Poem on Fukushima on KUOW, Squeezing in Real Life, and More Book Stuff

Sunflowers for FukushimaIf you listen to “The Record” on KUOW today at noon, from 12:25 PM to 1 PM, you may hear me read a poem commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, about the sunflowers that were planted to uptake cesium from radioactively contaminated soil. If it’s any good, all the credit goes to Elizabeth Austen, who recorded and edited our segment on Fukushima and Oso.

And the podcast will be available later on in the afternoon (think 5 PM Pacific time and afterwards) at this link:

http://kuow.org/post/sunflowers-fukushima-foxglove-oso

This has been a crazy busy week, plus I was kind of knocked out by the time change (fell asleep accidentally around dinner time two days in a row) but I had to take a second to photograph some of the early cherry blossom frenzy here and to walk through a farm and pet a miniature horse who put out her little nose for me to scratch (hoping for apples?) and watch some baby goats jumping and frisking around a couple of rocks at our local farm/park. (Farrel-McWhirter Park in Redmond—I highly recommend it for both animal lovers and people with kids.) Do you ever get the feeling you’re trying to squeeze in moments of “real life” in between work, doctor’s appointments, physical therapy, errands, etc? Yeah, me neither 😉

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Let’s see, I’m doing my first reading for the new book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, this Sunday at Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island (3 PM with Carol Levin) and I’m looking forward to it—it’s a lovely bookstore and I love seeing my island-living friends out there—but I’m also strangely nervous. It’s a tough book to pick poems from, for some reason, and because the poems are a little more personal, harder to read out loud.

I wish I could tell you I was being some kind of PR wizard with the book but honestly I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I ambitiously set out to do. Maybe that is a thing for all poets—most of us have so much else going on, including our writing (!!), that we barely have time to do any promotion for those books we worked so hard to write, send out for publication, and then, after years of suffering, patience, and hard work, have published! And you sort of wish people knew about your book without you having to tell them about it, right? (This is why famous writers have PR people! It saves so much psychic draining.) That’s also why every author is so grateful when someone reviews their book on Goodreads or tweets about it or mentions it on their blog at all because it means “Hey, someone besides me cares about the book!”

I hope it’s all right to document the trials and tribulations of the book’s launch here, and I hope it’s helpful to someone. And thank you to everyone who has mentioned my little book, even if it’s just to your mom or your friend.

New blog review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter by Lesley Wheeler and Sundress Publications Best Dressed!

Lesley Wheeler writes a bit about my newest book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, as well as its journey to publication, and the concept of poetic difficulty, at her blog here.

Thank you to Sundress Publications for choosing a poem from my third book, Unexplained Fevers, for this week’s “Best Dressed Feature” “I Like the Quiet: Snow White”.

Yesterday we spent a beautiful afternoon over at my little brother and his wife’s rented house (where they kindly allowed us to do laundry, since our washing machine remains broken) and we took a gorgeous walk at downtown Seattle’s Seward Park, which was lovely. This was the view of Mt. Rainier from the lake there:

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It’s easy to love Seattle in the sunshine, with the mountain out, and all the water shining and blue. Hyacinths, cherry blossoms, daffodils, and I even spied some early magnolia trees blossoming downtown. Seattle’s usually a moody, grey, difficult-to-love city in March, so this is quite extraordinary. I also spied two bald eagles this week.

We’ve been house-hunting as well, and I’ve observed even a lousy neighborhood can appear beautiful with shafts of sunlight hitting the puffy white and pink cherry tree branches. I’m a bit behind of all my writing obligations, but in my defense, it’s hard to concentrate with all this getting ready to buy and sell a house/appliance breakdowns/allergy testing/sunshine going on. It’s supposed to be 63 outside today…

Recording Poems for the Radio and the first week of the book launch

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go into our local radio station, KUOW, and record a couple of poems from The Robot Scientist’s Daughter for a segment that will air the KUOW show “The Record” at noon on March 11, the fourth anniversary of the disaster at Fukushima. The two poems I read were on Fukushima, including this one “A Morning of Sunflowers (for Fukushima)” I worked with the gracious current Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen, who keeps poetry in the public eye by keeping it on the radio. I sat in “the green room” for a little bit with a professional athlete which was pretty exciting. They had a robot in the green room, too, which I took as a good sign.
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Now, right before that, our brand-new (well, two-year old, so just over warranty) washing machine decided to crack one of its components and cease to work, so we were frantically gathering up laundry and such, right before we went downtown. This is the way life is: you get all excited to go record some poetry, then your large appliances turn against you. Hello to the laundromat once again, since they couldn’t get a repairman out til the middle of next week!

So, it’s the end of the first week of the book launch. I mailed out the last of the book postcards yesterday. This year I sent out about a hundred more than I did for the last book. I also sent out a book announcement e-mail and the best thing about that (besides selling books) was that it allowed old friends I hadn’t been in touch with to get back in touch, which is always a warm and fuzzy feeling. I’ve been very lucky in that I had three (!!) “official” book reviews in the first week the book came out, which is the first time that’s happened for one of my books, I think. (Here they are – reviews of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter at The Rumpus, at Poetry International, and at Escape Into Life.) I am very thankful to both the reviewers and the review outlets for this! Because I was telling a friend, I think I waited about six months for official reviews with the last three books.

So all in all, though it was a low-key book launch week (my readings for the book start on March 15 ) it was exciting, if not totally free from stress (the allergy testing’s 50 needle pokes left me bruised, sore, and tired for two days, and the washing machine breakdown thing made me think “Oh my God, I do NOT have enough towels for this to happen” and “Do I know how to hand-wash clothes in the bathtub?”) and I am very grateful to everyone who bought a book (thank you!!!) and everyone who queried about getting a review e-galley (thank you too!) Thank you to folks who’ve left reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. I am so happy some people are liking my little book!

Review of Robot Scientist’s Daughter up at Escape Into Life and Mythic Delirium featured poet, Plus Being a Human Pincushion

Thanks to Kathleen Kirk and Escape Into Life for this new review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, up today here: http://www.escapeintolife.com/blog/the-robot-scientists-daughter/

Thanks also to Mythic Delirium, as one of my poems, “Introduction to Your Own Personal Genome Project,” http://mythicdelirium.com/?page_id=2832, shows up as their March featured content: http://mythicdelirium.com/?p=3275

I needed this good news this morning. Yesterday I practiced being a human pincushion for science as my allergist’s ungentle nurse pushed a total of 48 needles progressively deeper into each quadrant of both arms, resulting in bruising, swelling, and difficulty typing or lifting things this morning (Note: Bleeding disorders, autoimmune problems, and needles do not go together well.) On the plus side, spending a couple of hours that way gave me a chance to read someone’s poetry MS AND watch the X-Files Season 5 episode, “Bad Blood,” about vampires (I was bleeding a lot yesterday, all up and down my arm, so I thought it was appropriate) and that episode made me remember all that was good about the X-Files. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, even if you’re not an X-Files fan, you should rent it right now. Luke Wilson does an amazing cameo as a southern sheriff. (Dear Amazon Kindle Fire – this was not the first time I’ve watched distracting videos in an unpleasant medical setting thanks to you!) On the upside, they gave me my own room this time instead of making me wait out the two hours of tests in the public waiting room next to screaming children. And now I can go back on my allergy medicine, thankfully.

Today outside is sunshine and blue skies, our pink hyacinths have started to bloom, and Friday I go in to record some poems from the new book for the radio! The time change comes this weekend, which affords us Washingtonians a bit more time to take a walk after work and enjoy this nice weather! I have heard that the rest of the country is due to be blanketed by more snow – including relatives in Cincinnati, Tennessee, and even Georgia – so pull up a cup of hot chocolate, read a good book, and watch a classic episode of X-Files.

 

The Robot Scientist’s Daughter Book Launch and another review at Poetry International

The Robot Scientist’s Daughter is now officially out, the book that critics are calling “her most haunting and masterful book yet!” (OK, it was Mary McMyne at The Rumpus, but I can’t stop quoting it!)
Get your copy now from me, from Mayapple Press, from SPD, from Amazon, or, if you’re local to Seattle, from Open Books! I’m excited and still feel like I haven’t done half the things I was supposed to, but happy that it’s out in the world! (PS If any of you would like to leave Amazon reviews, I’d be extremely grateful! And thanks to the folks who have already left Goodreads reviews!)

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Thanks for this, my second “official” review, up at Poetry International by Donna Vorreyer :
https://pionline.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/book-review-the-robot-scientists-daughter-by-jeannine-hall-gailey/

And, here’s an endorsement from my cat, Shakespeare, or as he is affectionately known, “Scrummy” (he looks relaxed, but he assures me he found the book riveting:)

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The Rumpus reviews The Robot Scientist’s Daughter and a Redmond reading with friends

I am so excited to announce my first “official” review for The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, up at The Rumpus, written by Mary McMyne:

http://therumpus.net/2015/02/the-robot-scientists-daughter-by-jeannine-hall-gailey/

It’s a really well-written review (can I admit it even brought tears to my eyes? it did!), so I am thankful to The Rumpus and to Mary for writing and publishing it! Here’s a little quote:

“She reminds the reader “that your atoms right now are smashing against/ the atoms of your chair. What is keeping you together?” In the end, these are the central concerns of Gailey’s newest collection, her most haunting and masterful book yet.”
(Did I mention you can buy a signed copy now of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter from me on my page by just clicking “Signed Copy?” It’s available now!)

I also want to do a quick writeup of a reading I went to last night by Kelli Agodon and Martha Silano at the RASP Old Schoolhouse. (See pic below of me hanging out with the girls after their reading…) I got there a little late, and was happy to see the place packed, and what was even more surprising to me, it was mostly people I knew. I felt more like a part of Redmond’s poetry community than I had even when I was Redmond’s Poet Laureate. Kelli and Martha did a great job with the reading, and it was fun catching up with a bunch of folks I hadn’t seen in a while.

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As one of those weird lucky things that happens after readings, we stopped by the library to drop off a book, and I was amazed by the beautiful sight of the cherry trees in bloom in the parking lot, lit up by streetlights. So I snapped a picture. It was pretty magical. Magic poetry readings are the best poetry readings.

Real Estate, Dentistry, and Book Launches: When Life Gets in the Way of Plans for Poets

Well, it’s been an eventful week. We bid on a house, rushing to get ours ready for sale, only to have the (very reasonable, I might add) bid rejected, so then we promptly stopped rushing to get the house ready. In the process of getting the house ready, once again I divested myself of things – shoes and jeans that never quite fit properly, books I hadn’t (and probably never would) read, back issues of cooking, travel, and literary magazines. It’s become quite a habit, moving and getting rid of things, then making a home in a new space. I’ve enjoyed my time out here but am ready to move a little closer to the city. The neurologist’s news that I probably won’t recover my ability to do stairs fully also kind of pushed us in the direction of getting rid of our two-story townhouse, however charming.

Yesterday I spent two hours at a downtown holistic dentist, who was perfectly willing to give me fillings without giving me general anesthesia, which I found quite comforting. (They told me about another patient allergic to Novocain, who brings a little flask of liquor with her for things like extractions.) They stuck mirrors in my mouth and took pictures of my teeth, took digital x-rays (more x-rays – so many this year – eek!) and tapped on all my teeth with sharp implements – but overall, I am very thankful to find someone who will work on someone with all my strangeness. They even gave me a little laser treatment for TMJ (which, this morning, did help the TMJ, but left purple welts on both cheeks – eep! Remind me never to have Fraxel!) Have you even heard of such a thing? Holistic and full of lasers – seems like a microcosm of Seattle.

And what does any of this have to do with poetry? Nothing much, just that, a few days before The Robot Scientist’s Daughter official launch, I’m still behind on getting the word out, getting postcards in the mail, writing e-mails to friends about upcoming readings. I should be writing poems, sending out work. (See Kelly Davio’s post here on “What I wish I knew about launching my first book…) AWP is approaching, which I’m going to miss this year, sadly. You know how I’ve probably said here on the blog before, you can do so much for your book, but you always feel like you’re not quite doing enough? That’s how I’m feeling now. I’ve got a few readings lined up (March 15 on Bainbridge Island, April 16 for Seattle), scheduled a blog tour (thanks to Serena – see previous post) and have a box of copies ready to go out into the world. I kind of wish that life would quiet down for each book’s launch, like, say, March 1st might be a holiday just for poetry launches!

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Serena Agusto-Cox Interview on Book Blogs and Blog Book Tours for Poets

I’m very excited today to feature an interview with Serena M. Agusto-Cox. I know Serena from her book blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, but she’s also just started a book blog tour service for small press authors! Don’t know what a book blog tour is? Read this!

Serena M. Agusto-Cox is a poet and amateur photographer who lives outside Washington, D.C. Her poems have appeared in Beginnings Magazine, LYNX, Muse Apprentice Guild, The Harrow, Poems Niederngasse, Avocet, and Pedestal Magazine. An essay of hers appears in Made Priceless by H.L. Hix, and she is interviewed in Everyday Book Marketing by Midge Raymond.  Her blog, SavvyVerse & Wit is a literary review blog and home to the Virtual Poetry Circle.  She also is the co-founder of the blog War Through the Generations and owner of Poetic Book Tours. Poetic Book Tours is an online virtual book tour marketing firm for small press authors of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

JHG: Serena, you’ve been running your book blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, for some years. Why do you do it? What is the most satisfying part of it?
Serena: I’ve been blogging about books, poetry, and writing since 2007. I started talking about individual poems I read in literary magazines because I felt like others should be reading poetry, too. I think that the genre is often overlooked or even avoided by readers because they have this perception that it is too hard to understand.Then I fell into a book blogging community and received some encouragement from one blogger, Dewey, who has since passed away. She encouraged me to take part in the community and share my thoughts on books, which I did. Since then, I’ve interacted with men and women throughout the world and shared thoughts on books and poems, and even connected with some who write their own fiction and poetry. That, to me, is the most satisfying part of book blogging – the connections.
JHG: You’re offering a service now to authors and publishers to help them put together a book blog tour. Can you tell us a little bit about that, and the benefits that a book blog tour can have?
Serena: I started Poetic Book Tours at the end of 2014, and my first book blog tours are rolling out this month. When someone wants to create an online book blog tour, we agree on a number of stops for the tour and a mix of reviews, guest posts, and interviews for that tour.Not only do these blog tours give writers more time to work on their writing projects because they are not traveling from bookstore to bookstore and state to state, but they also are able to connect with their readers in an environment that has fewer pressures and constraints on time. Readers and authors can communicate with one another on the blog. It also gives authors a chance to explain their work and inspirations, which many readers are eager to learn about.The costs of an online book tour are far less than traveling on a traditional book tour, and also provide an opportunity to connect with readers on a global scale through the blogs and their social media contacts.
JHG: How would you say an online book blog tour compares to a “real life in person” book tour in terms of sales, benefits, etc. (besides it being a lot less tiring for the author!)?
Serena: As I’ve just started my tour company, I can only tell you what I’ve learned from my own experience as a book blogger with an affiliate association to Amazon. When readers buy books through the Amazon links on my blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, I can see an immediate sale or even sales a few weeks down the road. These links help me see which books are being purchased because of my reviews, but even those who do not buy through Amazon will often comment that they ordered a book I reviewed through their local bookstore.While online book tours are less costly and time consuming for the author – definite benefits for authors who also have other full-time work – online tours allow them to reach a wider audience, and through tailored packages, they can reach target groups. For instance, poets can reach poetry readers – those who already read poetry – while at the same time, expose new readers to poetry.
JHG: As a reviewer yourself, what makes you interested in a certain book, or what raises the chances a book might be featured on your blog?
Serena: I have very eclectic tastes, and I love deadlines. I’m probably an anomaly in terms of liking deadlines. I want stories that have not only a unique plot and characters, but also tend to touch me on an emotional or intellectual level.Covers have to be engaging right from the start because honestly, covers that are very blah do not entice me to read the synopsis, which means the synopsis for those books has to be extremely compelling.Usually books that automatically get considered are those written by authors I’ve read before and loved, poetry, and fiction set during WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War. I also love books about different countries and cultures, and I’d love to see more about Portugal rather than Spain, for instance. I will read mysteries, but they have to be more than plot driven, unless I’m already invested in the characters from previous books. I am also big on reading translations.
JHG: Any advice for poets as they go about trying to get publicity for their new books?
Serena: I think poets have a harder time getting coverage, especially in the mainstream media. Beyond that, I think book blogs are a great place to find some decent coverage that will reach an audience interested in new poetry.My first recommendation is to ask poets where they have had coverage for their books in the past, and start with those places. Start looking around the Internet for book blogs, and check the archives of their reviews to see if they have ever featured poetry. If that seems like a little too much effort, they could always check out an online book blog tour company, like Poetic Book Tours.JHG: Thanks for the interview, Serena, and good luck with your new venture!

Robot Scientist’s Daughter on the Shelf, Cherry Blossoms, and other things to be thankful for

Yesterday I had to run some errands, and on the way I stopped by Open Books, my favorite all-poetry bookstore in Seattle. Though it is a few days before The Robot Scientist’s Daughter officially debuts, I was very happy to see my book on their shelf. It makes it feel official, like, I have a real book!

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It looks like early spring in Seattle, which is a few degrees warmer than where I live now. As we drove through the streets, I saw magnolia, forsythia, crabapple, and these pink cherry blossoms:

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One reason (besides the hunt for a dentist) I’ve been too busy to notice these things is because we’ve been getting our house ready to sell, which for us, means cleaning, packing, donating and consigning boxes of clothes, books, magazines, and other stuff, taking down shelves, repainting scratches or filling in holes from picture hooks. It also means looking at houses to buy, trying to decide what our price range really is and what neighborhoods we’d look in. The Seattle real estate market is a pricey one, and often, over the past fifteen years or so, has limited our options. We did find a small house we liked, and today we’re making an official offer! No guarantee it will be accepted, but it’s a step!

 

Poem from Robot Scientist’s Daughter up on Autumn Sky Poetry and Busy February

Thanks to Christine at Autumn Sky Poetry for featuring a poem from The Robot Scientist’s Daughter up today! (Click here to order your signed copy of the book if you haven’t already! The release date is a mere ten days away!)

So, besides getting ready for a book to launch – updating mailing lists, sending out postcards, updating Amazon and Goodreads author pages, arranging readings, setting up summer conference and residency teaching gigs – I’m still trying to find a dentist who is not afraid to work on my fillings (two hopeful new options – one holistic, the other a high-tech dental type, neither of whom can see me til March), trying to buy and sell a house (going from a two-story townhouse to a one-story regular house), and working at starting up a business of writing, editing, and (spoiler alert) PR for poetry book services with Kelly Davio. Oh, and I’m applying for low-residency teaching jobs and a couple of writer’s residencies, too. (Finding a writer’s residency to accommodate someone who needs a kitchen because of multiple food allergies and can’t do stairs/ladders? More difficult that you might think!)

My friend Kelli had an excellent post on the dangers of being over-busy, of figurative and metaphorical crashes. I think that often we writers, being freelance, struggle with saying no, with giving ourselves boundaries and not feeling like we have to do and be everywhere because we don’t have offices we check in and out of – we are basically on the clock all the time. This problem becomes compounded when things like health, family obligations, etc., start stacking up commitments we can’t get out of. I looked at my last two months and saw “too much” time being eaten up with stuff that doesn’t really matter to me and isn’t any fun, and “too little” time (I’m putting quotes because really, we’re the ones who decide what is too much and too little) doing the stuff that does matter – visiting with loved ones and friends, writing, sending out work, celebrating small joys. So no wonder I’ve felt cranky, uninspired, and isolated. That is the result of a life of complications and commitments, of digesting bad news and spending too much time doing things you have to do and not enough time doing things you want to do. Yes, we all have obligations we can’t get out of – but we have to try to prioritize doing things that give us happiness and comfort too.

So here’s to a better balancing act, starting now, in a year of commotion, change, celebrations and starting new adventures.

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall GaileyJeannine 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.

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