The Books I've Read

In the last month I have read the following books:

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert 331 pages

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon 627 pages

Signs in the Blood by Vicki Lane 370 pages

and part of How to be Your Own Literary Agent by Richard Curtis

about 200 pages of it

That adds up to 1,528 pages in a month!

I haven't gone on a reading binge like this for a while. 50 pages a day. Now then, I suppose I'd better stop and write something myself soon.

Next on the list:

Vengeance on the Sweetgrass by Charles Price

(a yet unpublished manuscript)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Featured Poet for October!

You have to scroll down a bit, but I am fortunate to be included on the Poet Laureate's page of featured poets for October. See the NC Arts page here.

This weekend is the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival and I'm neck deep in it:

• I will be on a panel with Katey Schultz and Dot Jackson about getting published. Not that I know much more than the beginnings of that.
• Also, I'll read my own work in a session of local women writers who have all lent their writing talents to promoting the literary festival: Janice Barnett, Alessa Lemming, Susan Bell, Katey Schultz & Bethany Rountree.
• Most exciting is the Saturday morning (8:30 ack!) session with Charles Price, Loy McWhirter, Eliza McWhirter & Bruce Greene in which Charles and I will read selections of poems from a wide variety of well know Appalachian writers. Interspersed will be traditional music sung & played by Loy, Eliza & Bruce. We went through our "set list" and the flow is really amazing. It will be a treat just to perform with them.
• I also get to be the "Mistress of Ceremonies" for the Saturday evening banquet and introduce Glenis Redmond -- which makes me really excited and nervous at the same time.

I can't believe the time is almost here!

Kakalak Reviewed by NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer

"The 2007 Kakalak: Anthology of Carolina Poets http://www.kakalak.net/ introduces its issue with lines from Allan Wolf's poem, "The Poet, Not Content with the Ballet of Raking Leaves":

The poem

now left alone, turns into a bird, lights on a high branch

performs a dance, causes the bare autumn tree to bloom.

What better way to open the second edition of a journal devoted to North and South Carolina poetry? This year's judge, Peter Meinke, selected three winners from a final field of twenty, which editors Richard Allen Taylor, Beth Cagle Burt, and Lisa Zerkle winnowed from more than 800 submissions. Anyone who ever thought being an editor is a cakewalk needs to think again! The three winning poets, Steve Lautermilch, Allan Wolf, and Rebecca Warren, have excellent work in the issue, to be sure, but I myself was drawn just as strongly to Kathryn Kirkpatrick's "News from Midlife," Britt Kaufmann's "Corn," Hilda Downer's "Wiley Coyote Takes T-Shirt Inventory," Roy Jacobstein's "Invocation," and Catherine Carter's unforgettable "Vegetable Drawer, Black Mold, " written for poet-friend Mary Adams. The final poem in the anthology, Mark Smith-Soto's "Things Sweeten Toward Their End,” is one of the collection's best, and closes out this gathering with the frisson that all good poetry generates. (I still remember how the hair on the nape of my neck danced when I read young poet Emily Smith's poem, "Interview with the Past," in last year's anthology.) This book contains many poems that will sweeten the reader's day, including some by special guest contributor Alex Grant, who won the Kakalak 2006 Poetry Prize. Their work deserves all the readers they can get.—K.S.B. "

from the ncarts.org Poet Laureate's Page (here)

Did you see that part where she said she was drawn to my poem!?! That made my day/YEAR!

New Carolina Mountains Literary Festival Poster

Here is my latest design work: the poster for the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival.
Many of the workshops are filling quickly, if you care to pre-register.

WNC Woman's Writing Conference

I had such a great day at the WNC Woman's Conference Women and Words that I could go on and on and on about it. But most importantly I told some women I would post some of my resources that I used to develop my session "Reading You Own Work Aloud." Well, actually, I told the one woman who attended that session that I would post it.

Shoot. If I were faced with a choice with hearing Kathryn Stripling Byer or myself speak, I sure wouldn't choose me!

However, I really learned a lot finding and reading the following articles:

• Mendy Knott's 9 steps for practicing for a reading. A very empowering read. (She's supposed to be posting it soon!)
• Poetry Readings: A Field Guide by Naeem Murr. A flippant, hilarious read that touches on the many flawed readings.
• 10 Steps to Giving a Reading by Martyn Crucefix
• How to Give a Good Reading of Your Poems by Gary Mex Glazner
• Performing Poetry
• Stand Up or Sit Down: Performance Tips for Reading Your Work by Meredith Broussard (this article is not available on-line, but can be found in Poets & Writers 2006: volume 34 issue 6)
• Also not available is the talk given by Aritha Van Herk at AWP this March in Atlanta-- which was excellent!
• Performing Poetry: A Study Guide for Teachers by Kathy Norris. This is an excellent practicing tool to rehearse variation in tone, inflection, emphasis etc.

Probably the most helpful thing I learned from all the reading and preparing is the audience wants you to do well. Why? Well, for lots of reasons: they want to enjoy themselves, they want to feel like they've made a good decision to come hear you, they want to have a one-of-a-kind never-to-be-repeated experience. They don't want to be nervous for you nor do they want to hear you diminish yourself or apologize for anything.

As an extension of that, the audience wants to know they are important to you--that you care about them. And if you can make them feel that way, you buy that much more time, they cut you that much more slack, they'll listen that much longer... You can show this by something you say at the beginning, or by really taking the audience and the occasion/location (specifically) into consideration when you choose your poems/prose and plan the duration of the reading.

I could go on and on (since I had a two-hour presentation planned). But I know the average attention span for an on-line surfer is 8 seconds... and I've exceeded that already!

Remiss

... and here Matt has linked to my blog and I finally get around to thanking him, and giving him credit for the photo below...

I hope better late than never applies in this case!

Reading on April 1

No Joke! I was asked to read as a part of Malaprop's "Poetrio." (Brilliant name, eh?) I was the representative "local." Left to right: Susan Meyers, Me & Susan Tichi.

Events

I have found I have reached a new point in my "career" where it would behoove me to list events.

Women and Words is a one day conference in Asheville that I have been asked to participate in.
I'll be giving two sessions: one called "Getting up the Gumption" and the other is a workshop about how to read one's own work in public. For more information visit WNC Woman's website.

Also note that women who register can sign up for 15 minute sessions with NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer!

New Blog

I have posted a few of my old blogs from my old account, but am making a fresh start of blogging.