Finding Holiday Cheer, a Few Thoughts on Poetry and Publicity, and a Few End of the Year Book Suggestions

Glenn and I with Bellevue Botanical Garden lights (pic by Michaela Eaves)

Finding Holiday Cheer When the World Seems Cheerless

I have, like a lot of people, have been having a hard time finding Christmas spirit – or any kind of holiday cheer – when you’re separated from your family, when the news is one bit of bad news after another – Omicron is more contagious, ignores our vaccines and some of our treatments, it’s spreading rapidly, and so many people have covid fatigue that it’s probably going to roll through the country during the holiday.

But it’s important, even for people like me who are immune compromised, to find a way to cling to things that bring us joy, in the safest way possible.

For me this week, it meant getting together with my artist friend Michaela Eaves and going to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see the impressive lights, which were cancelled last year. And yes, seeing all the beautiful displays and being outdoors and walking around catching up with a friend really did cheer me up. (We had a brief break in the monotonous rain for about an hour before it started raining on us again, thankfully.)

Me and Michaela, with holiday lights, Bellevue Botanical Gardens

So if you can catch up and do something celebratory outside, with loved ones and friends, I say, do it. I know I’ve spent way too much time over the past two years 1. cooped up in my house and 2. seeing almost no one to ward off any seasonal blues, and despite Omicron, I have optimism in new treatments for people like me (like the upcoming Pfizer antiviral, among others) and more available testing, despite all we don’t know yet about the new variant. Be aware that I have lots of vaccinated friends and family – vaccinated AND boosted – who are still getting covid. Most of them have mild cases, but a few have been hospitalized. People are losing parents, again this year, to covid. So it’s not wise to totally blow it off, throw away your masks, and host a ton of large indoor gatherings. Visit safely by testing right before visits with instant tests, meet somewhere with good circulation (if it’s your house, open windows and run air purifiers), or even put out an outdoor heater and bundle up to celebrate outdoors. I am being cautious – having groceries delivered again, for instance, putting off in-person medical appointments – but I may try to brave the Woodland Park Zoo before the end of the year!

Peacock display at the Bellevue Botanical Garden Lights

A Few Thoughts on Poetry and Publicity

So there was a lot of talk this week on social media about poets and publicity. There was a Twitter thread that basically said that some poets that were well-known and well-respected were those things because they had paid $25,000 to publicists to achieve that. (And also that some people buy their own books on bulk on Amazon to get their numbers up for some reason?)

I think the bulk of the negative reactions were 1) a purity test for poets that we don’t hold fiction and non-fiction writers to (they often hire publicists with no static) and 2) a class envy response – who has $25,000 to spend on promoting a poetry book? Most of us do not. My first thought was “$25,000 is a car!” I didn’t grow up wealthy, and don’t consider myself someone who could easily justify coming up with that kind of money to promote my books. Heck, I have trouble spending $150 on an online ad for my book!

But, having interviewed a few publicists for my book PR for Poets, and having researched book publicity, there’s really no reason a poet can’t hire a $25,000 publicist – although most publicists don’t work with poets, don’t know poetry’s markets or reviewers, or just don’t see enough money in it to do it.

Fire breathing dragon light display, Bellevue Botanical Gardens

Am I pretty excited to have a publisher for my seventh book who has an in-house marketing and PR person at last? Absolutely. I’m used to doing everything myself, with varying results for varying amounts of time, energy, money, and hustle. I think that’s the experience of most poets – getting together their own mailing lists, asking bookstores for readings, maybe even sending out their own review copies. The prospect of marketing a book during a pandemic – which is something a lot of my friends have already had to do – is daunting indeed. There are already whispers of cancellations of people and publishers who had been planning to go to AWP 2022. I already took a class on Instagram to get that account going before my two new books come out. I do take this stuff seriously.

I am hoping AWP 2023 – which is, yay, supposed to take place in Seattle – will be safe. I really enjoy seeing my old friends – and I’d love to meet my two most recent publishers in person – the editors at Alternating Current and BOA Editions. And do a reading or two, take friends out to see parks, bookstores, and coffee shops.

So, when I wrote my book, PR for Poets, I said for most poets, spending more than $5,000 – the going rate for a publicist for one month – on promoting their poetry book probably doesn’t make sense. Most royalty rates and poetry sales will rarely net more than $1,000. (It’s happened for me on a couple books, but certainly not all.) But if someone has the money lying around, and they really want to advance their poetry careers – big fellowships, tenure track jobs, visibility that makes them more likely to get well-paid speaking and teaching gigs – I mean, who am I to say they shouldn’t?

Poinsettia Tree made of lights

A Few Book Recommendations for the End of the Year

I did slightly less reading this year than last, but some books had a real impact on me and I feel I can recommend them strongly – as gifts, and just for anyone looking towards a quieter next couple of months of reading. These recommendations do not include poetry (for now):

Fiction and Non-Fiction:

The Equivalents by Maggie Doherty – Tremendously inspiring account of women artists in the sixties.

Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland – An art-world thriller that is also a remake of the classic Rebecca.

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott – A film-noir flavored book about the life of an author, the stresses of race and skin color in the US, and maybe also a ghost story? The National Book Award winner.

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda – Speaking of ghost stories, this is a feminist, comic collection of takes on Japanese traditional ghost tales.

Red Comet – Heather Clark – A must for any Sylvia Plath fan – it will keep them occupied for a couple of months.