Second, I received my contributor’s copy of the current issue of Eclipse, which includes a great piece by Judith Slater, also a member of the UNL community. My piece, “Hypotheses (or In the Lake of the Woods) is a poem I wrote in response to the Tim O’Brien novel, a book I taught in one of my composition and rhetoric classes. The poem also appears in my poetry collection Ghost Girl. In 2008, Tim O’Brien was the writer-in-residence here. I was lucky enough to take his master workshop. It was an unforgettable experience.

Third, my contributor’s copy of the anthology hell strung and crooked from Unhook Press has also just arrived. Yeah! It includes  a great interview with Mark Doty. Speaking of the poet, I’ve read a few of his books, but my current favorite is his memoir Dog Years. It’s a wonderful book. One of the best memoirs I read last winter.

And finally, today is the first day of a new semester. I’m teaching a composition class and a poetry class. The latter is my favorite class to teach because it combines women’s studies, women’s literature, and creative writing into a class called English 253A: poetry writing: Women’s Poetry. Along with a few short essays, this term I’m teaching Anne Sexton’s Transformations, Louise Gluck’s Averno, Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia, Carole Oles’ Waking Stone, Denise Duhamel’s Kinky and Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux’s edited text The Poet’s Companion. It’s going to be an amazing class. I’m so excited!

In other news The Whistling Fire has some of my poems from the My Imaginary series. I also have poems in the recent issues of Big Muddy and Nebraska Life. And, this just in, San Pedro River Review has accepted a poem and Specs has accepted a poem for their forthcoming issue on toys. Yeah!

• I’ve just sent Arts & Letters the proof of my essay “Hunger.” I’m so excited to have my essay in their spring issue!
• One of my advisers, Joy Castro, wrote about my capstone oral for my comprehensive exams, which took place at the end of October.
• I’m officially ABD! Or, as Joy called it in her post, All but done. Yippee!!
• As part of my residency this past summer is: My poem “Maternal Lineage” is up on the National Park Service’s Herbert Hoover Historic Site website (a residency which was mentioned in USA Today. Wow). There’s an audio file of it too:

Maternal Lineage
http://www.nps.gov/heho/supportyourpark/upload/002_matilda_007_madeline_maternal%20lineage_2009_10_11_maternal%20lineage.mp3

• Split This Rock accepted the panel proposal I and two other fantastic poets submitted. We’re doing a panel on writing the activist body. It’s going to be super fun!
• My wonderful adviser Carole Levin has motivated me to look into fellowships. Thanks Carole!
• The amazing editors at Pudding House and Dancing Girl Press are publishing my chapbooks Ghost Girl and My Imaginary, respectfully.
• A short story I wrote has been accepted for the Fall 2009 Relief Anthology, edited by J. K. Richard. Yeah!
• And of course: my sweet A.

A. noticed my little read book was number 25 on Amazon.com‘s bestseller list and number 12 on its hot new releases. Wow! As I mentioned in a previous post, I am one of the many, many contributes from around the world whose first period story apears in this collection. I say wow because it’s an anthology of creative non-fiction on first period stories. Wow!  Here’s a review from The New York Times by Abigail Zuger, MD:

The book’s great beauty is that these themes are left unexplored. No one draws a moral (see, everyone thinks she’s different!), or offers up the poet’s lament that all life’s landmarks spell a step to death. The reader is left alone to absorb it all in privacy.

Another review:

I started reading MLRB last night and could not put it down!

And another:

And while the stories themselves are compelling, I think it is that openness that is the book’s greatest strength. Because it invites and encourages women and girls to share their stories with each other, and most especially celebrates talk between mothers and daughters. It has the potential to open up a dialogue that might have seemed a bit uncomfortable or even daunting, and to ease the way into even more difficult conversations that will need to come later.

And one more:

The engaging and humorous anecdotes effortlessly connect the reader and authors on a very personal level; more importantly, the theme of the book creates a strong message that transcends age, culture, ethnicity, religion, or any background.