Marly Youmans's Blog, page 123

At an Angle

A delayed post: clearly written a few days ago.

Waking, I remembered that the marvelous Maurice Sendak died yesterday. Amazing that the planet can go on without his curmudgeonly verdicts and masterful strokes of brush and pen.

His was a life that mattered to many in the world of books and theatre and bedtime reading. I shall have to hunt up my beloved The Juniper Tree and have a little mental

Mole & Pip

Thanks to Dale Favier for continuing to meditate on A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage on his blog as he moves through the book. I liked what he had to say from the start, as in his contrast with Faulkner--that in the book fullness, not emptiness is behind all things. His blog, mole, is wonderfully full of what Melville called deep diving and new poems. His latest Pip comment: It takes a

Pinning "A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage"

Joyce Dixon suggested I do a Pinterest page especially for A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, and so I have started one with 20 pins. (I love the little boy with rickets!) For giveaway information and other links for the book, please look at the foot of the prior post.

Cover, "The Foliate Head"

The Foliate Head, with a wealth of images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins and marvelous design work by Andrew Wakelin. Forthcoming from Stanza Press in the UK.

Foliate / Death

GREEN MAN DREAMING

Probably I shouldn't bother to post today because Clive Hicks-Jenkins has put such a long, interesting recollection of our first acquaintance in the comments of the last post that it is bound to be more interesting than whatever I could possibly write! Clive and Andrew Wakelin are currently in cahoots on the interior and cover designs for The Foliate Head, and I can say is

Celtic, Celtic--

Here's a peep at a division page for The Foliate Head from the Artlog of Clive Hicks-Jenkins; if you jump there, you may see Andrew Wakelin at work on the design for the book in the very room where I stayed when I traveled to Wales a year ago and enjoyed long wonderful days at Ty Isaf, reveling in Clive's beautifully-arranged world and all the festivities for his 60th birthday retrospective at

The Foliate Head

That image? One of many heads tossed off by Clive Hicks-Jenkins in his joyful fooling with ideas for The Foliate Head. Andrew Wakelin and Clive are now playing with the design of the book. I am eager to see it, and thank Pete Crowther of Stanza Press (UK) for requesting a manuscript of poetry. Alas, I've realized that I neglected to ask for comments, being so busy with A Death at the White

I have Clive Hicks-Jenkins on the brain, as we were just ...

I have Clive Hicks-Jenkins on the brain, as we were just emailing about cover images for a forthcoming poetry book, The Foliate Head (Stanza Press, UK). And you should have him on the brain, too, because he has curated a marvelous 5-post show of moveable maquettes at his Artlog. Go there for surprise and wonder!

Morning reading--

A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage

Read chapter one at Scribd 



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By mid-morning, I had helped one teenage boy with homework, done a phone interview on the new novel,

Southern Serves the South

A snip from A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage (Mercer University Press - The Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction, 2012):  Beside the
rails, Pip drew himself to his utmost height, balancing on his bare toes,
feeling the coming palsy of earth in his feet and legs as the locomotive bored
forward through the molasses-heavy afternoon, tearing away the tethers of
sleepiness that held the town until,