Glimmerglass with poems and frangipani

Just out from Mercer--
art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
and design by Mary-Frances Glover Burt

Next Glimmerglass event in Athens

Currently I'm perched on a mountaintop in lovely Cullowhee, North Carolina, where I moved at thirteen, and where family still lives in the realm of Blue Ridge and mist and hummingbirds. I'll be reading from Glimmerglass at the Barnes and Noble in Athens, Georgia on the 16th at 7:00 p.m with longtime friend Philip Lee Williams.

Visit me elsewhere: six poems

• Paul Digby reads "The Wish for Roses"  A poem inspired by Fredric Koeppel's lovely, lost aunt. Doesn't Paul have a gorgeous reading voice? And oh, that ominous background...
• I read "The Exile's Track." Video/sound by Paul Digby. Very much a Southerner's poem about the doom of living in the polar lands and lake-effect snows of upstate New York.
• I read "The Nesting Doll." Video/sound by Paul Digby. Adventures of a nesting doll in the sometimes demonic world. Sestina.
• I read "The Birthday Roses." Video/sound by Paul Digby. What are birthday roses?
• I read "In Extremis." Video/sound by Paul Digby. Written about a metaphysical "knowing" when my eldest child was in the hospital with meningitis.
• I read "A Fire in Ice." Video/sound by Paul Digby. Couplets. A riposte to Billy Collins, when he was impertinent enough to think he could take off Emily Dickinson's clothes! And then tell...

Glimmerglass with frangipani

Glimmerglass arrives at Margo Lanagan's house. Glimmerglass with lemon-scented gums. Glimmerglass with frangipani. Glimmerglass with bricks. Evidently it goes well with everything!

Death of a wordsmith

Micah Mattix on the death of critic D. G. Myers here. Patrick Kurp is putting together a memorial of words from many writers and friends, and I'll post more links later. Critic without fear, fierce lover of literature, wordsmith bold to talk about cancer and religion and humor and many another thing, family man, professor... may his memory be a blessing.

Here is the start of a collection of tributes to the man.
Here is his blog, well worth exploring.

At SIBA and Stella's in Norfolk

With Luisa Igloria at Stella's

I've been out and about with Glimmerglass--spent three days in Norfolk, Virginia to attend the Southern Independent Booksellers trade show and was no doubt the most memorable person heard there because I had raging laryngitis almost the entire time. At Sunday afternoon's The Moveable Feast (where a writer plunges from table to table of booksellers), I sounded like a cross between Frog (as in Frog and Toad are Friends) and a squeaky toy. When not at the trade show, I was staying at the lovely Page House Inn bed-and-breakfast in the Ghent neighborhood--and there's an imaginative French restaurant there, well worth visiting. It's Nouvelle, run by chefs Rina and Luke and apprentice, Russ.

During a long break from SIBA the day before, I met and read with longtime penpal Luisa Igloria at Stella's Café... and expect that's where I left my voice, so if you happen in to Stella's and see my wandering dulcet tones, please send them after me! It was the first event for both Glimmerglass and for Luisa's Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser. Luisa and I exchanged presents, and the event was quite festive. Afterward, she took me out to a Bolivian restaurant for dinner.

Now I'm in Greenville, North Carolina, visiting Gail McIntosh and Michael Poteat--Gail and I met when she was 14 and I was 13 and just starting high school in Cullowhee. So fun! But I still sound strange, rather like a Bacallian tree frog. I am hoping that my voice returns before the next event on the schedule.

I note a new Glimmerglass review...

Luisa and I take each other's picture
at Bolivian restaurant Luna Maya--
mine will have to wait for a downloader...
These pictures are all by way of Luisa on Facebook.

Stella's Marly-and-Luisa book cake!

Oooops

My macbook just suffered a cruel death just in time for my trip to support Glimmerglass (and do a few other things!) so I may be a little scarce here for a while.