AWP 2012 in Chicago, or, Why Do We Do This?

This blog has been silent for a while, and generally for very positive reasons that I will mention in later posts, but that is not the matter at hand.

More to the point, tomorrow I will be joining several thousand writerly types in one of the great annual rituals like the migration of Monarch butterflies or the spawning of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay.

In other words, I will be attending this year's conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in Chicago, where I have lived and near where I grew up.

With airfare and hotel paid for, and no-cage boarding arranged for Roo the Rescue Dog, the only question remaining is Why am I doing this? With plenty of company I can ask Why Do We This?

It's not for the money. No one I know will be turning a profit. A few in academia may break even if their departments fund them, but such funds are increasingly hard to come by.

Yet money is far from the only currency exchanged. Like other fine arts and some performing arts, writing depends on other economies. One is the prestige economy of publications and professional activity that may eventually turn to tenure and grants, though for relatively few. Even in these cases the amounts of money involved would seem bafflingly small to a financier circa 2006. Presenting papers and giving readings, though, can yield a slice of that small pie. Sometimes overlapping with the prestige economy is the gift economy of networking, favors exchanged and trading in books, journals and swag of usually modest dimensions; this serves as the framework for no small amount of conviviality.

Even without a quid pro quo, more than a few genuinely enjoy advancing the professional and creative development of others and/or buying a broke graduate student a drink. The term for these feelings in economics is "warm glow altruism effects".

While I took no action toward the proposals noted in this space last year, I will come in with a plan, as discussed in detail by several other bloggers. The centerpiece of mine will be the event shown in the flyer above, an offsite meet-and-greet (and signing) by poets affiliated with WordTech Communications, the publisher of my 2005 collection Settling for Beauty and my August 2012 collection Labor Day at Venice Beach. With any luck I will also have the opportunity to visit the fine people of Accents Publishing and American Book Review (and that leaves 25 more letters to cover). I also hope to stop in with Salmon Poetry, publisher of the anthology Dogs Singing, the proceeds of which go to two dog rescue organizations.

Another distinct pleasure will be attending a few readings and panels to get off my feet for a little bit and, more importantly, to remind myself that we are there for the art.

This could be fun. Please feel free to introduce yourself if you see me, assuming my badge has the right side showing.

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Acceptance of Third Poetry Collection: Labor Day at Venice Beach

Now that National Poetry Month is over, and I have learned that the answer to the question "Where's my cut?" is "nowhere", I can share some good news I learned of in mid-March and formalized in recent weeks.

To wit, my third book of poetry, Labor Day at Venice Beach, has been accepted for publication by the Cherry Grove Collections imprint of Wordtech Communications, which also published my second collection, Settling for Beauty, in 2005. Publication is scheduled for August of 2012.

While not all of the poems in Labor Day at Venice Beach have been published, the majority have. The title poem and another, "Four Fires", nominated for a Pushcart Prize, appeared in the Los Angeles Review, the periodical wing of Red Hen Press. Other poems appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including the following:

32 Poems

Alimentum

Arkansas Review

Babel Fruit

Gargoyle Magazine

The Helix Magazine

Hiss Quarterly

The Innisfree Poetry Journal

Lilliput Review

The Pedestal Magazine

Poems Niederngasse

Terrain

Umbrella

Verse Wisconsin

I am grateful to the editors of all of these journals, and I am pleased to have met several of them following the publication of my poems. If other individual poems in the collection are published in journals I will update this space and my acknowledgments page accordingly.

Some have said that writing is the easy part, though I'm not so sure about that. At any rate, now begins the part that's more than a little challenging for a dreamy introvert, such as many poets are. I have to obtain blurbs and locate venues for readings on whatever my book tour may turn out to be. I also have to cast about and see which journals are willing to review the book. In fact, I might even gear up for a launch party and a house reading or two.

Suggestions on these issues are welcome in the comments or by personal message.

In contrast to 2005, though, in 2012 I will not be planning a book launch at the same time as a wedding. With some lead time and a lot more knowledge than the last time out, I might get more recognition and maybe even some more sales.

This space will feature many more updates on book preparation and launching, but in the meantime, you read it here first.

Coming in August 2012: Labor Day at Venice Beach.

This Book Is Priced to Move!

If you've read this blog more than a time or two, you may have noticed the occasional reference to my second collection, Settling for Beauty.


Perhaps you thought about purchasing a copy but held off because you needed to save money.


Now you can do both--have my book and save money.


"How can that be?" you might ask.


That is a very good question, and I just happen to have an answer.


Right now Settling for Beauty is priced to move at one of the leading online booksellers. Yes, that one. You can have a 76-page book of accessible free verse for less than you might spend on a burrito.


If you have any remaining doubt as to whether you should purchase a copy of Settling for Beauty, this might help. Should you buy the book and not like it, I will refund the sale price of the book to the first five individuals who state that they do not like it and can provide proof of purchase.


Obviously, this works on the honor system. Anyone who likes the book but would lie to get a small refund has to live with himself, and I still won't be out much money.


If you are still on the fence, here is one more to chance to check out the link.

Off to the Fair, or AWP and Me

To paraphrase Emily Dickinson, and do so badly, because I would not come to AWP, AWP kindly came to me.

AWP, generally pronounced by its letters rather than as rhyming with Walt Whitman's "barbaric yawp", is the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. The initials also serve as shorthand for the annual conference, which begins today in Washington, DC, where I live.

Avoiding travel in a snowstorm of historic proportions is a stroke of good luck, and there are others. Without the burdens of representing an academic institution or speaking on a panel, I can take in readings and other events, as well as check out the Bookfair without any great pressure.

Of course, I will have a few goals and one scheduled event. Tomorrow, February 3, I will be joining edtor Jessie Lendennie and other contributing poets in a signing of Dogs Singing: A Tribute Anthology at the Salmon Press table.

Other projects will involve freestyle hawking of my wares. Newest among them is my sonnet "Botanical Garden," which is the February selection of Broadsided. I will be handing out copies myself, and others are encouraged to print out and post the poem, illustrated by Ira Joel Haber.

Also debuting at AWP is Issue 9 of Los Angeles Review, which includes my unusually long free verse poem "Labor Day at Venice Beach"--inspired, as they say, by actual events.

I am also in the pleasantly odd position of promoting a book I don't yet have in hand. My essay collection Dowsing and Science, described on page 49 of the Spring/Summer Catalog of the Texas A&M University Press consortium, will be published on March 1. It will be a challenge to make people remember the title of a book they haven't seen. Still, the collection contains essays of varying lengths, tones, and subjects, including a few personal essays as well as a preponderance of intellectual and cultural criticism, and that variety makes Dowsing and Science a compact and reasonably priced choice for classroom use as well as personal reading. (Yes, I am selling my book here.) It is presently available for pre-order from the publisher and online sellers in the United States and nine other countries.

Finally, I will be reminding people that they can still obtain my collection Settling for Beauty, which recently received a favorable review from poet and fiction writer Eric Hendrixson.

In the midst of all this I will have the opportunity to see friends and pass out my card, which includes the URL for this blog. Comfortable shoes will be crucial.

And now it's off to the fair or, in the word of British novelist David Lodge, "Whee!"

Settling for Beauty and Lessons of Publishing

Timing may not be everything, but it counts for a lot, especially in promoting books.

I learned this the hard way with my first two collections of poetry. The first, The Hypothetical Landscape, was published as part of the Quarterly Review of Literature Poetry Series in 1999 and is presently out of print. (I may see what I can do to change that.) At the time the book came out, though, I was working two part-time jobs with no benefits and was in no position to attempt a book tour or any other major promotional efforts. Nor did it help that I wasn't hooked into the academic networks that lead to of readings and events.

I did not make the same mistakes when my second collection, Settling for Beauty, was published in 2005. I can't even say that I made new and different mistakes. But I did learn one valuable lesson: if you are publishing a book and planning a wedding from a distance, and doing all that while working full-time, something has to give.

For me, like the vast majority of people, not working was not an option. Even less of an option was changing wedding plans. So fully promoting Settling for Beauty gave way at the time, and I have no regrets about that, per Edith Piaf, especially now that I am about to celebrate my fifth anniversary with the wonderful Paula Van Lare.

There won't be quite as much on my plate when it's time to promote my forthcoming book of essays; there will be more to come on that. Things should also be similarly tranquil when my third and fourth collections of poetry come out. In a moment of guarded optimism I say "when" rather than "if" because one of the two manuscripts, a collection of formal verse, has been a finalist in two contests.

But for now I hope to give at least a little attention to Settling for Beauty. If you follow the link you can see a few sample poems. Another poem in the collection appeared on Verse Daily.

Virtually any writer is going to look back on older work and think of how it could be better. I am no exception. Still, new poems (and essays and fiction, among other things) need to be written, and time is short.

In any event, I am still very fond of that book, and I think the linked samples will give you an idea of why you might become fond of it as well. You are welcome to let me know what you think.

The title of that book, in case you don't feel like scrolling up, is Settling for Beauty.

Poetic Voices Without Borders 2: The Reading

At some point, and without my having been consulted, April was chosen as National Poetry Month.

Thus every April for about the past 15 years or so I have been sitting around thinking "Okay, another National Poetry Month is here. Where's my cut?"

This year I can't complain, as I actually get to participate in an event tied in with National Poetry Month. The announcement goes like this:

On Thursday, April 23, 2009, at 7 PM the Arlington Arts Center will host a special reading in celebration of Poetry Month with the following poets: Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Naomi Ayala, Mel Belin, Jody Bolz, Ye Chun, Teri Ellen Cross, Patricia Garfinkel, Peter Klappert, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, C. M. Mayo, Judith McCombs, E. Ethelbert Miller, Miles David Moore, Richard Peabody, Kim Roberts, Blake Robinson, M.A. Schaffner, Gregg Shapiro, J. D. Smith, and Robert L. Giron who will read from the anthology and their current work.

The voices found within these pages are passionate and enlightening while echoing a desire in their own way to transform, to change, to transcend borders, be they personal, cultural or national, in a poetic manner as if to say that within literature there isn’t a border for the human spirit, for it is that energy that keeps us going.

In Celebration of Poetry Month

and the Release of Poetic Voices Without Borders 2
Thursday April 23, 2009 at 7 PM
The Arlington Arts Center
3550 Wilson Blvd. (across from the Virginia Square Metro stop)
Arlington, VA ~ 703.248.6800

In addition to Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, I plan to bring for sale a few copies of my second collection, Settling for Beauty, as well as display copies of The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo.

With a lineup like this, there should be something for everyone.

Settling for Beauty

I still have a lot to learn about publishing, but I can pass along one piece of hard-earned wisdom: if you have a choice, don't plan your wedding and your book launch for the same season. The wedding (appropriately enough) gets priority and the book launch suffers. I found this out in 2005 when my second collection, Settling for Beauty, was published in September and I got married in October.

With this in mind, I am back to promoting the book, beginning on Thursday, February 12 at the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in Chicago. From 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. I will be signing at Table 750 of the Book Fair floor, which belongs to publisher WordTech Communications. On Friday, February 13, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. I will be signing Settling for Beauty and displaying The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo at Table 792, hosted by The Word Works, a DC-based press for which I have done some volunteering in the past.

While several poems in Settling for Beauty can be found online, I don't expect busy people to go looking for them right away. I would thus like to close this post with a poem from the book with the title "For Bad Wine":


For Bad Wine

Once in a field, in a wide rising stretch of paintbrush
& purple vetch, we stuck down

a tent, like punctuation, and drank through the evening
our bottle of bad wine.

Kate Northrop

Because the stores where finer wines are sold
are closed, or too far away to drive
on a rainy night, and because,
truth be told, we’re already a bit tipsy,
we’ll settle for what we can find in town.

Because the bottles of dusty neck and shoulders
that suggest long ageing, and a high price,
lie on their sides on a rack
too low to reach without stooping,
we’ll take one of the bright bottles
that stand close by.

Since so many of the labels are written
in strange languages that bring no comfort,
we narrow down to the plain-spoken domestics.

As, even in mid-life, we’re intimidated
by the corkscrew, the very cork,
the intricate and solemn techniques
and auguries of its removal,
we look among the simple screw tops,
such as we turned to open soda and juice
before our first high school drink.

Because we may as well toast our younger selves
who didn’t know Boone’s Farm from Bordeaux,
who knew we would get rich while doing good,
but in the meantime had to scrimp,
we will take the cheapest brand.

Because we now know better,
but have to save for retirement,
we will take the large and cost-effective jug.

Because we have our reasons
and don’t want to tell them again,
we’ll refill our glasses
and drain every drop.

Washington, DC and World Debut Reading of The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo

It is going to be an exciting and exhausting week.


On Wednesday, December 3, at 7 p.m., I will be giving my first-ever reading of The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo, along with a talk and a reading of family-friendly selections of my poetry at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, Sixth Street and Maine Avenue, Southwest, near the Waterfront/Southeastern University Metro stop on the Green Line. More detailed directions are available here. Admission is free/gratis, but donations to the church will be accepted.


Following the reading I will be signing both Mariachi and my second collection of poems, Settling for Beauty. Only a limited number of copies of Mariachi will be available for sale on-site, so please feel free to bring a copy of any version for signing.


The event is noted in the Washington Post and in the December issue of Capitol-area community publication Hill Rag.

The day after this debut reading or, to take the Spanish phrase, el gran estreno, I will be flying out for my reading at the San Antonio Mariachi Festival.

More to come.

"Now I Don't Where to Begin"

Elvis Costello--quoted above--has a point.


I can start by saying that the world does not desperately need another blog. Who would disagree? I am reminded of Rilke's statement that the beauty of silence is such that one must have a good reason to break it. The same could be said for white space.


With this in mind, I won't be posting updates on what I had for lunch, nor will I be posting rants on my political, social and environmental views, of which I have plenty.


This blog will be about what I write, or try to write, what I manage to publish, and where I'm reading or where my work is getting reviewed. I'll try to be succinct about all of these topics.

I write poetry, essays and reviews, crime fiction and literary fiction, and more recently work for children. My one-act play "Dig" has been published and produced, and there will be more news on that as time goes on. My second collection of poetry, Settling for Beauty, was published in 2005, and my first children's book, The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo, was published on October 1. The reviews so far have been good.

There will be more when there's more to say. Thanks for taking a look.