Jack Straw Writers, a Redmond Reads Poetry reading, and more!

If you are looking for something to do tomorrow night, February 20th, why not join us at the Redmond Library for a reading? The “Redmond Reads Poetry” kicks off its winter event with a reading by…me! I’ll be reading from Becoming the Villainess with a sneak peek of a few poems from my upcoming book, Unexplained Fevers. Refreshments will be provided, and a Q&A session after the reading means you can ask all the questions you like! Books will be available from the library for checkout and for sale!

In other news, the 2013 Jack Straw Writers have been announced! The full list is available here:
http://www.jackstraw.org/programs/writers/WritersForum/index.html
I’m honored to be part of such a great program and a great group!

I’m thinking of putting together a blog post on Book tours: how do you know when to go? Basically, a summing up of what I’ve learned with my last two book tours, plus any advice you’d like to leave in the comments below, like, how you survived your book tour, how many readings you plan to do for your first book, or fifth, etc, and let me know if I can post your advice and name in my next post! This is on my mind because, while I’m doing a ton of local readings for my upcoming book, I haven’t planned much in terms of out-of-town readings yet…Some people report great experiences on the road, and I know I’ve had a few, especially getting to visit with friends, and I almost always have a great time at universities. Other readings have been a mixed bag, and I’m wondering how someone makes up their mind when they’re invited, and what criteria we should use…

Life Lessons for Writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Life Lessons for Writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

By Jeannine Hall Gailey

Romance and Recognition Might Happen, Rarely, but the Job Will Always Be There.

There is sometimes that sweet spot where you can get to save the day, dance with your dream date, and get a tiny umbrella in recognition of the good stuff you’ve done, but that doesn’t happen very often. Most often, you wake up, deal with people and problems that annoy you, and just go about saving the world with little fanfare. It might not always work out with your guy – in fact, most of the time, it won’t – and people will give you a hard time whether or not you’re trying to help them – but the job of Slayer (or writer) doesn’t change. We are out to save the world, every day. You do the job whether it feels good or not or someone pats you on the head or not.

Don’t Be Afraid or, Don’t You Think Sylvia Plath Faced Any Demons?
Devil Dogs, Boyfriends Who Turn Evil After You Sleep With Them, Assassins and Monsters in all shapes and sizes: Buffy saw them all as a recurring annoyance rather than something to be afraid of. With each demon, she sized it up, sometimes turned to friends for help, but always, always, ended up methodically tracking it down and destroying it. There’s no avoiding some of the demons of writers: rejection, depression, you know, looking into the void (or Hellmouth) so they key is to approach each with the correct weapon and not let it keep you from going to classes, a date, or the rest of your life. It’s true that writers tend to experience more depression, dependence on foreign substances, divorce, and yes, a higher rate of suicide, probably because the mechanisms that make someone a writer also mean they’re a little damaged somewhere. (If you believe the stats referenced here, much of the info coming from an eighties-era study of U of Iowa creative writers: http://www.the-bright-side.org/site/thebrightside/content.php?type=1&id=1083 and studies like this one: http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-commit-suicide-2010-10?op=1 ) These are your demons. Do not let them win. Find the right weapons against them. Get a trusted group of friends to help you. Which leads us to…

Sometimes You Can’t Trust the Watcher’s Council
Old white men sometimes do, and sometimes do not, have a young girl’s best interests at heart, as was demonstrated several times on Buffy. Better to be a little wary. Even Giles betrayed Buffy once or twice. People in authority are often interested in protecting their own authority rather than helping you empower yourself. I’ve always kept authority figures at a certain distance for this reason. So if you feel like doing something brave others tell you not to do – get a graduate degree at a certain age, send out a certain poem, write the novel you want to write – do it. Trust your inner Slayer (or writer) instincts.

There’s Always another Apocalypse
Yes, even after you’ve saved the world, even after you’ve died and been resurrected through nefarious magic, there is always another apocalypse. In the writing sense, this means: once you’ve published your poem, you’ll always want the next poem in a better magazine. Then you’ll want a book. Then you’ll want a book prize, critical acclaim, book sales, what have you. There is always another “thing” around the corner to fight for. Part of Buffy’s strength lay in her persistence – sometimes winning just means not giving up.

Your Inner Resources
(Yes, I am referencing John Berryman.) One of the most thrilling scenes in the whole series is when Buffy has a showdown with her former-boyfriend-turned-evil-psycho Angelus. It looks like, towards the end of the fight, that she will lose and the world will end. The dialogue is a classic:
“Angelus: Now that’s everything, huh? No weapons… No friends…No hope. Take all that away… and what’s left?
Buffy: Me.”
Sometimes it will feel like you have nothing left, your friends and family don’t understand or support you, your boyfriend’s a jerk, and yes, your world is ending. But you know what? It doesn’t have to. You are your own greatest weapon. You are the hero.

Happy Valentine’s Day, the Once Upon a Time Edition

Dear Readers, it’s become a Valentine’s Day tradition to post one of my few-and-far-between love poems on the blog for Valentine’s Day! I just received my first paper proof of Unexplained Fevers so I thought I’d include the first poem from the book titled “Once Upon a Time.” This poem first appeared in The American Poetry Review.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time he left me. I left him. It was winter, the white sun is what I remember most. When he called, I cut my hair. When I swayed, he swore. I wore a white dress and promised. He promised me. We chopped wood and parsley.

Once upon a time, I called him. It was hopeful. It was hopeless. One might not have recovered. His hair was white as winter sun.

Once upon a time we broke our crowns. The tumbling came after.

Once upon a time we thought we could. We drank from cacti in the desert and from freshwater pools on an island. We drilled through sheetrock. We stained the ground with blackberry juice.

Once upon a time I have forgotten. There was no veil, because it just sticks to your lips. I didn’t hide. Three days of mourning, three days to come clean.

When we rode off into the sunset, we had no idea where we were going. We should have mapped. Should have paid attention to the steady beat of our bloodstreams. Should have touched the dirt. Gone offroad.

We should have guessed. Should have noted. We paid in gold and heartache. We stood there in the winter sunlight, white as ghosts. It was the end of the road. It didn’t have a fairy tale ending. We couldn’t keep our stories straight. It wasn’t as they had told us.

Book news: pre-orders for Unexplained Fevers, E-book Revival for She Returns to the Floating World, and Redactions!

A little book news since I last posted!

Though it’s official debut isn’t for a few more months, New Binary Press has the paperback version of Unexplained Fevers available for pre-order on its site. (There will also be a special hardback edition with extra art and an e-book!) Okay, that does make the book feel like it’s really real! And by the way, $12 euros is about $15. The book will also show up on Amazon in another month or two, I believe.
http://www.newbinarypress.com/books/unexplained_fevers.html

And, She Returns to the Floating World, which went out of print when Kitsune Books closed, will be resurrected – at least, in e-book form – by my friends at Two Sylvias Press!
Thanks, Two Sylvias! (Also, I still have a few print copies available if you need one…let me know!)
(Update: the E-book is available on Amazon now here! She Returns To The Floating World)

And, once again, thanks to the excellent editors at Redactions, who published my poem “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity” in their terrific issue 16!

A New Interview at Seattle Wrote, A New Poem at Stone Highway, and a Library Link

Keeping busy these days, but wanted to let you all know about a few things. I’m expecting the first proof of Unexplained Fevers from Ireland any day now, starting to plan out more spring events, and generally getting overscheduled, but in a good way! Now, onto the news – interviews, a new poem, and a library blog mention!

Here is a link to an interview that the very kind Norelle Done did with me for Seattle Wrote:
http://www.seattlewrote.com/2013/02/seattle-author-womens-themes-in-poetry.html
I give some advice for beginning writers, including:
“Then write as much and as often as you can, and start sending things out to the magazines you like best, whether they’re famous or not. Often you’ll know where to send, because you’ll connect with the poems published in the journals.
My mother’s advice for me when I was a 19-year old optimistic writer sending things out for the first time was to fill a shoebox with rejection slips, and that set up my expectations – there will be a lot more rejection than acceptance. But being a poet is as much about practice and perseverance as inspiration.”

Yes, I’ve been watching Wile E. Coyote, the ultimate engineer, at work for decades, so it seems natural that eventually I wrote a poem for him. Scroll down to page 25 of the Stone Highway issue to see “Introduction to Engineering from Wile E. Coyote, Supergenius:”
http://www.stonehighway.com/issue-22-january-2013.html

And last but not least, a very kind mention of my February 20th reading at Redmond Library is up at the KCLS blog today:
http://redmondlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/02/jeannine-hall-gailey-redmonds-poet.html