My two daughters - let's call them OD and YD - resemble me in many predictable ways. Seven-year-old OD has hair that relentlessly tangles in the same spot as mine, loves writing and rhyme, and is a tomboy in the best sense of the word. Three-year-old YD has my oversized cheeks, laid-back manner, and love … Continue reading Asking for what you want: submissions and gender
Category: submissions
The difficult balance of parenting and writing
It has been a rough summer. With two little kids at home - one that talks constantly, and one that is learning words rapidly - I often feel I don't have time to have an independent thought, only time to react, correct, direct. I haven't completed a poem all summer, though many sheets of paper … Continue reading The difficult balance of parenting and writing
A Christmas Poem
At Christmas time, I always think of the final section of H.D.’s “The Flowering of the Rod,” which describes so beautifully the wonder of God’s greatest gift: But she spoke so he looked at her, she was shy and simple and young; She said, Sir, it is a most beautiful fragrance, as of all flowering things … Continue reading A Christmas Poem
Juicing up your writing with a dose of randomness
This week I’m taking part in an exercise with SPARK, an organization that pairs visual artists and writers so they may create work based on each others’ work. I was sent a .jpg file of a painting, which I will write a poem “about.” Although I have written a number of poems inspired by paintings … Continue reading Juicing up your writing with a dose of randomness
“I don’t understand it…but I can tell it’s good!” – Explaining poems to non-English majors
I have a friend who’s very smart and educated – but like many people I know, has a mental block when it comes to reading poetry. I don’t know why this happens. Maybe being exposed to Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot too early (really, did any among us have the maturity to appreciate Hamlet or Prufrock … Continue reading “I don’t understand it…but I can tell it’s good!” – Explaining poems to non-English majors
Creating the book cover for “Between Gods”
The book cover for "Between Gods" is now on display on the publisher's website here, along with blurbs and sample poems. The cover was designed by graphic designer Terri Edillon, featuring artwork (“The World”) by German artist Catrin Welz-Stein. (The print is available for purchase here. ) My publisher usually designs book covers in-house, but I … Continue reading Creating the book cover for “Between Gods”
Submitting poems to journals: the mathematics of yay or nay
Now that my book publication date is six months away, I want to see more of the poems in print before the book comes out. So I am searching my Poet's Market book for the right places. Submitting poems to journals can be an agonizingly slow process. I have waited nine months for responses from … Continue reading Submitting poems to journals: the mathematics of yay or nay
Putting it all together: creating a manuscript
Now that I've emailed my ready-to-publish draft of "Between Gods" to the publisher this week (yay!), I'm thinking about what it took to get it to this point. I'd been writing poetry for years, but hadn't really thought about trying to put together a book until 2007, when the sad events at Virginia Tech took … Continue reading Putting it all together: creating a manuscript
Submitting poems to journals: what’s your system?
I've spent the last three years researching markets for my slightly traditional, imagistic poetry. I've been published in a number of places and discovered some great writers and journals, but what I can't help regretting is that much of that time could have been spent writing. I'm getting better at targeting my market; in the … Continue reading Submitting poems to journals: what’s your system?
Between Gods 