Susan Rich's Blog, page 95

5 Star Citizen-Poet: Kathleen Flenniken

This week's 5 Star Citizen Award goes to Seattle's own Kathleen Flenniken. Kathleen is the author of Famous, winner of the Prairie Schooner Award. In addition to being a stellar poet, Kathleen is also involved in teaching, editing, and nurturing the Washington State poetry scene. As president of Floating Bridge Press, Kathleen works with three other dedicated editors to produce an archival quality chapbook each year along with the Floating Bridge Review. A long time poet in the school, Kathle...

Thank you Jama Rattigan @ Alphabet Soup

[image error]

Awhile ago, by accident,  I came across a website that had posted my poem, "A Poem for Will Baking." I loved the site immediately! Jama Ratigan's blog brings together two of my passions: good poetry and good food. I thanked Jana for posting my poem and before I knew it, she had decided to participate in the Poetry Book Giveaway. Each week she posts guest poets and at the end of the month she will give away a copy of The Alchemist's Kitchen and a copy of an anthology of poems and recipes combi...

The Writer's Life: Spokane's GetLit! Festival

How not to love Spokane, a city where the garbage eating goat is a main tourist attraction? Gifted to the city by the Women's Association of Realtors in 1974, this goat sucks ice cream wrappers and greasy paper plates from children's hands: an object lesson in trash disposal. But this is only one of the odd and lovely gifts this city has to offer. More key to my weekend here has been the GetLit Festival organized by the amazing Dani Ringwald. I've thoroughly enjoyed the different writers I've...

The Alchemist's Kitchen Travels Over to The Love of Place

Thank you to my friend Sharman Apt Russell who has posted two poems from The Alchemist's Kitchen at her blog, the Love of Place. Sharman and I met when I taught in the Antioch MFA program in LA. Sharman lives in New Mexico and is the author of Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist. Other books of hers that I love are Anatomy of a Rose and Hunger: An Unnatural History. Thank you Sharman for posting (and typing up) two poems from The Alchemist's Kitchen that are for the first time on th...

The Writers Life: Doing the Author Interview

Over the last three nights since returning from AWP, I've been working on interview questions sent to me by the fiction writer, Midge Raymond, for her blog Living the Writer's Life, at the Seattle PI. Tonight, minutes after I finished the last question and emailed it to Midge, she posted it and the interview is now live - right here if you want to take a look.

The new sense of time - internet style -- still leaves me in awe. If I were to write something for a print journal, the time from my de...

5 Star Citizen-Poet: Elizabeth Bradfield

I was happy to see this 5 Star Citizen-Poet at AWP this year. In fact, it was two years ago at AWP in New York that I met Elizabeth Bradfield by the Red Hen Press table. Eloise introduced us and in the throngs of the book fair we smiled and shook hands. Since then I have become a huge fan of Liz's poetry and her approach to the poetry community . Founder of Broadsided Press, Liz came up with the idea and created the web site while she was living in Alaska and craved an extended life of poetry...

The Writer's Life: A Few of My Favorite Things at AWP; Briefly

This was my fifth time attending AWP and the first time I can honestly say  I loved it. Here, in no particular order are some of my favorite moments:

1. Poets on TV. My first night in Denver I arrived at the hotel around 9 pm - a tad too late and too tired to meet up with friends. Instead I retreated to my wonderful room and leafed through my roommate, Lana's AWP schedule. I clicked on the TV only to find a Hyett poetry only channel. I watched Mark Doty, Linda Pastan, and Naomi Shihab Nye perf...

Homeward Bound: Happy, Tired, Thoughtful

I love this image. This sense of what the world above Denver - Seattle looks like. It's early morning and I am not really awake. Somehow I've found B29 and am ready to board the plane and start reading some of the books I've bought at the conference. This is my fifth time attending AWP and by far the best experience. Everything from great panels, old friends, new books, and a wonderful roommate contributed to this confluence of grace and ease. There are several things I've learned about what ...

A New Kind of Travel - AWP in Denver

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? I'm off to the Associated Writing Programs Conference in Denver, Colorado where there are stories of snow storms expected and hail storms that recently  happened. I think all will be well once I arrive and see old friends, meet up with White Pine Press, listen to some smart people talk about poetry, and sign books Thursday, @ 3:00 PM in Hall A, Row L. And if it's not too much to ask: I hope to meet some new people, to not  eat meals alone, an...

5 Star Citizen-Poet: Ilya Kaminsky

A few years ago I heard a rumor about this amazing Russian poet that was driving up the west coast through the Pacific Northwest looking for coffee houses to read in and staying wherever he could find a couch. This kid, twenty-seven at the time, turned out to be Ilya Kaminsky -- now a renowned international poet and Lannan Foundation fellowship winner. His book Dancing in Odessa won the Dorset Prize, chosen by Eleanor Wilner. There's much more to say about his gorgeous poems, but that's not w...