Tag Archives: monday shout outs

Monday Shout Outs

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I’m coming to you from my lunch break in the faculty lounge before my 1:10 class.

  • First up I have to mention the first Concord, NC area Writer’s Night Out which will be at Dilworth Coffee off Exit 85 in Concord from 5-7 (meet and great session for writers and such) and then an open mike follows at 7. You must sign up by 6:45 to be in the Open Mike. This is sponsored, in part, by the NCWN.
  • Speaking of NCWN. Stop by the site for deadlines on contests!
  • I’m thrilled that my book is including on a little international literary photo/reading journey. Click over to see what I mean!
  • Friday night is the monthly Green Rice Art Gallery reading at 7pm in Charlotte which is hosted by Iodine Poetry Journal and Main Street Rag Press.
  • Recently I finished reading The Lightning Thief. Good start to a neat YA series. Now I should watch the movie, although I still have a Netflix DVD I haven’t watched from about a month ago. I forget about them and only watch the streaming Netflix!

I spent a lot of the weekend grading and doing prep work, so here is hoping the week will not be quite so crazy!

Hope you guys all have a good one. I think I’ll have a post tomorrow with some links about MFA programs. Just cause I have some saved :)

Monday Shout Outs

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Ok I have 15 minutes before class starts, let’s see if I can do a blog post real quick. Starting NOW

  • I recently finished reading an issue of Magnapoets in which I had a poem. This is a print journal out of Canada that was a fun read. They had free verse work, tanka/haiku as well as interviews and presentations of poems in French and English. I was also happy to see poems by fellow NC poet Curtis Dunlap.
  • For events this week, I have to make a hard decision about Tuesday. Poetry Hickory is rescheduled but there is also a meeting of the Charlotte Writer’s Club South. I haven’t been to a Charlotte Writer’s Club meeting (or Poetry Hickory) in quite a while because I was teaching Tuesday nights last semester.
  • I also want to mention the book LIT by Mary Karr. Mary Karr is a well known poet and memoirist. Her first book “The Liars Club” was pretty amazing. Her second “Cherry” was good, but not necessarily one of my favorites. With LIT, Karr comes back into her own. This is a story of trying to find yourself as a poet, but is also about alcoholism and spirtuality. No matter what your spriritual leanings – still an excellent read.
  • Do you want to take a terrific online poetry class? Check out this one offered by wonderful poetess friend Melanie Faith.
  • In additional events, if you are in the NC area there is a NC Poetry Society meeting this weekend which includes some terrific workshops. Being able to attend this is WELL worth the $25 joining fee. Now if I can convince myself to get up at like 5 am so I can be on the road early enough to get there!

I won’t bombard you with anymore stuff, especially when I have like a MINUTE until class starts. They probably think I’m doing work for them righ tnow. SHHHH don’t tell :)

Have a great week.

Monday Shout Outs

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All snowed in (again) in Charlotte. It is rare that we can make that kind of claim! Classes are even cancelled today at my community college (well day classes are but with more storm coming, I think they’ll be cancelling the night classes as well).

  • This week is residency week at Queens University of Charlotte (my MFA alma mater). M, T, Thur, Fri there are student graduating readings at 5pm and then on Friday night the program director, Fiction Writer Fed Leebron, and poet Morri Creech will be reading at 8:15pm in Sykes Auditorium. I’m hoping to make it to that event! This is a good way to find out more about the program if you are in the area.
  • Next up, I want to mention a really beautiful book I read just after the holidays. Why after? I received it for a Christmas gift. This graphic novel is titled: Return of the Dapper Men. There is so much to love about this book! It is first and foremost a beautiful book to look at but it also has a terrific story inside (with an introduction by a very dapper man – Tim Gunn). I’d highly recommend this one for all ages. Would make a great read at story time and adults will enjoy the discussion of what happens when time just … stops.
  • Recently I finished a PBS documentary series (available on Netflix streaming) called This Emotional Life and the title really says it all about what this is about. There are a lot of well known celebrities in the documentary along with just your regular old people talking about emotions and how they handle them. I was tickled to see a girl I knew from high school show up! Laura Witwer was a few grades ahead of me but I remember her from the debate/speech team and all the local theater she participated in. I’d love to ask her someday how she ended up as an aerialist!
  • I’m gonna lump two other events together because they are both regular poetry events that I mention: Tuesday is Poetry Hickory at 6:30pm with one of the featured readers being Nancy Posey (winner of the 2009 Poetics Aside November Poem a Day Challenge) with a writer’s night out starting at 5pm for networking and such. Then Thursday is Jackson’s Java Open Mic in Charlotte as hosted at 8pm by Iodine Poetry Journal. Hoping to make it to both of these events (weather permitting of course!)
  • And finally for this week: I finished another terrific issue of CAVE WALL. Number 8 this time. Lots of great stuff in this particular issue with my favorite work being possibly from Elizabeth Volpe. I need to find her books! Not that I need to give Rhett’s terrific publication more notable press given that a poem from one of her issues is going to be in the next “Best American Poetry” and they’ve been shouted out in Poets & Writer’s magazine. But I still want to mention it and I’ll keep trying to submit to the mag as well.

So that’s it for the shout outs this week. I actually have a bit of a back log of things I want to mention including books to being reviewing, poets to start interview, links to provide so I might end up doing a link run down tomorrow if I can’t think of anything else to blog . . .

Have a great week everyone!

 

Monday Shout Outs

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Taught some poetry in my composition class this morning, completed a mall walk and met my husband for an early lunch (he had to work on an install from 3am – about 10am! YUCK!), then went back to campus for a two training session soooo yeah it is almost 4pm and I’m just now digging into the email, blogging etc. Sorry!

  • Thursday is Jackson’s Java Open Mike at 8pm in North Charlotte. Glad a friend reminded me because I didn’t have it on my calendar!
  • I’ve previously had work published in Diverse Voices Quarterly and they continue to put out really great issues. The file is a PDF but really look for the story “I Want to Clean My House.”
  • I recently finished Eric Beeny’s chapbook “Snowing Fireflies” which is part of Folded Word’s signature series (of which my chapbook ‘The Wait of Atom” was a part). It is a really terrific collection but I’m not sure if I should call it poetry or prose. Some of the pieces felt more like flash fiction and some seemed more poetry…always an interesting discussion: the line between poetry and prose. But, in either class, I’d highly recommend this beautiful little book if, for nothing else, but this line “She carries the sky, collapsed into its own shadow” from “Picnic Lid, Lifting.”
  • I am also still behind in my reading but I really enjoyed the 2005 issue of The Best American Nonrequired Reading which I had picked up at a used book store a while back. One of my favorite parts about it, is that it is sometimes hard to tell if what is published is fiction or non-fiction. Makes the reading even more interesting!
  • And last on this week’s list is that I finally read the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of one of my favorite lit mags: 32 Poems. There were a lot of terrific poems in there including two by Joe Milford who I had a lovely chat with when he interviewed me for his BlogTalkRadio Show.

And for a bonus. How about a video? Of poets doing more than just poetry. Amazing presentation by the young poet Maya Ganesan

Hope everyone has a terrific week! I plan to recap the writer’s conference I attended and led a workshop at over the weekend tomorrow (or Wednesday if I don’t get caught up!) so at least you know there is something waiting for you around the bend :)

Monday Shout Outs

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Kind of a strange Monday. I did end up in class because not enough of my day students uploaded their papers so we were unable to do an online peer review week. Oh well, I’ll try it again in another semester and I might even offer it again tomorrow night to my night students….

  • This Friday, I will be one of the featured readers at Green Rice Art Gallery. 7pm. Al Maginnes is the other featured reader and I’m thrilled to be reading with him!
  • Folded Word has made T-shirts, bags etc available for their writers. They did a one of my book cover art but even cooler is this terrific T-shirt that Jennifer Bower designed which has one of my poems from Paper House on it!
  • Ocean Vuong’s chapbook Burnings is now available for pre-order at Sibling Rivalry Press!
  • I enjoyed this short story in damselflypress
  • And one more? Uh….I didn’t have many links this week but how about a reminder that we are reading for a featured poem until November 15th over at Referential Magazine. We read year round for referred material.

I have a guest blog tomorrow about marketing and thanks to all your terrific suggestions I have a nice list of blog topics to work on over the next few weeks.

So let’s dig down into Monday and make her more than the sad sack of the first day of the week :)

Monday Shout Outs

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It’s time to get this Monday started!

  • First up. How about some short fiction from The Dead Mule
  • If you are in the area, poet DA Powell will be reading at Davidson College at 5pm on Thursday! I am totally not going to flake at leaving the house this Thursday!
  • Found a great blog with lots of terrific editor interview.
  • And then: What’s in a Title? (I struggle with titles!)
  • And for a light week of links. How about another story?

So it is a short Monday shout out visit. If you have some things you want to promote, please mention them here and I’ll be back tomorrow with – um – well something!

Have a great week!

Monday Shout Outs

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11

Hello, Monday! I’m actually pretty awake for a Monday, especially considering we have now added a new kitten to the household and he is a bit frisky :)

  • I recently finished reading the graphic novel version of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. I read the book a few months back and the graphic novel is very similar, of course, but with more action. It was ok and actually might be a fun pick instead of the book if you have already read the un-zombie, original version of Pride & Prejudice but I did find the illustrations a bit annoying because so many of the characters looked like the other characters. That drives me nuts in graphic novels!
  • I’ve read some good posts about the MFA recently. Here is one.
  • This week author AJ Jacobs will be speaking at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, NC. The event starts at 7pm. AJ is a non-fiction writer. I really enjoyed his books Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically.
  • Story with great use of extended metaphor.
  • I recently finished reading Praying at Coffee Shops by Maureen Sherbondy. I picked this up when Maureen and I read together at the end of April so you can see how far behind I still am on my reading list! I love this little collection. It confronts some issues with being Jewish in the South. My favorite poem is probably A Child’s Voice where Maureen writes:  In the room of silent prayer /eyes closed to visual distraction / air spinning with thoughts / and wishes, one young voice / breaks through / Where is God? / drops like a rock / in the sanctuary.

I may need to do a link round up soon because I have a document full of great links for you guys! Tomorrow I am hoping to post an interview with a poet. So stay tuned!

And, have a great week :)