Festival of the Book
Photos by Billy
It was good to take part in Charlottesville’s annual Festival of the Book, connecting, if briefly, with other peeps who are really into reading and writing.
I was edified by Bella Stander’s workshop at WriterHouse: Book Promotion 101, replete with all the P’s and Q’s of finding an audience for your work. There I met a few semi local literary women: fun fantasy YA author: Maggie Stiefvater; savvy smarty: Jennifer Burns; and generous author Doreen Orion, who already seems to know the ins and outs of self promo from her adventures with her novel, Queen of the Road
Afterward, I was honored to be able to join the local group, Literary Ladies Luncheon, for…ahem…lunch, where I saw some familiar faces and even met YA author Fran Cannon Slayton, whose book, When The Whistle Blows, comes out in June.
There was also so much that I missed—most regrettable, the StorySlam— still, my few festival encounters illustrated to me that, like motherhood, being an author is a marathon, not a sprint.
By that I mean, there’s no end in sight,
just the putting of one foot in front of the other,
keeping one’s head up,
and hopefully, remembering to breathe.
Congratulations to Rachel Unkefer, Dave Ronka, and Christy Strick, winners of the Hook’s Annual Short Story Contest, announced during the festival.
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Filed under photographs, reading, writing | Comments (4)you better watch out
Saturday is family day: here we are crawled up in William’s narrow bed, a good morning ritual
Photos by Billy
It’s spring already–crocuses, daffodils—and William is still asking for December standards like ‘You Better Watch Out’ as a last song before bedtime.
Actually, you do know this one:
You better watch out, You better not cry,
You better not shout, I’m telling you why,
Santa Clause is coming to town…
Although in our off-key-many-months-after-Christmas rendition, a whole host of people could be coming to town.
Monkey Man or Elephant or Pooh Bear,
Or any other of William’s stuffed animal bedfellows.
William has been doing this a lot lately—making up his own singular riffs on familiar songs and stories. It seems to be his way of understanding the world,
peeling backs its rough edges,
peering at the structure underneath.
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Filed under writing | Comments (2)the river II
Photos by Billy
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)the river
Photos by Billy
William is amazing me in a million small ways lately, by recognizing his written name and making simple but elegant analogies daily:
‘The snow is dancing’, he says or,
‘Look, Mama, it’s like a kayak’, describing the rind of his apple floating on a plate.
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you know it’s hard
Photos by Billy
I’ve sent off a final version of my manuscript to my agent, and so, in theory, my collection of short stories will be read by some big publishing types somewhere out there…Meanwhile, here at my computer, everything seems small and ordinary. I’ve decided to start a new writing project. No more middle school right now, thank you, so I’m thinking back to my semester abroad in Italy in college, circa 1992, for possible literary mining.
Ahh, Florence in the fall: hazelnut gelato, bottles of red wine on a crisp white tablecloth, the piazza shimmering in the Tuscan sun, and me (or some alien protagonist version of me) with spiky hair, and baggy overalls, and not a lick of Italian on my tongue. It seems funny and sad, at the least. We’ll see if it all pans out, but in the mean time, I’m reading E.M. Forester’s, A Room with a View, for instruction and inspiration.
What novel do you want some writer to write next? What projects are you dreaming of starting this spring?
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Our first, and only real snowy day this year
sotto voce and other literary wonders
Photo by Billy
I like Sotto Voce.
I like that it pays its writers;
that it trusts its readers to choose which stories will be in a future print edition.
I like very much that when you submit to Sotto Voce, they send back notes about what you’ve written. Even though—according to managing editor Emily Thorpe—some folks complain, I can’t help but think there are countless silent others, like me, who appreciate and learn from actual feedback.
Mostly I like that the stories I’ve read in its second edition are quite lovely:
A friend from TinHouse, Scott Doyle, wrote a beautiful quiet story, that is published in this winter edition, called Secret World.
I also stumbled onto to another, Mama Relaxes, by by Jane Eisenhart, that I thought was quite stunning.
I am humbled to discover these stories, like falling into exotic worlds through the most ordinary thresholds–
one word pushed up next to another.
I wonder what I’ll discover next.
You can check out Secret World and other Sotto Voce stories here
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Filed under writing | Comment (1)stories we know by heart
video by Billy
Will rotates favorites, kept in ample supply by Mimi, Grandma, Papa, Billy and me.
Currently, some books by his nightstand are:
A Treasure of Curious George,
Edwina, the Dinosaur who Didn’t know She was Extinct,
Baby Panda Learn ABC With Me
The story of Peter Rabbit,
Richard Scary’s Best Word Book Ever!
The Little Engine that Could,
& The Neighborhood Mother Goose.
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Filed under family matters, reading, video | Comment (0)happiness
Me, William, and my mom
Photo by Papa Johnson
But what would make you happy, Billy asks, As a writer, or whatever?
It’s a good question, and I think about it for a long while.
Writer Junot Diaz said, in his Our Stories interview, that he felt triumph when he heard he’d won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel ‘Oscar Wao’— but only for a nanosecond.
My aspirations are not so grande, but it would be nice to receive a few more accolades, and a few less rejection letters in my inbox:
Such and such story was not right for our publication, they read—and the tone sounds clipped, too impersonal, like when someone you’ve bared your soul to is breaking up with you, but they’re too scared to look you in the eyes.
What would make you happy as a writer, as a person? Billy asks. And on good days I recognize that none of these rejections matters much.
What matter is
myself, William & Billy,
Our friends and family,
and the interest of trying.
Trying to make something worthwhile.
This week I was lucky enough to receive honorable mention for my story ‘Coconut’, at Jane’s Stories annual contest, judged by Cheryl Klein, and ‘Benny’s Room’ was a finalist for the Hook’s Story Contest, judged by John Gresham.
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Filed under family matters, photographs, writing | Comments (3)new table
My pine cone drawing on our new table; our assignment is to add, erase, and redraw within the same work over several months. Photos by Billy
We got this new dining room table—sleek lines drawn in dark gleaming wood—but at once it set everything else in our house into question.
What of the long low couch I inherited in college, which now shows bare teeth marks of our second dog? Or the orange shaggy wool rug that was supposed to shed for a week—according to the manufacturer—but is, instead, still shedding years later?
Our house is too old too, and ‘not a straight angle in her’ the inspector had said, and from day to day we can’t decide if there is charm in those odd angles or just plain disarray.
In my drawing class, it’s the same as I set out to make a system of lines in vine charcoal and ink. With each new choice, everything from before hangs in the balance.
Part II of ‘drawing with a history’ where I was instructed to erase or smudge parts of the pine cones and add a ‘living thing.’
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Filed under art, drawings, family matters, photographs | Comment (0)can we sing, yes we can
William and school friends do ABC’s and Martial arts in tandem.
Photo and videos by Billy
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