Tulips, Bookfairs, and Things to Boost Your Immune System/Confidence

Sometimes you have to purposefully do things to inject your life with joy, hope, and confidence.

: Me at Tulip Garden

: Red Tulips, Clouds

: Snow Geese in migration

: Glenn and I in pink tulips

: Bookfair with Powerhouse Writers, Editors and Publishers

Since last week was a meeting with the head of rheumatology/immunology at UW, and this week is the (much feared, long awaited) replacement of my scary root-touching temporary filling with a real filling by my new dentist (sans novocaine but with lasers this time), plus I received a record number of sometimes kind, sometimes blank and bland rejections, I thought to myself: this might be a good time to grab ahold of some joyful and confidence-building moments.

So I took myself on Sunday to The Richard Hugo House where they were having the APRIL Small Press Bookfair. It was wonderful to see and talk to so many people accomplishing things in our little community – people who have started their own presses and literary journals, like Kelly Davio, Kelli Russell Agodon, and Annette-Spaulding Convy in the picture at the Two Sylvias table above. I mean, you can complain and lament about the literary world, or you can do something positive, and it is such a confidence booster for me to be around women who choose to really go for it in the literary world. Did I mention Kelly Davio’s new venture, The Tahoma Literary Review, will be at AWP next week? And that Kelli and Annette’s Two Sylvias Press just got a mention in Oprah Magazine’s April issue? I mean, I feel so humbled and yet I feel like I can do more when I’m around them. And Seattle’s literary community is pretty great, full of genuinely sweet people I like to hang out with – it’s good to remind myself of that. I came home with new books, literary magazines, and other inspiring items.

On Monday, Glenn and I decided to take off from work, taxes, real estate worries, doctors, and dentist appointments to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival – sometimes we try to take the whole weekend and stay overnight, we love it so much up there (and this visit I was thinking – what about buying a house in La Conner or Mt. Vernon? So much cheaper than Seattle, beautiful surroundings, and genuinely small-town friendly people…) but this time we just snuck in a day trip. We found to our delight, besides blooming tulips, cherry blossoms, rhododendrons and lilacs (!!) that there were hundreds of loudly honking migrating snow geese, a few dozen trumpeter swans, and several bald eagles and herons during our trip. Pictures do not convey the way this place fills up your eyes, nose, ears with such splendid stuff. When I lived in California, land of year-round flowers, I missed Skagit’s Tulip Festival. Quaint shops and galleries, little restaurants, and wonderful parks surround this area, and I feel we’re always discovering something new when we visit.

Anyway, after a frank talk with the UW guy about my autoimmune stuff, he said something that stuck with me about doing the things we can to boost our immune system – not just negative advice, like “avoiding stress,” (which is impossible anyway, right?) but positive things to do, like taking probiotics or actively seeking out things that light up our joy, awe, and gratefulness sensors, which apparently can help our systems out (I mean, and along with also taking helpful things like steroids when symptoms act up, but still, this holistic stuff really hit home.)

Spending time with friends that inspire you, reading books that move you, spending time in nature, and lighting up your brain with beauty and awe – I’m realizing at 41 that our lives are not eternal, and these are the things I should prioritize. Instead of worrying over a rejection, listen to a friend tell you their new idea; instead of (as in my case) worrying about some health problems that are probably never going to go away, go out and do what you can with the stuff you have that still works.

An update: this morning, I woke up to this kind review/feature of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter on Tweetspeak Poetry. “The Robot Scientist’s Daughter is a remarkable, cohesive collection, built upon the same theme. It is a story of a unique childhood, and an American childhood. It is also the story of nature and technology, and the bargain we make between the two, often without fully understanding what we’re doing.” An unexpected gift! Thank you, Tweetspeak Poetry!

Spring is Springing, Small Press Expo and Some Practical Book Launch Advice

Welcome to Seattle where spring is definitely doing its thing, springing! Those are cherry and magnolia trees in the first picture at one of our local parks (and that’s me after three-and-a-half hours in an overly warm, stuffy doctor’s office downtown – head of rheumatology/immunology this time – determined to get in a little sunlight and flower time before the sun went all the way down!)

So, this weekend we have the small press book festival at Hugo House that I always love to attend, not less this year because several friends will be representing their presses and literary magazines there. See this article for a rundown on the festival and other lit events around Capital Hill this weekend. It is truly the kind of event that makes you realize you’re very lucky to be in a city that loves and supports the arts, but as Hugo House changes – as the article mentions – there’s a big question mark hanging over “where will our arts events happen in 2016?” Things are changing as Seattle and its environs get more overrun, more expensive. (Did I mention I’ve had two bids on two rather modest houses outbid on in the last month, by 25-50K?)

There was a fascinating discussion among some of my writer friends on Facebook this week about how they hated what they had to do to launch a book, book promotion and all that. I’d reproduce it for you, but I’d say the majority of the responses were something along the lines of “everyone doesn’t like it, but you do it to share the work that you’ve put a lot of time and effort into and to support the press that published you.” It was interesting to me how many poets – and I’m a little ashamed to say myself included – are perfectly confident about their writing, but when it comes to doing a little book promotion, feel somehow dirty or ashamed.

Since I am in the process right now of launching my fourth poetry book, this left me with some questions. Was I doing enough? What kinds of things should I be doing? I sent out a press release about the April 16 Seattle Book Launch and Reception, who knows if the local press will cover it or not. Glenn and I put up a few flyers for the event, too, and I’ve e-mailed local friends about it. If you’ve been reading the blog the last few months, you might have seen this post too, discussing book promotion. (PS: I’m not going to AWP this year, as I mention we should in the list, but if you are, stop by the Mayapple Press table for a fresh copy of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter!)

Anyway, some practical advice on your book launch from Kelly Davio. Here’s “Things I Wish I Had Known Before My Book Came Out,” Part I and Part II. Part II was extremely interesting to me as I’d never thought of cold-calling bookstores to ask them to stock my book. I mean, I may have asked people I’d already known at bookstores I was already familiar with, but I’ve never done it as she suggests, with a sell-sheet. Since one of the big barriers to poetry sales is not having your book on the shelves, that’s a great idea, even if it sounds like it might be tough. (Some bookstores are more friendly to adding local poets to its shelves than others. Some will do it on consignment, where I’ve typically lost money because of the cost of author copies, sigh, but maybe that’s better than nothing?)

Anyway, these kinds of posts help me think in a new way about what I should and shouldn’t be doing in the next two weeks before the Seattle book launch. Probably arrange some more readings, maybe cold call some bookstores? You do have to pace yourself a bit as you can burn out before the book has really even been out very long! Poetry book sales are usually a slower burn than fiction, so don’t fret if you don’t sell two hundred copies the first weekend or anything.

In the Middle of the First Month of “Book Launch” and Ready for a Nap: The thyroid files

So what have I been up to in the middle of the first month of the launch of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter? Well, I’ve sent out all my postcards by now, I did my first reading in the middle of a torrential storm on Bainbridge Island. Now I’m prepping for my Seattle book launch reading and party on Thursday, April 16 at Jack Straw Cultural Center – I helped Glenn put together a flyer which we still need to put up in a few places, wrote and sent out a PR release for it, and created a Facebook event for it. I also edited (along with partner Kelly Davio) a really fun manuscript for the Gailey and Davio Writers’ Services, went back and edited and reorganized my own fifth manuscript, did some tax work and…Whew! Now I need a nap!

Speaking of…Achy, tired, brain-foggy, fatigued, need to nap in the middle of the day? In my experience, it’s possible that it’s not all in your head. My thyroid meds were doubled a few months ago, but after some blood tests a couple of days ago, my TSH is still higher than it has been in years, which means more tweaking is needed, and possibly another ultrasound of my pesky thyroid nodule. On the plus side, my b12 is almost completely low-normal now, not just low, and the number is higher than it’s been in ten years, so that’s good news!

Anyway, whenever I’m having trouble sleeping – sleeping too much, or not enough enough, feel grumpy and brain-foggy all the time, it’s usually either my thyroid acting up or my lack of b12 that’s to blame. Which is good, because I’ve been exercising and eating less and otherwise attempting a healthy lifestyle, and it’s so frustrating when you’re still tired and heavier than you want to be after all that work. At least now I know why! Hopefully the little tweak in my thyroid medication will result in a more energetic me in time for the Seattle book launch!

Becoming the Villainess on the radio, and How to Pick Poetry Book Cover Art

Thanks to Jim McKeown at KWBU in Texas for this feature on Becoming the Villainess, my first book of poetry.

And a new blog post up at the Gailey and Davio Writers’ Services blog on Poetry Book Cover Art. well, if you’ve ever struggled with what makes for good and interesting cover art for a poetry book, I hope it’ll be helpful!

Thanks to all of you who have bought The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, reviewed it on Amazon and Goodreads, or talked about it on your blog. I can’t tell you how much it perks up my day when I see something related to the new book! The first month of releasing a book feels so fraught with peril, to borrow the cliche – you worry no one will like it, or no one will talk about it, or no one will buy it or come to your readings…so any little lift kind of acts as a calming agent to that time of fraughtness.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, a rainy reading, and Poetry and Science

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you are enjoying some spring weather wherever you are. I always like to take today to remember to read a little Irish poetry and some Irish fairy tales. I found out recently through DNA that I am almost 70 percent Irish genetically, though neither set of my grandparents really knew much or talked much about their Irish heritage. (I may also watch The Secret of Kells, which, though set on the ancient Scottish island of Iona, depicts beautifully pieces of ancient Irish folk culture, including a Miyazaki-esque spirit-fairy-type character who can change into a white wolf, and follows the history of the famously illustrated and historically-important-to-Ireland Book of Kells, which you can view online here.) You can also support a genuinely Irish poetry press by buying a copy of Unexplained Fevers (published by New Binary Press) today!

I’m blogging elsewhere today – on Tahoma Review’s blog about Poetry and Science!

We had a lovely reading on Bainbridge on Sunday and got to see some good friends there, though we had a nasty storm that day (that made the three-hour round trip commute, complete with hydroplaning on waterlogged roadways, a bit dicey). I am thankful for my poetry community that turned out despite the deluge and it was nice to see Eagle Harbor Books, a charming Bainbridge Island bookstore. Here’s a pic from the event, with my fellow reader Carol Levin and some local poets and spouses – you may recognize some current and former Crab Creek Review and Two Sylvias editors in there!

Speaking of Two Sylvias Press, I think you should sneak a peek at April’s issue of Oprah Magazine, which features the fab local women-run press on one of its pages!