Friday, January 29, 2010

January wrap-up

I have to say, 2010 is shaping up to be a pretty busy year. January has come and gone so quickly, it almost feels like I fell asleep and missed the entire month. Of course, I didn’t (though I wish I had more sleep!). I was very present, in more than one state, but it’s hard to grasp how fast time moves along when the to-do list is at an all-time high.

While I have positively no complaints, I do have to issue an apology. For everyone who has sent me an email that has not yet had a response, I am so grateful for your patience. The past few weeks have generated a lot of discussion about low-res MFAs, literary citizenship, magazine interviews, etc… and I really am trying to get through every single email with care and attention. Thank you for understanding. Just know if you sent me a note, I’ll be responding asap.

On the note of being busy, I am pleased to share a few bits of news with you. This Sunday, January 31st, I’m a featured reader at The Scarab Club’s “Downtown Poetry Series.” The event starts at 2pm and also features Joy Gaines-Friedler, author of Like Vapor; Ken Meisel, author of Beautiful Rust; and John Sinclair & musical guests. Come on out for this great event in downtown Detroit. The venue is lovely, the poets are friendly, and it’s simply a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Some of you have asked for more discussion on the topic of Literary Citizenship. I have a few things to share: 1) I have a special article coming up in the May 2010 issue of The Writer magazine on this very important subject; 2) a selection of my talk with the MFA students at NILA will soon be shared, and 3) there’s a few special things in the works, so stay tuned. Thank you so much for your interest in this topic; it’s one we can all benefit from in many ways.

I’m also pleased to say my website has had several new updates, so if you haven’t stopped by in a while, go on over to www.loriamay.com and see what’s new.

Before I sign off for today, I want to remind everyone that there is still time to show your support for Tupelo Press. I shared this in a blog posting many days ago, but it’s worth posting again:

VOTE FOR TUPELO PRESS!!!
The Berkshire Bank Foundation is inviting members of the larger community to help them give $20,000 to worthy nonprofit organizations. Until January 31 you can vote for Tupelo Press. It's easy to do. Visit
http://tinyurl.com/ygjq82m and when the form opens, the address is: P.O. Box 1767, 243 Union Street #305 North Adams, MA 01247. Deadline to Vote is January 31, 2010.For more information about Tupelo Press, visit www.tupelopress.com.

Thanks for visiting the blog today. I hope to see some of you at Sunday’s reading…

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Q&A with author Carren Strock

For today’s author Q&A I am pleased to introduce Carren Strock. In her latest book, A Writer's Journey: What to Know Before, During, and After Writing a Book, Carren shares some of her wisdom and experience in the must-know details of publishing.

Carren, can you tell us about your latest book, A Writer's Journey: What to Know Before, During, and After Writing a Book?
My hopes are that this book will empower and inspire the inner writer in each of us. The nuts and bolts of how to organize, discipline yourself, improve your writing, find an agent, get your book published, and then market it, are all there. The chapters, peppered with anecdotal experiences, simple exercises, and key concepts, will serve as a road map for the reader. My perspective is down-to-earth and to the point. I traveled this path to becoming a published writer and you can too.

The book was inspired by a class you were teaching, was it not? Can you tell us how the project progressed from a seed of an idea to the book on the shelves today?
While I had written a few small pieces, and, occasionally, had one published, joining the International Women’s Writing Guild was the turning point in my writing life. It was in that positive environment, that I began to believe that I could actually write a book. And I did. My first book, Married Women Who Love Women, sold at auction to a major publishing house. And last year the second edition was released.

Based on my journey from neophyte writer to successfully published author and marketer, I decided to share what I had learned along the way. Women came to my workshops with lots of questions and I realized their questions fell into three catagories: “What to Know Before, During and After Writing a Book.” Every year I had more information to share and eventually not enough class time in which to share it. That was when I realized, “I have so much information. Why not put it all into a book?” and thus was born my latest book, A Writer’s Journey, What to Know Before, During, and After Writing a Book.

What do you hope this book will offer emerging writers?
I was told, while in college, that some people were writers and others were not and that I was not a writer. I believed the English professor who said that and my secret dream of being a writer was crushed. It took me fifteen years to pick up a pen after hearing those negative words. I hope to let everyone who has a dream of writing know that their dream is possible and can be a reality.

You've said that joining the International Women's Writing Guild was the turning point in your career. What can you tell us about your involvement with the Guild and why it was so influential in your writing career?
I would describe the guild, especially the summer conference that it offers, as a place where you are surrounded by positive energy. Just imagine yourself in a place where the words "no," "you can't" and "impossible" don't exist. The guild was created for the personal and professional empowerment of women through writing. It supports the joyful camaraderie that comes from shared interests of a woman's writing community.

If you could share one tip today for emerging writers, something they should know before writing a book, what would it be?
Writing is hard work. The major part of writing is rewriting, but you're in good company. Every writer starts the same way - with a blank page. Also, the writer who is persistent is the one who succeeds.

Where can readers learn more about you and your work?
My website is http://www.carrenstrock.com/. My book, A Writer's Journey: What to Know Before, During and After Writing a Book, can be purchased through any of the on-line bookstores or directly through me on my website. My first book, Married Women Who Love Women, is also available through any of the on-line bookstores. I am available to speak to groups for the cost of travel and accommodations alone, in those situations where an honorarium would create a hardship for the group and its members.

Thanks, Carren!

*****

And, dear reader, thank you for visiting the blog. This Friday, I’ll be sharing some writing news and upcoming events.

See you next time...

Monday, January 25, 2010

Writer-in-Residence: Whidbey Island



Today I am surrounded by the concrete, iron, and industry of Detroit. In what seems like worlds away, a mild wonderland of nature, bald eagles, and misty morning sunrises was my reality a little more than a week ago.

As guest faculty of the MFA residency for Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, I was spoiled. Yes, the students and faculty were a joy. Yes, the atmosphere of the residency was inspiring for my creative senses. But, oh, how I enjoyed those early morning and late evening strolls. The peace. The quiet. The mental space to create.

It may have been the too-good-to-be-true environment that inspired me to write while multi-tasking my stay, but it was definitely the students who motivated me. In hearing their own personal stories, in sharing meals and laughter-filled conversation, the MFA students at NILA are an incredible bunch. This was made evident by the wonderful student readings offered on two of the four nights during my stay. Hearing them share fiction, poetry, and personal essays was the highlight of the week.

I couldn’t possibly name everyone, for all were a treat to meet, but I must say it was a pleasure to make acquaintance with Charlotte, a fellow Canuck. Kobbie’s voice as she read – and indeed as she spoke – made it known she definitely has a long life of readings ahead of her. And it wasn’t just the students who delivered powerful readings.

I was madly entertained by children’s authors Bonny Becker and George Shannon, and equally impressed with Melissa Hart, author of the memoir Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood. (By the way, if you haven’t already done so, please visit Melissa’s website and watch her very funny book trailer!) Overall, the entire faculty was incredible, warm, inviting, and a great deal of fun. Larry, Kathleen, and Carmen… I hope to spend time with you in the hallway lounge again sometime.

For the residency, I presented two workshops on the topic of Literary Citizenship. I plan on sharing some key points of these discussions soon. I am ever so grateful for the open minds and friendly faces that sat in on these workshops. It truly was a delightful bunch!

While in the company of many other talented guest presenters, I took advantage of workshops provided by Melissa Hart, Kelli Russell Agodon, and George Shannon. The interesting thing was I didn’t plan on writing much during my stay at the residency, figuring I’d be too busy with the schedule. As it turns out, I was very, very wrong. This was a very productive week for creative works and I was pleased to come home with a notebook full of ideas.

But… that’s the thing about a place like Whidbey Island. With just the right setting and the right kind of people by your side, the mind has a way of letting loose for long enough to let the imagination roam free.

If you’re in the area – or close enough to visit – there are some upcoming writing workshops hosted by Whidbey Island Writers Association. I definitely recommend attending a full-day workshop to see for yourself how top-notch the people, the program, and the atmosphere is. Visit the WIWA website for more info.

Lastly, I must extend a big thanks to Wayne Ude, Director of the MFA program, for inviting me to join in on this incredible week of activities. Thank you, Wayne, for your hospitality and conversation, and for introducing me to a fine group of very talented writers. It was certainly my pleasure.

Want to see more of Whidbey Island? Have a look at the post below to see some pics!

photos from Whidbey Island

The Captain Whidbey Inn, home to students and faculty of the NILA MFA residency.
The Inn was established in 1907 and is situated in the heart of Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve.

I couldn't get enough of these gorgeous, towering trees.

A lakefront view where writing and inspiration begin...

One of the many student readings during the residency.

On my last morning on Whidbey Island, the morning was fresh and invigorating (but not cold!).

Just a few of the many wonderful students and faculty at NILA.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Sawtooth Poetry Prize

Just a quick post from me today as I continue to unpack from my teaching trip on Whidbey Island (aka: complete writing deadlines prior to unpacking like a sane person). Hopefully by Monday life will be back to its unusual self and I can share some of the great experiences I had at the MFA residency for Northwest Institute of Literary Arts.

For now, I’m just sharing some author love and opportunity:

Call for Manuscripts
January 1, 2010 through March 1, 2010

$1,500 for a book of poems
Final Judge: Terrance Hayes
The winning volume will be published
in January 2011 by Ahsahta Press.

Full guidelines:

Ahsahta Press is a member of the
Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and
conforms to the CLMP Code of Ethics.

Sign up for their monthly newsletter:

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Q&A with poet Caroline Maun

For this week’s author Q&A, I am pleased to present poet Caroline Maun. She is the editor of The Collected Poems of Evelyn Scott, author of a collection of poetry titled The Sleeping and a poetry chapbook titled Cures and Poisons. She is also a songwriter with the pop band Black Hat, which released its first album, Phases of the Sun, in 2009.

Caroline will be part of a great poetry event TONIGHT at The Scarab Club in Detroit MI. Also reading is Mariela Griffor and Dan Padilla. The Scarab Club is located at 217 East Farnsworth, Detroit, and the reading takes place from 7-10pm.

Please join me in welcoming Caroline Maun…

Hi Caroline. Can you tell us a little about your latest release, Cures and Poisons?
Hi Lori. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss some of what I do poetically. Cures and Poisons is a chapbook published in 2009 with Pudding House Press. It is a work about the ways we trip and fall--physically, spiritually, romantically. It documents, in its way, some of the most important relationships and experiences in my life, although I would extend the disclaimer I used in my first book of poems, The Sleeping: "This is a work of the imagination." For me, as for many poets, life provides the raw material that we then draw a frame around, poem by poem. Any event or person that we concentrate on poetically is distorted to some degree if only because we have to say, through the form of the poem, that an aesthetic experience begins here and ends there. This beginning--saying what is or isn't a poem--then is compounded with all of the particular choices of language we use to sculpt the raw material into a meaningful piece of work--something that hopefully stands on its own and exists independently in others' imaginations. Poems in this chapbook address parents, childhood experiences, a rape I survived as a teenager, a love relationship, moving to Detroit, and the centrality in my experience of mood.

What inspired the title?
The title poem, "Cures and Poisons" was inspired by an offhand remark by a friend. I write songs for a local pop band called Black Hat, and when we were in the studio our producer and friend Jef Reynolds said "Why don't you write a song about what is wrong with the world." Tall order, but inspiring. I meditated on that, and my answer for that moment turned into the poem "Cures and Poisons." The poem was later set to music by band member Frankie the K (Frank Koscielski) and we have performed it around the area for a while. The poem stands on its own on the page, though, and describes something of the neo-Depression/post-bubble world that we now inhabit. It is about a fallen Eden where "the garden is a dune," "because we could we did" and "cures turn to poisons soon." Each stanza explores some way in which our perspectives have been distorted, we sought an easy answer that backfired, or what we thought was important evaporated like a mirage. I chose this as the title for the volume because many of the poems are about that type of personal epiphany--where you find yourself empty-handed. The volume ends with a poem that turned into a blues lyric in Black Hat's album Phases of the Sun which also came out in 2009. "The Road" is about not taking the shortcut, realizing that the road is right there ahead, and keeping a steady head when "the wind starts to blow." It was inspired by the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same title.

Would you like to share one of the shorter poems with the readers today?
Sure! The following short, short, short poem (the shortest in the chapbook) is written as if it were an epitaph to the work. It plays the role of a pause for deep breath and a somewhat nervous laugh between stages of the process--often quite a bit darker-- that the work represents. In a peculiar way, all the main themes of the volume are here reduced to an attar. Hopefully, it will give your readers a chuckle as they see the familiar origin story retold in the spirit of a New Yorker cartoon:


After the Fall

There was nothing more to do
but
pick up
that apple and chew,
once bitten,
pick up that apple and chew.

As a poet, do you deliberately set out to work on a theme for the purpose of a chapbook, or do you gather poems from a broader collection and narrow down your selections?
In this case, I also have a longer, full-length volume of approximately seventy poems that I hope will find its way to print very soon, and when presented with the opportunity to publish a chapbook I had the excellent challenge of asking myself how best to re-organize and select material for a shorter work. There are probably more ways to reshape material for a new work than we would be able to calculate without resorting to counting machines--the trick is to find a way to let the material lead you as an artist into a new space through the art of arrangement. In this case I wanted to capture the emotional arc of the longer work and let the energy between the poems reach a different intensity. It was an honor to have the chapbook come out with Pudding House Press, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of crafting it.

You'll be traveling to Denver this year for the AWP conference in April. Do you have any other events or readings coming up you'd like to tell us about?
I'll be reading at the Woodward Line Series hosted by James E. Hart III and Kim Hunter at the Scarab Club on Wednesday, January 20th at 7 p.m. If your readers enjoy a musical approach, I'll be performing with the Black Hat band at The Raven at 932 Military Street in Port Huron MI on March 20th at 8:00 p.m. and at the Motown Word Fest on March 27. For those attending the Association of Writing Professionals conference in Denver I'll be at the Pudding House Press booth at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 9th, reading poetry and selling chapbooks. Anyone interested in purchasing the chapbook can do so at my website, http://www.carolinemaun.com/.

What are you working on now?
I'm currently completing a monograph on the modernist American women writers Lola Ridge, Evelyn Scott, Charlotte Wilder and Kay Boyle. The title is Mosaic of Fire and it is essentially a biography of their social network, centered in Greenwich Village during the years 1920-1940. I find that when I'm working on a book or article that is more discursive, I end up drawing on the same energy that fuels the creative work; I have to set the poems to the side during the heat of the prose project, and one frustration I note from time to time is that something I would normally take the time to capture in a poem draft--something of beauty or some insight-- will just slip by me as I am pursing research for an argument or constructing an interpretation. That said, I have really enjoyed delving into the lives of other poets who were pioneers of the art from the standpoint of the new woman in the early twentieth century, and the project was enriched by archival work with letters, memoirs, and other papers housed in special collections libraries. I am stunned and inspired by how brave these women poets were who were basically discovering at no small risk to themselves what it means to write as women and to carve out new subjects and moods for poetry. When I turn back to poetry after this interlude, I will do so with a great reserve of stored creative energy and some new models for how to approach the art.

Thanks, Caroline!

*****

Now that I’m getting back to my usual schedule, be sure to check next week Wednesday for another author interview. I’ll also soon be sharing a post recapping some highlights from my recent visit to the MFA residency of Northwest Institute of Literary Arts in WA, where I was guest faculty last week.

Thanks for stopping by!

2010 Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest

The 2010 Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest
Judged by Elizabeth Robinson
is Omnidawn Publishing's first annual
chapbook contest
open to all poets writing in English.

Prize includes $1,000,
Fall 2010 publication by Omnidawn &
100 complimentary copies of the chapbook.

The entry fee of $15 entitles you to a copy of
the winning chapbook if you send an SASE.

Submission period: 1/1/10 - 2/28/10.
Accepting both electronic
and postal submissions.

For details visit www.omnidawn.com/contest
~~~~~~~~~~~

Also Coming:
Omnidawn's 2010 Full Poetry Book Contest
for first or second books.
Judged by Rae Armantrout.
Prize includes $3,000.,
Fall 2011 publication by Omnidawn,
& 100 complimentary copies of the book.
Electronic & postalsubmission period: 3/1/10 - 6/30/10.

support Tupelo Press

VOTE FOR TUPELO PRESS!!! The Berkshire Bank Foundation is inviting members of the larger community to help them give $20,000 to worthy nonprofit organizations. Until January 31 you can vote for Tupelo Press. It's easy to do. Visit http://tinyurl.com/ygjq82m and when the form opens, the address is: P.O. Box 1767, 243 Union Street #305 North Adams, MA 01247. Deadline to Vote is January 31, 2010.

For more information about Tupelo Press, visit www.tupelopress.com.

Poets Follies Reading Series

POETS FOLLIES READINGS SERIES

Readings by
CHRISTOPHER LELAND & EDWARD MORIN

Poets Follies – a reading, discussion and performance gathering of and about local and national poetry and prose authors and musicians – will be held at the Ewald Branch Library in Grosse Pointe Park, 15175 East Jefferson, Grosse Pointe Park, MI from 6:30 to 9:00pm on January 21, 2010.

Edward Morin has had poems published in Hudson Review, Ploughshares, and Michigan Quarterly Review. His co-translations of modern Chinese and Greek poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Iowa Review, New Letters, TriQuarterly, Chariton Review, and Two Lines: A Journal of Translation.

Christopher Leland is most recognized for the publication of his fifth and most recent novel, Letting Loose, a novel of remembrance, re-evaluation and reconciliation. The book's characters are people whose lives have veered apart since the late 1960s but who are brought together for the funeral of Bobbo Starwick, whose remains have come home 25 years after he was declared missing in action in Vietnam. Centered in the five days before the funeral in the remembrances of Bobbo's family and people whose lives he touched, the book is a social history of the 1960s made most personal as Bobbo's gay half-brother, his former girlfriend, a fellow Vietnam veteran and his parents cope with what has gone unspoken and what has changed since the war.

Open Mic is scheduled for this event. The Poets Follies Reading series is a free admission event.

For more information, visit www.marickpress.com.

Monday, January 18, 2010

the task of unpacking


I’m back from a whirlwind week of writing, workshops, and presenting at a wonderful MFA residency on Whidbey Island WA. That’s a lot of Ws. There’s also a lot to unpack, regroup, and organize. Stay tuned for our regularly scheduled blog postings asap!

In the meantime, check out this incredible literary gem: Volume 6 of Los Angeles Review. I’ve only made it 1/3 of the way through, but am already in love with it. It’s a must-read so head on over to http://redhen.org/losangelesreview to see for yourself.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

back in 5 (days)



It’s a particularly busy week, so I hope you’ll excuse the absence.

We’ll return to our regularly scheduled blog programming next week!

Friday, January 8, 2010

Whidbey Island Writers Workshops

This year, instead of hosting a conference, WIWA is offering a series of one-day workshops from January 16 to June 5. With seven workshops to choose from, there’s a little something for everyone.

As part of this series, I’m pleased to be leading a workshop on Saturday, January 16 from 10am-4pm, at the Coupeville Methodist Church in Coupeville WA. My workshop, “Writing Your Way: Your Path to Publication,” is a great introductory course for emerging authors.

Want to know more? This is the workshop description:

Writing Your Way: Your Path to Publication
What does it mean to be a writer? Why do we write? How do we find an audience for our work? From blank page to publication, this one-day workshop will help you set and reach your writing goals whether you write fiction, poetry, or non-fiction. Discussions and exercises will help you develop your voice, find an audience, and promote your work. We'll also talk about finding inspiration and how to get past the inevitable blank page. In addition to a notebook, participants are encouraged to bring samples of their writing, a query letter, a synopsis and/or proposal.

WIWA workshops are limited to 20 participants, so if you’re interested in participating be sure to visit the website for details. Registration closes next Thursday. Feel free to email me if you have any questions specific to my workshop.

I encourage you to check out the other great workshops WILA is offering this season. Visit www.writeonwhidbey.com/Conference/index.html for more information.

Whidbey Island Writers Association is also fundraising for next year’s $90,000 writing conference. If you’d like to help support this wonderful organization, visit this link for more info.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Q&A with poet Andreas Gripp

For today’s Q&A, I am pleased to introduce Andreas Gripp, a London ON poet. Andreas is the author of eleven books of poetry and eight chapbooks. His poetry has also been published in a number of literary magazines and anthologies, including Ascent Aspirations, Literary Review of Canada, Carousel, and The Toronto Quarterly. For more information, be sure to visit his website, www.andreasgripp.com.

At 175 pages, Anathema is your largest collection to date. How did you know it was time to put together a collection of new and selected poems?
Well I wanted reader favourites (plus my own favourites) to be easily found in one collection, and after 10 books, I suppose it was time for a "greatest hits" so to speak. In addition, I found myself constantly going back and revising poems, finding little flaws in earlier versions published in previous books, and thought it might be swell to revise them to my satisfaction, include my best ones that were just fine, and add a few new offerings to make the book feel fresh.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to "reboot" my poetry career and have something "new" for people reading my work for perhaps the very first time. These are the poems that "define" my first decade as a poet and I'd be content if I suddenly passed away and this was the surviving legacy.

Care to give a brief taste of what we'll find inside Anathema?
Readers will find an assortment of poems on loneliness and loss, relationships-that-end-badly, verses on love as well as a love-that-can-never-be-for-whatever-reason, discovering the divinity in nature, finding solace in death, as well as some bizarre, offbeat characters and a poetic perspective on some societal issues -- much of which written in a metered, lyrical narrative.

Do you write every day? Do you have a 'schedule' or other habits to keep the muse working?
That's the worst thing a poet can do, in my opinion. If I force myself to write a poem or do it because it's on my "schedule of things to do," then it becomes a mechanical exercise. There are already way too many poems in the world (a great deal of which seem "recycled") -- we can't keep up with them all! Less is more (which may make me appear hypocritical because of the amount of books and chapbooks I've released), and I prefer to allow an idea for a poem to come to me. Sometimes it's just a word that needs expanding, or a vignette that needs to be told.

Most of my poems are about other people (fictional bits inspired by some episode of reality) so this makes it easier, perhaps, for me to have lots to write about. Were I to write about my own dull life (which I'm afraid too many poets do in relation to themselves), I'd run out of ideas in a hurry.

In terms of managing my creative time, if I have a good block to allot for writing, I might sit in front of a white screen for a bit and see if anything has inspired me... if nothing, then I'll do something else.

Your work has been included in a number of international journals. What are some of your favorite journals to read and why?
Well actually, the majority of my individual poems published have appeared in more obscure anthologies than journals as I don't send out my work that often, really -- the whole process is too tedious.

In terms of what I read in relation to journals, I find a lot of them to be pretentious and don't read too many on a regular basis (this particularly applies to the government-funded CanLit contingent). However, there are times when I'll read through some literary magazines like Poetry (based in Chicago) as I find the quality is better than most (and at least they have some validity to be snobbish). Within Canada, Ascent Aspirations (out of B.C.) is pretty decent and you'll find a variety of voices and styles inside its pages -- very reader-friendly I'd say. ARC (based in Ottawa) has its moments.

Your work has received some very positive reviews. What sort of challenges do you encounter when playing the dual role of poet and publicist?
Promoting one's work is a "necessary evil" it seems -- many writers (including me) would rather just write and do some easy-to-get-to readings. Although it is much easier nowadays to publicize your work with all of the online networking available, there's also a lot more competition. Everybody and their grandmother has a book out it seems, and the challenge for me and any writer really is to present their work as something different, words that haven't been said before.

It would be simpler, of course, to have a contract with a bigger publisher and have them book my reading dates, author signings, etc... but I'm forced to do the promotional end myself which means I don't have the clout of a big press behind me or a revered imprint on the spine of my books which guarantees a review in the Globe & Mail or an invitation to Harbourfront. I'm grateful though, that those who've embraced my work, though the numbers be relatively small, are nonetheless very supportive and vocal, and that has kept me going.

Since you often participate in group readings, would you like to share any of your upcoming appearances so readers know where to see you live and in person?
At the moment, sorry to say, there's nothing else scheduled this winter. I don't like driving out-of-town between December and March (been caught in blizzards before and they're extremely unnerving to be stuck in), but when spring arrives, hopefully I'll have some gigs lined up. Since I'm more of a regional poet and don't like travelling, I'd likely stick to another London, Ontario event or do the Hamilton-Oakville-Toronto corridor. I'd also like to read in Sarnia as it's closeby and has a pretty neat scene by the looks of it. I wish there was something happening in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge area...

What's next for you?
I've been writing some new poems and I'm gradually putting together my next book manuscript, tentatively titled The Fall. It might be fitting for it to come out next fall, we'll see. I also have another haiku chapbook I'd like to release in 2010. I keep saying I'll go on an indefinite hiatus but that never seems to happen...


*****

Remember to visit http://www.andreasgripp.com/ for more information, or to order Anathema.
There are more author Q&As in the works, so be sure to bookmark the blog and visit often.
Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, January 4, 2010

planning for AWP

It may be months away, but it’s not too early to start planning for this year’s AWP conference. April will be here before we know it and there are so many great offerings this year, I’ve already started to map out what sessions I’ll be attending, which book fair booths I’ll be frequenting, and even who I’ll be having coffee with on some days. The annual conference is such a whirlwind event, I figure it’s smart to get a head start and carve out my wish list for productivity.

If you’re planning on attending, be sure to visit the AWP website for ongoing updates to the main schedule, as well as to the schedule of off-site events. The list of exhibitors continues to have add-ons as well, so be sure to check in with the site more than once to stay up to date with new information.

If you have never attended the AWP conference, I have to say this is one of the most affordable gatherings of writers, publishers, and reps from educational institutions. The value you get for your dollar is well worth it for making connections, meeting writing friends from across the country, and taking advantage of an assortment of craft discussions.

There are also some wonderful author readings you won’t want to miss. This year’s featured presenters include Bonnie Jo Campbell, Rita Dove, Patricia Smith, and many more. Have a look at this link to preview some of the readings featured this year.

Be sure to register in advance, book your flight to Denver, and let me know if you’ll be attending. I have a scheduled booksigning and some other off-site events in the works, and I’d love the opportunity to say hello to some of the blog readers.

What better way to welcome 2010 than by treating yourself to an incredible conference?

Saturday, January 2, 2010

arts & culture photos

poet Penn Kemp





Curiosity Shop, cross-Canada tour


Mike O'Neill


Click Here to view Travel Photos

travel photos

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia Canada


Peggy's Cove NS Canada

Peggy's Cove NS Canada

ghost town Garnet MT

ghost town Garnet MT

The Fairmont Chateau in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

Lake Louise AB Canada

Lake Louise AB Canada


Banff AB Canada


Pike Place Market Seattle WA

Pike Place Market Seattle WA

Mackinac Island MI

Toronto ON Harbourfront

Lake Huron sunset, Grand Bend ON

Breezes Resort, Nassau Bahamas

Detroit Zoo MI

Toledo Zoo OH

Toledo Zoo OH

Whidbey Island WA


Click Here to view Arts & Culture Photos