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Unfortunately, my friend and fellow Plume conspirator, Dawn Sperber, had a health flare up and will be unable to join us for the Books on the Bosque reading. BUT, the good news is that my long time friend Carmela Starace is able to step in and take Dawn's place. Carmela just finished her MFA in Creative Nonfiction and is an amazing writer and good friend.
As a sidebar: Carmela, Dawn, Melanie (who will be hosting the reading a la Plume), and I all started this writing journey together in our MFA program years ago. We had a Thursday night workshop with Daniel Mueller, and that set the tone for what has become 16 years of friendship and writing. It's wild that it's been that long - I had to do the math twice because my mind couldn't believe that it's been that long. To say that I am excited for this reading is an understatement. Thanks, Dan, for bringing us all together!
As a sidebar: Carmela, Dawn, Melanie (who will be hosting the reading a la Plume), and I all started this writing journey together in our MFA program years ago. We had a Thursday night workshop with Daniel Mueller, and that set the tone for what has become 16 years of friendship and writing. It's wild that it's been that long - I had to do the math twice because my mind couldn't believe that it's been that long. To say that I am excited for this reading is an understatement. Thanks, Dan, for bringing us all together!
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By now you've probably seen this meme which circulated in the social media spheres a couple of years ago. It's an astute recognition: the podcast medium has become the new version of cool - a way for people to gather together their friends and - potentially - reach a sort of eclectic, niche-oriented version of fame. And I admit, I always did want to be in a band, but I never had any musical aptitude. But as a writer, maybe I could jump on that podcasting "band"-wagon?
One of the cool things about working in a university is you can use your classroom as an excuse to learn new things (who would have thought?). I was able to bring in Andrew Burkum, a member of the Phoenix Creative Collective and producer of The Two-Minute Beer Review and Phoenix Talk Radio. He offered us a crash course in how to write, record, and edit sound projects using Audacity, a free, open-source, audio recording tool available to all. By the end, as he promised, I knew how to record in any location, how to filter out ambient noises, and make the quality of the recording sound, well, podcast worthy.
Yet, by the end of it all, as I was kicking around ideas for podcasting and playing with microphones, I started to wonder: would podcasting really be worth my while? Don't get me wrong - it looks like a lot of fun, and I enjoy the production process, from the recording to the editing to the layering of sound and sound effects. Plus, the potential to turn something like a podcast into a project that might some day generate money (even if a far-fetched possibility) added an additional bonus. But I keep thinking about a speech Neil Gaiman gave to the University of the Arts in 2012. It's become one of my founding tools of assessing whether or not the act of taking something on is a worthwhile endeavor. Gaiman's advice: to consider what's at the top of your artistic mountain, and when opportunities arrive, to ask yourself whether these opportunities takes you closer to the peak or downwards, in the wrong direction. And so podcasting, enticing as it is, felt like another obstacle I could place in the way of my creative work.
(here's the Gaiman speech for those who haven't seen it!)
One of the cool things about working in a university is you can use your classroom as an excuse to learn new things (who would have thought?). I was able to bring in Andrew Burkum, a member of the Phoenix Creative Collective and producer of The Two-Minute Beer Review and Phoenix Talk Radio. He offered us a crash course in how to write, record, and edit sound projects using Audacity, a free, open-source, audio recording tool available to all. By the end, as he promised, I knew how to record in any location, how to filter out ambient noises, and make the quality of the recording sound, well, podcast worthy.
Yet, by the end of it all, as I was kicking around ideas for podcasting and playing with microphones, I started to wonder: would podcasting really be worth my while? Don't get me wrong - it looks like a lot of fun, and I enjoy the production process, from the recording to the editing to the layering of sound and sound effects. Plus, the potential to turn something like a podcast into a project that might some day generate money (even if a far-fetched possibility) added an additional bonus. But I keep thinking about a speech Neil Gaiman gave to the University of the Arts in 2012. It's become one of my founding tools of assessing whether or not the act of taking something on is a worthwhile endeavor. Gaiman's advice: to consider what's at the top of your artistic mountain, and when opportunities arrive, to ask yourself whether these opportunities takes you closer to the peak or downwards, in the wrong direction. And so podcasting, enticing as it is, felt like another obstacle I could place in the way of my creative work.
(here's the Gaiman speech for those who haven't seen it!)
Around this same time, I was honored to have two poems accepted in Tri-Quarterly, a literary journal I've admired for years. As with many journals that now offer online spaces to publish work, they also requested a recording of me reading my two accepted poems. It was one of those moments of kismet, when I realized that the skills I learned for podcasting could be used to enhance what I was already doing. Anyway, I thought I'd share those two sound recordings here. I really love what they added to these poems, and I hope you enjoy listening to them.
Here's the links to the Tri-Quarterly site:
Maybe you, too, are playing with sound? If so, would love to hear what you've come up with - and who knows, maybe some day, we can turn these audio forms into .... a podcast. ;)
Here's the links to the Tri-Quarterly site:
Maybe you, too, are playing with sound? If so, would love to hear what you've come up with - and who knows, maybe some day, we can turn these audio forms into .... a podcast. ;)
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I am honored to have had a string of good news lately:
- Yesterday, I heard back from Dovecote Magazine. They'll be publishing my poem "Baptism for the Living" in their upcoming issue.
- Last month, I received some beautiful proofs from Arc Poetry Magazine. My poem "This is Not the Jesus Year" will be in their upcoming Summer issue.
- Last week, I was offered an emerging writing creative writing position at a liberal arts college. For the first time in my life, I turned something down. I loved the school, but couldn't justify leaving something stable for something so uncertain.
- Today, I finalized plans for my upcoming artist residency at the Massachusett's Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). Not only is this my favorite museum in the country, but it is a tremendous gift to be going there in September for a week to refine my (nearly there) poetry collection.
This video of Julian Swartz's "Tonal Walkway" is a good example of why I love being the Mass MoCA. The museum itself is in an old mill, and features of the original building remain. The art is immersive and encompassing. It presses boundaries into the five senses and cracks open my (often ekphrastic) poems.
But even as I write about all of this good, I find myself thinking about a post I read on Facebook recently, written by poet Benjamin Garcia, who is - in my opinion - one of the most talented poets currently producing and publishing work. After years of coasting under the radar, Ben has recently started getting attention, publishing works, winning awards, being seen. He posted the following on his FB page:
I was struck by a number of things that I related to. My own "stuff just underneath" look like years and years of rejection after rejection: A novel I spent ten years writing is still struggling to find a home. It keeps getting responses like, "we really love this story but we don't think we can market it." The short story that I love keeps getting grouped with the "almost" pile.
And the same gaslighting Ben mentioned has started to really sting. I had a colleague who told me that her husband's poetry collection wouldn't get picked up because "they are only publishing people of color right now." This she says to me after congratulating me for my own publications. Even though I know a string of non-people of color who've published books recently. Even though a couple of those non-poets-of-color ended up on a recent "13 New Poetry Collections You Need to Read" list. Even though what I want to say - what I should have said - is that maybe instead of thinking of it as "only" you can recognize that the playing field has simply broadened. That I've been waiting a LIFETIME for this broadening to happen, and that it's a relief, and that we should all be grateful for the influx of historically unheard and under-represented voices.
This is all to say that even with acceptance, there is doubt - doubt put on me from others and doubt put on me by myself. Doubt from past rejections which almost made me quit writing altogether, and worries that good news bits will dry up, that the writing will stop. BUT, all that said: today, I woke early and spent the earliest parts of the day working on a new book. And right now, I feel tremendous gratitude that my work is slowly but surely finding homes.
So thank you to Dovecoat, Arc, and the Mass MoCA Studios. And please artist gods, keep the good news coming.
And the same gaslighting Ben mentioned has started to really sting. I had a colleague who told me that her husband's poetry collection wouldn't get picked up because "they are only publishing people of color right now." This she says to me after congratulating me for my own publications. Even though I know a string of non-people of color who've published books recently. Even though a couple of those non-poets-of-color ended up on a recent "13 New Poetry Collections You Need to Read" list. Even though what I want to say - what I should have said - is that maybe instead of thinking of it as "only" you can recognize that the playing field has simply broadened. That I've been waiting a LIFETIME for this broadening to happen, and that it's a relief, and that we should all be grateful for the influx of historically unheard and under-represented voices.
This is all to say that even with acceptance, there is doubt - doubt put on me from others and doubt put on me by myself. Doubt from past rejections which almost made me quit writing altogether, and worries that good news bits will dry up, that the writing will stop. BUT, all that said: today, I woke early and spent the earliest parts of the day working on a new book. And right now, I feel tremendous gratitude that my work is slowly but surely finding homes.
So thank you to Dovecoat, Arc, and the Mass MoCA Studios. And please artist gods, keep the good news coming.
Book Tour 2024
Let's roll.