Confetti! And an invite...

A piece from the deployment series...
This one always seems to me a link
to her prior series with cutaway houses,
as well as relating to all the screens and
portals in the deployment series...
the figure in the window in the next house,
the reflection in the window...

Had a lovely, well-attended reading-interview-QandA at the Village Library of Cooperstown--any time they have to get out more chairs, it's a good thing! The group was jolly and asked lots of questions, and we ran over an extra half hour. Thank you, good Cooperstonians and librarian Dave Kent, who organizes and runs the Round Table series.

I dashed over the wrestling meet beforehand but unfortunately they started at the 145-weight, and so my youngest son was last to wrestle. And by that time I was at the library... But he pinned his opponent, so that was great. So congratulations to him, and to Ashley Cooper's youngest son, who was in modified wrestling at a Little Falls meet and got his first pin ever!

Regional friends, please don't forget that on Sunday Ashley and I are doing an Open House (till we run out of Glimmerglass books, anyway) and Open Studio event on Lake St. in Cooperstown. The invitation can be viewed here. 

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"More Light! More Light!"

St. Louis with scepter
and crown of thorns

Eight hundred years ago this year, St. Louis a.k.a. Louis IX was born. Surely his dust is spinning in the grave, and surely his devout mother, Blanche of Castile, has averted her face from the city of his name, wounded by the endless complications and after-shocks of our inhumanity to one another...

Somehow I think of Anthony Hecht's powerful "More Light! More Light!" with the death of Latimer (or Ridley, or someone like them) juxtaposed to the two Jews and the Pole and the lawless soldier with his Lüger at the edge of a German wood. Perhaps today Anthony Hecht would have told some two-stranded story in bullets and hammers, and Goethe's dying words would still be a proper title.

Mine is not a blog meant for politics, nor do I feel that writers have more rights to speak than any others. Certainly I do not feel than I have more right to speak about the events of these days than anyone on the face of the planet. All I say is that tonight I cannot get that poem out of my head. And I will think on that simple, difficult thing: "Let us love one another."

Next up: reading at The Village Library of Cooperstown. And a pail of snow. So wash your face in crystal...

Just 'cause: end-of-November ice. And slippery snow. And snowmen. Because Yankeedom in winter. Because fire. Because cats. Because poetry. Because Emily. Also Paul Tree (leafy Facebook alias) aka Paul Digby, who made this. (And because nobody should be allowed to take off Emily Dickinson's clothes.)

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Comments and review clips HERE

Reading from Glimmerglass, 

Q and A afterward...

Nights at the Round Table series

Village Library of Cooperstown

Cooperstown New York

3 December 2014

Wednesday

7:00 p.m.

I know of no writers other than Marly Youmans who have the genius to combine the spine-tingling suspense of Gothic storytelling with the immense charm, grace, glamour, realism, and simplicity of Hawthorne. Glimmerglass does more than shimmer and grip; it entertains and hypnotizes. Youmans, one of the biggest secrets of contemporary American fiction, writes with freshness and beauty. Whether she’s writing historical fiction or fantasy, her characters leave one breathless. Her ability to describe a person, a place, or the psychological underpinnings of a plot or individual, ranks with the great novelists, the highest literature. A tale of love and intrigue, mystery and pathology, Glimmerglass’ appeal is the warmth and charge of a tale told round a fire fused by Hitchcockian anxiety, empathy, and relief. Nature, architecture, dread, thrill, sexual dilemma, and murder echo against Youmans’ gorgeous prose and terrifying romance, which glides like a serpent―without a single extraneous or boring word. Youmans is my favorite storyteller. I come back to her as if to a holy well.  --Jeffery Beam, award-winning poet of The Broken Flower, Gospel Earth, and many more books

Signing at the Fenimore Art Museum

Twelve authors signing....

Multi-author signing 

from 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m 

at the Fenimore Art Museum... 

Friday, November 28

I'll be signing copies of Thaliad, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, and the new book, Glimmerglass.  It won't be nearly as much fun as you're not there, so come on out!
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More regional events December 3rd, 6th, and 16th, so keep in touch, locals...