Post-Christmas – Gearing Up for 2013!

So, now that the world hasn’t ended and Christmas is behind us, I guess we can get down to the serious work of figuring out what we will do with ourselves in 2013!

First of all, I want to thank my husband and his keen gift-getting skills for this little load of thoughtful (and cute!) gifts: a hedgehog set of measuring cups, a set of arctic-fox and snowflake canape plates, and a carnelian necklace (carnelian is supposed to be good for healing! I hope it works!)

I was very happy to get some good news from the Jack Straw Writers Program on Christmas Eve, along with a check from my poem published in American Poetry Review a few months ago. What a lovely surprise from Santa – Poetry good stuff! (I also, strangely, got two rejections on Christmas Eve. Ho Ho Scrooge?! But that’s okay. The other things made up for it.)

So, in the beginning of January, I’m going to be reading at the Bellevue Arts Museum and giving a short workshop on haiku and haibun on January 4 at 4:30 PM. The next day, January 5th, I’ll be hosting a panel at Redmond Library on multi-cultural poetry and the language of science (featuring Natasha K. Moni and Raul Sanchez) at 3 PM. Whoosh! Starting the year with a bang. Then I’m reading on January 11th at King’s Books in Tacoma. So, if you want to know where to find me in January, I’ll probably be running around in a panic. (I also have several freelance writing and editing deadlines in January, and I start teaching again in February, so…)

Which leads me to the question of – what is it you want to do in 2013? I’m very excited about my new book coming out from New Binary Press in April of 2013, Unexplained Fevers (and I’ve been collaborating with artist Michaela Eaves on doing some special-edition art for a UK special edition which is going to be available along with the regular soft-cover edition and an e-book! That’s three editions! Craziness!) I am hoping I will be healthy enough to get out to the UK for a few readings at some point, otherwise I’m starting to put together readings for 2013 in the Norhwest.
What else? I’m planning a book party/40th birthday party sometime in the spring as well, because if you can’t celebrate turning 40, well, what’s the point? And I’ll be doing Poet Laureate stuff AND Jack Straw things as well next year. It seems like a year of busy poet work. And who can complain about that? I want to spend 2013 getting healthier, wealthier, and writing and reading more poetry. Maybe paying off some student loans. But especially the writing part. And finding a home for my fourth book. And I have 46 good pages on a fifth book that really hones in on the nerdy stuff – engineering, algebra, apocalypses, more superhero poems. I should probably also try to send out some work – see, a poet’s work is never ever done!

So, what are your plans for 2013? I am wishing you all a healthy, happy, and more peaceful and prosperous new year!

Apocalypse Wow – A poem, a puzzle, a review, and warm wishes

Yes, friends, it could be the end of the world, but nevertheless, and even more so, warm wishes, happy holidays, and etc! In the midst of darkness in a dark time, it’s time to light a fire, tell people you love them, hand someone a present for no reason, write a poem, paint a picture, make a feast.

I have an appropriately apocalyptic poem up at The Chiaroscuro called “The Scientist Solves a Puzzle” so check it out!

I also had a review of Elizabeth Austen’s Every Dress a Decision up at Galatea Resurrects.

I’ve been pretty sick after a whirlwind of holiday activities and family last week, and with the bad news all over the television, sick at heart as well. There are only so many ways to respond to these things – with humor, and love, and encouragement, and gathering the ones you love around you, with anger or grief. I’m no wise woman or spiritual sage, but I hope that you remember the season is about comfort and joy, even on the coldest, darkest day of the year. Let’s make some wishes for 2013, for a renewed world that protects its children, that reminds us that our hard work in our fields can make a difference, for the old sense of apocalypse – the drawing aside of a curtain, and a revelation – a clear reading of something that’s been obscured.

Okay, hokey well wishes over. Merry Mayan Apocalypse, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Next Big Thing Interview

Thank you to Ivy Alvarez who kindly asked me to participate in The Next Big Thing Interview at the Dumbfoundry:
http://dumbfoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-next-big-thing.html

What is the title of your book?
Unexplained Fevers

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Unexplained Fevers is a book about women finding their way out of boxes – fairy tale heroines in deserts and dark places, leaving behind towers and glass coffins, and contemporary women fighting through issues that trap us in the body – anorexia, illness, unexpected pregnancy, drug addiction, etc. But seriously, it’s a barrel of fun! (More than one sentence can make it sound like, anyway!)

What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was reading a book of Japanese short fiction called Blue Bamboo by Osamu Dazai, which introduced a family of siblings all telling different versions of the story “Rapunzel.” I thought about the way each of them recasted the heroine and what that revealed about their personality, and decided to go back and look at the heroines I had left out of Becoming the Villainess because they were too boring or passive and see if I could create stories for them I was more interested in. While writing, I also discovered I was especially interested in getting women out of their boxes, metaphorically – and for me, that was often about writing about pain and illness, although there are an awful lot of poems about love gone wrong…that may be Grimms’ fault, not mine. All those happy endings made me suspicious. I also read Haruki Murakami’s After Dark, which is basically a story of Snow White and Rose Red, re-set in contemporary setting – and that triggered in my mind the story of two sisters – the tragic beautiful teen model, trapped into a certain immobility by her good looks, and the more active but less romantic Rose Red, who never sleeps and is always looking for answers.

I also had to look at my medical notes for some reason while getting my medical records prepared for a cross-country move and was struck by the repetition of the phrase “unexplained fevers,” which seemed at once innocuous and yet so ominous and menacing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I started the poems for this book almost immediately after finishing the first draft of my second book – so maybe around 2008-2009? And I was still polishing and writing new poems at the end of 2012. My books take a little while to mature, usually, and I not to linger too long with any one “finished” project – I like to have a couple of things going at once.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Besides the books I’ve already referenced, I’m fascinated by fairy tale archetypes and felt I hadn’t quite exhausted them in my first book, Becoming the Villainess. I think I was also writing my way through a very dark time personally – several years when I was too sick with somewhat mysterious immune system problems to walk, eat anything beyond rice and broth, or basically do anything but read and write. Happily I did not stay that sick, but the question occurred to me – how can one escape the “trap” of the body? Women are subjected to so many expectations about our bodies – our weight, our looks, our sexuality – including our own fairly reasonable expectations, of course – that our bodies will work properly from day to day, allow to us to eat, sleep, reproduce, work, etc. And when, as they sometimes do, our bodies betray us or let us down, how we can respond to that. How to be victorious in a battle against those things that weigh us down and contain us.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Unexplained Fevers will be published by New Binary Press in spring of 2013.

What other works would you compare this book to within your genre?
Oh, that’s a tough one. I’ve had several reviewers of my work mention Anne Sexton, but more realistically based on my readings, my literary influences are more likely to be fiction writers, like A.S. Byatt or Haruki Murakami or Kelly Link. If I were pressed to give a list of “books you might like if you like Unexplained Fevers” they might include

Margaret Atwood’s Selected Poems II
Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife
Louise Gluck’s Meadowlands
Denise Duhamel’s Kinky

I can also blame many of these poems on my life-long obsession with Grimms, Hans Christian Andersen, Andrew Lang’s Fairy books, and tough chicks from pop culture like Buffy and Sydney Bristow and Annie Walker.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
I think this is probably a funnier book that you might think from the description. Especially towards the end, I think I wrote some of the poems that are the most fun to perform onstage – more puns, more risk, that kind of thing.

For more of The Next Big Thing, these shining stars will give their answers by 30 December 2012:

Collin Kelley, with his latest collection, Render, soon to be released by Sibling Rivalry Press.
Julie Brooks Barbour whose book Small Chimes is forthcoming.
Kelly Davio, whose book Burn This House will be out soon from Red Hen Press.
Kelli Russell Agodon, whose new book Hourglass Museum will come out from White Pine Press in 2014.

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Should you wish to participate, answer the questions on your blog and leave your link in a comment.

Reading Futuristic Poetry with Hello the Future and a Week of Crazy

In case you’re looking for something to do tomorrow night, you know, getting ready to celebrate the Mayan-end-of-the-world solstice and all that, I’m reading all apocalypse and futuristic poetry at 6 PM opening for a band called “Hello the Future” at Soul Food Books Friday.
http://www.songkick.com/concerts/14860894-hello-the-future-at-soulfood-books-and-café

I have had the nuttiest week – my little brother and his wife came in to visit from Thailand, so we took them on a tour of all the fun stuff you can do here in the cold rainy season – wine and beer tasting in Woodinville, sushi dinner and the Sorrento Hotel lounge for cocktails, a pilgrimage to Caffé Vita and helping them catch up on any American things they’d missed (Whole Foods! Book stores! Back episodes of Community and Family Guy! Ah, America…) I also had several poetry events and was trying to get everything together for New Binary Press for my third book, “Unexplained Fevers” – copyediting, updating acknowledgements, getting an author photo (hopefully) and working with Michaela Eaves on the cover art. I think I’ve gotten about seven hours of sleep over the past seven days, which hopefully will be fixed over the weekend. (Along with working on a friend’s manuscript, writing my Poet’s Market articles, and getting Christmas shopping finished…and Christmas cards, um, started? And responding to all the e-mails I’ve been ignoring?)

Oh yes, and don’t forget She Returns to the Floating World is going out of print at the end of the year with Kitsune Books’ close, so buy it now on Kindle or print! Great for holiday gifts for your anime-and-Japanese-folk-tale-loving friends!

Colleen McElroy reading, Christmas Parties, and a Family Visit

Well, I managed to make it though the Poet Laureate Event on Thursday night (a panel on e-publishing which was pretty well-received, I thought) AND get out the next day and go to both a poetry reading and Glenn’s corporate Christmas party! And today we’re cleaning and cooking in preparation for my little brother’s visit from where he’s living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We’re making Osso Bucco and cranberry meringue pies, braised endive and mashed potatoes.

Here’s a little pic of me with Colleen McElroy at Open Books, who read from her latest book, Here I Throw Down My Heart. She’s been having some health issues, but she looked and sounded terrific – if she hadn’t mentioned it, I would never have known. I was really glad to be there. Colleen is a wonderful, courageous writer and person. Really generous.

And this is a little picture of Glenn and I all dolled up for the night with our Christmas tree in the background. Glenn’s work party had lovely gluten-free dishes this year, and a band, in comparison to totally cutting the holiday party last year, so maybe his company is doing a little better? One can hope. Maybe it’s a good sign for the economy. Anyway, I had fun and even was tempted to get on the dance floor…