9 to 5 Poet

This week, I read a wonderful chapbook called Savage Machinery (18 pages) by Karen Rigby.  I don’t want to spoil my review for it, which will appear on Read Write Poem on Wednesday, but this is a wonderful series of poems. 

My husband read over my shoulder while I was writing my review and said, “Oh an Adam and Eve poem.  You must like this chapbook!” And of course, I did, for more reasons than having an Adam & Eve poem. The chapbook weaves together several of my favorite themes. It’s about sensuality, food, religion, human connection despite distance and dang it, it rocks. 

When it comes out from Finishing Line Press in September, I heartily encourage you to pick it up!

Total For 2008: 3819 pages
Genres: Memoir (3), Essay (1), Graphic Novel (1), Non-Fiction (3), Poetry (5), Comic Book Anthology (1), Novel (2)

I’ve got two new reviews out right now.  The first is my review of Two Cups of Tea for the Uptown Neighborhood News and the second is my review of Deborah Keenan’s Willow Room, Green Door for read. write. poem.  Our PBC discussion on the latter will be posted next Monday. 

My mentor from graduate school, Deborah Keenan, was nominated for Minnesota Book Award this year for her book Willow Room, Green Door. Keenan is an accomplished poet and teacher, with eight books to her name. (My favorite is Happiness.) It is long overdue that Deborah is recognized for her amazing poetry!

Buy her book today!

I’ve been busy, as you probably know. But that’s no excuse for the backlog of posts that I planned on posting these past weeks. So, here is a lame attempt to catch up.

I have several articles I’ve published recently that I haven’t shared with you, including an interview with Kirsten Dierking, author of Northern Oracle (pg of the PDF); a review of Kevin Kling’s The Dog Says How (also pg 4); and a review of Matthea Harvey’s Modern Life.

Whew! I feel better, now that I’ve caught up.

I will write an actual post sometime this weekend. It may contain something about poetry.

My new article in Poetic Monthly is up (page 12). And in alternative publication credit news, a photograph of mine is being used as the cover of Not Enough Night, an e-zine published by Naropa University. While I am partial to the cover, the inner contents are lovely as well.

Pretty soon, I will publish something that is not publication credits or random questions. I’ve been buried under a slew of articles and of course the third season of Lost on DVD. Don’t tell me what happens!

Another of my articles from the Uptown Neighborhood News got republished at TC Daily Planet. You can read it here!

The new issue of Poetic Monthly is out, with an article about poetic manifestos by me! The link is a PDF, and I am on page 13. There are also other great articles in here, including one abut Seamus Heaney and another about the struggles of women writers. Enjoy!

According to this article in yesterday’s Publisher’s Weekly, Minneapolis publshing house Milkweed Editions named Daniel Slager as publisher and Chief Executive Officer.

Milkweed is a respected independent/non-profit publishing company that produces literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children’s books, as well as books about the environment. They are perhaps best well-known and admired for founding publishing Emilie Buchwald’s reputation as a pioneer in non-profit publishing and champion of the little presses. Buchwald stepped down in 2003 and it has taken quite a while for the company to replace her.

Luckily, Daniel Slager has spent much of his career at Milkweed as an editor, so there should be a smooth transition. It will be interesting to see how he distinguishes himself as publisher, especially considering the reputation of his predecessor.

I haven’t been paying much attention to the Writers Guild strike, partly because I can’t imagine a world where poets would strike and Entertainment Weekly would write cover stories on it. Also, I just am a little wary when people who are paid well and have dream jobs ask for more. (Although producers feigning poverty is pretty laughable too.) I am simply dreading the moment when the episodes run out and I am forced to watch drivel or perhaps write more.

However, this opinion piece put the issue into perspective for me. The author of this NY Times article works in the internet content industry and asks some good questions. Most importantly, is it feasible to charge for content on the internet? Or is it soley going to be an advertisement driven medium?

I think its interesting that the WGA is striking on this issue, since they develop content for one medium (film/television) and it ends up on another (DVD and internet.) Does that change the nature of the value for the viewer? We already get it for “free” on TV, and by free we mean we have to watch ridiculous commercials and pay for cable if we want clear reception. But, we don’t pay the writers of Lost directly for their work. Would it be natural to pay for it online? We already pay for it directly on DVD, thereby endangering future syndication revenue for writers. I also wonder what this means for user produced content like blogs, since those tend to be a low paying enterprise, unless you write about rehabbing celebrities.

It’s an interesting issue and this article is the first time I’ve seen it articulated in a way that makes it understandable for unpaid writers like me.

I had a nice surprise earlier this week when the editor from Dark Party Review emailed me. He asked to republish my poem, “Walking to Work, 5:42 AM,” which I wrote for Totally Optional Prompts two weeks ago. You can check out the poem here. This was an especially nice surprise because the editor was kind enough to give me advice about starting an online journal and I got to discover a cool journal to add to my Google Reader.

Also, my editor for Uptown Neighborhood News let me know that my November article on the Minnesota Book Awards will be republished on TC Daily Planet, an aggregator of community newspapers in the Twin Cities metro. It’ll be up in the next couple of days. Two good publication news in one week! I scored!

In non me-related news, Fertile Ground is hosting an interesting monthly prompt for November. They picked an anthology that the members will submit to, after completing some online workshopping of the potential submissions. I think this is brilliant! Pursuing publication can be so inherently competitive that it’s really daring to create a collaborative community around publication opportunities. I’ll definitely be participating in this challenge…