The Best Rejection

You wouldn't believe it, really - especially if you're a writer - if I told you that last night, a rejection letter made my day.

But it did.

I sent in a creative non-fiction piece to Copper Nickel. Untrained in CNF for the most part, I expected flat rejection (and perhaps some snickering), but I quite liked the piece and thought I might get lucky. Last night, the generous editors of Copper Nickel sent me this rejection:

"We think this piece has potential and that it is relevant because of the many people searching for meaning and struggling with religion as an institution. Having said that, we don't think it is fully fleshed out and complete. It could use more. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else, or a rewrite."

It gives me something to hang my hat on. It's not an acceptance, but it shouldn't have been - I'm a novice at this sort of writing and the piece needs work. But the fact that the editors actually encouraged me to work on it at greater length - or to send them something else! - was a very real boost to me. It proved they read my piece. It proved that the piece was salvageable with work, editing, and redrafting. (This is where I, and most other writers I know, insert the happy "I am not a failure" dance.) It proved I wasn't wasting my time. It reminded me of something I do occasionally forget: rejection and failure are not end-points. They are rest-stops where I can pause, take a closer look at what isn't working, and rethink things a bit.

So this morning, I am pleased with thinking that I don't have to stop writing CNF, I just need to get better at it.

It's the most encouraging rejection I've ever received.

Reading for 2010

Back in January, I decided to keep track of my leisure reading for the year. I know I tend to read a lot, but I've never kept a record (which becomes awkward when I accidentally buy multiple copies of something, or my loot from the public library are things I've read before.) In any case, the damage for 2010 so far is pretty impressive, and I'm pleased that I've been able to read so many poets in addition to my usual bodiceripper and vampire fare:


Damaged by Alex Kava
High Windows: poems by Philip Larkin
Sestets: poems by Charles Wright
Bells in Winter; poems Czeslaw Milosz
Here, Bullet: Poems by Brian Turner
Bethlehem In Broad Daylight: Poems by Mark Doty
Slantwise: poems by Betty Adcock
Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 by Ellen Bryant Voigt
Broken by Karin Slaughter
Jane Kenyon’s Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon
Captive Heart by Phoebe Corr
The Uncertain Certainty: Interviews, Essays and Notes on Poetry by Charles Simic
Gravity: Stories by Michael Davis
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Life Makeovers: 52 Practical and Inspiring Ways to Improve Your Life One Week At A Time by Cheryl Richardson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Find Your Strongest Life: What the happiest and most successful women do differently by Marcus Buckingham
I Wish I Had a Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman (poems) by Jude Nutter
Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays by Eula Bass
Push by Sapphire
Face (poems) by Sherman Alexie
Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite
Bone Magic by Yasmine Galenorm
So Cold The River by Michael Koryata
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier
Under the Dome by Stephen King
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Relentless by Dean Koontz
Sizzle by Julie Garwood
Cloud Watcher by Lilith Saintcrow
A Tale of Two Gardens: Poems from India 1952-1995 by Octavio Paz
The Spirit Level by Seamus Heaney
The Last White Knight by Tami Hoag
The Scripture of the Golden Eternity by Jack Kerouac
Days We Are Given: Poems by Alice D’Alessio
Beyond the Highland Mist by Karen Marie Moning
Hidden Fire by Jo Davis
Under Fire by Jo Davis
Trial by Fire by Jo Davis
Door into the Dark: Poems by Seamus Heaney
Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh
Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh
Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh
The Demon's Librarian by Lilith Saintcrow
To Desire a Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt
To Beguile a Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt
To Seduce a Sinner by Elizabeth Hoyt
To Taste Temptation by Elizabeth Hoyt
Blinking with Fists: Poems by Billy Corgan
Angels' Blood by Nalini Singh
The Darkest Whisper by Gena Showalter
The Darkest Pleasure by Gena Showalter
The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter
The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter
Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh
Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh
Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh
Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
Nine Horses: Poems by Billy Collins
Must Love Hellhounds - Short stories
Storm Watcher by Lilith Saintcrow
Dark Watcher by Lilith Saintcrow

Gonesongs Reordered and Sent to Artistic Geniuses

I am happy to report that I have finished retyping the suggested reordering of Gonesongs. Peter Hammarberg and Christina D'Airo, the artistic geniuses who brought you the cover and inside art of God in my Throat, have graciously offered to read this manuscript and take a bunch of fabulous photos for me to choose from. I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

Protip: surround yourself with awesomely artistic and generous people early and often. Unless you are fabulous with visual arts in addition to words, you'll need the help. Desperately. And often, what they will bring to, or see in, the work will be vastly different - and likely more beautiful - than what you see yourself.

Considering the Power of Words and Silence

Ever since I learned to read and write, the power of words has thrilled me. It also to this day terrifies me how much power a handful of words from the right (or wrong) person at the right (or wrong) moment can hold so much power over your life. Think about it: the words you want to hear. The words you are loathe to hear.

Someone offers you a job. Someone tells you that you are fat. Someone tells you they think you are beautiful. Someone admires your work, or someone tells you to look for something in a different field. Someone reveals a secret. Someone tells a lie. Someone says I love you.

And, by extension of the power of words, the power of silence. Someone chooses to hold their tongue instead of gossip. Someone does not accuse you. Someone does not say I told you so. Someone chooses to remain silent instead of asking you to stay. You do not tell someone how important they are to you. You do not say how much you need a particular thing in order to be happy. You do not say I love you.

Even these things we do not say, they are word-forms, with as much power in the withholding as the giving of words.

And on this, we build our lives, and it is all sand and fog.

And they are, in the end, all just words. But what different directions they spin us in, what effects they have on the trajectory of our lives. How easily they can help us transcend ourselves...or crush us, as though our centers weren't made of bone at all.

On A Full Brain and a Furious Pen

Last night I reformatted and edited my MFA thesis and sent it out a peer reviewed journal (with a list of possible others if it doesnt get picked up there). I have 5 poetry projects in-progress (some farther along than others, and 6 if you count a book already contracted but not completed), and another two I want to start but have just been germinating in my brain without any ink (or pixels) spent on them yet. I also have a CNF essay collection in progress with two essays completed and sent out to various lit mags, and another twelve or fifteen ideas of additional essays. I have an idea for a collection of critical essays on a particular section of literature that I am interested in writing about.

I am co-editing two anthologies with Carol Smallwood on writing for women, Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets and Women Writing on Today's American Family, and currently sending out the book proposal to publishers for those. I also have ideas for 2 more anthologies that I haven't even started crafting proposals or calls for contributors for, and I have been considering writing a collection of critical essays on an area of literature I'm very taken with.

And all of this outside my actual job, which I like very much and is at least as time consuming as my writing projects. But I am still grinning like an idiot about it all, even with the whirring brain, the random hits of ideas or lines that I have to grab a pen and mark on a random receipt before it flies away from me.

And so, because of all of this bouncing inside my skull, whenever I am not at work, sleeping or packing, I am writing (or thinking about writing). I was just thinking that it must be incredible to be able to do this as a full time job. I love librarianship, but if I hit the Lotto tomorrow...

Call for Contributors: Women Writing on Today’s American Family

Women Writing on Today’s American Family

Submissions are being sought for an anthology about writing and publishing by women with experience in writing and publishing about family. Possible subjects: using life experience; networking; unique issues women must overcome; formal education; queries and proposals; conference participation; self-publishing; teaching tips. Tips on writing about family: creative nonfiction, poetry, short stories, nonfiction, novels.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful to readers. Please avoid writing too much about “me” and concentrate on what will help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material.

Foreword by Supriya Bhatnagar, Director of Publications, Editor of The Writer’s Chronicle, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, George Mason University.

Afterword by Dr. Amy Hudock, co-founder of Literary Mama, an on-line literary magazine chosen by Writers Digest as one of the 101 Best Web Sites for Writers.

Co-Editor Colleen S. Harris is a 2010 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her book of poetry, God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark Press, 2009), was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Book Award; These Terrible Sacraments, is forthcoming in 2011. Colleen has a MFA degree in writing and has appeared in The Louisville Review, Wisconsin Review, River Styx, and Adirondack Review, among others. She’s included in Library Journal; and Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages.

Co-Editor Carol Smallwood is a 2009 National Federation of State Poetry Societies award winner included in Who’s Who of American Women who has appeared in Michigan Feminist Studies, The Writer's Chronicle, The Detroit News. She's included in Best New Writing in Prose 2009. Her 23rd book is Writing and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook (American Library Association, 2010). A chapter of newly published Lily’s Odyssey was short listed for the Eric Hoffer Prose Award.

Please send 3-4 possible topics you would like to contribute each described in a few sentences and a 65-75 word bio using the format like the bio’s above. Please send by May 24, 2010 using FAMILY/your last name on the subject line to smallwood@tm.net. You’ll receive a Go-Ahead and guidelines if your topics haven’t been taken. Contributors will be asked to contribute a total of 1900-2100 words. Those included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy as compensation.

Call for Contributors: Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets

Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets

Contributors needed for articles about: time management, using life experience, women's magazines, critique groups, networking, blogs, unique issues women must overcome, lesbian and bisexual writing, formal education, queries and proposals, conference participation, judging poetry contests, feminist writing, self-publishing, teaching tips--just a few areas women poets are interested.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful. Please avoid writing too much about “me” and concentrate on what will most help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material.

The Foreword is by Molly Peacock, the author of six books of poetry, including The Second Blush (W.W. Norton and Company, 2008).

Co-Editor Colleen S. Harris is a 2010 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her book of poetry, God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark Press, 2009), was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Book Award; These Terrible Sacraments, is forthcoming in 2011. Colleen has a MFA degree in writing and has appeared in The Louisville Review, Wisconsin Review, River Styx, and Adirondack Review, among others. She has been included in Library Journal; and Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages.

Co-Editor Carol Smallwood is a 2009 National Federation of State Poetry Societies award winner included in Who’s Who of American Women who has appeared in Michigan Feminist Studies, The Writer's Chronicle, The Detroit News. She's included in Best New Writing in Prose 2009. Her 23rd book is Writing and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook (American Library Association, 2010). The first chapter of newly published Lily’s Odyssey was short listed for the Eric Hoffer Prose Award; a chapbook by Pudding House Publications.

Please send 3-4 topics you would like to contribute each described in a few sentences and a 65-75 word bio using the format like the bio’s above. Please send by May 24, 2010 using POETS/your last name on the subject line to smallwood@tm.net. You will receive a Go-Ahead with guidelines if your topics haven’t already been taken. Contributors will be asked to contribute a total of 1900-2100 words. Those included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy as compensation.