Marly Youmans's Blog, page 84

More reading, more writing--

Think of someone like Frederick Douglass, who brought himself up out of slavery by sneaking out and teaching himself to read. Books weren’t some idle pursuit or pastime to him, they were survival itself. And despite this dire situation, he managed to read and, as the writer Thomas Sowell once put it, “educate himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today’s expensively

Thank you

for more than a hundred letters, notes, and social media comments that I received yesterday about A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. Writing is by nature a solitary act, and it is especially sweet to have recognition by fellow writers and artists and by readers. I hope that the additional award (Silver ForeWord BOTYA in general fiction) will help the novel find many new homes.

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Home > 2012 Winners > General (Adult Fiction)

BOTYA 2012 Winners in General (Adult Fiction)



Gold

The Rent Collector

by Camron Wright

Shadow Mountain Publishing


Silver

A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage

by Marly Youmans

Mercer University Press

Caught, between the woods and frozen lake--

I would share this online video, but as it is a copyright violation, I am hesitant to share it here. At any rate, I think the composer's tribute is a worthy restoration of a poem made trite through too much exposure. It brings back all the original uncanniness and mental flickering of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Although Frost hated the result the first time his work was set to music,

Letter to a Young Journalist

I don't know that I have any good advice for you except to put the right words in the right order, and to seek the truth. Neither is easy, it seems. But you asked, and so I will try.

We live in grievous times. Late events tell us that our country is not free from what used to be called sin. And on the other side of the ocean, right now, a teenage girl is hanging from a hook in the ceiling;

Facebook, twitter, words, us--

Wondering what Facebook and twitter and such places tell us about words, about ourselves... While terrible things can result from being part of such a community, my experience has been primarily positive. I've had the fun of getting letters and comments from readers, and I've met a jolly bunch of people. It's interesting to see characters emerge through brief snips of words. From time to time,

In the Shadow of the Jasmine

Below please find a reprint from Mezzo Cammin; if you would like more, there are more poems by me in the same issue, as well in almost every issue in the archives. And, thanks to poet and editor Kim Bridgford, there are plenty of poems in the journal that rejoice in depth, feeling, rhythm, the sound of words, and shapeliness.

Note on the poem and recent publications: This poem appears in The

Is. Poetry. Dead. Redux.

Addendum: I'm a bit sick of reading is-poetry-dead and the-novel-is-dead articles. Journalists never tire of the topic. Tomorrow I think I'll write about something entirely different. Wombats. Ladybugs. Cat videos. Nobody ever seems to get tired of cat videos.

This morning I was reading a 2009 Sally Thomas column, Is Billy Collins Killing Poetry?  and wanted to leave a comment, but the

The Library Porch

The Village Library of Cooperstown

I succumbed on the third day of the annual library sale and wandered over to see what was happening and what book I could not live without. While I made grand resolutions of not coming home with a stack of books, I failed in that determination.

I'm always curious to see what book is present in very large numbers; this year the obvious honors go to a North

Wild to Make

One of my poems from The Book of the Red King appeared in American Arts Quarterly and is now up on the parent site, Newington Cropsey Cultural Studies Center. Go here.