Monthly Archives: January 2009

Wednesday Was Pretty Good to Me

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What a nice surprise to come back from my walk and find, waiting in my in-box, two acceptance letters from online magazines! 3 of my poems will appear, later this year, in The Dead Mule where I had poems published back in November of 2007.  I am particularly pleased to have placed one of the poems from the new manuscript I am working on.

And I will have two poems in an upcoming issue of Wild Goose Poetry Review.  This was my third try with Wild Goose so woo hoo! Keep trying.  One of the poems is also in my new manuscript and the other is in the manuscript I am currently circulating.

I also finished editing the interview I did earlier this month and which will appear in February.  It has been a pretty busy day but I still have a few things I want to get off my to do list before 6 pm, including uploading the completed interview, which could take a while given the time of the day (there is always more traffic on YouTube later in the evening).

But having a good week and I hope everyone else is as well!

What can I say about today?

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What can I really say about today? Wonderful inauguration day. I’ve heard good responses about Helen’s poem I put up yesterday on “Shape of a Box” and I sent out my manuscript and chapbook today to contests.

I feel ready to watch how the world is going to move over the next year, heck the next few days. And tonight I’m making spaghetti and meatballs.

Now if I could just sit down and work on some poems tomorrow!

Have a great day and a great life in general everyone!

Issue 15 is Live

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Issue 15 of “Shape of a Box” is live and ready for viewing. I kind of like this release date of Monday? Hmm..

Helen Losse (http://helenl.wordpress.com/ ) is a poet, free lance writer, and Poetry Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature (http://www.deadmule.com). Her recent poetry publications include Lily, Ghoti, The Wild Goose Review (http://www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com), Right Hand Pointing, and Blue Fifth Review. She has two chapbooks, Gathering the Broken Pieces, available from FootHills Publishing and Paper Snowflakes, available from Southern Hum Press. Educated at Missouri Southern State and Wake Forest Universities, she lives in Winston-Salem, NC where she occasionally writes book reviews for various literary magazines. She has published an essay on poetic craft in The Centrifugal Eye and creative non-fiction in Muscadine Lines.

Special thanks to Laughing Sky Books (http://www.laughingskybooks.com/ ) and Tasteful Beans Coffehouse (http://tastefullbeans.com/)where portions of this video were filmed.

Readers in order of appearance (some read multiple times): Helen Losse, Jessie Carty, Barry Pomeroy, Scott Owens, Jessy Randall, and Barbara Crooker

For further details on photos used in the piece please view the following document

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d92t5mg_32c7js7hk5

Near the Finishing Line

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Had my final graduating student seminar yesterday. Gave away my lunch tickets. Hung around until time for fabulous readings at night and a rollicking (spelling?) dinner before finally heading home and passing out at 10 last night so I could get up and muse on my final day.

I’m up and preparing to head to campus to drop into a poetry class then go to the afternoon panel and in general hang out until the graduating festivities. Hard to believe this is it…
Easy to believe how much work I have next week to do to catch up on the rest of my life!

Another Day in the Books…

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I turned in my thesis. It is officially in the hands of the school and will eventually be bound and put up in the library. Even though I am sending my manuscript out in that current version, I doubt it will ever be published exactly as it appears in the library but still fun to think it will be there. Now if I could just ever settle on a title. One I’ve been toying with is “Route 1, Box 574″….

We had a special lunch with faculty yesterday and I went out (with some other poets) to the Non-fiction writers dinner at Pie Town here in Charlotte. It was a lot of fun! But, I ended up flaking on coming back to the 8:15 faculty reading. :( It was cold and I was exhausted. As I am this morning. 14 degrees outside! And I really am tired and not feeling terribly well, but looking forward to hanging out again with my fellow students because I won’t be on campus Saturday except to go to graduation.

The slow week has gone and sped itself up!

Another Day Down…

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Yesterday was another long day but I’m glad I stayed for all of it.

In the morning we had another special seminar for graduating students before getting to watch a great student seminar about technology and non-fiction writing. Well done Lorrie!

Then there was the gap..like a 5 hour gap between that class and dinner. I was feeling awful–achy, sinus, bleh. Went and got some medicine then finished reading 50 pages of a book while sitting in my car before I finally felt better.

Still feeling a bit strange but managed to get in a mall walk yesterday before destroying that by eating lots of wonderful food at the all program dinner at Providence Cafe. What a great time that was! I guess I shouldn’t have chickened out all the years in the past :)

Today is kind of a more official day and it will also be long. The handing in of the thesis and more readings tonight from students and faculty.

I think I’ll need a recovering from MFA week next week!

Whew! Survived Teaching and Reading!

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Well Tuesday was my busy day and I survived it all, although I feel really tired and headachy this morning which is funny since I didn’t drink any alcohol or anything?  Release of adrenaline perhaps?

I had a great class in the morning on Food Writing presented by Peter Reinhart who teaches at Johnson & Wales, oh yeah and is widely published as well as owning a really nice upscale pizza place in Charlotte named PieTown.

After the class I had to find ways to not think about the fact I was teaching in an hour! But I think the class went pretty well.  I had about 15 people who seemed interested by the topic of “Is it Over?  Trying to Find Poetic Closure.”  I felt like I babbled a bit and/or repeated myself during some of the questions but if I teach the seminar again, I think there is even more material I can add to the class.

I also watched another great student class “Novel Beginnings” weren’t we a pair :) Before just sitting around discussing life and poetry with my fellow grad Robbin during the 3 hour gap we had before the first round of graduate readings.  

Between that reading and my own I got to hang out with my best friend from junior high and high school who drove two hours (one way!) to hear me read and videotaped it for me.   I also had a few people in the audience from the local community. Thanks for coming out guys!

I think the reading went pretty well.  I hope to have the video up sometime next week when I have more time to be with my computer then these few minutes I catch in the morning.  I can’t believe it is only Wednesday.  My obligations for the week are mostly done (or at least the presentation based ones) but still so much going on for the next few days.  I’ll continute to report in.

Today is not a hump, its a pebble.