Interviews, reviews, the next manuscript, and holiday thankfulness

First, some poetry miscellany:

For a long time I have harbored an affection for the magazine Fourteen Hills. It has the best readings, and the editors are always lovely. Here, the poetry editor Sandra Wassilie interviews me about She Returns to the Floating World:
http://14hills.net/node/376

One of my final book reviews of the year is up at Rattle, this one of Brian Spears’ A Witness in Exile:
http://rattle.com/blog/2011/12/a-witness-in-exile-by-brian-spears/

Yesterday was spent at the doctor’s office, getting chest x-rays, blood tests, etc. They were checking for the dreaded pneumonia, what with all our “ice fog” and “Air advisories” and “ten degrees below normal” weather out here in the Northwest, well, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise. But, yay, no pneumonia! Just pleurisy, which is painful and requires more rest than I’d like, but nothing inconvenient like getting stuck in the hospital (as long as I don’t overdo it.)

The good news is that though I am forced to appreciate the holiday season from afar – no malls, no outdoor hikes to cut down a tree, etc – it has helped me get some work done, on Eye to the Telescope’s third issue, for example – oh, I hate sending rejections – and doing some serious revision and organization work on my fairy-tale themed third MS. You know how you have a book manuscript you think is finished and then you’re all, wait, am I sure that’s how it should be organized, and maybe it should have another section, and what about this poem that I’m pretty sure belongs in the book, etc…I’m also contemplating an essay on approaching illness and the medical system called “How to be your own superheroine.” I read Rae Armantrout’s recent essay series on her discovery that she had a rare cancer and I thought “I wish I could write like that.” She is a stone cold brave lady in the face of danger, that’s for sure.