NOLA

I'm very much looking forward to my upcoming trip to New Orleans! I haven't been since Oct. 2001 when Jeff & I took a plantation home tour & visited the Quarter. I need a mini-vacation & having a girl's weekend w/ H. sounds absolutely perfect at the moment. Streetcars. The French Market. Beignets & cafe au lait @ Cafe du Monde. Live music & giant drinks. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

New Issue Cut

Pebble Lake Review's Health & Illness issue is now online featuring work from Kelli Russell Agodon, Michelle Bitting, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Michael Homolka, Irene Keliher, Rich Levy, Laura McCullough, Jessica Piazza, D.A. Powell, Nicole Steinberg, Laura Madeline Wiseman, Franz Wright, Sarah Manguso, and others. Check it out!

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How do you teach Sylvia Plath to 18 & 19 year-olds? How do you get college freshman & sophomores to read poetry? Why, You Tube, of course! I'm teaching "Cut" tomorrow:

Meet Casey!

Casey is a two-year old sweet cat that we've adopted from Cats for Life rescue group here in Houston. She's coming home with us today!

Long Time Gone

As you've probably heard, PLR is no longer in print. However, we will contine to run online issues, beginning with the Health & Illness issue that is slated to go live on June 1. This issues features work from Jeannine Hall Gailey, Rich Levy, Laura McCullough, Jessica Piazza, D.A. Powell, Nicole Steinberg, Franz Wright, Sarah Manguso, and others. Here's the fabulous new cover, courtesy of Rebecca Wadlinger:

Please note that going forward, PLR will accept poetry, book reviews, and interviews Sept.1-Feb.1. Material submitted outside the reading period will not be read or returned. Fiction/Nonfiction submissions will only be accepted via emailed query/solicitation. Submission guidelines will be available with the online publication of the new issue, June 1. Join PLR on Facebook for further updates.

In other news, teaching is really not conducive to writing, which is very frustrating. However, I do like it, but am beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed with trying to balance writing and teaching (and editing). C'est la vie, I suppose.

Having a "phone workshop" with one of my poet-friends is greatly helping, though, and I am thankful for that. I feel that I'm coming out of the post-MFA fog and it's wonderful. I have big plans, but need to find the time. I am teaching 2 Comp II classes this summer (8AM-12PM, M-TH) and then have a luxurious 8 weeks off until fall! Write, write, write!

I must brag for a moment on the fact that I just purchased the out-of-print, VERY rare (as in usually $350+ rare) To The Place of the Trumpets the first book by Brigit Pegeen Kelly circa 1988 for $25 in near-perfect condition. Exciting!

Short List

I received an email today informing me that my manuscript, Glossolalia, has been short-listed for a (to be named at a later date) book prize! As with each of the previous three finalist notices, I can't help but thinking: is this the one?

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The semester is over, thank God. Next semester, I will be teaching two comp II classes and one creative writing class (yes!). I have about three weeks off and I've been spending it reading (Please by Jericho Brown and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi), visiting with family and catching up with old friends, shopping for/wrapping gifts, and drinking plenty of holiday spice tea.

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Have a great holiday season, everyone!

Back in the (poetry) saddle

After a few months of being away from Poetryland (writing, PLR, etc.), I'm back! I'm reading Michael Burkard's Unsleeping , Jericho Brown's Please, and Katie Ford's Colosseum. Please and Colosseum are for possible review and both are stunning. I'm feeling the rush of poem-writing and looking forward to a month off from teaching comp to actually write!

Check out the new issues of The American Poetry Journal (I wrote a review of Brenda Shaughnessy's newest, Human Dark with Sugar).

Guest Blogger

While in the midst of grading, lesson plans, loving the cooler Houston weather, a fall-only coffee addiction, culling through submissions, and (tomorrow) attending my birth-grandfather's memorial service, I am blogging this week at Linebreak. I also recently got word that a poem of mine will soon appear later this fall in Hayden's Ferry Review!

Enjoy this wonderful season of pumpkins, tumbling leaves, long walks, and debate-watching.