This week took me outside of my house, and empty outdoor areas, to a visit a gardening store (mostly outdoor, and practically empty, with all employees wearing masks correctly and social distancing) and a visit with my little brother and his wife in our front yard (also with masks and social distancing). These things felt so odd and awkward, and exhilarating. A little piece of normalcy returning in a town where we are still mostly not normal, not yet. Stores close early; salons and restaurants only hold a certain capacity; school, at least in my county, is all virtual for now.

The moon the last few nights has risen orange and spooky, veiled by cloud, still bright enough to make quite an entrance. Full moons can seem to presage some kind of change. I’m hoping these changes will be for the better. I don’t know about you, but like the moon, I’ve felt veiled with a heavy layer of foreboding and depression. The news is full of horrors, including wildfires in Washington and California; I’m worried about the election, too. It’s hard to see the light.

Me Feeling Better, Looking forward to Fall

Firsts Since February – a Trip to a Store, and a Visit with Family

Our local gardening store, Molbaks, which is largely outdoors (but also has an indoor component) seemed like a good first experiment for a foray into the so-called “outside world.” The last time I’d been there in February they had very little stock in, so I couldn’t build the garden I wanted this year. I picked up some herbs I’d been missing, some mums and pansies to give the garden some color after our sunflowers and dahlias finally fade, and a Halloween mask (in case we are able to celebrate Halloween? At least virtually?) It felt a little bit like a zombie video game, zig-zagging to avoid the store sparsely dotted with employees and shoppers, with signs posting “stay six feet apart from other shoppers” between the seasonal displays. Everyone was required to wear masks, which made me feel a little safer. To make me feel a little more invincible, I wore some Miyazaki-related clothing – a Totoro-themed sundress, Totoro shirt, and Totoro mask (Glenn has a Catbus one.) I wonder how much Totoro is too much? Here I am posing at home (pre-mask) and at Molbaks (with mask). Here are orange dahlias, growing outside the shop. Don’t they make you feel fall-ish?

Today we had my little brother Mike and his wife Loree over for a little rosé and skewers (all finger food, for safety, and plastic champagne glasses) and we introduced the inflatable unicorn rainbow sprinkler again. It was great to see their faces (and my little brother’s pandemic beard) but it was sad not to be able to hug them. We sat about twenty feet apart for most of the visit, to be safe. Is this “the new normal?” It seems so strange. Masks, hand sanitizer, outdoor furniture arranged just so – not things we’re used to yet – well, this was our first socializing in a long time! But the visit was definitely a bright spot in our long weekend. I took the most pictures, so I didn’t appear in that many of them, but I have fun taking pictures (masked and from a distance, of course), so it’s all good. It was a perfect day, not too hot, and so great to catch up. But the smoke from the fires is starting to creep into our area – by the evening, you could almost see it hanging in the air. Check out the moon tonight compared to the picture at the top, from three days ago.

Pileated Woodpecker Perched a Planter

I have to admit these modest adventures – which felt risky to me, but rewarding – did lift my spirits. The week ahead promises to bring record-breaking heat (in the nineties) and more smoke, so I’ll probably be acting more Emily Dickinson-y than daredevil-y for the rest of the week, a good time to write and send out work, and spend time with my cats and my birds instead of humans. Here’s one of my regular visitors – a pileated woodpecker. This week I saw a V of snow geese migrating overhead, always a beautiful sight (if a bit cacophonous). The hummingbirds were persistently hanging around us this afternoon, fluttering in front of us and zipping from flower to tree branch. It was like they wanted to socialize too!

I hope you all stay safe and find some joy in your week. I’m going to sleep after watching a little bit of the Last Unicorn on cable, which seemed appropriate viewing.

Winner of the PR for Poets Giveaway, The Light in August with Otters and Unicorns, and Looking Forward to Fall (and Working While Ill)

Sylvia posing with PR for Poets

Winner of the PR for Poets Giveaway!

Congratulations to Jan Priddy, who won last week’s giveaway of my book, PR for Poets! I’ll be sending it out really soon. Thanks to everyone who entered!

I’ll wait to do another giveaway til the first week of September, when it will be Field Guide to the End of the World.

A bouquet of dahlias from my garden

The Light in August

Both metaphorical and spiritual. As September approaches, the days here get shorter, but the light between 6 and 7 PM is so beautiful and golden. As I continue healing, I find my spirit lightening as well. My husband made a concerted effort to try to cheer me up this week – as you’ll see in pictures, this included a visit to Lake Washington where we got an up-close visit with otters, and an inflatable unicorn sprinkler. It may seem silly, but sometimes in the darkest days we need to make an effort to embrace the light.

For me, being out in nature, flowers, wild animals and even inflatable unicorn rainbow sprinklers can be part of healing the inside as well as the outside. After all, life can’t be all doctor visits and medication schedules. You have to remind yourself of why you bother fighting by doing things that remind you of the joy of living, the beauty of the world. (The ugliness of the world is easy to see – but the beauty often takes a little more searching.)

Sunflowers in late August light

Looking Forward to Fall – and Working While Ill

As we turn towards September, it feels like my energy for writing (and sending out work) is increasing. I’m feeling more hopeful about my manuscripts too, which I worked very hard on editing during the summer, along with writing new poems. Do you find the fall is linked in your mind to increased productivity and happiness, even with the pandemic? Summer is definitely not my season – I’m allergic to the sun, and MS makes you sensitive to heat – and anyway my personality definitely tends towards the “wrapped in a sweater, reading by the fire with a cup of tea” rather than “beach bunny” type.

I know some of my friends who are parents are struggling with having kids at home while working full time, and friends who are teachers and professors being forced to be in the classroom, which brings risk and more stress than usual. How are you adjusting to the coming fall?

Pileated Woodpecker takes flight

I thought I’d write a little bit about working while ill. Chadwick Boseman’s death – may he rest in peace, such a talented, beautiful actor –  came as a surprise to many, even though he had been fighting colon cancer for four years – almost all the time playing starring roles in major movies. Chadwick was the same age as my little brother – way too young – and by all accounts was a sweet, kind, upbeat guy – as well as a terrific actor who didn’t get enough time to showcase all of his talents. It seems unfair. I saw a lot of people raising the issue that he didn’t make his cancer struggle public – though he often engaged with children with cancer in charitable ways. But working in Hollywood while ill is a fraught issue – studios might not want to cast you, insurance companies might not be willing to insure you while filming and getting health insurance means you have to keep working. (Actresses like Selma Blair have discussed this in terms of going public with MS, as well.) I think also there’s a psychological aspect. If you admit you are fighting cancer, it becomes more real to you, and people will keep bringing it up in interviews or even strangers on the street will probably address you about it. Maybe he wanted to focus on the positive, and not be constantly reminded of his cancer. I can understand why he kept it private, for professional and personal reasons. His work, his radiant spirit, will live on his movies, not just the iconic Black Panther’s King T’Challa but also icons like Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall and James Brown. (He also was pretty great on his stint as a host on SNL.)  Director Nora Ephron also kept her cancer a secret even from her family almost right up until her death, even while working on her last film, Julie and Julia, probably for similar reasons.

I hope people will respect these kinds of decisions, among ill and disabled people in regular life as well as Hollywood – because even though I talk here about working while disabled and chronically ill, I’m not a celebrity and my work as a freelance writer really isn’t impacted that much by whether I am sick or not. Also, I’m the kind of person who feels better venting, and when I was dealing with my own disease journey (including being diagnosed with terminal cancer a few years ago, gearing up for chemo, getting multiple oncologists’s appointments, getting radiated) – I felt okay reaching out to friends and family for support, even though some of them weren’t all that supportive (some people feel cancer is maybe contagious, or maybe talking to you might remind them of their own mortality – and while those friends’ and family’s reactions were disappointing to me, they weren’t the end of the world). That’s the way I deal with most of my problems, but other people’s decisions on how to deal with theirs are equally valid, and I hope you will try not to judge them if they don’t disclose their health struggles with you. I hope for a future where being disabled or ill would not result in discrimination at work or in personal relationships, but that future, sadly, is not here yet.

Roses in August light

That was a somewhat somber way to end a blog post about embracing the light and otter encounters. Doesn’t it seem like every bit of light these days has a little shadow cast over it – whether by the pandemic, politics, or personal losses? We do not get to choose to live without loss, stress, difficulty. But I hope we can look to Chadwick – who reached out to others to improve their lives while confronting his own mortality at such a young age – as not just a positive icon in his role as Black Panther, but a person who embraced the little joys of life, and cared deeply about others, to inspire us to help bring joy to others, and to appreciate the little joys along the way, despite our struggles. Also, this is a reminder that if someone you know seems tired, loses or gains weight, or even if they seem completely fine, they may be dealing with something hard that they have chosen not to make public. It is a reminder to be kind, to cut people some extra slack, because we never know someone else’s true story.

Onward, towards September! Remember that one of Boseman’s last tweets of a picture of him hugging Kamala Harris, and urging us to vote this fall. Write. Vote. Plant a tree, or a bunch of trees. Leave flowers for a friend. Try to change the world, a little bit at a time, to be a little bit better.

Waiting for Fall to Arrive, Deer and Dahlias, a Week of Recovery and Reading, and a Giveaway

Me posing post-hospital with dahlias

Waiting for Fall to Arrive

So, thank you for all your kind messages, notes, and even a few gifts this week as I recovered from my hospital trips last week. I took some selfies to prove I was indeed alive and if not totally well, at least on a path to recovery. And I wanted to show off some of my garden dahlias – they are so spectacular in August, as everything else in the garden is starting to die down.

We’ve had rain, thunderstorms, and went from 95 degrees back to the seventies. It is starting to feel a little like fall is arriving soon. I always do better in the autumn than the summer. Of course, there is a lot of stress for the parents of children off to school or college – or the kids themselves – anxiety over what will happen with coronavirus and a ton of bodies together again.

There is anxiety over the election (yes, I watched the DNC, and if you want my recommendations, watch Michelle Obama’s speech, Kamala Harris’, Elizabeth Warren address healthcare, and Joe Biden make the speech of his career (and correctly quote poetry!)

There is wildfire all up and down the West coast, and hurricanes coming in the coast. It does seem like we’ve brought on a bunch of curses all at once. Oh, and they released genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida. I’m sure nothing will go wrong, especially once they’ve sucked the blood of some meth gators. (Just kidding, Florida.) In general, it’s an anxiety-producing world. It’s an apocalypse movie that goes too long.

Glenn and I with dahlias, post-hospital

Deer and Dahlias

Meanwhile, this week brought me a lot of late-August beauty, birds, deer with fawns, the dahlias bursting into fantastic bloom, the last of the late roses. I even have a bouquet of late lavender by the bed. I’ve been slowly getting my mental energy back, and yesterday I had enough write a poem and send my book manuscripts to some new places (for me.) I’m really hoping to have a book taken soon so I can direct my energy in a positive way as the fall comes, and opportunities to be outside dwindle. It’s good to have something to worry about besides coronavirus death rates, the post office being threatened by our evil would-be dictator, my own struggle to overcome threats to my own body, my family back in Ohio, etc, etc.

I hope you’ll enjoy this gallery of photos from my home for the week: dahlias, roses, black-tailed doe and fawn, Steller’s jay, goldfinch with phlox.

Sylvia posing with Anna Maria Hong’s Fablesque

Reading and Recovery

One of the kind gifts sent to me this week was Anna Maria Hong’s new book from Tupelo Press, Fablesque. If you enjoy fairy-tale-twisted poetry, mythology, experimental poetry, prose poetry, and harrowing tales of fathers escaping North Korea, this book is for you. I very much enjoyed it, and as you can see, Sylvia cuddled up to it right away.

I tried a bit of This is How You Lose the Time War, a sci-fi novel my little brother recommended, and finished Joan Didion’s White Album, thinking about starting the Year of Magical Thinking next. I’ve also been continuing my re-read of AS Byatt’s Possession, particularly as I go to sleep. In the heat, in my fatigue, reading is a way to make my mind and body work together, pass the time while I heal, while I hide out. Not so different, really, than my reasons for reading as a young kid.

PR for Poets

A Giveaway – PR for Poets

And speaking of reading as healing and escape, I’m going to do a series of giveaways on the blog, starting with my latest book, PR for Poets. If you have a book that’s just come out or have a book that’s about to come out, and you’re stressed about how the heck you’re going to sell books in today’s, erm, climate, this book might just be helpful.

So, I’m giving away one copy of PR for Poets to someone in the US who needs it! Just leave a comment on this blog post, with your e-mail so I can contact you if you win. If you want, you can also leave the name of your new book or upcoming book, so more people can see it! I’ll pick someone next Saturday with a random number generator, and then I’ll start a giveaway for Field Guide to the End of the World.