01. I did not attend Bele Chere, Asheville’s biggest party of the year.
02. I wanted to.
03. No I did not.
04. I only wanted to attend the Kenny Wayne Shepherd concert.
05. My urban garden looks pathetic.
06. I am supposed to be writing regularly column for The Indie, but I haven’t submitted a story in over a month.
07. I am supposed to be contributing original street/citizen-journalism writings to a city blog called Asheviller. (If you are familiar with Gothamist and Seattlest then you get the idea of Asheviller.)
08. I designed and launched a new website, Coffeehouse Junkie, as a beta version, but haven’t had time to develop the individual pages.
09. I’m listening to Vanessa Boyd’s Unkept Woman on iTunes.
10. My laptop’s battery is at a critical depletion point and I need to rejuice the MBP.
Intense
Currently, I am in the middle of an intense writing class. When I came across this article (via Boing Boing [Link]) this morning I was struck by this well crafted introduction:
I didn’t want to go back.
When I began reporting from Iraq in 2002, I was still a wild and somewhat naïve twenty-four-year-old kid. Five years later, I was battle-weary. I had been there longer than the American military and had kept returning long after most members of the “coalition of the willing” had pulled out. Iraq had become my initiation, my rite of passage, but instead of granting me a new sense of myself and a new identity, Iraq had become my identity. Without Iraq, I was nothing. Just another photographer hanging around New York. In Iraq, I had a purpose, a mission; I felt important.
Read the rest here [Link].
As far as a personal essay goes, the first sentence gets the reader into the story by asking “why” and presents an authentic voice that hooks the reader into the story.
Blotter Blurbs & Words: June 16
The Traveling Bonfires invade Durham
The Traveling Bonfires prepare for their first appearance in Durham. Read the press release below:
Blotter Blurbs & Words: June 16: FAME: Summer LUAU
FAME is having it’s first “open reading” night! We look forward to this as we celebrate popular local magazine, the BLOTTER. Special guests poets Pasckie Pascua and Matthew Mulder from Asheville and his friends female songwriters Sally Spring (www.sallyspring.com) and Ophir Drive (http://myspace.com/ophirdrive). We look forward to hearing what they have to say!
Join us at RINGSIDE: 308 West Main Street, Durham.
Doors open at 10pm: 18+
Urban Gardening
Three months ago I pushed words and metaphors into the ground and despite the drought the ground broke with lovely green things and white flowers.
I think I should name them poems, but my children call them basil and tomato and peas and peppers.
Is Asheville the wrong place to try to make it as a poet?
A call from an acquaintance in NYC prompted me to ask the question: Is Asheville the wrong place to try to make it as a poet? The Check out the D.C. scene and the Baltimore scene.
Overheard on the bus:
A couple, who appear to be on intimate terms, converse at the bus stop.
The man (wearing a Cradle of Filth t-shirt) tells the woman: “Suicide Girls is art–not pornography.”
The woman (smokes her second cigarette in ten minutes): “No. The guy who takes photos of a thousand nude people in Mexico is an artist. Suicide Girls is pornography.”
The man: “Some pornography is art. Suicide Girls is art because they perform to music.”
Bus arrives.
Write Stuff: A definition poem
Recently inspired by the poetical form sometimes referred to as a “definition poem” (akin to a recipe poem), I offered a poem sketch on Write Stuff. Link.
Sebastian Matthews on national broadcast of The Writer’s Almanac
I woke up to the voice of Garrison Keillor reading “Live at the Village Vanguard” by Sebastian Matthews from, We Generous: Poems. © Red Hen Press. Link.
Tonight at Osondu Booksellers
Tonight, April 28, 7-9pm
The Traveling Bonfires & Osondu Booksellers present
Matthew Mulder, Margaret Osondu, Pasckie Pascua, and guest poets.
Osondu Booksellers, Waynesville, NC.
FREE.
For info, (828) 456 8062 or (828) 505-0476.
The Traveling Bonfires & Osondu Booksellers present
Matthew Mulder, Margaret Osondu, Pasckie Pascua, and guest poets.
Osondu Booksellers, Waynesville, NC.
FREE.
For info, (828) 456 8062 or (828) 505-0476.
on the radio : a poem sketch
Rest my head in
hand near the table
where a small black
radio plays an
instrumental I
have never heard but
know it… know its
emotional
audio content.
Notes plucked
from guitar strings
weave and release
a story that
resonates deep
within my soul
and makes me want
to cry and hope.
The announcer
says his name is
Ottmar Liebert
but does not share
the name… the name
of the song that
makes me want to cry.
Vanessa Boyd : Hunger : Digipack Design
Copies finally arrived. Actually, they arrived more than a week ago, but I’ve been rather busy and I am just getting around to posting about its arrival.
The Hunger CD design was completed months ago. The design process was completed via teleconference (Vanessa Boyd living in New York City) and digital transfer (i.e. emailing art/corrections/finals via high-speed internet). It’s nice to see the final manufactured product. Click on the image to see the inside and back of the package design on my Flickr photostream.
Strange Familiar Place comic series
It has been awhile since mentioning a comic strip I’ve written and illustrated. The Indie has published the series since December. It is called Strange Familiar Place and features a magazine A & E editor (at least in the first two strips) and the main character Hudson Stillwater, a graphic designer.
Strange Familiar Place also features Heather (Hudson’s wife) and presents a slice-of-life drama of living and working (and losing a job) in a cultural creative urban mountain city (or at least a city that looks a lot like Asheville).
Published in The Indie, March 1, 2007
Published in The Indie, March 16, 2007Beginning in mid to late April, Strange Familiar Place will be illustrated by someone else. I’ll still be the principal writer, but I hired an illustrator that I am confident will present the visual narrative with a higher quality of art.
Write Stuff : The Economics of Writing
For some reason the term “economics” really spooks writers into silence. Why?
Weekly I post something on Write Stuff about writing or the craft of writing or anything relating to the writing process. I began a series on why writing contests are bad business for both writers and publishers. Here’s part one, two, and three.
The premise is this: economics is the study of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Poets and writers produce literature that is distributed via publishers and booksellers to readers, book buyers, librarians.
I began the series of posts as a way to study what I do and why I am continually disappointed in writing contests and the works that win writing contests. For example, the Walt Whitman Award, presented by the Academy of American Poets (of which I am a member), is considered a prestigious contest. The Academy has published many fine poets. However, much of what wins and is published is considered informal personal narrative. That’s fine. It is a dominant form in America. But, as I discussed with a fellow poet at the Flood Fine Art Center poetry reading last week, it isn’t new–it’s the same tired narrative lyric every other professional poet is turning out. It’s like poetry in America is stuck in a rut and it can’t get out. Tony Tost’s Invisible Bride is one Walt Whitman Award winner that I recall in recent times that really pushed the vehicle of poetry in a new direction. But I’ll explore that more in this week’s Write Stuff post.
I’m not sure (because I’ve received minimal comments on the topic) if I’ve either struck a nerve with the folks at Write Stuff (they run a writing contest) or I’m being completely obtuse. What do you think?
(Literary) Weekend photo essay (with some comments)
The Flood Fine Art Center poetry reading series Friday night inspired me. Four talented poets read their work to a very supportive audience.
Stephen Kirbach
Shad Marsh
Jennifer Callahan
Lynette JamesSunday afternoon offered a Writers at Home Series at Malaprop’s Cafe & Bookstore. Patrick Finn and Michael McFee read from their work.
Michael McFeeFlood Fine Art Center Poetry Reading Tonight
Flood Fine Art Center
FRI Mar. 16, 8:30pm
Poetry reading series features:
Stephen Kirbach, Shad Marsh, Jennifer Callahan & Lynette James.
Flood Fine Art Center located in the
Phil Mechanic Studios
Press Release : Writers at Home
Writers at Home Series Continues March 18
Patrick Finn & Michael McFee
Patrick Finn & Michael McFee
UNC Asheville’s 2006-07 Writers at Home Series continues with readings by local writers Patrick Finn and Michael McFee at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 18, at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood St., downtown Asheville. Writers at Home is part of the Great Smokies Writing Program, a consortium of Western North Carolina writers and UNC Asheville. The event is free and open to the public.
Finn’s fiction has appeared in many literary publications, including “Quarterly West,” “Ploughshares,” “The Richmond Review,” “Third Coast,” “Punk Planet” and the Houghton Mifflin collection “Best American Mystery Stories 2004.” He received a Distinguished Story Citation in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and is currently working on a novel set in a bowling alley in the California desert. Finn teaches writing at UNC Asheville.
McFee has published nine volumes of poetry, most recently “Shinemaster” and “The Smallest Talk,” a collection of one-line poems. His first book of prose, “The Napkin Manuscripts,” was released in 2006. Finn is editor of “The Language They Speak is Things to Eat” and “This is Where We Live,” both anthologies of contemporary North Carolina poems and short stories. He has received numerous awards, including the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award from the Western North Carolina Historical Association, the UNC Chapel Hill Students’ Undergraduate Teaching Award and Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. An Asheville native, McFee teaches poetry writing and North Carolina literature at UNC Chapel Hill.
Please call Elaine Fox@828/ 232-5122 with any questions you may have.
Confessions : 04
01. The neighborhood is haunted by a family of large, loud crows.
02. I had a flat tire on the way to work this morning. Providentially (or serendipitously), I noticed it within an mile of Expert Tires (an establishment that I frequent for car maintenance) where they had me back on the road in under 45 minutes with a new, free tire (because the one that blew had a warranty).
03. For bedtime stories, I read T.S. Eliot to my children.
04. I am reading a biography General George E. Pickett and noticed the other day, as I looked into a mirror, that with my hair parted on the left there is a curious resemblance. This is amusing for I’ve been told I resemble the actor Matthew Broderick when he starred in the film Glory.
Poetry : Press Release
Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center, Asheville, North Carolina
On March 16, 2007, Flood Fine Arts Gallery will host its monthly poetry reading at 8:30pm, featuring the following poets:
Stephen Kirbach’s work can be found in Apocryphal Text, Shampoo, and Word for Word. He teaches Humanities at UNC–Asheville, and organizes the web-based writers’ forum, Wire Sandwich. Kirbach also hosts “Stunt-Cipher-Mayhem,” a radio show on WPVM that explores experimental music and sound.
Shad Marsh has published fiction in the flash fiction anthology Blink, and his poetry has appeared in Artvoice, Ghoti, Light, The Muse, The Pebble Lake Review, Vox, and Wire Sandwich. Marsh serves as the poetry editor for the E-zine Edifice Wrecked. He lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and son.
Jennifer Callahan studied creative writing at Austin Peay State University, and attended graduate school at Washington University. Her poetry has been printed in Zone 3. In 2004, Callahan participated in Words of War, an exhibit featuring writers’ and artists’ works about their personal experiences with war. Her photography has been displayed at Maryville College of Art and Design, Studio 101, and Untitled Nashville. Callahan currently lives in WNC, and works as a wedding photographer.
Lynette James will be the fourth poet. Her bio was unavailable at the time of this release.
Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center is located at 109 Roberts Street in the River Arts District of Asheville North Carolina. For more information, please contact Mark Prudowsky at info@floodgallery.org or call 828-776-8438.
We Generous reading
Yesterday afternoon I heard Sebastian Matthews read from his new collection of poems, We Generous. The first time I heard him read was from his memoir, In My Father’s Footsteps.
Write Stuff : The Economics of Writing : 1
As stated last week, this is a bit controversial: writing contests are bad business for both writers and publishers… why is this bad business for publishers? read more »
Confessions : 03
01. I totally blew it; regarding giving up beer and coffee for Lent.
02. But that last bottle of beer looked really lonely…
03. so I drank it down on the first day of Lent…
04. and followed it by a cup of coffee the next morning (second day of Lent).
05. For almost an entire week no ale nor coffee was consumed…
06. then last Thursday I had a coffee before a meeting…
07. and three cups of coffee the following Saturday morning with friends I hadn’t seen in almost three years…
08. and I stopped half way through a second cup of coffee this afternoon.
09. Oh, bother, Lent reminds me of how weak I really am.
10. I guess that’s the point.
Write Stuff: The Economics of Writing: 0
The first in of a series titled “The Economics of Writing” appears here on Write Stuff. Let’s face it, every writer wants to be #1 on the NYT bestseller list. No writer wants to find copies of their beloved manuscript on the $1 rack at Barnes and Noble. Which means every writer wants to succeed. In order to succeed one needs a plan. I began writing this piece as a way to re-examine my writing/publishing strategy.
Just when I think I should give up
Awhile ago this essay was published in an obscure local paper. I didn’t think it made much of a difference in anyone’s life. Then one day a blogger emailed a reply that included these encouraging words:
“You are very right when you say we don’t have to have it all figured out and ourselves all neatly put together.”
A month later another reader emailed me these kind words:
“I appreciate what you wrote… it is encouraging to know that this is not an abnormal way to feel…”
It is nice to know a couple people were moved enough to respond to something I wrote–a blessing indeed. Then I came across a link to my essay from a blog that promotes a book titled Get Up Off Your Knees. One of the books editors, Beth Maynard, writes that
“it’s a nice piece of writing…”
And this encourages me to finish an essay I don’t want to write in a paper that many people overlook and I wonder why I should keep writing–why keep typing late into the night with the glow of the laptop screen guiding me to explore inner thoughts, doubts, questions of reality and spirituality and ritual.
Coffeehouse Junkie 