Beacon Bards Reading Report, New Review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Repercussions of Real Estate

A little pic from the Beacon Bards reading last night with me, host Martha Silano, and fellow reader Nance Van Winckel.

It was raining, traffic was terrible, but the tiny venue was packed! And my friend Natasha M. brought a birthday gluten-free cupcake, which perked me up after the 1.5 hour drive from Redmond to Beacon Hill. (Ugh, Seattle traffic!) Not that I should complain – Nance came all the way from Spokane!

This morning, of course, I woke up with a sore throat, 102 fever, and a bad cough. The home inspection a few days (which did not go well, by the way) may be the cause – one of the inspectors told us he’d been sick. But am I the only person who gets sick right after readings, or right before? Such a strange phenomenon. Is the universe telling me to become a poetry hermit??

I also woke up to a new review by Portland Book Review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter. So that was nice. I have to say every review makes me feel happy. I know poetry doesn’t get that much media attention, so I really appreciate every little bit.

My house hunt is not going so well, sadly. Even half-a-million dollar houses getting multiple offers can have a ton of stuff wrong with them, which was the result of our pre-inspection – no foundation at all, and water underneath the house. Well, don’t pay for a pre-inspection if you don’t want to hear the results, I guess. I read the Seattle Bubble real estate blog, and the emotions (though not the spelling errors or the apparent buying capacity) of the letter-writer here ring true to me. It does feel like our town is only for the super-wealthy these days, which is a shame. Seattle has a long history as a working-class town, but I think the working class (and artists) are being pushed further and further out as cash buyers gobble up multiple houses at a time in an increasingly crazed market. Oh well. I guess this bodes well for selling our townhouse, anyway. Maybe we’ll take the money from this place and then find a single-level home somewhere out in the country that no one else wants (yet.)

Last Reading in Seattle, New Review for Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Manuscript Summer Camp

So, tomorrow is my last scheduled reading in Seattle for The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, so if you want to see me read from the new book, come out to The Station in Beacon Hill tomorrow night at 7 PM. Nance Van Winckel, my co-reader, is pretty awesome, and I’ve heard the series is a lot of fun. More info here.

I also am very happy to post a link to Alice Osborn’s new review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter here. It’s a really gracious and intelligent review.

“The Robot Scientist’s Daughter is a love letter to the author’s father and profession (a relationship common in sci-fi movies), a complicated love letter to Gailey’s childhood home which no longer exists, and a protest against environmental and social indifference when it comes to the effects of nuclear power.”

In personal news, we had bad news at our pre-inspection, so we’re still looking for our next house, and getting financing is just as difficult, especially since we haven’t put our current house up for sale yet. It’s hard to remain hopeful in a crazy market like ours where there are multiple offers on even houses with the worst foundations (like the one we just wanted to offer on.) Everything is expensive, small, and kind of crappy. If my current townhouse didn’t have two stories, believe me, I would happily stay put. This putting houses up for sale/trying to find a new house thing is more stressful than I remembered. It makes me want to go back to renting!

This summer, Kelly Davio and I are running an online manuscript summer camp. I’ve run it once before and it was a really fun experience, for me and for the participants. You bring yourself and your manuscript, the other participants and Kelli and I bring the fun! It runs well with about six people, so sign up early if you want in!

Writing, Money, Balance: Spring Edition

Sorry I haven’t been around on the blog – in the last week, I took on a grant application, a manuscript editing project, construction – getting a large bathroom project done on the house, and, oh, yes, house hunting. Did I mention we’re also getting the house ready for sale? So it’s been a bit bonkers. My asthma’s been acting up – a sign of allergies, or a sign of stress? I threw out my shoulder doing something that should have been easy. These are physical signs of lack of balance – literal and metaphorical.

In the last ten days, we had several large unexpected expenses – over $1500 on the car, over $400 on the house project, plus trying to update the outside with freshly planted flowers for extra “curb appeal” when we go to list our place. Plus one of my student loan payments unexpectedly went up by $200. It all felt very humbling compared to what I make as a writer, editor, poet, etc. Right now I’m behind on unpaid work, like writing reviews and sending out my own poetry and, oh yes, writing poetry. This is all compounded by trying to bid on houses in the hot hot hot real estate market of the Seattle area, where houses are getting ten offers and going 100K over listing. You can see how this is good for selling, not so good for buying. Talk about money worries!

Applying for the $1500 grant – a time-consuming prospect – made me think, gosh, writers really do not get paid very much. I wish I was passionate about writing romance novels or crime thrillers or anything besides poetry, sometimes. (I’m a Taurus, very hard-headed when it comes to finances.)

My friend Kelli – who is a poet who remains at all times grounded and practical, wonderfully qualities – reminded me that we all have different goals when it comes to writing. I mentioned that my favorite thing about being a writer was when young people – high school and college students, especially – get to read my work. And that has happened, which makes me feel lucky, and I hope this new book gets taught as well. Poetry is more about goals besides money-making – making a difference, being remembered after you die, you know, that kind of thing.

What are your best prescriptions for poetry money worries? Let me know in the comments! Since it is a lovely May afternoon, I am going to go smell my little lilac which is in bloom, walk around on the waterfront in the sunshine, and do some other free but relaxing things. I’ve got a reading this week on Wednesday at The Station in Beacon Hill, which will be extra nice because I’m reading with a poet I admire but haven’t gotten to see read all that often, Nance Van Winckel. A local artist I like, Yumiko Kayukawa is having a show at Grace Gallery downtown this week as well, that I hope to get out to see. Seeing art and hanging out with poets seem like good counterpoints to unexpected bills, real estate and mortgage worries, and the like.

What We Give Power To, What We Remember: Rejections Versus Achievements

First of all, thank you to Every Day Poems for featuring a poem, “The Robot Scientist’s Daughter [villainess]” from The Robot Scientist’s Daughter on its site.

So, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been keeping my rejection slips in photo albums, shoe boxes, or tacked onto cork boards since I started writing and submitting poems – when I was nineteen.

The other day I happened upon a photo album with about ten years worth of rejections: finalist notices for book contests I never won, kindly remarked rejections from journals I’ve never gotten into. It was really kind of a…bummer. Sure, as other famous writers have remarked, rejections are a sign that you’re doing the work of submitting. They keep us humble. In my case, they remind me of where the hell I’ve sent work and what different editors thought of it at various times. But maybe keeping them to the exclusion of the good things that happen in the writing life is doing us no favors.

So, to counter the effect of looking over ten years of kind rejections and unsigned rejections, “this came close” notes, I decided to create a scrapbook. I’m not really a scrapbooking girl, but this seemed important (plus Barnes & Nobles had a scrapbook kit on sale for half-off.)

I started to look up any signs of good things that had happened in my writing life, to see what I had kept. A newspaper clipping from a campus visit for my first book, Becoming the Villainess. A clip from the Seattle Times about my first book. A check from one of my first publications. A reminder that I’d met a lot of college-day poetry heroes like Denise Duhamel and Dorianne Laux. My husband printed out quotes from nice reviews, and found letters of acceptance and awards. I went through years of pictures I’d never printed out – my writing groups, my readings, AWP, meeting up with poets I’d admired at Poetry Festivals and Summer Writing Conferences – from the last ten years. I picked my favorites, and printed out this evidence of poetry success, fun, and friends (along with some really unfortunate hairstyles and colors). One of the lessons I learned from this? Keep more of the good stuff, let go of the bad stuff. Don’t treasure your failures more than your successes.

Maybe your thing isn’t scrapbooking. But think about the mementos you’re allowing to take up space – physical, mental, emotion – and think about replacing the mementos of discouragement with ones that encourage you, that inspire you, that remind you of the good places you’ve been and people you’ve met along the way.

Winners of the April Giveaway, a new review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter (plus lilacs, how old, and poetry parties!)

Sorry I’ve been away from the blog on a short trip celebrating my birthday. There were lilacs and dogwood in bloom, as you can see – on April 30! And cherries for sale on the roadside on the way home – cherries?? Now?? Usually we don’t see them til June. Anyway, besides the strange spring bloomings, it was a much-needed break – and now I’m glad to be home.

Winners of April’s Big Poetry Giveaway according to a random generator set between 1 and 24 are: #3 Sarah O’Brien (who won The Robot Scientist’s Daughter) and #17 Jon Desjardins (who won Don Mee Choi’s The Morning News is Exciting.) I will be e-mailing them both to get their addresses and send them their respective books (and bonus literary magazines.) Thanks to everyone who participated! If you left a comment on my poetry giveaway page, and you still want a copy of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, you can get a specially discounted copy from me if you e-mail me at jeannine dot gailey at live dot com!

Thank you to Suko’s Notebook for this birthday-timed review of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter. “Overall, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter is a startling, commanding, and beautiful collection of poetry. Her use of language is exquisite and extraordinary.” A nice birthday present!

As was the Microsoft robot that told me that, based on my pictures, I’m somewhere between 29 and 16, which is pretty reassuring when you’re celebrating your 42nd birthday! Here’s my Napa author’s photo, from four years ago (my most recent author photo is the one that somehow came out as 16?? So perhaps some more tweaking of its algorithms is needed.)

Don’t forget that today is also Independent Bookstore Day, so go visit your local indie bookstore and buy a book (or two!) My choice in Seattle is Open Books, the poetry-only bookstore that just celebrated its 20th anniversary. Here’s a pic of me posing a few days ago at their anniversary celebration with local poetry glitterati Kevin Craft and Kathleen Flenniken. See? I’ve been to too many parties lately! Time for some May downtime! Anyway, happy May!