Brazil interview for Maze of Blood

Art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
Design by Mary-Frances Glover Burt.
Mercer, fall 2015

Suzanne Brazil interviewed me about Maze of Blood for Women Writers, Women's Books. And as she did when interviewing me when Glimmerglass appeared, she asked interesting questions. You can find the brand new interview here. (See the note about Suzanne at the foot of the interview--she's a busy lady.) Thank you to Suzanne!

Interview for Maze of Blood at Women Writers, Women's Books

Review of Maze of Blood at Blogcritics by Suzanne

Interview for Glimmerglass at Blogcritics part one and part two 

or The Seattle Post-Intelligencer part one and part two

Review of Glimmerglass by Suzanne 

Art, Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Design, Mary-Frances Glover Burt

Maze-mapping, etc.

Maze

The Maze of Blood page has been revised and updated with clips from new reviews. Forthcoming is a new interview about the book from Suzanne Brazil--up soon!

"The Child and the Night Gaunts"
Did I say that I have a small story in the very attractive Dreams from the Witch House? It is an anthology of Lovecraftian tales by women, edited by Lynne Jamneck, and with by Daniele Serra art for every single story.  Stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and more.

Bad and good
1. Bad: reading another writer's post on appealing to readers to post Amazon reviews and realizing once again that I am completely unable to ask (thanks to a large bolus of inherited Southern genteel politeness fed to me in childhood) anybody to do anything at all for me and so am not at all fit for the current material, commercial day with all its marketing liveliness. 2. Good: two talks in Florida in the next year; The Book of the Red King swimming along nicely, though I got stuck on revising "What the Fool Whispered to the Wentletrap" for three whole days and will probably dither over it a bit more; lots of poems coming out here and there, in print and online; lovely requests, even if I'm too busy to fill them; movie bite (though I don't really regard these, as I have been getting them since 1996 without much progress); possible trip to L. A. in June if I wish, and perhaps I do; snowdrops and aconite in bloom.

Writing child
And if you haven't seen this (I've posted it everywhere, it seems), go look: lovely BBC video of the late 18th-century writing boy automaton by Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz (Musée d'Art et d'Histoire of Neuchâtel.)

St. Patrick's Day
St. Patrick's Day dinner, made by my Irish-Dutch-Akwesasne husband: corned beef, cabbage, salt potatoes, honeyed carrots, Guiness chocolate cake with Bailey's cream cheese icing. Today is my mother's 87th St. Patty's Day birthday.

Brazil on Maze of Blood

Suzanne Brazil reviews Maze of Blood at blogcritics.org. Opening paragraph:

Named as one of their Favorite Books of 2015 at Books and Culture Magazine, Maze of Blood (Mercer University Press, 2015), is a visceral shot to the senses and a fine filament tugging at the imagination that examines the results of thwarted dreams and desires in the life of a young writer. Set in rural Texas in the 1930’s, Marly Youmans uses language as both scalpel and wand to conjure a place and time as real as the abandoned oil wells and as otherworldly as the magical lands of the great epic poems.

Click here to read the rest.

Collaborations

Clive Hicks-Jenkins,
latest (4th of six) division page head for Maze of Blood.

Marly and Clive

Clive Hicks-Jenkins snipped comments from our letters to make this Artlog post (surprised me!) about the fourth head for Maze of Blood, the only one so far that has seemed to give him pause. He ended up using the gun sight as an eye. All the heads have an unusual eye--a beetle set sideways, a flower, a curl of mazy paper. Lots of thoughts, ending with responses from many people in the arts--writing, visual arts, music--about the final result.

And with Mr. Beam

This Artlog post is about a collaboration between two longtime friends of mine, Clive and North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam, who I have known even longer than I have known Clive. It also has some interesting comments about collaboration and about Maze of Blood, including the claim that "Marly takes even the most unnerving material and stitches in through with the sublime." Like that description.

Upcoming with Clive

Suzanne Brazil recently did a 2-part interview with me that ran at Blogcritics and at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. We're now plotting on a 3-way interview about collaboration--Suzanne, me, Clive. It'll be done the slow way, where Suzanne asks a question, one of us responds, and then the comment is sent on to the next person for a response. And so on, all organized and directed by Suzanne...

Brazil and fire--

Suzanne makes posters (of me)

Today I'm finishing up (hope!) galleys for Maze of Blood (now with an updated page.) Meanwhile, here's a fun thing from Suzanne Brazil, who interviewed me recently (a 2-part interview that ran at Blogcritics and Seattle Post-Intelligencer). She is making e-posters with quotes drawn from the interview, and so far I've spotted and collected five on a Pinterest board. Huge thanks to Suzanne for spending so much time and thought on the interview and posters. Evidently there will be more:

Follow Marly's board The Brazil Posters on Pinterest.

Fire

And thanks to Endicott Studio for mentioning "The Salamander Bride" as a fire read in a bibliography accompanying that interesting article, "Fire and the Fire Bringer" by Heinz Insu Fenkl. I loved the old Endicott Studio and am glad it is back, all new and shiny.

Glimmery, etc.

First Things
John Wilson's article "Books of 2014" is now available on the website of print magazine First Things. If you are a novel-reading maniac and don't want to hear about beetles and more (me, I like beetles and desert fathers), scroll down to the letter C and you'll find six novels from 2014, including Glimmerglass.

Interview
And if you want more Glimmerglass, take a peek at the post just prior, with links to a multi-part interview with me, conducted by Suzanne Brazil and published in various places on the web. It's a painstaking interview, done over time, each question emerging out of prior conversation.

Mons Nubifer Sanctus workshop
If you're near the Catskills and want to sign up for a February workshop (analysis and writing) on scripture and language, related writing exercises, and poetry in beautiful Lake Delaware, take a look at Mons Nubifer Sanctus, Holy Cloud-Bearing Mountain, a center for contemplative life.

Long interview just up--

A long two-part interview with me conducted by Suzanne Brazil is now up at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Blogcritics, and will be at the interviewer's own website. The interview came about after Suzanne Brazil wrote a review, also at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Blogcritics. (As for the interview itself, I'm not quite sure why the Seattle paper sub-titled it with "poet and writing instructor," as I seldom do workshops, and we talk about Glimmerglass and other novels as well as poetry, but that's okay by me--I'm grateful to be with them.) It's a very long interview, and Suzanne asked interesting questions, so take a look...

The interview was conducted over a long period of time, each new question coming after the answer to a prior one. So this is the first time I have seen the whole series as one large interview and had a sense of what was talked about as a whole. I was horribly honest, so there might be some things you find curious or intriguing.

But now that I see all the questions together, I wish we had talked about collaboration with artists as something I value deeply, particularly my collaboration with Clive Hicks-Jenkins. Maybe that's the subject for another interview! It would be fun to do a three-way interview with Clive and me and Suzanne Brazil... Hmm? I also think it would be fun some time to do something about the collaborations with Paul Digby on poetry videos. I have done other collaborative projects as well, with Makoto Fujimura and others. It's an interesting topic...

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

part 1 and  part 2

and Blogcritics  part 1 and part 2

Suzanne Brazil will be re-posting on her website, Suzanne Brazil: Living the Writing Life, and on her Facebook page as well.