Kelli Russell Agodon's Blog, page 108

Firefighter's Wife

What you may not know about me is that I am married to a firefighter.



Mostly, I hope that his day at work will be safe and while there may be fires or medical emergencies, that he will come home.



Today, I just want to take a moment from talking about poetry, my small life, books, and all the other things that you might read on this blog to pay recognition to the 343 firefighters who lost their lives 9 years ago on September 11th.



If you want to see them all and their names, the NY Times...

Friday Check-In

Here's my henna tattoo for the curious.  It will be here a couple more weeks then slowly fade away.  I look a little sleepy in my photo.  I was.



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January O'Neil & I have an interview (and a poem or two) in the current issue of Ouroboros Review.  You can check that here if you're interested.



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I'm going to write a poem a day starting September 15th with several other poet friends.  We will keep track of what we do by email.  I'm looking forward to it.



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Speaking of writing poems, I...

30 Years Later - Preppies Return...

I'm a huge Chip Kidd fan, so I was intrigued when I saw he co-authored True Prep with Lisa Birnbach, author of the 80's The Official Preppy Handbook.



As someone who once wore a blue Izod shirt under a pink Izod shirt, let's just say I *may* have read or browsed the Preppy Handbook. So there is definitely an inner-preppy part of me that is interested in this new book.



Anyhoo, here's a couple videos for you.



The first is Chip Kidd talking briefly about True Prep and how the Official Prepp...

Thankful Thursday

Drew mentioned this idea of Thankful Thursday to me in a recent comment and I love the idea of it.  Please feel free to do this on your own blog as well.



Gratitude List -



September and the hint of fall

Fog and writing time

Henna tattoos

Sleeping cats

Morning cereal and coffee

Men who wear black-framed glasses

Women with super-short hair

Seattle's Bumbershoot

Someone saying, "Just trust."

Auras

Being able to create something where there wasn't anything before.

Mates of State - Music to Inspire

I've talked about music that inspires my writing.  I've mentioned The Fray and Everything But the Girl, but also wanted to mention this group.  A husband/wife combo.   They aren't too well-known, in fact I have never heard them on a Seattle radio except NPR and a local college station.



They are the third band I like to have in the background when I write poetry.



Anyway, see what you think--

Phantom Tollbooth Fans: A New Book by Norton Juster arrives

The Phantom Tollbooth





I loved this book as a child.  I even have an autographed version I got when Norton Juster visited Seattle.





I remember being in 4th or 5th grade and going into my school's library.  I know exactly what shelf this was on seeing it between all the thin books-- The Phantom Tollbooth--the fattest book on that shelf.  





I remember deciding that I must read this book.





I did and it has been one of my favorite books since then.





I just learned a couple days ago on...

What is Sleeping Under my Writing Desk...

Confession Tuesday - The Back-To-School Edition

Dear Reader, it's been a week of back-to-school, fall beginning, and my writing life since I've last written.  I've been both lazy (Saturday, choosing to stay in bed all morning and read) as well as productive (much time devoted to my writing).



But now it's time to confess all my sins (there are always many), so let's begin.  To the confessional--



I confess I love routine.



I love waking up and knowing where everyone is going and what I'll be doing.  I love the extra hours of writing...

Virginia Quarterly Review, Suicide, & What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding...

I haven't blogged about this even though it's been big news in the poetry community.

If you haven't heard about it, you can read a short article here in the NY Times to catch up.  Basically, the managing editor of the VQR committed suicide (he was 51) and speculation was that it was because of unhappiness at work and "bullying" by the journal's top editor.



I cannot comment on any of this, because I really have no idea who these people were/are.  I have never published at poem at VQR and...

I *heart* Gmail Priority InBox - A new way to organize your life...

So Gmail just came out with this new thing called Priority InBox and I love it.



Basically, what it does is moves the emails/people you respond to most into a Priority Box, so you see them first.  All the other stuff (Vistaprint emails, Facebook emails, forwarded emails from your crazy aunt with photos of cute animals, etc) all fall into the catagory "Everything else."



You put a star by what you want to respond to (or do) later and that falls into the "Starred" category so it doesn't get...