Visiting with Seattle Poets, Welcome September, and Planning for March/April Next Year and Thinking about Post-Covid Book Launches and Book Marketing (In an Uncertain World)

Peppermint stripe roses

Welcome September!

I don’t know about you guys, but I was ready for September. I’m not a big summer girl (hey, I’m allergic to the sun and heat just flattens folks with MS), even though this summer was less brutal than last year’s, and I’m ready for cooler air, clear skies, the pumpkin farm opening down the street…and more time reading and writing.

In the last few days of August, I got a chance to see a few friends, and, oh yes, get three crowns with the last of my dental coverage – and was then told I needed a root canal under one of the crowns, oops. Then I spent a few days recuperating, mostly in my garden.

The last of our flowers – dahlias, roses, zinnias, and sunflowers – are starting to fade, and our farmer’s markets are full of corn and tomatoes, waiting for the first pumpkins and apples to come in. Here are a few pictures of September at the JB Family Growers Lavender and Flower Farm down the street.

Tonight, we visited and for the first time, I was hit by the smell of 10,000 lavender plants. It was a wonderful late summer/almost fall moment.

Me and Martha Silano on my deck

Visiting with Seattle Poets

Got a chance to visit with wonderful Seattle poet Martha Silano this week, catching up, trying out some new local Woodinville wines, and talking writing talk, which is always encouraging for me. I’m definitely taking a few more chances to socialize more, because two and a half (plus) years of living in my covid isolation bubble has been tough.

Martha and I both published books with Steel Toe Books way back in 2006 (her second and my first), so we’ve actually known each other for a long time. But sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to stay in touch with friends who live on the other side of town (or even on the other side of the water, or the country) especially during a pandemic. I’m so glad we had a few hours to catch up on a beautiful day!

Immature hummingbird with red sunflowers in foreground

Planning for March/April or, How to Start Getting Over the Pandemic and Learn to Promote Your New Book (Again)

Trying to plan ahead for Seattle’s AWP and my next book’s launch is a little tricky. I’m trying to plan to 1. stay healthy and 2. try to follow some of my own advice from PR for Poets, which includes starting early in terms of thinking about a book launch – like six months ahead of time – which is, almost, now. Yikes! Am I ready?

I don’t have cover art yet. I do have blurbs. I decided not to apply for a pretty punishing fellowship this year and wait ’til next year. I need to order new business cards; the last time I made business cards, I had a different e-mail address, which means it’s been at least a few years. Did the pandemic make us all a little unaware of the passage of time? I know I’m going through my closet saying, I literally have a wardrobe of yoga pants and cardigans, easy dresses, and slippers, after two and a half years of a pandemic. I’m sure I’m not the only one considering AWP and thinking: do I even have appropriate shoes for that?

Pileated Woodpecker

Another reality: this is the oldest I have ever been, and so maybe book promotion works very differently now than it did even five years ago. If covid changed workplace dynamics, it probably also changed book marketing and publishing. I will probably have to learn some new skill sets for this book launch.

But I’ll probably do some things I always do—send out postcards, e-mail friends and families (sorry, you’ve been warned in advance) when the book comes out, try to set up a fun book launch party around Woodinville (probably at the winery I’m doing the book club at, J. Bookwalters) and once again, make my health a priority for the months leading up to AWP and the official book launch.

I went to AWP in California—was that 2017 or 18? —while skipping out on liver cancer chemo thinking I had no chance of making past six months. (Fortunately, that doctor – and a few others – were wrong, and waiting on chemo and going for a third opinion ended up saving me a lot of pain and sorrow.) I went to AWP the last few times (well, the times before covid) with a broken arm, recovering from pneumonia, and dealing with MS flares, so it’s not like I don’t have a reason to be a little cautious. Having AWP in town does make it easier, and safer—after all, if something happens, I can retreat home without a plane flight and my medications and doctors will be easily available. But I’m hoping my body doesn’t choose that week in March to stage a revolt. I will act accordingly in terms of taking care of myself as best I can.

The two pictures of very different birds—the gigantic, dinosaur-esque pileated woodpecker with its bright head, and the tiny, fairy-like immature hummingbird—represent something about literature and book promotion that’s very true—it’s not always the biggest and brightest writer, flower, or bird that wins the evolutionary race—sometimes it’s the smallest, most camouflaged and flexible. My best assets as a writer now at 49 are different than they were at 32. My poems are different, my experience of the world, and my outlook. So, I guess it makes sense that I’m a little nervous this time around, sensing that my book—and my person—have been changed, that I’m a little less certain, less confident but quicker to shift gears and adapt. In most fairy tales and myths, the protagonist is often changed against his or her will be their journey—sometimes literally into birds or cats or white deer, sometimes by their actions, like Gretel’s quick dispatch of the witch that threatened her. No one comes out unscathed from their magical journeys, even if they disappear into the haze of a happy ending.

It’s the external world around us that changes as much as the internal—after all, in the last few years, we had an unsuccessful coup, we have a reversal of rights for women, we have an ex-President under scrutiny for treason and espionage, we have a once-every-hundred years pandemic that’s still happening. If we weren’t a little transformed by that, we wouldn’t be human. And our own personal dramas can only feel magnified by the constant barrage of war, destruction, and devastation in the news. It’s been a high stress time for me, and for the world, and probably for you, too. So, I guess we will have to forgive ourselves for not having exactly the right outfit, or remembering how to do small talk with strangers, or even trying to think about something relatively unimportant like “how do I do my best for this next poetry book to launch it into the world?”

More Sunflowers and Dahlias in Late August, Thinking About the Balance of Re-Entry and the Effects of the Pandemic on Art and Artists, and What’s on the Horizon

Me and Glenn with pale lemon sunflowers

More Sunflowers and Dahlias in Late August

Late August can be really beautiful here, or hot, stagnant and miserable, and this week had days that were over 90 and beautiful days in the 70s. Today was one of those cooler days, so we took advantage and went out a bit in the neighborhood, including a flower stand and the new J.B. Grower’s Lavender and Flower Farm. This visit, there were totally different flowers – pale sunflowers, teddy bear sunflowers, zinnias, and dahlias, as well as violet-streaked sunflowers. The birds and butterflies make so much noise out there that literally think you’ve been transported, even though you’re just down the street from your house. Here are a few pictures from our visit, purple-streaked dahlia, white sunflower closeups, zinnias, and a pair of house finches.

At an unnamed flower stand in Woodinville, dahlias and sunflowers

Thinking More about Balance of Re-Entry

I was talking to my family about the careful balance of re-entering the world after two and a half years of basically living in a bubble. Tomorrow, I’m having over a poet friend and I’m looking forward to making friends at our new Woodinville book club at J. Bookwalters. But I have to be careful – I still haven’t gotten covid, though I have friends who are getting it for the first time and family who are getting it the second and third time. I’ve been talking about re-entering the working world a bit more, with my MS vocational therapist, talking about setting limits and boundaries, balancing my ambition and physical limits. I’m cautiously optimistic, I guess – and hoping to stay healthy enough for AWP in Seattle and my April book launch.

Violet-tinged sunflowers

But how do we know what’s safe, with the confusing and often contradictory guidelines about covid, and is life ever really safe for those of us who are immune compromised? I nearly died from complications of pneumonia from the swine flu and people barely made a big deal of it of swine flu. I think about how the pandemic will affect art for the years to come – and artists who’ve suffered from complications of covid – the way the 1918 flu affected art and artists. Will people want to read, or see art, or hear music about the experiences of loss, isolation, and anxiety that came with this pandemic? Will people want to stamp out the last few years in denial?  Americans don’t like dealing with death, and they certainly don’t like dealing with mass death.

Glenn and I with teddy bear sunflowers

As the summer seems to be drawing to a close, and people are talking about a fall rise in covid cases, new variants, new vaccines and how well they might work, I am looking forward to the natural increase in writing energy I get when it gets a little cooler – the “back to school” feeling that never really goes away. Getting pens and books and writing projects in order, taking a look at revamping the wardrobe (maybe getting rid of some of the slouchier cocooning clothing I have been wearing, and getting rid of things that don’t fit or remind me of things I can’t do any more (like high heeled shoes and boots), to make room for the new. I don’t really know what’s around the corner.

I know there will be struggle, difficulty, and loss – at my age, losing friends and family and dealing with aging issues like dental work and physical therapy, are pretty normal – but I also think this is an age when we should really be reevaluating what has worked for us, what we need to get rid of  – whether physical or attitude or other – and what we are looking forward to in the next decade.

Mt Rainier with sunflower fields, Woodinville

What’s On the Horizon

So, my goals for the next year include reaching out and strengthening old friendships and making new friends, doing my best to launch my next book, getting healthy enough to be able to do AWP without too much hardship, increasing my reading and writing time. As I ease back into doing things in person, I’m hoping I can stay as safe as possible with the help of scientists and a good medical team and good sense, as well as (hopefully) the respect and care of people around me. What are your goals? How have they been reshaped during the pandemic years?

This view of Mt Rainier over sunflowers strikes me as incredibly inspiring, a sign of better things ahead. Just a few months ago, I was not expecting to be making friends at local wineries and farms, but I have, or starting a book club, or thinking about working again. I’ve realized that we have to work our priorities for joy as well as our realistic preparations for hardship into some kind of balance. Maybe this is part of getting older – we can see both joy and sadness on the horizon but try to focus on appreciating the beauty we have today. Being thankful for today – for sunflowers, for a summer day with clean air and relatively cool temperatures, for the people in our life, for the ability to enjoy the art of others and to contribute to the world.

A Poem Up On Verse Daily, AWP News, Hot Air Balloons, Hot Weather and MS, Woodinville Read Between the Vines Book Club,

Hot air balloon, above my house

AWP News and Hot Air Balloons

So I had the good news that three of my AWP panels were accepted, which was the first time that’s ever happened to me, but I can only be on two. So I’ll be on the panel I’m moderating, “Mutant, Monster, Myself: Writing the Disabled/Chronically Ill Body,” and another, “Your Best Book Launch: Publicity for Poets.”  So get ready for the Seattle AWP in March! I’ve got to stay healthy because that will also likely be the setting for the first appearance of my next book Flare, Corona, from BOA Editions. I love hometown AWPs, because you can show your friends around the best coffee shops and bookstores and hang out at the bookfair and still go home and sleep in your own bed. You can drive your own car and bring water to people and take people to offsite readings. It’s really much better for those of us who are disabled/chronically ill as well because we don’t have to stress out about how to get from point a to point b (at least, we’ve been to point a and point b before) or where we’ll eat or how safe the hotel rooms will be. I’m wondering if by March covid will be less of an issue? I can see it if we get more antivirals and new vaccines…maybe? So, this hot air balloon which rose over my house a few days ago in the late summer heat, a symbol of peace? hope?

Cafe au Lait dahlia in my garden

A Poem, “When I Try to Write an Elegy,” Up on Verse Daily Today!

“When I Try to Write an Elegy” by Jeannine Hall Gailey from REDACTIONS (versedaily.org)

Thank you to Verse Daily and to Redactions for featuring my poem, “When I Try to Write an Elegy,” from the latest issue of Redactions, up on Verse Daily today! Link above (and sneak peek below…) This poem is going to be in my upcoming book from BOA Editions, Flare, Corona!

Hot Weather and MS and Dipping My Toes Back in the Working World

I haven’t been up to much this week as we had several days of 90 degrees and not-great-air quality, so it was nice today, a slightly cooler day, to get out and about – I got my hair cut (see left,) walked around Kirkland a bit admiring some roses, and stopped by our local garden to pick up sweet corn. Even that much exhausted me – summer is not a great time for MS patients, as you may know if you have any MS folks in your life – the heat and humidity can feel like a nauseating weighted blanket. I haven’t had as much energy for writing or submitting as I wanted, but I’m hoping to get back in the groove by September.

I’m also considering starting up an hourly PR coaching business, maybe just a few hours a month to start, to help people get going on their books, small businesses, or projects. What do you think? I feel like I want to do more than just freelance writing, something that helps people, and also something that helps me dip my toes back it the working world. Even with MS, I feel like I have more to give than I’ve been giving, if you know what I mean.

Here are a few more scenes from late August in Kirkland and Woodinville this week:

Woodinville “Read Between the Wines” Book Club to Officially Start September 14!

Here’s the official graphic for the book club I’ll be hosting at J. Bookwalter Tasting Studio in Woodinville. First meet-up will be on September 14, and here’s a link to more about the event. 

The book we’re discussing Fake Like Me, is an art thriller combined with a clever new take on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. It should be fun! The wines at J. Bookwalter all have literary-themed names and both the outdoor and indoor spaces are lovely – I’m going to try to have the first event outdoors if the weather holds up!

Anyway, I hope to see some of you there!

What a Week! Some Fall Poems, More Info about the Woodinville Wine and Book Club, Woodinville Wildlife and Flowers, and More

Purple dahlias at a neighbor’s, Woodinville

What a Week! Some Fall Poems and More…

It’s been a week, right? Ex-President’s houses searched by the FBI, Salmon Rushdie’s horrible attack, polio in the wastewater in NYC, celebrity deaths—I mean, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d turned off the news. I had my own little dramas too—an unexpected allergic reaction to fruit (a rare cross-pollen reaction?), a triage nurse yelling at me to go the hospital, a flat tire.

But among all those things, the dahlias go on blooming, a Sturgeon supermoon rose beautiful and orange, the Pleiades appear overhead. Despite the stress, I tried to pay attention to the small wonders of late August.

More Info on the Woodinville Wine and Book Club

So, the Woodinville Wine and Book Club will officially start on Wednesday, September 14, and our first book up for discussion is the brilliant Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland. It’s an art mystery combined with a clever contemporary retelling of the Daphne du Maurier classic thriller, Rebecca. It’s happening from 6-8 PM at J. Bookwalter’s Winery in Woodinville. (The owner is a lover of all things literary, and the wines all have literary themes!) I’m going to lead the discussion, and wine and snacks will be available from the winery. The first meeting should be outdoors, if weather permits.

I’m really excited to start talking books and (hopefully) meeting up with friends in my own neighborhood. So many of my writer friends have either moved far away or live far away, and I feel like Woodinville, though it has lots going for it, has been lacking in cultural venues and opportunities for hanging out with like-minded book lovers. Hope this will make that better!

Supporting Local Businesses – Wineries and Flower Farms

Speaking of things that make life better, after a very stressful day – I had a sleep study this week (that I failed—remind me that I don’t sleep well hooked up to wires, ha), an allergic reaction, a triage nurse yelling at me to go the ER (I’m fine, thanks), and a blown tire that required a visit to the dealership to fix – I decided to take Glenn to a local winery, Otis Kenyon, here in Woodinville, to try a rare wine, Carménère, that’s extinct in its native France but still survives here in Washington, as well as Venezuela and Australia. I can’t actually drink much wine (histamine reactions), but Glenn definitely deserved it after going downtown to pick up and drop off the sleep study at the hospital, fixing a flat and putting on a spare tire in about fifteen minutes, and finishing up a very challenging class in his Masters program. And I love the idea of an extinct wine finding new life. And it’s always fun to pop in to the neighborhood small wineries and chat with the folks there – probably Woodinville at its friendliest! Everyone has an opinion about wine, the neighborhood, the flowers…

And then a visit to the new flower farm for some time in nature – and more pictures. Corn will be there next week! Once again, the new JB Family Grower’s lavender farm has acres of flowers to explore, photograph, inhale. It’s primarily a lavender farm, but the lavender plants are young. (But lookout Sequim when the plants get older—we’ll have lavender to rival yours right here in my neighborhood!) That’s okay—lots of different varieties of sunflower, dahlia, zinnia, and wildflower provide a lot of beauty—and this week the goldfinches had found the sunflowers, so they were darting and singing all around us. Magical! This time I brought home a bouquet of pale white and red sunflowers, and matching dahlias. It was a good ending to a difficult and stressful week. And I finally slept “normally” last night. (No sleep study gear really helps!)

Pileated Woodpecker perched on my deck

Finally, a Few Fall Poems…

Live Encounters kindly reposted a few fall poems of mine from a little while ago…maybe it will remind you that many writers’ favorite season is on the way! I hope you enjoy them. And enjoy this pileated woodpecker—we also had deer visitors who ate the last of my roses. I hope that August will be kind to us the rest of this month…

The poems, “Last Flowers,” “Charmed,” “Halloween 2018,” and “November Dark” are available at this link. 

A New Flower Farm in the Neighborhood, the Frustrations of Health Stuff (When All the Doctors Are Quitting,) Trying to Write a Poem a Day and How Is It August Already

Glenn and I in a field of sunflowers

Welcoming a New Lavender and Flower Farm to the Neighborhood

Sometimes there are unwelcome changes in your neighborhood (like a local horse farm being turned into condos) but sometimes there are welcome changes, like a sod farm (with an excellent view of Mt Rainier) being turned into a gigantic lavender and flower farm down the street from your house! JB Family Growers decided to covert a large (and I mean, bigger than several football fields) stretch of sod farm—which has been there as long as I’ve known anything about Woodinville—into a farm, starting with planting thousands of baby lavender plants, as well as patches of sunflowers, wildflowers, snapdragons, and dahlias, all of which are “u-pic” for little bouquets. It’s something that adds so much beauty (not to mention pollinator-friendliness) to our neighborhood—I can’t wait to take friends here, especially when the lavender fields grow up. And they’re expanding into a larger pumpkin patch, corn, and sunflower farm around the corner this fall. So we have that to look forward to in October. I swear, growing up on a farm in Tennessee means I feel more comfortable on farms than in the burbs—I love talking to the people that work there, buying local, and supporting their businesses.

I had a whole week of frustrating health stuff (lots of doctor appointments, lots of trying to track down new doctors after my old ones have quit/retired suddenly) but on Friday we had perfect weather—about seventy-five degrees and sunny—and decided to plan a visit to the new Flower Farm. It was so exhilarating just to feel immersed in so many flowers! I couldn’t put down my camera!

Triple pink lilies from my own garden!

Trying to Write a Poem a Day

I am not usually a write-a-poem-a-day type of person—I tend to write poems in groups—but I hadn’t been writing as much as I liked this summer, so I was happy to join a few friends in the venture. I’ve only written a couple I’m happy with, but the writing part is good for me.  I get a little cranky when I don’t write for long stretches.

I also need to catch up on submitting poems—and I’m trying to do some “new book” planning for next year as well. I still haven’t found perfect cover art for Flare, Corona, yet, despite a lot of looking. I need to order new business cards too (the ones I have use an older e-mail address) in time for next year’s Seattle AWP! I’m so excited to be seeing friends next year!

Anna’s hummingbird closeup

Frustrating Health Stuff (When All Your Doctors Are Quitting)

So I may have mentioned I had a different doctor’s appointment every day this week—and trying to track down new hematologists and an Ob/Gyn who’s experienced with bleeding disorders—both of which have been really hard. I’m sure a lot of people are dealing with this, as there’s been a bit of a mass exodus of doctors of a certain age—and even young doctors—after the burnout and frustrations of the last few years. And certain specialists are difficult to replace, especially when they have the narrow experience you need. So that’s been a lot of time on the phone and portals. On the plus side, no skin cancer (all of my immediate family has had basal cell carcinoma, so getting that skin check is important) and the dermatologist didn’t try to sell me any skin treatments! I felt a little disappointed, given my age. Shouldn’t they be trying to upsell me a bunch of stuff? LOL. Anyway, still thankful for the good doctors that stay and hoping I find a good fit for some of the more difficult specialties.

August Sunset from our deck

Can You Believe It’s August Already?

Yes, it’s August of 2022 already! Still dealing with Covid emergencies, and now Monkeypox has been declared a national emergency. Hey, can we get over one pandemic before starting another? Also, the realization that this is almost the end of summer, which seems literally to have just begun (right after July 4th, I believe). My garden is providing vases full of sweetpeas, roses, and dahlias, and I’ve got to start laying a foundation for promoting my new book next year for BOA. It really does take a lot of advance planning to launch even a little poetry book! Also, all of our outdoor projects have to get done before the rain starts again. The last couple weeks I’ve had various illnesses and health troubles, which always sets me back in my summer ambitions, but August tends to be a weird time for me, health-wise—maybe it’s the heat? Anyway, who’s ready for September?