Slog & sundry (+ requests)

Ruth Sanderson, from The Twelve Dancing Princesses

I'm afraid today is a Great Slog Day. Ruth Sanderson is coming soon, and I must quarry out the guest room, which is full of rummage sale items--too much stuff in this house!--and Scouts gear from the trip to the Grand Canyon. Do you know Ruth? Here she is at her Golden Studio, where you can learn about her painting and books. I met her when I was writer-in-residence at Hollins in 2010, and we had fine walks and talks (as I also did with then-MFA-student-and-now-teacher-and-writer-and-blogger Robin Rudd) and have a good deal in common. I am so glad that Amanda Cockrell (writer and director of the MFA in Children's Literature) and Hollins invited me to visit the MFA program; I enjoyed myself and made some grand new friends and acquaintances. (I'm not doing anything of the kind this summer, as I am going to tour a bit and focus on children and writing the rest of the time, but next year I will be doing a week-long poetry workshop at Antioch and maybe more....)

I've just done something that I never think to do, and have gone back and looked at the last six weeks to see what people are most interested in. And was pleased by the fact that lots of people keep reading even after the day is past. People appear to have been most drawn to the Tesla post from yesterday, one on Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Commonweal review of A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, the "word-doodling" post, the seven deadlies, my mother (!) and her weaving, pictures of the house in Thaliad, "the value of art" post, the little post with links to Jeff Sypeck's review of Thaliad, a Lady Ise post, and one on Traherne.

I confess to being one of those bloggers (maybe it's all bloggers) who now and then think to jettison the whole enterprise. But I'm pleased that so many passers-by have paused to read. I wish that I had time to return the favor, as so many of you are bloggers, but in truth my life has become busy enough that I rarely do so.

Please leave a request or a question (questions are easier because more specific, usually) if you have something you'd like to see here. Or ask for someone--Susanna tends to ask for the Pot Boy--or some former guest. Requests and questions are always inspiring to the daily blogger.

I close with a list of links to my recent, in-print books. Careful. These paper children are looking for a home in your brain!

Marly, recent and elsewhere:

• Thaliad's adventure in blank verse, with art by artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins of Wales (Montreal: Phoenicia, 2012) here and here 
• The Foliate Head's collection of poems with art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Stanza Press (UK) here
• A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (novel) from Mercer University Press (currently ForeWord 2013 finalist in the general fiction category; The Ferrol Sams Award, 2012) here
• The Throne of Psyche, collection of formal poetry from Mercer, 2011, here
• Samples from my 2011-12 books at Scribd.
• See tabs above for information on individual books, including review clips.

More on Pip Tattnall, riding the rails--

A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage
Mercer University Press, March 30th, 2012
hardcover or ebook

If you look at the list of top ten blog posts in the left-hand column, you will find that my number-one all-time blog post (standing now at 1,390 visitors, though "16 things I learned from editing qarrtsiluni" is close behind) was the first of the "I Interview My Visitors"series. The subject was Susanna Leberman of Lacey's Spring, Alabama--a wonderfully impetuous, lovely, passionate, careless-in-spelling-and-apostrophes, hat-wearing diarist on livejournal. She breaks my heart with her annual passage of grief for her much-beloved father; she fascinates me with her Eastern Star and her bonfires and her love for history and people of all ages and all sorts. She has a strain of goodness-without-goodiness that is rare, and she spills over with a little more life than most people can muster.

Now Susanna has asked me a question as part of the book-launch interviews for A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. You may find her right here.

Comments are off; please leave any comments on Susanna's livejournal site!

Sundrification, or The Unmade Bed

Today I am starting on my final checks on Thaliad.  I only this afternoon grasped that Beth Adams announced on the Phoenicia Publishing blog that the book will be out "before the holidays," so I need to move quickly. I shall be reading it aloud once to check for sound and to make sure that there are no problems with the sense of the thing, and then I shall sweep through looking for metrical issues.

If you're on facebook you may know this news already since a number of people have been nice enough to share a link already--thanks to Julie Antolick Winters, Laura Murphy Frankstone, Luisa Igloria, Lynn Digby, Dave Bonta, and others. Another video of one of my poems by composer and videographer Paul Digby has gone up on moving poems.com, Dave Bonta's "on-going anthology of the best videopoems, animated poems, and other poetry videos from around the web." "In Extremis" is in my new collection, The Throne of Psyche. If you want to leave a comment about that, please leave one there, as I think the anthology a great project, one that takes time and judgment and deserves some appreciation.

Susanna Leberman of I Interview My Visitors fame made a recording of herself reading a poem from The Throne of Psyche on her blog!  I love it when people do this kind of thing.  It really helps to have word of mouth and introduce books to a new set of readers. She made a post on Sunday and another on Monday for The Throne of Psyche.  Thank you, Susanna. You may find the second part of the poem "Southern to the Bone" on her post, Rain is Rain is Rain.

And yes, that is the cat's tongue. She's awfully dumb and awfully sweet, that one.  The other one is smarter but less sweet and bites me around the ankles if I'm not quick enough with the kitty food.

A somewhat silly post containing a rather silly caption

Nice picture, isn't it?
The photograph above shows the lively and lovely Susanna,
who was the subject of "I Interview My Visitors, no. 1."
She posted this picture on her blog yesterday.
She bought a copy of a book of poetry! Mine, as you can see.
The Throne of Psyche.
As we know, most human beings do not buy books of poetry.
In fact, this is such a rare (yet noble and generous) activity
that I really ought to post a picture of everybody
who buys a copy of my latest book...
I might even do just that,
if only I had a picture of each person who bought a book--
a picture as charming as this one.
Or a silly or funny picture would do.
I like silly or funny, and so does Susanna.
This has been a very long caption,
nearly in violation of the new federal government
regulations against long captions
(or if in violation, just a teeny-tiny bit in violation),
but it is now o-v-e-r.

I am still burnishing away on A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, in between having an anniversary (today), giving a talk-with-readings (day before yesterday, and it went very well and sparked excitement of various sorts and even an invitation to speak elsewhere, so that's pleasant), going to see my youngest be tapped for the Order of the Arrow (last night at Crumhorn Mountain, with fires and dances and all sorts of shenanigans--and the sense of how beautiful it is to see little children grow up and become more and more themselves), answering many facebook well-wishers (because I have noted my anniversary and my little Arrowian), hunter-gathering at the farmer's market (this morning), and other vital activities having to do with being married and the mother of three children. Very soon, for example, I must schlep out of town (out of village--once upon a time we had an adorable movie theatre, but then it went away, alas) and take them to see the last in that long row of Potter movies.  And I will not be reading my manuscript by flashlight in the theatre because that makes the Other Patrons upset. Besides, no doubt there will be a lot of distraction such as whirlings-about-with-wands and blowings-up of crenellations and riding on a creepy blind dragon. I sense those things to come because I am a rather nice sort of mommy and read all of Harry Potter to child no. 3, who at barely fourteen is now quite a tall fellow, at least half a foot taller than me...

Somehow I am not progressing very fast on my final scrub of the book.  But when you haven't read a manuscript for a year, the little bumpy places are easy to find and polish. So that part is good. It's the time that's hard to find.

Oh, dear. My husband brought me a big fat mojito, just when I was going back to my manuscript...