Published Book Prizes, Grant Writing Tips, and more helpful links
Happy birthday to my little brother, born in the dragon year of 1976, so it’s doubly lucky for him! (I’m pretty sure that solar storm yesterday was just the dragon acting up!)
If you’ve been reading my blog you know I’ve been wrestling with grant applications; here’s Susan Rich’s terrifically helpful tips for applying to grants:
http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com/2012/01/grant-proposals-some-random-thoughts.html?showComment=1327471180104#c5106411319332706938
I’m finally done; now all I have to do is bite my nails while waiting for results!
And, in case you, like me, just had a book come out last year, Jessica Goodfellow supplies a great list of post-publication prizes here (some of which I had never heard of:)
http://jessicagoodfellow.blogspot.com/2011/04/post-publication-book-contests.html
I’m not going to go to this year’s AWP, so I’m relying on you guys to report back with all the news, gossip, how awesome Margaret Atwood’s keynote might be, etc. Sorry to miss you! Can’t wait til AWP is in my backyard…
Having a harder time locating a house here that I was hoping; I guess one-story homes on the East side of Seattle are sort of rare, and it seems no one wants to sell their houses now that prices are so low, so there’s very little inventory of any sort. Because we’re going FHA, we have to avoid most condos, so that eliminates those possibilities. Tough stuff!
I found out from my publisher that I’ve sold about eleven times as many paper copies of She Returns to the Floating World as e-book copies. So I’m providing a link here and reminding you this great-looking (if I do say so myself – but seriously, Kitsune Books did a great job of formatting the poems) e-book is only $3.50, people! If you haven’t picked up a copy of my book yet, or you were wavering, this is your chance – go go go!
Cabin Fever
Yes, I haven’t left my apartment in three days due to Seattle’s Snowpocalypse 2012. I also had a light fixture shatter on top of my head and a giant computer crash that ate four days of writing work. Then it snowed again, then it iced up. I watched three different pickup trucks today try to drag a car out of a ditch beside a stop sign outside my apartment, and then only succeed in banging the car hard sideways against the stop sign, with the driver inside. Ouch. This was not, as you may understand, much encouragement for me to try to send myself out into the world. Did I mention a foot of snow with a layer of ice outside?
So, I also started working on two grant applications, which is probably the least life-affirming thing an artist can do with themselves. I have a stack of magazines, library books, bad television on the DVR, gluten-free blueberry muffins…but what I wish I was doing with all this spare time trapped in my apartment was writing up a storm. Creative energy has been lost in a net of trying to describe my last three years of writing projects in an intelligent and cogent way and learning about the difference between escrow and earnest money and corian versus concrete countertops. See why I haven’t been blogging?
Has January given you cabin fever yet? Any recommended cures? Tomorrow I’m hoping to actually leave the apartment complex, for real. I’ve got chains on my car tires and everything, so no matter what the weather throws at me, I’ll be ready. The fresh air will knock my brains back in order. And I got a look at Matthea Harvey’s fantastic new Lamb, which I promise to review here soon!
