Yes, while everyone else is talking about where they’ll be at AWP, I’m putting the finishing touches on my presentation “From Buffy to Xena: Female Comic Book Superheroes in Women’s Poetry” for Sunday at WonderCon in San Francisco. (Sunday, 12:30-1:30, in the Moscone Center, room 204/206, in case you’re wondering!) It’s not traditionally a poetry venue, perhaps, but I’m hoping it will be fun and some people in the audience will find out that poetry can be, well, something different than love songs and nature odes. Right? And I’ll be wearing my Wonder Woman costume. Just kidding. April Fools!
Anyway, I hope you poets at AWP keep us all up on the gossip going on it the poetry world on your blogs – and I’ll be sure to post if I accidentally run into Kevin Smith or something.
In other news, The Beastly Bride is available today from Amazon and other fine booksellers. This is the anthology that Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling edited on tales of transforming women – one of my favorite subjects – and it happens to have three poems of mine on the old French fairy tale, The White Doe, in it – three poems you can’t find anywhere else! It’s a great gift for any daughters, sisters, or friends who are even remotely interested in mermaids, selkies, or women who change into any manner of trees or animals. It’s mostly fiction, not poetry, and did I mention it’s a really fun collection?
Very excited to have a poem in the “Dossier” section – on the 1970s – of the newest issue 7 of Court Green, a magazine that, like MARGIE, I feel proud to be a part of. The poem right before mine is by Adrian Blevins, “The Hospitality” (I love her work!) and selfishly, I couldn’t ask for a better poem to sets up my poem, “Knoxville 1978: The Girls Next Door.” You can tell a lot of thought went into the order, and a lot of the poets are kind of the famous/hipster variety (except me, of course 🙂
Health stuff is boring to blog about, I know, but I’ve spent – and will be spending – a lot of time this week commuting a couple of hours at a time to specialists at the big-city teaching hospital, because my immune system seems to be acting up and attacking my GI tract and liver. Good times. I’ve never had a liver problem before, it’s one of the organs that has been trouble-free, so I’m disappointed to see it causing problems, especially since I’ve never drunk alcohol (I’m intolerant, genetically – yes, you’ve finally found a poet who doesn’t drink!) and avoid even minor liver-hurters like Tylenol. On the sunny side, at least I’m losing weight! Anyway, think good thoughts for me, I have to face some major blood tests and I’m sooo tired of the needles. I try not to spend too much energy worrying, you know, positive energy and such, but the fact is, it all takes it’s toll – the poking and prodding, the questions, the medical records, scan and test.
My big nervousness, though, is that I have to give this presentation next week on Poetry and Superheroes next week (Sunday at noon on April 4th at WonderCon) and I’m still a bit wobbly on my legs (the torn ligament et al are healing up, but I still have trouble with stairs and balance) So wish me luck on that too! And come if you can. WonderCon should be a blast if you’re even the least bit geeky. And wish me some people to show up to the talk and maybe even buy some books (to offset those awful San Fran parking and hotel room costs…)
I know AWP is the place for poets to be in April, but it turns out the universe has other plans for me: my presentation was accepted for WonderCon 2010, which is a few days earlier in April and much closer to home, in San Francisco. The presentation will be on something like this, I think: “From Buffy to the X-Men: Female Comic Book Superheroes in Women’s Poetry.”
I have to admit to being pretty excited. There are supposed to be something like 34,000 attendees. Gail Simone, one of my favorite female comic book writers, will be there, as will Peter S. Beagle, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Seattle a couple of years ago. (One of my early literary heroes, as he penned one of my favorite childhood books, The Last Unicorn.) Plus, some tv and movie stars and comic book royalty and such. Squee!
I’m beginning to feel better after a two-week mystery virus had me bedridden with chills and on a fluid-only diet, and I started at a newer, fancier physical therapy place for my tendon problems/sprained ankles that have had me in a wheelchair since Christmas Eve. It’s very shiny and has a recumbent stair-climber that I think I would like to have in my house, even after my ankle problems have cleared up.
Aside from that, I’m trying to fix up my taxes, apply for the NEA grant though I have a discouraging feeling about it, and send out poems/book manuscripts, which I also have a generally discouraged feeling about. I don’t know if the discouraged feelings have anything to do with reality, it’s just something that happens and I don’t want to send anything out, though I never ever stop writing. Discouragement keeps me from submitting but not from writing, isn’t that odd? Anyway, as a segueway, let me introduce you to this lovely post about rejection from Kelli:
http://ofkells.blogspot.com/2010/01/notes-from-beneath-covers-why.html
that will remind you that rejection is really not all about you, which is pretty comforting, actually.
Also, check her blog for a recent call for submissions for Ekphrastic poetry for Crab Creek Review.
