Yay! 2011 is turning out to be a very good year. Pudding House Publications just accepted my little chapbook THE PUPPET WIFE. It will be number seven, a lucky number. I’m so excited!
Earlier versions of the poems in this chapbook have appeared in Arabesques Review, Erosha, Illya’s Honey, Mixed Fruit, Niederngasse,Sketch, Specs, Spittoon, Swans, Tar Wolf Review, two poems,“Promise” and “Bundling,” first appeared in a limited edition series of broadsides with artwork by Kate Johnson, and two are forthcoming in an anthology that features Nebraska Women poets.
I have a poem forthcoming in Penwood Review, a Martian poem forthcoming in Issue 12 of Silver Blade, three poems on Matilda Fletcher forthcoming in Miller’s Pond, one poem on Matilda Fletcher and two poems on a new series I started during the Master Poetry class with Alicia Ostriker on Lucile Wiseman forthcoming in the brand new Sole Lit Journal. Finally, a friend suggested I submit to The Reprint, a online publication that publishes previously published work that appeared in print only. They accepted the poem “First Kisses,” also forthcoming in SHE WHO LOVES HER FATHER from Dancing Girl Press next year.
I just sent back the proofs for my poems “Toxic Drift” and “Photographs of a Scrapbook” to the anthology of poems in response to Japan by Pirene’s Fountain. Other contributors include J.P. Dancing Bear, Jane Hirshfield, Dorianne Laux, and Lyn Lifshin. This is going to be a great book!
Dispatches from the Classroom: Graduate Students on Creative Writing Pedagogy, an anthology that includes an essay I originally wrote for my comps, will be released December 5. At MMLA, I presented with Karen Gentry, Joe Rein, Michael Clark, and Anthony Sams. Smart, smart teachers. I can’t wait to read all the essays and then try out their teaching methods in my own classes.
In other news, I’ve been accepted as a writer in residence at the Prairie Center of the Arts for May 14 -July 4, 2012. My interview for Lit Undressed was listed on tumblr and Omahype lists the event in its news and events. Finally, I’m listed in Poets & Writersdirectory of writers that includes 9,000+ contemporary authors. Talk about great company.
Yay! I just received my first blurb for my new chapbook, SHE WHO LOVES HER FATHER, forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press.
Leah Browning is the editor of Apple Valley Review. Way back in 2006, she published my poem now collected in the chapbook. AVR was one of the first places I published my work online because she’s such a smart editor. I just finished reading her chapbook MAKING LOVE TO THE SAME MAN FOR FIFTEEN YEARS. What a lovely collection, especially poems like “Skating,” “On the Drive Back…,” and “Learning to Play….” They have so much hope and joy. I think I’m smitten. Other poems focused on Tucson, where I also lived for four years. It was nice to read that landscape in her work. I just ordered her most recent collection, PICKING CHERRIES IN THE ESPANOLA VALLEY, published in Dancing Girl Press’s line up in 2010 with my little chapbook. I’m so excited to read more of Leah’s delightful poems.
Here’s Leah:
At the heart of Laura Madeline Wiseman’s She Who Loves Her Father is the desire for human connection in all its forms—mental, emotional, sexual, physical. Nowhere is this longing more evident than in the poignant “An Email from the Living,” in which a parent writes to a child: “you didn’t respond so/ I must have the wrong address.” It is this need, often unmet, that drives the narrators of Wiseman’s poems in this winding, often wistful collection. ~Leah Browning, author of Picking Cherries in the Española Valley and Making Love to the Same Man for Fifteen Years
As promised, here are two of the poems I read from BRANDING GIRLS in the creative writing poetry panel at MMLA.
I read five from the collection, but the door was open at the beginning of my reading and so there’s a bit of background noise in a few of the clips. I’m posting only the best.
I had a great time in STL!
Speaking of branding, I did do some tourist stuff while there, including the FREE tour of Anheuser-Bush. I’m not much for beer, any beer, American made or otherwise, but that caveat aside, Anheuser-Bush is smart in their marketing, promotion, and branding. First, the hour tour is FREE. You get to see the brewery, learn about the history of the company, and are walked around the “campus” of the company. This tour is lead by super-cute twenty-somethings who are smart, funny, and fit. They look like they would drink beer. They look like they’d be fun to hang out with. During the tour, you get to see the Clydesdale horses munching happily in an expansive arena. In the stables, the dalmatians, on cue, enter and mingle with the crowd, tails a-wagging. The dogs are friendly. They let you pet, scratch, and snap their picture. After the tour, you are given two FREE beers and as many FREE pretzels as you can eat and as much FREE Pepsi products as you can drink. Then you go home and tell all your friends about all the FREE stuff, post pictures of your FREE tour on Facebook, maybe *ahem* write about all the FREE stuff on your blog, and likely, have a new fondness, by the fact of all the FREENESS alone, for Anheuser-Bush.
Here are two videos from my reading Friday at noon here in St. Louis at MMLA. It was a great gathering of poets, many of whom do interesting collaborative projects with art. I was in such great company. I read from BRANDING GIRLS and from the broadside collaboration I did with Kate Johnson. Here’s two of the broadsides. First, “Posturing.”
Second, “Housekeeping.”
I’ll try to post a few more once I check out the video.
This morning at 8:30 (can we say thank you daylight savings time. yes we can), I’m presenting in a panel on teaching and play. I’m very much looking forward to hearing my fellow panelist and bringing back some great teaching ideas to my classes this term.
Reading (poetry) at MMLA
12-1:30, Friday, November 4, 2011
St. Louis, Missouri
Reading (prose) at MMLA
8:30-10, Sunday, November 6, 2011
St. Louis, Missouri
I’m super excited for the reading and panel! I promise video clips when I return. In other news, I’m in UNL’s recent newsletter. The current issue of Cream City Review features two of poems on Matilda Fletcher from my dissertation. I’ve been working on getting stuff ready for my forthcoming chapbook SHE WHO LOVES HER FATHER from Dancing Girl Press. More on that soon.
