Still Processing/Recovering from AWP (with Pictures), Spring Begins, Beginning to Read through my AWP stack, an In-Depth Review from Flare, Corona

First cherry blossoms

Spring (Finally) Appears, and Still Recovering/Processing AWP

Spring has finally decided to peep through the clouds, as today was the first day here over 60 and the first cherry blossoms, along with jonquils, camellias, and viburnum. Today I watched a bald eagle circle lazily overhead in my yard in a blue sky, and it felt like a reward for the crappy weather we’ve had the last few months.

Three days after AWP, I got a head injury that landed me in the hospital (concussions and MS do not play well together), so I am literally and figuratively still in recovery, but I was able to get out in the sunshine a bit today, plant a few flowers. I’ve been trading e-mails, got a few rejections and acceptances, but generally feel behind. I’m very lucky to not have caught anything (knock on wood), although I was very nervous about catching covid (or pneumonia or strep or something) at AWP. I am so happy I met so many new people and saw so many old friends. Connection is really important to me – even though it’s hard at three-day conferences with 9000 people to really make those real connections with people – but I do my best.

Charlotte with AWP swag pile

I’ve also started reading through my AWP stack of lit mags and books, although not as fast as I hoped (head injury really slowed down my reading, but I did use audio books). So far, I really enjoyed Dana Levin’s essay on divination and poetry in the latest issue of American Poetry Review, listened to Sabrina Orah Mark’s book of fairy-tale theme memoir/essays, Happily, and sent two submissions to journals that asked for them at AWP.

Below are a few pics other people took of me on the last day at AWP: on the publicity panel, with Kelli Russell Agodon at the close of the bookfair, and January O’Neil’s shot of me signing after my disability panel.  I’m still processing everything, but it’s been so nice to be in communication with people who enjoyed the panels or my books or just meeting at AWP. If I found AWP personally enriching, it was also literally enriching to the city: there was an article in Seattle Times about how AWP brought in a whopping 15 million dollars to Seattle, mostly to bookstores, hotels, and bars in the “creative economy:” How the AWP writers conference in Seattle generated an estimated $15M | The Seattle Times

Pink Camellias

An In-Depth Review of a Poem from Flare, Corona, and Planning for a “Book Tour” both IRL and Virtual

Flare, Corona isn’t officially out until May (although you can get it here and you could get it at AWP), but here is a sensitive, in-depth reading of one of the poems from the book by Brian Spears from his new Substack series, Another Poem to Love.

PS If you need a review copy, please let me or BOA Editions know! Reviews are super important to independent presses (and independent authors), so I appreciate any and all reviews.I’m gearing up for some upcoming readings, both in-person and virtual, in the next few months, but for now I’m doing laundry, catching up with time with my very demanding cats, and trying to get writing again. Since AWP was really a pre-launch, I’m planning a couple of launch events—an official launch at Open Books in Seattle, an unofficial one at a winery in Woodinville (that I may combine with my birthday party), and even a couple in Portland. I hope to add readings in Bainbridge and Port Townsend as well. If you are interested in having me out to a visit your class, I am happy to Zoom in for a visit, even if I can’t make the cross-country trips quite as easily as I did for my first book an unbelievable sixteen years (when I hit places such as Akron and Cincinnati, Ohio; Fredonia, New York; and Western Kentucky on my first book tour). I really appreciate the technology that allows me to travel and read virtually, and even answer questions for a book club. (Zoom really did prove itself to me by enabling two of my AWP panelists to participate remotely.) What do you think, since we’ve had three years of practice with the pandemic, about virtual book tours and book club and class visits? Can they work? Leave your thoughts in the comments.