I’ve got some new and welcome company at Steel Toe Books! Everyone congratulate Mary B!

The very cool Kate has an interview up with me at http://www.kickingwind.com/82006.html, where she has been interviewing poets about their first books. I’ve been following the interviews avidly for a while now, so I felt honored to be in the other poets’ company. I do think I sound much less sophisticated than the other poets. Read if you dare! (Warning: Anyone claiming there’s no such thing as robots may be a robot themselves.)

All right, feeling more myself, finally. Went to a fun reading last night by Elizabeth Austen and Christine Deavel at the new-age shop (with a great stage) SoulFood Books. I finally got some work done, yay! Maybe the lull in August is normal – after all, it seems like about 5,000 things start being due in September – job openings, book contests, lit mags, grant applications.

Any techies still out there reading this blog? If so, you may want to vote in the Made in Express contest where all the contestents (all men, by the way, what’s up, women of technology?) have created their own cool little projects, including a very interesting robot project. Disclosure: One of the contestents may be related to me. Hint: my father is a robot scientist. I’ll leave the rest up to you.
http://www.madeinexpresscontest.com/finalists.asp

Next, two items in the “Crass Commercial World o’ Poetry” Department…oh, the cynicism…

This note on What the Hell is Up With Your Author Photo…How much should we stress out over those book photos anyway? Well…see this article from Writer’s Digest…writersdigest.com/articles/hogan_bookjacket.asp
It talks about how a magazine sent out a post to PR reps for publishers in NYC asking to see pics of an “Attractive female writer, aged 25-35” for a feature they were doing. Which seems like style before substance, no? On the plus side, this matters more for multi-million selling fiction writers that poets.

Also, I saw an interesting ad somewhere for a $600 conference for first poetry book manuscripts, where participants got to hang out with key publishing folks (publishers from Four Way, Alice James, Tupelo, etc) and got manuscript critiques. It seems like it’s a lot cheaper option than an MFA for folks who are just trying to get a first book out there and don’t care about teaching. What do you guys think of this? Is it a trend? Do you think it’s worth it? I probably would have considered something like this, when I was pondering the big scary poetry publishing world four or five years ago and felt like a clueless outsider…

Been feeling down because of the whole, general state-of-the-world problems – you know, problems I can’t fix or control, like terrorism and flying and war. I know some people are like, turn off the news, you’ll feel better, but I know the bad is still out there, waiting. I keep having dreams about going into politics.
I did manage to make it out to the reading at Hugo House to celebrate the latest issue of Cranky, a great local mag, very eclectic. Saw many friends briefly. And the next day my husband dragged me down to Pike Place market to get flowers and coffee and generally cheer up. And that helped. I wrote a poem afterwards, which broke my over-a-week-long no-poem-writing spell. The poem was about a fox goddess. Actually, she was originally a human figure, and the foxes were her messengers, but I guess some of her worshippers now consider the fox to be the representation of her. And I watched a show on foxes on Animal Planet afterwards. Then read more Japanese mythology. So it all worked out.
Have not been sending out submissions. Bad me. I have new poems stacking up with no places to go. Must write a blurb and a review and do more homework. Sorry that you have to witness my “to do” list – but if I don’t keep track here, I’ll probably forget!
Oh, August, when will you become September?

Watched the Gen-Y friendly (pop cultural references to the Animatrix, Van Halen, Evangelion, and South Park, anyone?) anime series Fooly Cooly (Furi Curi? FLCL?) this weekend, and now I can’t get this song, “I Think I Can” by The Pillows, out of my head. Here’s a link to a video (which includes clips of the anime) so this song can be in your head too. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7821642967984690264
I ended up doing a full eight-hour day of real (non-volunteer, non-homework, non-poetry) work yesterday. Ah, the drives of capitalism.
I Think I Can!
PS – All anime viewing can be considered homework, since my thesis revolves around Japanese pop and mythological culture.