Poem up on the Rumpus today and The Robot Scientist Daughter cover reveal!

Thanks to The Rumpus for featuring my poem “Introduction to the Limits of Metaphor (a Love Story)” on The Rumpus today!

And now, for the big reveal of the cover! Now, Judith Kerman, the editor of Mayapple Press, does her own cover design, and I think what she came up with is pretty great – but let me know what you think in the comments!

The artist we decided to go with is amazing Japanese artist Masaaki Sasamoto, and the piece is called “Cocoro.” I love the combination of the gold, the butterfly, and the apparently sleeping girl/robot.

And here’s the cover with the title, the author name, and an ingenious kind of combination of butterflies and gears coming out from the picture. This is, of course, an early mockup of the cover, but we like it!

Rattle poems, ComiCons missed, Cover art and Planning for the next book

First of all, thanks to Rattle for featuring my poem Horoscope on their “poem of the day” feature today. It’s a super-old poem – published in 2003, probably written a few years before that – and one of the first three poems I ever had published in real, “legitimate” poetry journals (Beloit Poetry Journal and Seattle Review were the other two, and they all sort of came out at the same time.)

Second, I was supposed to read at Emerald City ComiCon for a panel on the Drawn to Marvel anthology today, but I’ve been fighting a bug all the week, and this morning was the morning it decided to really come out and play – I nearly fainted this morning getting ready, running a high fever, so decided to put the kibosh on going (even though it’s a wonderful Con and I really wanted to support the superhero anthology.) The weather has been pretty miserable lately, one of the wettest Marches on record for the Seattle area in general, which is saying something. Nevertheless, we did manage to catch a double rainbow on camera yesterday, so that was amazing!

Since the giddiness of announcing the next book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, a few days ago, the Mayapple editors and I have been busy working and planning, mostly with the cover art. I think we’ve found something beautiful and I’ll be able to share it with you guys soon. The other thing I have to do is the terrifying part: getting blurbs. You’d think with (this makes) four books, I’d have gotten used to asking people, but I haven’t. It still makes me very nervous. And I write a lot of blurbs for other people, and hate to turn people down, so I’ve been on the other side of that question quite a bit too. Now, I’ve got to start planning, culling poems, deciding on formats and other kiddles and bits…but it’s pretty exciting that it’s really happening. There is almost no better time to work on a book than right after it’s been accepted for publication, because you’re really motivated after realizing “hey, other people are going to see this!”

Announcement – The Robot Scientist’s Daughter will be released March 2015 from Mayapple Press

OK, so here’s the official announcement I talked about a couple of posts ago: my fourth book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, will be published by Mayapple Press in March 2015! Mayapple Press is pretty interesting in that they have published women’s speculative poetry in the past, which is a fairly unusual thing to find! Feminist AND with sci-fi leanings? It’s a pretty cool fit.

I’m excited about it. The editors are great, this is the first time I will have SPD distribution, which is cool. I’m working on getting blurbs but I already have one really nice one I’m excited to share soon, along with some possible cover art ideas!

This book is probably my most personal, as it’s about my father’s work as a contractor for Oak Ridge National Laboratories, my childhood growing up around robots (cool!) and nuclear waste (not quite as cool) and some of the environmental fallout from both Oak Ridge and Fukushima. There are persona poems, but this book is probably my most autobiographical work so far. I remember Ilya Kaminsky, when he read my first book, said “Now you must make your own fairy tales.” I feel like this book is my attempt to do that.

Some Good News to be Thankful For – a Relief, a Finalist Announcement, a B12 warning, and More

So, this week of Thanksgiving, I definitely have some things to be thankful for.

After several neurologist visits and a barrage of tests, though they did find some neurological permanent damage and some other oddities, the consensus seems to be that I most likely do not have MS (though I’ll probably need another MRI down the line to make sure.) I hadn’t realized how much this news lifted a dark cloud over my head that’s been there for a few months, kind of weighing down my thoughts, trying not to think about the bad stuff ahead. I was so exhausted from the many tests that I didn’t even register the good news at first, it just kind of felt like the sun was out. Which, also, the sun was out in Seattle in November, a small miracle in itself (even if our air quality is in the tank! Ha! Can’t have everything!) I even wrote a poem the day I found out, which I hadn’t done in a while.

The other news was that I not only had a very good conversation with a lovely, kind and witty small press publisher about my fourth book manuscript The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and that the manuscript is also a finalist for this year’s Brittingham and Pollak Prize. So I am hopeful that good things are happening in that direction.

I would like to take a small moment to give you all a little bit of info and a warning about the seriousness of B12 deficiency. The first time I was tested for b12 deficiency was 2007 in Port Townsend; my symptoms then were frequent sore throats, mild intermittent buzzing in my hands and feet, and severe neck pain, which I thought was injury-related. The doctor was pretty smart for even thinking for look for a vitamin deficiency with that set of symptoms, I think, and sure enough, the blood test revealed very low b12. He started me on b12 shots monthly, which I took for years, and oral supplement drops. Unfortunately, I don’t absorb b12 through food or even through the shots very well, it turns out, and years of severely low b12 (starting probably years before 2007) have left me with some permanent neural damage, and I will always have to stay vigilant about getting tested for b12, even while getting shots or my current regimen of twice-weekly nasal spray b12. Some of the symptoms, like the neck pain, numbness and tingling in my hands and feet, clumsiness due to motor skill damage, and some memory issues – may stick around my whole life, I’ve been told. B12 deficiency, if it is severe enough, can damage your nerves’ myelin sheath in much the same way MS can. Now you know! Because I didn’t! This is why, during a few days of holiday cheer and down time, and if you have some spare time to get to a doctor, I’d encourage you to get some of your basic vitamin levels tested – including the B’s and maybe D, especially if you feel tired, or low, or especially numb, clumsy or ache-y. (My husband, by the way, who eats a fairly healthy diet and has no food allergies like I do, who had been complaining about feeling tired, and because of my insistence, got tested and turned out to be mildly deficient in Folic Acid! A surprise! So you never know until you get your B vitamins tested what you might not be getting through your diet.)

Now, I’m off to a physical therapy appointment followed by a date with my husband to see Catching Fire! It’s a glamorous life all right, and I am feeling thankful for it today. Merry Thanksgiving to All!