tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70051234740180725852024-03-05T13:35:57.852-05:00Colleen S. Harris-Keith, Wordsmith<center>An exploration of the craft of writing, from the perspective of a bibliophile who fancies herself a poetess.</center>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.comBlogger158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-4412792280650740062013-09-29T17:59:00.001-04:002013-09-29T17:59:23.250-04:00More Than a Year Later...An Update<br>
<p>My last post here was more than a year ago - June 2012. During that neglect, there have been some mighty big changes in my world. They have largely put my creative writing on hold until now, but I'm excited to be getting back to it.</p>
<p>The big news (and one that will eventually lead to a blog name change, or me finally getting off my but and just buying a domain already)is that I am now Mrs. Colleen S. Harris-Keith, wife of <a href="http://therunningdude.tumblr.com/"> Mr. Jed Waters Harris-Keith</a>. It's a whirlwind romance story that I will be blogging about separately, for those of you who want to read it. For now, let me say that I found and married my best friend, it is the very best decision I have ever made, and my life has changed for the wonderful-ler. (You'd think a poet could come up with a better word. I'll work on it.)</p>
<p>The past year has also been characterized by trying to get my rheumatoid disease under control. A much less romantic story, punctuated with inflammation flares impacting all of my joints, bouts of related colitis, frustration, missed work, lots of doctor visits, and trying out lots of medication combinations. The bright side is that I have wonderful doctors who listen and are willing to help, a husband who does everything under the sun to make my life easy and my world easier to negotiate, and family and friends who support me. I'm still achy, my GI tract is a hot mess, but I am using the cane a lot less, and after my most recent stint in the hospital and doc-ordered homestay, I'm doing more to take care of myself.</p>
<p>In the vein of taking care of myself, I've found that the gymming I'm accustomed to tends to be too high-impact for my joints. I have taken up swimming, which has been surprisingly therapeutic both in terms of an exercise that doesn't cause instant pain and swelling, and as a sort of meditative time. I've been on pause for the past three weeks while recovering, but am looking forward to getting back into the pool this week.</p>
<p>In addition to getting married, Jed and I have added to our family. We are the proud parents of basset hounds Otto (7 years), and new baby boy Igor. Ridiculously cute videos available at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/warmaiden">my YouTube channel</a>. I highly recommend bookmarking them and watching when you're low. Also, if you are under the impression that basset hounds are lazy (which they are not, until they hit about 7. Unless you add a puppy to the mix.)</p>
<p>Since my last post here, I've defended both the prospectus (November 2012) and proposal (September 2013) for my dissertation. What this means - the first three chapters are written, the instrument is approved, and next steps are IRB approval, piloting, then distribution, collection of data, crunching of data, and writing the results. With luck and health, I'm hoping to be hooded in May 2014.</p>
<p>The focus moving forward is on my health, both physical and mental. I've let the craziness of the past year distract me and I've not been writing much, aside from the dissertation and some scholarly project stuff. My creative writing has been on hold, but I'm starting to get itchy, so expect more in the coming months here.</p>
warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-11497523950645374152012-06-22T16:01:00.000-04:002012-06-22T16:03:32.162-04:00Planning for the Fall (Yes, Already!)<p>While the bulk of my papers and presentations tend to be library-related (since that's the career that pays ye ole bills), I wanted to start building up my English/Creative Writing chops. (Largely to woo the English department here into considering me for additional classes, should they need folks, but also just to keep my skills and research in that area up to date and sharp.) I got lucky, and have had a few papers accepted that I'm very proud of.</p>
<p>Because of those acceptances, I'll be doing a wee bit of traveling in the fall (okay, more-than-normal traveling, for me) to present a couple of papers in Europe. (Hitting Ireland this summer has given me the travel bug.) In October, I'll be presenting my paper "Mythology as curricular crossroads: The intersection of constructivist theory, Women’s Studies, Creative Writing, and student research skill development" at the <i>Myth & Interdisciplinarity</i> International Conference in Madrid. After that, I'll be headed to Salzburg to present "Adding meat to metaphorical bones: Research, critical thinking, and leveraging the academic library for creative writing praxis" at the 2nd Global Conference on <i>Writing: Paradigms, Power, Poetics, Praxes.</i> The generosity of my library dean and the University in terms of funding are making this possible, as I wouldn't have a prayer of capitalizing on this without their help.</p>
<p>There are a number of other book chapters and paper presentations also in the hopper for fall, but they're largely library science or EdD-program related, so I'll spare you the detail. And then, of course, there's EdD comps and dissertation proposal defense in August and dissertating (is that a verb?) in the fall. Suffice it to say, fall and the remainder of this summer will be characterized by writing, writing, writing.</p>
<p>I also just received an email that my short story, "The Patron Saint of easy Girls" made it through the first pass and is moving on to the judges in a flash fiction competition. Which reminded me that I have an unfinished flash fiction collection I was working on, plus the poetry collection, plus the essays. I am seriously considering cancelling cable so that I am less distracted by the boob tube and have more writing time. But, the Food Network. (That's pretty much the entire reason I keep the cable subscription. Cooking competitions turn me on - probably because my own kitchen is far too small to work in.)</p>
<p>Also had lunch with one of the English faculty today, as she's been teaching the CNF class for awhile and is an old pro - I wanted to pick her brain about syllabi and such. The sushi was good, the conversation was fun (I really must get out and socialize more), and I feel like I'm on the right track with building the syllabus. I'm really looking forward to teaching this class. I'm going to try to polish off the syllabus this weekend so that can be done, as well as the syllabus for my Violence & Reality TV in Literature class for the freshmen.</p>
<p>And a book chapter and a conference paper and maybe a paper or two coming due for class. So, as usual, you can find me at the library - even when it's closed.</p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-46631449444197789262012-03-17T19:35:00.004-04:002012-03-17T20:26:58.961-04:00What's Percolating in Colleen's Head (Or On Her Computers)I am, indeed, alive and kicking. In between work, research for work, coursework for the doctorate, and trying to maintain a decent bedtime to keep the immune system mollified, I thought I'd talk a little bit about the works-in-progress on the humanities/creative writing side of life.<br /><br />I was lucky enough to receive a contract from McFarland for <i>Mythology and Modern Women Poets: Analysis, Teaching, & Critical Reflection</i>. (I may or may not still be dancing a jig about this. SO EXCITED. Ahem.) The call for chapter proposals is open until April 30, and I'm still looking for folks interested in writing on teaching women poets and myth, or women poets who work with myth writing critical reflections of their work and inspiration in the genre. <a href="http://colleensharris.blogspot.com/2012/01/cfp-mythology-and-modern-women-poets.html">You can find the call here if interested.</a> I already have a number of talented scholars and writers lined up to submit chapters - it's wonderful company to be in!<br /><br />I also find myself working on and then drifting away from a handful of creative manuscripts at varying stages of completion. <br /><br />First, there is a collection of CNF essays. Right now, the essays have the common themes of socio-economic class concerns and (oddly enough) lessons learned from my father's presence, and later, his absence. I'm letting this one grow organically, which means that I wrote about 7,000 words on it last weekend, and it's lain silent since then. It's "percolating," which is what I call it when I'm conscious of a project, and have it rolling around in my head, but nothing - aside from incubation - is happening. These essays are interesting as an exercise in non-fiction (which sates my librarian-need to research the oddest of phenomena), but they are also emotionally draining. I don't want to slide too far into sappy memoir, so this is a delicate balance. I will note that I notice my writerly tics far more in prose than I do when I'm in poet-mode. Repetitive phrasing, sentence length, and other bad habits stand out to me more in this format. I find I am also much more mentally tied to the Times New Roman 12-point-font in essay form, while I am far more likely to experiment with new fonts when writing poetry. (This project is also a interesting exercise because I'll be teaching a CNF workshop in the fall. Getting a taste of my own medicine before I inflict myself on the students, as it were.)<br /><br />I am wrestling with two poetry manuscripts at the moment. One could be close to finished - at least length-wise - if I could wrestle the poems into submission, somehow. I'm tentatively calling it <i>Madwoman City</i>, and that's what it feels like right now. Disparate pieces, disparate voices, disparate styles, no organizing principle that makes me happy. it reminds me, in fact, of living in an all-women's dorm at college. But I'm drawn back to it, again and again, so there must be something salvageable in there. I may try to shave it down to a chapbook before trying to rebuild it into a manuscript. What I really need is a weekend in a hotel room, where I can run clothesline up and down the room and fool with the order of poems that way. (I do believe poet Kathleen Driskell mentioned doing that at one point for one of her books, but it may have been one of our other Spalding poets.) In any case, this collection seems to be missing something, some sort of connective tissue, so I'm worrying at it like a hound with a bone. <br /><br />The other poetry manuscript isn't so much of a manuscript as a manuscript-fetus. Right now it is taking form as a collection of loose narrative sonnets, following the life-thread of a woman. Originally I titled it <i>Gentle Cycle</i>, right now the title on the file is <i>Some Assembly Required</i>. There are (I think) some really wonderful and mature pieces in there, but it is slow, slow, s-l-o-w going. This is due to a combination of factors - that the time I've been devoting to creative writing has been minimal, that I work extremely slowly when faced with formal strict containers like the sonnet (this slow speed is faster than usual, since I'm going with loose sonnets and not strict ones), that I have not yet cancelled cable so I have a DVR full of delicious trashy television, that I have a 9pm bedtime. But this one, too, is percolating, simmering just under the surface. And what is happening is lovely, it's just (the word again) slow. I'm trying to imagine it as a cask of something lovely that needs to steep a bit before it can be loosed on the finer palates of the world. That sort of sentiment has the bonus of not making me feel guilty for not getting off my arse to do more writing, of course. <br /><br />As I've been reading more nonfiction (and particularly nonfiction on writing), and reading to prepare for teaching in the fall (the CNF workshop, and a freshman seminar on reality tv in literature - more on this soon), I'm also thinking about writing a series of essays on the intersection of librarianship, teaching, and poetics, but my brain would need far more rest than it's had in the past few weeks before I tackle something like that. But again...percolating. <br /><br />Other things in the mental percolator: a paper on using myth as a vehicle for an interdisciplinary curriculum in higher ed (if it doesn't get picked up for the conference I'm hoping for, I might use it as an introductory chapter to the <i>Mythology and Women Poets</i> book, with some tweaking), a paper on leveraging academic libraries to support the creative writing curriculum (and why honest-to-gods research is so very, very important to good creative writing), some critical reflections on course-building, a collection of slightly-longer-than-flash fiction that has been moldering in my projects folder that I should consider returning to. <br /><br />Percolating, percolating, percolating.<br /><br />I don't even drink coffee.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-48791319840093008062012-02-28T22:08:00.000-05:002012-02-28T22:08:33.638-05:00Teaching Creative Writing: Making InroadsAs I'm trying to re-balance myself and what I work on in my free time, I have been making a conscious effort to try to make teaching more of a priority. I consider it the weakest area of my CV since it's what I do least, compared to publishing and service. Thanks to a serendipitous combination of generous friends in the right places, opportunities through my university, and a supportive boss, I have been able to get into the classroom, with more opportunities slated for the coming semesters.<br /><br />I participate in my University's Freshman Seminar program, where I teach a one-credit course on a fun topic (courses range from "Star Wars and the Roman Empire" to "Politics and South Park"). In Fall 2011 I taught <a href="http://www.utc.edu/Academic/FirstYearStudies/seminars/poetrymyth.php">"Poetry and Mythmaking: Using Creative Writing to Revise History"</a> which was not only incredibly fun, it let me see that I was right about how excited students might get about both mythology and poetry if put in the right context. This coming fall, I am offering a course titled "Reality TV in Literature: The Hunger Games & its Predecessors" through the same program. It is a great way to test the waters for a class you are thinking about designing as a full 3-credit class, as well as a nifty way to dip into some pop culture and try to get students engaged and interested in a topic early in their academic careers - proof that learning can indeed be fun.<br /><br />Also this coming fall, the English department offered me the chance to teach a section of their Creative Nonfiction undergraduate class. While CNF was not my primary training focus in my MFA, I have had a few essays published in journals and as book chapters, and my book <i><a href="http://www.punkinhouse.com/Colleen_Harris.html">The Kentucky Vein</a></i> (Punkin House, 2011) was mostly poetry, but concluded with a handful of essays. So I am qualified, but I am also reading everything on CNF that I can get my hands on, from books on writing to collections of essays. I can't wait to try my hand at teaching a workshop and encouraging young writers.<br /><br />In Fall 2011, I designed an upper-level course titled "Modern Women Poets and Mythology" that has generated interest from the Women's Studies, Classics, and English departments. I couldn't accept the generous offer to teach it this semester due to working to get a handle on my health, but am hoping the departments might agree to offer the course next spring (2013).<br /><br />There are hundreds (thousands?) of writers and MFA grads desperate for a teaching gig, of any type, anywhere, and I am profoundly grateful for the chance to get in the classroom and try my hand with students. These teaching opportunities also mesh really well with a topic on which I am interested in doing more research, the place of research in creative writing, including leveraging the library for research purposes in the creative writing curriculum, and focusing specifically on research skill development for creative writing students. It's a nice melding of my two sides, the creative writer and the librarian, and something I hope will help writers as they develop their craft.<br /><br />I expect to blog more about my experiences in the creative writing classroom as I have them - stay tuned!warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-89282722041936201902012-01-29T19:29:00.001-05:002012-01-29T19:48:02.462-05:00Of Blessings and Luck: Gonesongs to be Published!<p>Robert Ward, my long-suffering editor at Bellowing Ark who published my first and second books, and never holds my long-delayed email responses against me, will be publishing <i>Gonesongs</i>, my fourth book of poems. (Look for it at the end of 2012, or early 2013. Don't worry, I'll let you know when it is available!) The collection is close to my heart, as it was my creative thesis for my MFA degree, and includes a number of very personal pieces. So, hooray!<br /><br />And related to that, holy cow. Book FOUR. I am a hell of a lucky poet, in a time where poetry presses are struggling to survive, and poets are willing to sell their eyeteeth to be published. <br /><br />In celebration, and in a display of complete cheeky brashness, today I submitted my application for an NEA Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing. They are awarded every two years; out of more than 1,000 applications, the judges pick about 45 poets to receive the $25,000 fellowship. It is, in a phrase, a Very Big Deal. All the judges have to review are the ten pages of poetry you submit - they receive no other information. And so, I chose what I think are my ten best poems, though distinguishing "best" from "favorite" is no mean feat, and I may well have flubbed it. But not applying *guarantees* that I wouldn't be winning, and at least now my name is in the hat. The deadline is March 1, and the fellowship begins in 2013.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-20266148915460923122012-01-21T10:58:00.001-05:002012-03-17T13:08:21.954-04:00CFP -- Mythology and Modern Women Poets: Analysis, Reflection & TeachingMythology and Modern Women Poets: Analysis, Reflection & Teaching<br /><br /><a href="http://warmaiden.pbworks.com/w/file/CFP_WomenMyth.pdf">(Call also available in .pdf format here)</a><br /><br />Book Publisher: McFarland<br /><br />Contributors needed for book chapters on modern women poets and mythology, including the following topics:<br /><br /><ul><li>The use of myth by modern women poets</li><li>Women poets and world creation</li><li>Myths most commonly appropriated by women poets and critical commentary as to why</li><li>Critical analyses of modern women poets utilizing myth in their work, including (but certainly not limited to) the following women poets:</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Olga Broumas</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>C. J. Burns</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Audre Lord</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Anne Sexton</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Louise Glück</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Carol Ann Duffy</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Margaret Atwood</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Diane Wakoski</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Hilda Doolittle (H. D.)</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Joy Harjo</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Judy Grahn</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Lili Bita</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Catherynne M. Valente</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Other women poets working with aspects of mythology</li><li>Comparison/contrast of women poets whose work utilizes the same myths</li><li>The challenge of feminizing traditionally male mythological perspectives</li><li>Critical reflections on, and recommendations for, developing courses for/teaching mythology and poetry in the K-12/undergraduate/graduate/workshop levels</li><li>Critical reflection by women poets on their own creative work related to mythology</li><li>The challenge women poets face in re-visioning commonly understood myths</li><li>Scholarly inquiry into why women poets are attracted by mythological structures</li><li>Other topics relevant to modern women poets and mythology</li></ul>The above list is not exhaustive; prospective contributors are encouraged to be creative. The above list is not exhaustive; prospective contributors are encouraged to be creative. The intent of this collection is to fuse, in the same volume, critical analysis by scholars, critical reflection by authors, and best practices for teaching topics related to modern women poets and mythology.<br /><br />No previously published, or simultaneously submitted material.<br /><br />Editor Colleen S. Harris is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, author of three books of poetry, including <i>The Kentucky Vein</i> (Punkin House, 2011), <i>These Terrible Sacraments</i> (Bellowing Ark, 2010), and <i>God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems</i> (Bellowing Ark, 2009), and co-editor of <i>Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching</i> (McFarland, 2012). Her fourth book of poetry, <i>Gonesongs</i>, is forthcoming in 2013 from Bellowing Ark Press. Colleen holds an MFA degree in Writing and an MS in Library and Information Science. Her poetry has appeared in <i>The Louisville Review, Free Verse, Wisconsin Review, River Styx,</i> and others. Her work has been included in <i>Library Journal, Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook</i> (American Library Association, 2010), and <i>Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages</i> (All Things That Matter Press, 2009). Colleen works at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a full-time member of the library faculty and occasional adjunct in English and other departments.<br /><br />Please send titles and abstracts for up to 3 topics for chapter topics you would like to contribute, as well as a 75-90 word author’s bio. Please send in a .doc or .docx Word file attachment by April 30, 2012 using MYTH/your last name in the subject line to poetryandmyth@gmail.com You will receive a confirmation response with guidelines if your topics haven't already been taken. Contributors should plan for each chapter to be between approximately 2000 and 3000 words. Those included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy as compensation.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-52378657157205852152012-01-04T22:31:00.000-05:002012-01-04T23:19:39.854-05:00The Magic of Twenty-six<b>Thought:</b> I have largely lived my life within the bounds of twenty-six letters.<br /><br />Sitting in the specialist's office today, reading Louise Erdrich's essay "Two languages in Mind, But Just One in the Heart" (in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Writing-Collected-Essays-Times/dp/0805070850/ref=wl_mb_hu_m_1_dp">Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times</a></i>), I was struck by something.<br /><br />Well, I was struck by two things. The first was how eloquently she put her love of a second native language in harmony with writing the essay in English. The second was, when she noted how verbs and nouns differed, that most of my lived experience, and my reading experience, and my feeling experience I can express, happens within the bounds of twenty-six characters.<br /><br /><b>Thought:</b> There are only three letters difference between "I love you" and "I hate you." Only three between "I love you" and "I loathe you." <br /><br />There are only twenty-six letters in the English alphabet. The things we build from twenty-six letters. Novels, poems. Newspapers. All the things that come from language, our stories. Many of us live out our lives in twenty-six characters. An arbitrary number. Slightly more if we start adding accented letters so we can steal words and phrases from other tongues, for the things English has yet to find a concise way to say. More than that if we start to include punctuation, considering the mad growth of emoticons entering the language in the age of digital communications. And languages like Chinese and Japanese with their thousands of characters and nuances...but let me stick with my native tongue, and limit myself to the capacities of the twenty-six I know.<br /><br />In twenty-six letters, you can read Nabokov's <i>Lolita</i>. King's <i>The Stand</i>. Stan Rice's <i>Red to the Rind</i>. Vampires and werewolves and eighteenth century drama and erotica and war and death and sublime beauty and bodice-ripping romance and the history of centuries and the parts of a tulip, all in twenty-six letters. My dissertation-in-progress. My grocery list. Most of my music collection.<br /><br />And what mastery of those simple characters can do! I vaguely remember learning to write in those lined booklets they give (gave?) children, where the middle dashed line dictated the size of the small letters, and the solid top and bottom lines dictated where the letters should stand and reach to. The struggle to make letters look uniform. The way I beamed when I could make my own name; how my mother hung it on the refrigerator as a statement of accomplishment. The wonder at equating the words I could write with the words in the books my mother read to me. The magic of being able to name myself and everything else in an indelible way, in a way that could tell others after me "I was here, and this is what I saw, and this is what I have to say about it." This led to a love of reading what others had left behind. Which led to a love of libraries, and my eventual career.<br /><br /><b>Thought:</b> there is only a one-letter difference between "don't" and "won't."<br /><br />I am convinced there are two kinds of writers in the world - those of us born with stories to tell, and those of us with a love of language so deep that only writing, building new realities with words, gives us an outlet for it. The first kind, I think, become novelists, journalists. The second, if they never learn to really structure themselves, become poets. There are all sorts of other divisions that can be made, on different lines. But this one feels true for me - I am a poet mostly because i love language and the beauty that comes from pairing certain words, just so, without worry of how I am going to carry a plot or character development or any of those other things requiring a much deeper commitment to a story. My commitment is, as Richard Hugo might say, to the music.<br /><br />And still, it comes back to those twenty-six characters, and what mighty castles and pitiful houses we can build with them. <br /><br />And what happens when people are given these letters? Why, they tell stories. And their stories ring of truth, and a story written down is a story that refuses to die. A story written down outlives the bearer of the story, and killing the bearer does little to stop the spread of the story. Violence becomes less useful as a silencer, and morphs into something meaner, something smaller, a punishment that has no hope of stopping anything, a spiteful tantrum with a goal but no chance of real lasting success. These people make songs. Because when we conquer a people, we can steal their language and forcefeed them ours, but eventually, they build their stories and recast their songs. I think of the African American authors, women writers, accounts of Holocaust survivors, the war-torn, the ignored, the invisible, the exiled and dispossessed. The ones who did not, in the end, get to write the histories, but who grow to be the ones to add the details the conquerors would forget. <br /><br />The story wants to be told. All we need is the will and the tools. <br /><br /><b>Thought:</b>Give people a camera and the word will see them screaming their stories on the news, faded by next week. Give them literacy, and pen, and ink and their stories will live forever.<br /><br />And so books are burned, and schools are bombed, and children are scarred and maimed. And they may have more or fewer than my twenty-six, but I would build them blocks and carve their characters. I would give them to all the parents and the children, and I would have them build stories with their languages, borrowed or stolen. I would have them build music and stories and bridges. <br /><br />No wonder there are grown men in Afghanistan willing to throw acid in a young girl's face for the crime of attending school, where she might learn to read and write. Let her cook for her family, and nourish them quietly and in silence. Let her learn the feel of a weapon, perhaps to load bullets, and aim, and fire. Or to pull a cord or push a button, to detonate herself and leave her legacy splashed on bricks, to be baked dry and fade under the sun. But to allow her a pen and paper, the time to put letters together, to form words, to record her own thoughts, dreams, desires and outrages...that, my friends, is what danger is made of. *That* is what kills empires and builds nations. *That* is power.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-11039928389597981662012-01-04T21:38:00.000-05:002012-01-04T22:14:59.264-05:00Welcome to 2012: Back to a Writing LifeHello, world, and happy new year!<br /><br />I am sad to see I've let this blog languish since last April.<br /><br />I've been battling an illness that hasn't given me much leftover energy after work and school; an autoimmune arthritic disease called ankylosing spondylitis. In addition to severe fatigue and nasty joint pain, it has come hand in hand with a yet-undiagnosed nasty GI tract buddy which makes life uncomfortable and unpredictable. It hasn't made me inclined to be social, and I didn't fight it hard enough to retrieve the time I needed for my writing life. In fact, last April was probably also the last time I seriously thought about creative writing. <br /><br />No more, I say! The year is new, a week at home in New York with mom resting helped me feel better than I have in months, and I am reprioritizing. Reading and writing are top of the list, just under work (since writing does not yet pay any bills). And so, I'm back, making a conscious effort to do more reading, more writing, and to chat with you about both via this blog. (I do hope you haven't abandoned it in the deafening silence of the past few months.)<br /><br />Because I intend to tackle the fantasy novel that has been haunting me despite my lack of training in fiction, the last book I read in 2011 was Martha Alderson's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Whisperer-Secrets-Structure-Writer/dp/1440525889/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325731512&sr=8-1">Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master.</a></i> (A bit too much hoodoo woo-woo spirituality beefed up the page count, but the author's take on plot progression and structure seem pretty sound.) To kick the 2012 year off on the right note, I read Charles Baxter's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Down-House-Essays-Fiction/dp/1555975089/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325731598&sr=1-1">Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction</a></i>, and am midway through <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Writing-Collected-Essays-Times/dp/0805070850/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325731645&sr=1-1">Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times</a></i>, both excellent collections that have me ruminating on everything from culture to language to imagery, and what differences there are, if any, between poets and novelists as writers. (Expect more on these later.)<br /><br />But know this: I have books on writing waiting to be read on my shelves, melodic lines haunting me that are begging to become stories, some ideas that want to become essays, and images that are jockeying to become poems. I'm not going to give up on 2012 with these still inside my head and not on a page somewhere.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-15102879560867405852011-04-08T22:10:00.000-04:002011-04-08T23:21:56.135-04:00If You Had To Memorize A Book...One of <a href="http://circandserve.net/">my best friends</a> in the universe <a href="http://friendfeed.com/lsw/01bc276a/in-fahrenheit-451-society-which-book-would-you">recently asked a great question</a> in our social network on friendfeed. Her question:<br /><br /><b>In a Fahrenheit 451 society, which book would you memorize?</b><br /><br />My head about exploded as i tried to find my answer. <i>Leaves of Grass</i>? Hmm...I love it, but I have to be in the mood for the grandiosity of that one. Something by Stephen King? I love him, and his books would be long enough to be distracting, but...no, not what I would choose to spend that many brain cells on.<br /><br />I started scanning my shelves, putting in perhaps too much effort for a question asked off the cuff. Dylan Thomas's Collected works, maybe - I like how playful he is with language (and saying "dingle starry" makes me smile every time). But no, I only get one book to memorize, and likely not much else to choose from...I want something more...more <i>substantial</i> than a collection of poems. I love poetry, but I also want a lengthy story to keep my mind occupied. I want it to be beautiful though; I want a longish story that has beautiful language and the rhythm of poetry to it. <br /><br />At this point, I am standing in front of all of my bookshelves, a little upset at myself for not building a library that makes my answer obvious. How can I not have an answer to this? Maybe there's no book like that. But I don't really believe that. There has to be something. And I don't own it?<br /><br />BUT WAIT. <br /><br />There is a ridiculously long, beautifully written, lyric story that could engage me for my whole life if I could only memorize one. Love, politics, intrigue, horror, beauty, religion, doubt, redemption. Oh, yes. <br /><br />Dante Alighieri's <i>Divine Comedy. Divina Commedia.</i> Specifically, the hardcover Book of the Month Club edition put out by Bantam, with the old Italian on one side and Mandelbaum's verse translation on the opposite pages. (They're illustrated by Barry Moser, and the illustrations are also beautiful.) <br /><br />This might be cheating a little bit - the Divine Comedy comes in three parts and is usually published as three separate books, but as a story, all of those are required, so I'm going to count them as one "work." And it might also be cheating since the version of the book I chose does have it in two languages, so I could learn the music of the Italian, learning those lines aside the English lines. But mostly my choice fits within the confines of the question. Mostly.<br /><br />In any case, I have to admit that I was surprised, both by my casting about for what I would really want to have knocking about my head, and about my final decision. Right now, typing this long past my bedtime, I'm feeling a bit guilty that i reread <i>The Stand</i> yearly, but the last time I read Alighieri was my freshman year in college. <br /><br />I've just taken the volumes off their prominent spot of my main shelves and placed them in easy reach - I do believe this will be my summer reading project. <br /><br />What about you? In a Fahrenheit 451 society, which book would <i>you</i> memorize? Share your decision in the comments!warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-53531349932708532302011-04-05T14:09:00.001-04:002011-04-05T14:17:11.793-04:00The Kentucky Vein is Launched!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFTOC7igKo4fEfORbrLKO3m7iS1M-a0whxPZQVHNn6Bc5JmA4ScDZrsRCFvDcqxEVWtPebR1ei3FZjwucem_37Ruv2WS8MUay4u-OkZCWYngWtchiBRHRSZzCFsRoROaLRvGH3b9JdC6Q/s1600/kentucky_vein_cover.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 206px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFTOC7igKo4fEfORbrLKO3m7iS1M-a0whxPZQVHNn6Bc5JmA4ScDZrsRCFvDcqxEVWtPebR1ei3FZjwucem_37Ruv2WS8MUay4u-OkZCWYngWtchiBRHRSZzCFsRoROaLRvGH3b9JdC6Q/s320/kentucky_vein_cover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5592164953096932674" /></a><a href="http://shop.punkinbooks.com/The-Kentucky-Vein-Paperback-9780983239079.htm#"><i>The Kentucky Vein</i> is now available!</a> I'm so very excited - thank you to everyone at Punkin House - especially Amy & Julie - for their patience and kind attention. <br /><br />For my friends and readers - if you do order a copy and care to tell me what you think of it, I would be happy to post your comments - and a photo of you with your copy of the book - here on my site. If you care to write a review of the book, do let me know so I can link to you. <br /><br />There's little I've found that's more exciting than welcoming a new book - thank you for letting me share my enthusiasm and words with you! I'll post soon as I organize readings around Kentucky and Tennessee.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-39460160118762654772011-03-25T23:03:00.000-04:002011-03-25T23:20:52.276-04:00Joining the Book Blogger Hop<a href="http://www.crazy-for-books.com"><img src="http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt34/crazybookblog/cfbmemebutton-2.png" alt="Book Blogger Hop" width="150" height="150"></a>I just discovered the <a href="http://www.crazy-for-books.com/">Crazy for Books Blog</a>, and am joining the Hop. The instructions are:<br /><br /><i>"is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list below!!"</i><br /><br />This week's question is "If you could physically put yourself into a book or series…which one would it be and why?"<br /><br />A tough question! I have a few answers...<br /><br />1. I am particularly in love with <a href="http://www.vickipettersson.com/">Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series</a>, in which certain folks of the Zodiac bloodlines come into their powers and become, essentially, superheroes. Light side and dark. Superpowers. Hot men. I do love urban fantasy, and this is a great one. Do be sure you reD them in order, though, or they won't make much sense.<br /><br />2. The series that first jumped into my head was the <a href="http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/the-books/the-dante-valentine-series/">Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow</a>. I'm a fan of strong female leads and paranormal adventure/romance, and Dante is so badass the devil hires her to keep his folks in line. (You don't get much stronger than that.)<br /><br />3. I'd like for <a href="http://www.noraroberts.com/">Nora Roberts</a> to write me into one of her series. Her "In Death" series (written as J. D. Robb) is one of my long-time favorites; I love Eve Dallas as a heroine. I'm also enamored of her romance novels, which occasionally weave in magic and myth, and always have happy endings. <br /><br />In all cases, the authors I'd want to "write me in" write strong women, and I'd love to appear on a page that way.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-74917721076223433092011-03-25T21:28:00.000-04:002011-03-25T22:30:54.927-04:00The Good Things About Travel: Reading & ArrivingI have a confession to make: I hate traveling. Don't get me wrong, I love to visit other places - it's the getting there that I don't like. My timing dependent on airlines and staff I have no power or authority over, crowded airlines, screaming children, overly perfumed bodies, and the guy with the overly-stinky bologna sandwich sitting behind me...no, I have no love of in-progress travel.<br /><br />The one part of traveling I do enjoy is that it is the one time I can usually indulge my reading habits without feeling guilty, since I find i cannot be productive in travel-mode. I haven't made the switch fully to e-books yet (I have an iPad, but I find it unwieldy, and I really just prefer dead-tree books), so I packed a number of books I've been wanting to read into my luggage. This past week, I traveled to Washington DC for the <a href="http://www.infotoday.com/cil2011/">Computers in Libraries conference</a>. On the way there, I read five books, and on the way back, I read another three. They were:<br /><br /><i>Darkfever</i> - Karen Marie Moning<br /><i>Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines of Making Any Organization World Class</i> by Patrick Lencioni<br /><i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i> by Stieg Larsson<br /><i>The Girl Who Played with Fire</i> by Stieg Larsson<br /><i>The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable</i> by Patrick Lencioni<br /><i>Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable about Destroying the Barriers that Turn Colleagues into Competitors</i> by Patrick Lencioni<br /><i>The Bride Collector</i> by Ted Dekker<br /><i>The Three Big Questions from a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity to the Most Important Organization of Your Life</i> by Patrick Lencioni<br /><br />Except for the lack of poetry (I dislike reading poetry when I travel, I like to be in a more stable environment so I can steep myself in it and concentrate), this is a likely representation of my reading habits. Usually it's a little heavier on the <i>Darkfever</i> end and lighter on the Lencioni, but a mix of paranormal adventure/romance, business, education, murder mystery fiction, and horror is my usual reading menu. I'm looking forward to a week-long vacation in May. I plan to scour the apartment clean, and read indolently on the couch (or in the sun, if the weather allows). <br /><br />I have noticed that between work, projects related to work, and my work on the doctorate degree, I have not been maintaining the kind of balance I need to allow me the time for my reading and creative writing. In fact, I've been an anxious, harried hot mess for the past few months, burning the candle at all three ends. This weekend I am going to take a page from Lencioni's <i>The Three Big Questions</i> and draft up a plan to get back into better balance and make time for the other things I love. Reading, writing, gallomphing with my basset hound, and seeing friends.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-63793608786019275622011-03-14T20:11:00.000-04:002011-03-14T20:18:07.050-04:00Beautiful Book Cover!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVg61hJmq8Kz3iucV_9W8ElTf6KhF1yEkFluI0sTMlAs0P373rgUC2keNxdS5fdi07ytduXRTJ68Q-27s2FQ97xqEZTXg34cKP1XagF4ffGLlZYk5PtY72FNOh2JMiQUMH8iROil2LBjE/s1600/kentucky+vein+cover.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 207px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVg61hJmq8Kz3iucV_9W8ElTf6KhF1yEkFluI0sTMlAs0P373rgUC2keNxdS5fdi07ytduXRTJ68Q-27s2FQ97xqEZTXg34cKP1XagF4ffGLlZYk5PtY72FNOh2JMiQUMH8iROil2LBjE/s320/kentucky+vein+cover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584092947944541970" /></a><br />IT'S HERE! Julie from <a href="http://punkinhousepress.com/">Punkin House</a> sent along the cover for <i>The Kentucky Vein</i>. The photo is courtesy of Erik Tuttle, an eastern Kentucky native who is also a former student worker of mine, a poet in his own right, and the one who insisted that I go get my MFA. Isn't it fantastic and striking? I am thrilled with it, and I hope it is something you'd be happy to have on your own shelf.<br /><br /><i>The Kentucky Vein</i>. A Kentucky press. A Kentucky photographer. And having just spent the weekend driving to Lexington to see my loved ones (and hit the St. Patrick's Day parade in Lexington), I'm re-excited about Kentucky, and re-energized about the book. April 5th is the release date - stay tuned!warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-3654567496928273312011-03-14T19:55:00.000-04:002011-03-14T19:58:45.740-04:00Free E-Books from Punkin House!My new press is giving away free e-books in an attempt to get the word out about their authors, and their green ways! Check out what my fellow Punkin House authors are doing, and practice your e-book-fu! Follow the instructions <a href="http://www.punkinblog.com/2011/03/free-ebooks.html">here on their blog post</a> to choose your free book and take advantage of the offer.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-31259201931258063662011-03-04T15:09:00.001-05:002011-03-04T15:53:17.725-05:00Readers, Writers, Relationships and my Long-Time Love, Stephen KingMy favorite writer of all time is Stephen King. I've read everything the man has penned and made public, including the initial draft of <i>Under the Dome</i> which was at some point posted as a pdf on his site. <br /><br />I'm not saying that he hasn't written books I did not enjoy - he has. He even introduced me to the fear that as you become more famous, fewer editors will actually *edit* your work. But I think of Stephen and I as a long-term relationship. We've been together for decades. He has some quirks that annoy me. Sometimes his books snore and keep me awake, or fall asleep when I'm ready for some hot action. Sometimes they take me out to an expensive dinner and we hit a show before they take me back home to ravish me. But I know and appreciate the rhythms of his work. He is a hell of a storyteller, which I admire and envy. And though I couldn't tell you much about his life (Maine, car wreck, addiction, thick glasses, Tabitha-wife...that's about it), I know the man's writerly voice. In every single book, he talks. While I thoroughly enjoyed <i>Full Dark, No Stars</i>, my favorite part of the collection was the end, where he wrote an extended essay/letter to the reader. I remember as a kid hitting the first "Dear Reader" section in one of his books, and feeling flattered that the writer would care enough to talk to me outside his story - that has never diminished for me. I still find it flattering. I find it *cozy*. <br /><br />I want to be a writer like <i>that</i> - one my readers want to talk to in cozy-fashion once the story is all told and there's nothing left to do but talk. Right now my blog is my way of doing this, until I beguile some press into letting me Afterword something.<br /><br />Though my work is not yet as much of a life timeline as King's (may the muses be kind and make it so!), looking back on my own work, I am always surprised at how much of me you can truly come to know through my writing, though I haven't Dear Reader-ed anyone. You can come to know me through my poetry - I look back on <i><a href="http://www.bellowingark.org/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=36&idcategory">God In My Throat: The Lilith Poems</a></i> (Bellowing Ark, 2009) and am still surprised how hurt, angry and defiant I was when I wrote it, how angry at God; that piece of me still exists, and flares every once in awhile. <i><a href="http://www.bellowingark.org/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=44&idcategory=30">These Terrible Sacraments</a></i> (Bellowing Ark, 2010) is still new enough that reading it in printed-book-form still surprises me. It brings back both the stark terror and the constant low-level fear I felt when my brother was stationed abroad, and surprises me with my current complacency. Knowing that others are still feeling this every day for their loved ones makes me feel lazy that I haven't kept that concern fanned in my own heart. Coming to my own work as a reader surprises me, once I let go of the "wish-I-made-that-edit" feeling. <br /><br />When I do get to read <i><a href="http://www.punkinhouse.com/Colleen_Harris.html">The Kentucky Vein</a></i> in April (Punkin House, 2011), I'm sure I will be surprised again at which piece of myself fell out onto paper. (Reading your own book in print is always very different from reading it as a word processing document - at least that has been the case for me. Do other writers feel the same?) This one is an exploration of things that grow, things that die, of fresh-air things and homestyle things, of things looking for a home. Yet another facet of the "me" that has accumulated over the years, and I can't wait to see it.<br /><br />If you want more autobiographical material, you can find it in my creative non-fiction work, like my essay <a href="http://damselflypress.net/2011/01/14/fourteenth-issue-2/">"I Wonder If He Felt Me Write Him Dead" in issue 14 of <i>damselfly press</i></a>, or my chapters in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-American-Women-Defining-Passages/dp/0984259430">Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages</a></i> which discuss my health (thankfully good, now) and my career choice. Non-fiction always seems so much more <i>naked</i>, though. I rarely write it with an intent to publish it, though it does happen. Or you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed, on my blogs, or by email for my day-today banalities. None of it really as satisfying as what King has done, I think, all rolled up into the experience of the book itself. <br /><br />In any case, I hope for and look forward to a writing career in which I can make the sort of long-term connection with my readers that King has made with his. I want that sort of connection. I want to be un-self-conscious enough to throw on my writerly pajamas and just hang out with my own Dear Readers. Anybody have any Bailey's to throw in the hot cocoa?warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-62924875138952874122011-03-04T14:14:00.000-05:002011-03-04T15:09:16.573-05:00Fanning the Fiction FiresI just received wonderful news from poet <a href="http://www.dianelockward.com/amazon.html">Diane Lockward</a>, who is the guest editor for the literary journal <i><a href="http://adannajournal.blogspot.com/">Adanna</a></i>. My short-short story (about 1100 words) "The Reader" will be published in the upcoming issue!<br /><br />I'm excited about this for a number of reasons. First, any acceptance is hugely flattering. Second, Diane is a fantastic poet, so being chosen by her puffs me up quite a bit. (Her book <i>Temptation by Water</i> is a must-read, if you haven't already). Third, I like this piece. I like it a lot. For someone else to like it a whole lot - enough to publish it, even - may mean that I'm not completely biased or crazy. (I've got another blog post percolating about a writer's love of their own work. Stay tuned). Fourth, did I mention that it's a fiction piece? FICTION, I say! I mean, I don't know that I'm quite ready to stop calling myself a poet, since there's more of that going on too, but it's nice to have talented writers encourage me as I work in a new-to-me genre.<br /><br />It also gives me the impetus I need to not put away that collection of short-shorts that I thought might turn into a book. My fiction fire has been fanned!warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-17514985259120062122011-02-28T10:31:00.000-05:002011-02-28T11:09:27.890-05:00A Strict Beauty: The Corset of Form in PoetryDo you cringe at the thought of writing poetry in strict form? I'll admit, I used to.<br /><br />In some of my MFA workshops at Spalding University, it became a running joke that as newer poets, we would groan when <a href="http://jeaniethompson.blogspot.com/">Jeanie Thompson</a>, <a href="http://artscouncil.ky.gov/Poet/Poet.htm">Maureen Morehead</a>, or <a href="http://www.debrakangdean.com/">Debra Kang Dean</a> would read a piece and say, "This wants to be a sonnet...". We were quite certain our poems did not want to be sonnets. In fact, we did not care <i>what</i> our poems wanted to be when they grew up - like parents staunchly defending their children against a theater arts major, we defended ourselves from having to work in form. Form was scary. Form was restrictive. Form was draconian, and stifled our untrained free verse sensibilities. Mostly, though, form was <i>difficult</i>. We complained our way through rhyme schemes and meter. We wrestled out wordy verse into the tight corset of form.<br /><br />And sometimes we surprised ourselves, and a sloppy, slovenly slattern of a poem became quite beautiful.<br /><br />After a few years of study, many years of reading, and finding the open-mindedness that comes with both exposure to and practice of a new thing, I have reached a delicate balance with formal poetry structures. I had the good fortune to attend lectures and a workshop by renowned sonneteer <a href="http://www.mollypeacock.org/">Molly Peacock</a>, who is not only a poet of great talent, but a lecturer who engages with the material in such a way that strict form seems approachable - in light of her discussions, formal poetry becomes the whalebone and strict seaming of fine clothes, as opposed to the rusted chains and straitjacket many fear.<br /><br />To me, working in form almost always feels like work. On the other hand, there is work I love, and work I despise - my approach is to ensure that I walk into a poem open-minded. Nearly all of my first drafts begin free-form, free verse, no meter or rhyme (aside from the occasional slant-rhyme), and no real structure. I am what I would call, out of the gate, a lazy poet. After whatever inspiration I've had is out on paper, I look at it the way a craftsman might look at a piece of wood, and form is one of the tools I have to shape it. I think about the subject matter and flow, about where the line breaks should happen, and tone. And I think about form. Could it be a sonnet? Is there a turn in there? Is it an echo-ey sort of poem, that could do with a repetition-form like a villanelle or sestina? Is it an overly emotional piece, and do I need the container of form to give me some structure, so that i am not simply vomiting onto a page? Poet <a href="http://wingedink.blogspot.com/2007/11/anne-sexton-and-learning-not-to-be.html">Helen Rickerby notes</a>: "Sexton said she liked to use strict rhyme schemes, particularly in her early work, as a way of containing the strong emotion. The harder something was to write about, the more restrictive the scheme." <br /><br />As I mature in the craft of writing, I have a greater appreciation of form. I highly respect poets who gravitate toward strict form for their work, because it takes quite a bit of discipline (and I am prone to admire folks who make what I find difficult look easy), and there is a special beauty to a poem that is crafted well. I am not scared of form, and cannot articulate why I was - form is a guideline, a structure, not a thing of snapping metal teeth. When I run up against a wall with a topic, or find myself in need of a prompt, I often turn to different forms so I can experiment and see what happens. I've even gotten lucky a few times - I've had sonnets placed in <i><a href="http://bostonpoetry.com/66/issue4.html">Sixty-Six: The Journal of Sonnet Studies</a></i> and a handful of other journals.<br /><br />Now when I think of form, I think of a corset. It may make it a bit more difficult to breathe when you wear one, and perhaps harder to sit down comfortably. However, it improves the posture, it positions the bosom to advantage, and when properly fitted, can be a beautiful addition to your wardrobe.<br /><br />If you are interested in learning more about forms and finding an encyclopedia of forms which you can read and use as a basis for practice, I highly recommend <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Making-Poem-Norton-Anthology-Poetic/dp/0393321789/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b">The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms</a></i> as a comprehensive, encyclopedic guide, and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kick-Head-Everyday-Guide-Poetic/dp/0763641324/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298909179&sr=1-1">A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms</a></i> as a more informal introduction to the topic.warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-80155030489557946672011-02-24T13:15:00.001-05:002011-02-24T13:31:02.570-05:00Why Beautiful Covers and Good Books Are Like Potato Chips<span style="font-style: italic;">The Kentucky Vein</span> is getting even closer to being on shelves and in hands! My cover designer, Julie, has done a gorgeous job with some photos by Kentucky native and excellent photographer (and former student employee of mine), <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/etuttle">Erik Tuttle</a>.<br /><br />Right now I'm cooing over Julie's designs as I try to decide which I like better, and finding it difficult to choose just one - sort of like potato chips, only not as fattening, and far more compelling.<br /><br />Another way book covers are like potato chips: it's rare that they're shared. (What? Am I the only greedy lout around?) In this case, I got lucky with some very generous folks. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/978-1594160998">Punkin House Press</a> (namely Amy, who has been my primary contact for big things; Cheryl, editor and fixerof-things for the text; and Julie, my designer for the cover) has solicited my input in a number of ways. I have heard stories from established poets that an unknown writer should not expect to get any input on <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> regarding their book's cover, and changes to the text are mandated rather than requested. My experience has been quite the opposite - everything has been a conversation, I feel like my opinions and input have mattered at every point along this book's journey, and that in addition to writing the book, the rest of the work that goes into making text into a book has my name somewhere in it as well. (Given that it would be much easier for the Punkin team to just do as they wanted to speed things along and avoid any possible disagreements, it really is a testament to how this press treats their authors.)<br /><br />So, Punkin is the type of place where they share their potato chips. For a fluffy lady like me, it is one more sign among many that this is the right place for my work.<br /><br />Okay, so admittedly the potato chip metaphor is a little bit of a stretch. On the other hand, I do hope when you read through <span style="font-style: italic;">The Kentucky Vein</span>, you find that you can't stop at one, and want to re-read it again and again. (With potato chips, if you like.) It's coming soon...are you ready for your copy?warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-65068522769310263782011-01-10T20:07:00.000-05:002011-01-10T20:15:07.687-05:00Starting the Year With Short Stories<p>2010 went out with a roar, leaving me happily stranded in New York with the opportunity to spend another few days with family. 2011 has started with the same white roar, as I'm moving in to Day 2 of Snowpocalypse Chattanooga. The university is closed, and I am ignoring work I should be getting done in favor of lounging on my couch with hot cocoa, writing like a madwoman.</p><br /><p>I know it would be wrong to wish for a two-month blizzard just so I can get some concentrated writing done...but I'm tempted.</p><br /><p>Surprising myself, I sat down to wrestle some new poems into the world, and instead have two brand new short stories. They're very short for short stories - probably closer to flash - one at just over 1,000 words ("The Reader"), and the other just under 2,000 ("Stacked"). I could probably harangue them into longer form, but I like them in their current spare forms. I think I'm going to send them out for critique and maybe to a few lit mags, see if they gain any traction, and hope that these seeds grow into a short story collection.</p><br /><p>But for now, while the snow is still making my parking lot look beautiful, I'm going to ignore my looming responsibilities a little while longer and write some more.</p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-54923916959219006062010-12-21T20:50:00.000-05:002010-12-21T21:48:26.578-05:00On Writing ReadingWhile I usually use this space to talk about writing, reading is nearly as important to my identity as a writer. Many writers I admire claim the same, and I think it is something, as readers and writers alike, that we should think about more often. <br /><br />I am a voracious reader. I can't tell you how many nights I've chosen a book over sleep, and that started before I turned ten years old. I blame - or, rather, credit - my mother, who always loved books and their inner-worlds, and taught me a love for them early. For me, writing and reading are inextricably linked. As I read, I often jot down notes, and as I write, if I find myself blocked, I'll take a break and read a bit. <br /><br />In an attempt to keep track of my reading habits (and, selfishly, to see how much I was really reading per year), at the beginning of 2010 <a href="http://warmaiden.tumblr.com/">I started a reading diary on Tumblr</a>. It's essentially a quickie log of all the books I've read for the year, and a brief thumbs up or down. If you take the time to scan through, you'll find my reading tastes are all over the map - lots of paranormal romance, psychological thrillers, murder mysteries, horror, poetry. Books on librarianship, education, and the craft of writing. The list is as scattered as my interests, and I often forget to list one here and there. I like to think of it as a sort of "grade deflation," if you will. In any case, it's a very interesting exercise, and I recommend it. Without keeping such a log, I wouldn't be able to tell you that I'm up to more than 111 books read in 2010. The holidays hold a bit of travel for me, so I imagine I'll make it closer to 120 before 2010 is officially nailed into its coffin. While I tend to read in clumps, particularly holidays and weekends, it averages to about one book every 3 days. <br /><br />Am I afraid what I read affects my writing? Yes and no. "Afraid" isn't really the right word - I think we are influenced by everything we read, see, hear and do. I think some things - and some writers - will affect us more than others depending on our tastes and histories. I know I am influenced by my reading in terms of how I write, what I write about, and how I think about writing, sound, line breaks, and more. My forthcoming collection, <i>The Kentucky Vein</i>, was inspired by my reading Ray Gonzalez, Maurice Manning, and a handful of others. There's much less of an obvious influence in my previous collections, but if I look closely at those, I can see Louise Gluck, Janice Harrington, Kim Addonizio, Lucille Clifton, Richard Hugo and others peeking through at me. If you read them, you may see others. <br /><br />I've heard that many writing students balk at reading because they want to be original, they don't want some echo of a former writer to show up in their work. I believe that choosing to be poorly read is the same thing as choosing ignorance; being willfully un-knowledged. I would recommend instead that writers read as broadly as possible, and be influenced by as many as possible. As a writer, become aware of which writers you like, and try to articulate why it is you prefer them. After much reading and some studying with great writers, I can tell you that while I don;t prefer his storytelling overmuch, I like the mouthfeel of Richard Hugo and the way he plays with syllables, sounds and wordshapes in his poems. I get caught easily by good wavelike rhythms, like those used by T. S. Eliot and Lucille Clifton. I like the strong female protagonists and the harsher staccato rhythms in Kim Addonizio's work, I like much of the persona work done by Ai, and I prefer the storytelling of Louise Gluck and Natasha Trethewey. I love Kipling for his wit and humor, and Whitman for his exuberance and lack of restraint. I admire the gemlike precision and clarity of Czeslaw Milosz. I could go on forever, but the point is that I don't fear the influence of these writers...I pray for it. I hope that delving into the qualities of their work that attract me so much will help me hone those qualities in my own writing. Being able to recognize excellence is a precursor to training yourself to create it yourself, or to at least recognize when you are hitting the sweet spot with your pen!<br /><br />How can you decide what you like in literature and writing, or more importantly, <i>why you like it</i>, unless you've exposed yourself to different flavors? The lovely poet and non-fiction writer Molly Peacock gave a lecture on "Literary Aunts & Uncles" when I attended Spalding University for my MFA. Essentially, she noted that reading other writers allows us to place ourselves in a particular tradition. If you are a writer, read widely and joyfully. Discover who your literary ancestors are. Read in your genre so you can place yourself (and also appear to be not a complete self-absorbed ass if someone asks you about your craft, heh heh). Read outside your genre for fun, for the brain-break it creates,and to connect with other writers and to identify the difficulties of their craft. (For instance, I am always amazed and impressed at the stamina of writers who work in long-forms, such as fiction novels and biographies. As a poet, I can make a transition by putting a new poem on the next page, whereas they have much more work to make leaps between subjects, areas, and characters happen.)<br /><br />And if you are already a reader: as a writer, I say thank you. Your willingness to explore other worlds and give my words a chance keeps me going. Keep turning those pages!warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-26583341639065198642010-12-16T22:19:00.000-05:002010-12-16T23:00:07.211-05:00Genres Like Potato Chips: Can't Choose Just One<p>I've been quite taken with experimenting with genres outside my training in poetry lately, and am surprised at how well that other-writing is going. My essay <a href="http://sequoyareview.com/2010/12/07/of-blue-collars-and-electrical-tape-colleen-harris/">"Of Blue Collars and Electrical Tape" appears in the latest issue of <i>The Sequoya Review</i></a>. An edited version of the essay is included in the last section of <i>The Kentucky Vein</i>, forthcoming from <a href="http://www.punkinbooks.com/">Punkin House Press</a>. There are a handful of essays in that collection (forthcoming sometime in mid-2011, Punkin & I will let you know when!), and I found working in essay form to be very interesting. A little bit more sloppy than my poetry, maybe, since poems have to be far more distilled, the essays more closely resemble my stream of consciousness. They're more conversation-like, somehow. (Perhaps a bit like my blog posts.) Of course, all of my academic and craft training is in poetry, so if you find the essays terrible or insufferable, the blame is all mine.</p><br /><p>I also just got word from Kara, the editor at <a href="http://www.midnightscreaming.com/"><i>Midnight Screaming</i></a>, that my short-short story "A Hound That Does Not Hunt" has been accepted for the January issue. My first-ever fiction placement! It's around 1800 words, a creepy (I hope) little vignette about how close we are to our beloved pets...and how close they might still be to wild animals with the need to kill. As a lifelong Stephen King fan, and a regular consumer of the horror/terror/paranormal genre, I am absolutely *tickled* to have placed that little piece!</p><br /><p>And so, I'm back to thinking about genre-breaking, and wondering how often we as writers take advantage of the different word-containers available to us. I know some of the writers I admire most (Molly Peacock, Robert Bly, Phil Deaver, Frederick Smock, and many others) dabble in a bit of this, a bit of that, whether they combine their poetry with creative nonfiction, fiction, translation, or some other type of writing, some other type of brain-bending around language. Occasionally I feel guilty for mucking about in not-poetry, as though I am cheating my genre of time and effort. But really, sometimes I need something different. Something to cleanse the palate. Not all stories can be told the same way...the way just because soup is food does not mean it can be eaten from the same plate or with a fork and knife like a ribeye.</p><br /><p>I'm happy to have found editors willing to indulge my dabbling with different forms, willing to offer me a piece of their audience to try my hand on. I'm happy to have multiple arenas to toss my creative energy into, hoping something takes good shape and survives. And I hope other writers don't limit themselves to whatever original writer label they slapped onto themselves. There's a whole universe of forms out there. Test them. Test yourself.</p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-39310810534334603442010-12-02T09:15:00.000-05:002010-12-16T21:46:34.446-05:00Pushcart Nomination! "When You Came Home From the War"<p>I woke up this morning to an email from Colin, editor of <i><a href="http://lamplighterreview.com/">Lamplighter Review</a></i>, informing me that I'm one of the authors chosen to receive a <a href="http://www.pushcartprize.com/nominate.htm">Pushcart nomination</a> for this year for my poem "When You Came Home From the War."</p><p><b>When You Came Home From The War</b></p><br />your body was a war-torn city.<br />We rubbed against each other<br />and it sounded like violins scowling.<br />We loved like October maples scream<br />and we loved like kudzu, overtaking all things.<br />We were lovers because there was nothing else<br />we could think to do with our bodies<br />but burn them.<p></p><br /><p>I am excited - this poem is one of my favorites, and appears in <i><a href="http://www.bellowingark.org/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=44&idcategory=30">These Terrible Sacraments</a></i>.</p><p>I was honored to be a nominee for the Pushcart Prize for the last round - it's heady company to be in, and given the quality of what was in the collection this year, I don't envy the judges their task. Well, I do envy their getting to read all that excellent work, but trimming it down must be quite difficult. I didn't make it past the nomination last year, but I'm crossing my fingers for this new round. Congratulations and best of luck to all the nominees for this year!<br /></p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-75352287523423653692010-12-01T16:30:00.000-05:002010-12-16T21:46:34.462-05:00These Terrible Sacraments is Available from Bellowing Ark!<p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBiAmaV9nM3l22-EWVh0T7B0c4a7CXmymL5WEWBuoVVX_-lJJO9Nkk7HLq6T-coCnF6KtYqaKRNxXpY6VmhcPOEPo4jAQ0CTuC_pTAB_0frjUiT22ISDGgWiDWy-DNv36_puT08IdAA_OM/s1600/Harris_tts_detail.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 257px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBiAmaV9nM3l22-EWVh0T7B0c4a7CXmymL5WEWBuoVVX_-lJJO9Nkk7HLq6T-coCnF6KtYqaKRNxXpY6VmhcPOEPo4jAQ0CTuC_pTAB_0frjUiT22ISDGgWiDWy-DNv36_puT08IdAA_OM/s320/Harris_tts_detail.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545829901886262402" /></a><i><a href="http://www.bellowingark.org/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=44&idcategory=30">These Terrible Sacraments</a></i> is available now from Bellowing Ark Press! Please go check it out - the cover is a beautiful glossy thanks to the dedication of my editor, and (if I do say so myself), I hope you find it to be a powerful collection. The poems reflect the impact of war not only on a soldier, but on his family and loved ones, and I hope the book finds a wide, interested, and compassionate audience. If you are feeling extra generous this holiday, <a href="http://www.bellowingark.org/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=44&idcategory=30">order a copy.</a></p><br /><p>It's important to remember those who voluntary place themselves in harm's way to serve a greater good, and their families who do without them. Thank a serviceperson as you travel this holiday season, and remember - you may be grumpy due to crowds and long lines, but the reality of a soldier's life abroad is much more difficult than that...and they don't get to complain. Remember to ask yourself what you are grateful for. As I say in the dedication of the book, to my brother Patrick (USMC), I am grateful he came home safe. I hope all our other men and women serving are as blessed.</p></p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-62396332816812841272010-12-01T16:23:00.000-05:002010-12-16T21:46:34.476-05:00The Kentucky Vein moving right along at Punkin House Press!<p><i>The Kentucky Vein</i> came back to me with suggested revisions by editor-goddess Cheryl, who has a keen eye for *everything*. (Dear all authors: you need an editor with hawk eyes. Trust me. And thank them.) I finally bounced it back today, and I think we're looking at a tentative Summer 2011 release from <a href="http://www.punkinbooks.com/Home_Page.html">Punkin House</a>!</p><br /><p>Not that Punkin is resting on their laurels until then. If you visit the <a href="http://www.punkinbooks.com/Authors.html">Authors page</a>, you'll find that they are promoting their printed authors as well as the pending folks, which is very fun to see. In fact, <a href="http://www.punkinbooks.com/Colleen_Harris.html"> they've even got my author page up</a>, if you care to read it! They're busy attaching our Facebook profiles, creating author pages in Facebook, setting up writing blogs for each of us, and they will be posting video of readings from our manuscripts. I'm feeling very lucky to have been accepted by such an energetic team!</p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7005123474018072585.post-53051462129878118992010-09-02T22:42:00.000-04:002010-12-16T21:46:34.493-05:00Genrebreaking II: Wandering Farther Into the Wood<p>I've dabbled in some creative nonfiction essays, and that has worked out more or less well, but rambling on about something I want to talk about is easy (if not necessarily graceful). I've gone much deeper into the genre woods this time, looking for refreshment and challenge. I've started a fantasy novel!</p><br /><p>Now, to be fair, I started this novel ten or twelve years ago and stuck it in a drawer. Any number of reasons - I'm not fiction-trained; being a poet means I lack the stamina for a full-fledged novel length work; I wasn't sure where it would lead me and that made me nervous (because fiction, after all, needs a plot, whereas poetry doesn't, really).</p><br /><p>In any case, it's been nagging me for awhile now. The poetry muse is quiet for now since I can't quiet my brain, but all sorts of fun snippets for this story keep colliding in my brain, creating interesting scenarios, sparking plot that actually moves it forward past the murk that stopped me from writing it years ago.</p><br /><p>I fully expect the book to be god-awful, at least in its initial form. I don't know if a first draft of it will ever even get done. But I very much want to give it a go and see if I can make a real story live. A REAL book, for all the folks who lift up their noses suspiciously when I mention my other books are poetry.</p><br /><p>I've looked into some things to keep my eye on (like the Snowflake method of keeping track of things - this story got unwieldy fast, and became too much to hold in my head). I'm tracking a lot of craft-of-writing blogs that focus on fiction, and some cruel/funny literary agent blogs for tips and tricks. So far I have an interesting mash - we'll see what comes of it. It's far more interesting than a personal diary would be, and I dont feel the need for it to be perfect on the first strike like I do when working with a line of poetry.</p><br /><p>And so the book, which will likely never see the light of day, is tentatively titled <i>Warborn: Book I of the Warmaiden Chronicles</i>, and I'm tickled to be working on it until the poetry side of my brain reasserts itself.</p>warmaidenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08391769344411207864noreply@blogger.com2