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Burnside Review Fiction Chapbook Contest
The official notice is up on the Burnside Review website, so I can spread the word far and wide myself: my sequence of linked prose poems/flash fictions, “Detours,” was chosen by Blake Butler as winner of the 2011 Burnside Review Fiction Chapbook Contest. I’ve been detouring with these words for a good while; winning the contest is…
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“Detours” wins Burnside Review Fiction Chapbook Contest
My sequence of linked prose poems/flash fiction won the 2011 Burnside Review Fiction Chapbook Contest, judged by Blake Butler, and will be published by Burnside Review Press later this year. More details (and how to enter this year’s contest) on the journal’s website: http://www.burnsidereview.org/contests.php
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Conversation Starter
Waiting through one of my children’s lessons this week, I had my ear talked off by a not-quite-acquaintance who was also waiting on a child. It was one of those small increments of time I had planned to spend reading, or maybe refining my to-do list, as if arranging my set of not-yet-accomplished tasks in…
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A Blog Post About Nothing
Or maybe it’s something. Anything. ¿No van a hacer nada? ¿No te dijo nada? No te voy a decir nada. Spanish loves a double negative. None of these sentences are unusual, nor are they hard to render in English. But I’ve been playing with the subtle differences, weighing the alternatives even when there’s not much…
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Imaginary Weather (running and writing)
I have gone back to a draft of a story that takes place on a hot day. A really hot day. Today is not a hot day, not where I live, and it is taking a strenuous effort to muscle my imagination anywhere near air shimmering over asphalt, t-shirts sweaty around necklines, glare that makes…
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Sounds of Water
When it rains here in our favorite deluge style, the gutters on the front of my house sound as if they might soon tear away from the roof, though I choose to believe that’s just the sound of water cascading over the edge. My own little waterfall–no need to leave home. The back gutters are…
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2nd Annual Wine and Word Tasting
2nd Annual Wine and Word Tasting at Winter’s Hill Vineyard. Saturday, Feb. 11. Sample tasty morsels of poetry and prose expertly paired with fine Oregon wines. Short readings by local writers Barbara Drake, Karen McPherson, Kelly Terwilliger, Adrienne Mitchell and Amalia Gladhart served up in literary “flights” at 12:30,1:30, 2:30, and 3:30. Taste Winter’s Hill…
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More remote, named places
Punta Delgada, Península Valdés I’ve been back in Oregon for a month and a half now, more or less (the precise day count seems unimportant) and, as usually happens with completed travel, the time away and the places visited–and, sadly, the people–seem increasingly remote, a little unreal, my own personal fairytale, once upon a time…
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Upcoming Reading: Wine and Word Tasting
I’ll be reading from Beyond the Islands and my novel-in-progress at Winter’s Hill Vineyard‘s 2nd Annual Wine and Word Tasting on Sat. Feb. 11. But don’t just come to hear me: our delicious blend of translators, poets, novelists, and essayists includes Karen McPherson, Adrienne Mitchell, Barbara Drake, and Kelly Terwilliger. Please plan to join us,…