Update: New Job, Popular Culture Association Conference, Ferry Frogs, and Tea Parties

Pro Tip: If you don't know how to begin your blog post, try "the photo of a strange thing I saw" cold open.

It's been far too long since my last blog post, and even longer since my last personal update, so here's a quick recap of the past few weeks (and an effort to pretend that I've been busy enough to have an excuse for not blogging):

1.) I got a new job! I am now a part-time staff writer for Children of Nations, a Christian nonprofit that works with orphans in Africa and the Caribbean. This news is so fresh that I haven't even had my first day in the office yet, but I'm too excited to wait to share it. (Generally, I don't discuss my "in-office" professional life on this blog, but I really want to you to check out the marvelous work COTN does.)

2.) I've spent a lot of time lately either writing (on things that aren't this blog), spending time with friends and family (birthdays, family visits, etc.), and dealing with mold. One of these things is not like the others.

I've learned that A) my family is very sensitive to mold and B) "mold hunt" is the worst form of scavenger hunt ever invented.

Rules:

Replace "You're getting warmer/colder" with "You're getting damper/dryer."

Try to guess which area or item in your house will unexpectedly become a sponge.

Find mold.

Five bonus points for each body part that either swells or turns red and itchy.

As I type this, I have approximately one hundred books piled on my bedroom floor; all pulled out so that I could find the single book that decided to go fuzzy on me. (So long, The Book of Tea.)

All the topics I'm "totally going to read up on one of these days."

3.) In slightly older news, the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference was held in Seattle at the end of March. This was the closest McFarland Publishing (the publisher of that book I contributed to) was going to be to me all year, so I took a Thursday off and headed down to the conference.

Here I am with the lovely people at the McFarland table. (Many thanks to Gary and Karl-Heinz.)

The closest I will ever get to taking a photo with actual Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder.

Guys, I had a wonderful time at the conference. I can't even tell you. Most of the sessions I sat in on were about comic books, so I basically got to spend the day listening to academics overthink of one my favorite mediums. I was in heaven.

I also wandered the city and ended up eating macarons for the first time (from Belle Epicurean and The Yellow Cupcake Bakery, both of which I recommend).

And at the end of my trip, as I was waiting for my ride at the Bainbridge terminal, who should keep me company but this giant frog pictured above?

4.) I celebrated National Poetry Month in my typical fashion (with literary littering).

5.) I threw a small circus-themed May Day tea party with some wonderful friends.

I don't have any photos of us sitting at the table, but I promise I actually have friends.

My mom and brother created these little critters and their maypole, so I can't take any credit for them.

Now that we're caught up, I can get back to my regularly scheduled posting.

Update: The Hollins Critic, Guest-Blogging, and Bad Movie Ideas

Whenever I start out a week feeling especially ambitious (This is it. This week I'm going to get to everything on my list!), it's like the opening of the movie trailer.

VOICEOVER GUY: It was foolproof plan.

NAIVE PROTAGONIST [writing to-do list]: What could possibly go wrong?

VOICEOVER GUY: Until. . . .

[Music changes to a minor key. Smile on NAIVE PROTAGONIST's face slowly morphs into a confused grimace. . . .] 

[Trailer speeds up. Volcanoes. Poisoned darts. Fire. Man-eating kittens. Close-up of protagonist's horrified face. Explosions. A literal tornado of paper. Ninjas from the future. More fire.]

He's thinking about it; you can tell.

There may or may not have been man-eating kittens, but that's pretty much how the past few weeks have felt.

So there hasn't been a lot of blogging here. I have, however, been working on some new Bethany Watches Movies Everyone Else Has Already Seen posts, and I should have one of those up soon.

Meanwhile, you can check out my guest blog post, "Your Novel is Boring (Here's Why and How to Fix It)" over at Writing About Writing. I'm now an official guest-blogger there (with a bio and everything), so I guess I'm a real blogger now, in spite of my recent lack of posts here. (If you're reading this, Chris, I'm totally typing out a post for you right now, with my other hand.)

In other news, what should show up in my mailbox but a copy of The Hollins Critic?

With one of my poems on the back cover.

You can either order your own copy to read, or you can create a new poem out of the words visible between my fingers.

Quick Update and More Shameless Self-Promotion

Between a stubborn illness and editing deadlines, I haven't had much time to even think about blogging. However, since some people (i.e., almost two people) asked about places to find my poetry, I'm happy to use that as an excuse for a post.

My Easter-themed sugar cookies. Because I'm almost as proud of these.

I currently have three poems in the most recent online edition of SNReview, which can be viewed for free.

I've also placed second in the 2015 Koser/Lohr Honorary Award contest sponsored by the Pennsylvania Poetry Society. (Later, my poem will be printed in their annual publication, but I don't have any information about dates yet.)

Quick Update and an Upcoming Feature

The week has been full of snuffling and headaches, so just a quick update and an announcement.

First, I have poem out in the current Prize Poems issue of Pegasus (the Kentucky State Poetry Society's journal).

[Here is where I would post a photo, but I forgot to take a photo before lending my copy out.]

Back when I was in high school, I joined a poets' group that met at the McCracken County Library. And the poets I met there mentored me in many ways; one of these ways including giving me their old copies of Pegasus. Seeing my name in this publication feels like watching a circle come to completion.

*****

Second, if I had a dollar for every time someone (usually with a look that suggested I needed to drag in a fainting couch) said, “You haven’t seen [movie title]?! But that’s a classic!” I could afford to see every new release from now till the next Haley’s Comet appearance. . .and still have money left over for popcorn.

In a (possibly misguided?) attempt to fill in some gaps in my cultural knowledge I’m starting a new, irregular blog feature called, “Bethany Watches Movies Everyone Else Has Already Seen.” Or B.W.M.E.E.H.A.S. for not-much-shorter. (Currently working on The Breakfast Club.)

The rules are simple:

1.       It has to be a movie I either have never seen before or that I’ve only seen pieces of.

2.       It doesn’t have to be old, but it has to a “classic” or a hallmark of some kind. And I mean that in the very, very loosest sense of those terms—something that people talk about and remember, something that seems to have changed film or taken a foothold in culture. For example, Inception would count, for me, even though it’s hardly an old movie, but anything currently in theaters or recently released to DVD wouldn’t.

3.       I’m not going to watch movies I know I’ll hate. For example, I don’t like horror, so I don’t really care about how “classic” the Friday the 13^th movies are. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

4.       I’m going to try to keep this short. No more than 35 sentences per post. No more than 10 screen caps or photos.

These will not be real reviews. I don’t know enough about film to pretend to be a worthwhile critic. This is just a record of my reactions. Also, I’m curious to find out if my perceptions of older movies are different from other people’s when the nostalgia factor is removed. (I’m always shocked, and slightly insulted, to find that people who haven’t grown up watching the original Star Wars movies don’t automatically love them when watching them as adults. But I think Star Wars influenced so many other films that viewing it out of film history's chronology can make it appear derivative.)

I hope I will learn some interesting things from this experiment, and I intend to have some fun with it.

A Promising Re-start?

I promised myself that I would start blogging again in February and update at least once a week for the rest of the year. And here it is the last day of the first week in February. . . .

If I don't post something before midnight, my New Year's resolutions will all turn into pumpkins, so here's a quick review of my last year's writing credits, sort of the clip-show episode of blogposts (except I've been so lazy about blogging in the last year that all this information is actually new).

I obviously haven't been writing here, but looking back, I did write and submit a fair bit in 2014.

I've had some poetry published.

 Poetry Quarterly (the most prosaic name for a poetry publication the editor could think of), Summer 2014.

The most recent Poet's Market, a publication I actually use a fair bit, so I was excited to have an example poem published here.

I wrote an essay titled "Mother Alfred: The Influence of Dick Grayson's 'Other Parent'" for an upcoming publication on Dick Grayson (McFarland, July 2015), which I'm absolutely tickled about.

(Possibly the dorkiest thing I've ever done.)

(And that's including this. Me as Gandalf the White for the opening of The Return of the King. Not even embarrassed.)

There are a couple other small publishing credits coming up, which I will mention here when they come out (or when I'm running out of actual blogging material). 

MLA Conference in Seattle and Some News

Okay, first things second. I will have two poems in an upcoming edition of The Sow's Ear Poetry Review (when I find out which issue, I'll let you know). I'm so excited, you'd think I was up for a Nobel.

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Earlier this month, the Modern Language Association held its annual conference in Seattle. Several sessions were open to the public. So I went up on Thursday night and spent Friday at the conference. (Many thanks to the Seattle Brengans for room, board, and good times.)

Here are some photos from the Kingston ferry dock.

After being happily landlocked for so many years, I'm amazed that I live near all this water.

I didn't get much sleep the night before the conference, and I discovered that when I'm tired I can't understand directions. I lived at the help desk. Here's a photo of part of the lobby area with one of the conference workers helping an attendee who isn't me, for once.

Being in such an academic environment was both invigorating and bemusing. Before one session, I heard a woman behind me mutter something about "the politics of periodism." I couldn't decide if I was more tickled by the fact that there are people who can say things like "the politics of periodism" and Foucauldian without blinking—or by the fact that I knew what she was talking about.

Some of the sessions were academics presenting papers on minutiae that I suspect you can only appreciate if you're already studying those particular subspecies of English literature. I felt relief that I wasn't a doctoral student (and gratitude that other people are willing to be doctoral students and let me pick their brains).

I stumbled into my favorite session of the day by accident. (I had intended to go to a session on Harold Pinter, only to realize that session was on Saturday. Did I mention that I can't read directions when I'm tired?) Author Richard Van Camp's session was so good, I worked up enough courage to ask to have my photo taken with him.

Speaking of awesome writers... here's the Chinese poet Xi Chuan answering an audience question.

The man next to him is his official (written) translator, Lucas Klein. A poem would be read in Chinese, and over half the audience would laugh or nod. Then those of us who spoke only English would eagerly wait for the translation so we could find out what everyone else was reacting to.

I left the conference feeling revitalized and with an even bigger to-read list. (Special thanks to Scott who talked to me during lunch and gave me some great suggestions.)

Nikky Finney Wins National Book Award (and some other news)

If you know me on Facebook, you know that even though I am far away from Kentucky now, I am ecstatic over Nikky Finney's recent winning of the National Book Award for poetry (for Head Off and Split). She is a Kentucky resident, a professor at the University of Kentucky, and a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets. Below is a video of the award ceremony from LexGo. The award announcement for poetry starts at about 12:30. At about 17:00 Finney gives her acceptance poem/speech.





I first heard Nikky Finney when I was in high school. One of my writing mentors, Judy Milford, had lent me some books, including a copy of Finney's Rice, so that I could read some Kentucky poets in preparation for Kentucky's Governor's School for the Arts. When Nikky Finney showed up at our GSA class, I asked her to sign Judy's book as a thank you.

This story segues nicely into some other (slightly more nepotistic) accomplishments I've been meaning to acknowledge.

Judy Milford now has a book of poetry out: Surfacing (Finishing Line Press)—an exploration of grief and faith in the everyday. I've been waiting a long time for this book.

And my aunt, Rachel Clark, created the cover art and designed the book cover for the recently released Circle of Law (Xlibris) by Lia London—a Young Adult fantasy adventure. (I really should get a picture of the back cover on here too, so you can see her awesome cityscape.)

Congrats all around!


Also, my artist sister and I have started a joint Tumblr account:  Magical Bipolar Sofa. We'll hopefully be putting some of our own work up there, but it's mainly a catch-all for reblogging things we find interesting, amusing, or wonderful, but that don't fit our individual blogs. In other words, it's awfully strange. I don't know whether to recommend that you click the link or that you stay very far away.


(Note: The second book image I stole from my aunt.)

Racquetball Poetry

I've only ever played Racquetball once. By myself. I couldn't figure out how the scoring worked, so I can't tell you who won—either the wall or the ball.

That said, I will not be traveling up to Racine, Wisconsin to compete in the Racquetball Chapbook Tournament on February 1st, but I sort of wish I was.

How can you not love a contest that begins its description with

Tired of myriad chapbook contests whose winners are determined by their works’ literary merit? Are your poems being rejected for publication because editors deem them unfit to print?

Would you prefer your chapbook published because you displayed a level of athletic prowess and competitive determination that in no way signifies your achievements as a writer?

In other news: I won an honorable mention placement in the Kentucky State Parks 85th Anniversary Poetry contest. Richard Taylor, a former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, was one of the judges, and the thought of him holding one of my poems makes me feel happy and slightly sweaty at the same time. At some point, the winners are supposed to be listed on the Kentucky State Parks site, but that point is not yet.

After this experience, I feel a connection to Ken Burns. He created a 600-hour documentary on the National Parks; I wrote a one-page poem on a Kentucky State Park. I'm probably only two-degrees removed from a Peabody Award now.

The Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator

A friend directed me to this, and I had to share.

(Maybe the shortness of this post makes up for the length and convolutedness of my last one.)


Also, I'm having a meditation published in The Upper Room in the 2010 Sept./Oct. issue. So, um, you can congratulate me... in a year.

Two Things that Made Me Happy

I guess even lazy bloggers get a summer vacation. But I didn't take a vacation from reading (heaven forbid!), so I've got a lot of blog-post material just waiting to be written up.

Meanwhile, I'll share two semi-literary things that made my summer sunny.

One
I spent some of my non-blogging time up in Grand Rapids (thus the big red Calder sculpture) and while I was there, of course, I had to visit one of my favorite independent booksellers: Schuler Books (this is the store on 28th St.).

*begin rant*
There are some big chain bookstores that I like (there are very few bookstores that I dislike), but often when I walk into a chain bookstore, I feel that they are selling products, not books. (Yes, cue the "cans of olive oil" scene from You've Got Mail now.)

I become irritated when the front of a bookstore is crowded with only best-selling popular fiction and celebrity biographies. Then I usually end up wandering through a nonsensical shelving system, trying to find the poetry section, which turns out to be smaller than Charlie Chaplin's mustache. Maybe this is due to my living in a smaller, more rural area. A larger population, particularly in a city with several universities, seems more likely to buy a broader variety of books. But I still can't help feeling that some books would do better, if only they were put where buyers could see them.
*end rant*

Back to Schuler Books. When I walk into Schuler, I get that people-here-know-books sense. I immediately see two dozen titles that I've been wanting to read and/or I've heard praised through sites like The Book Studio. Also, the organization of the store is wonderful, with helpful wooden signs hanging from the ceiling (though you can't really see this in my photo).

And the poetry section is actually a section, not a pitiful two and a half shelves.

My favorite part, the part that warms my frugal, little heart: in the center of the store is a used book section, also beautifully organized.

Two
In other news, I placed third in one of this year's Kentucky State Poetry Society contests (see "Street Cred" sidebar). Not really the road to writerly fame and favor, but one of those events that makes you think, Maybe I'm not so very terrible at this writing stuff.

Sometimes having a small victory is enough to give you the courage to spend the evening writing and revising new poems to send out. Or at least enough to convince you to write another blog post.