Pitchfork instead of pen

      I have been seriously distracted from writing this week. Teenagers seem to sap more time and energy than younger children. I think that is because worry is exhausting. I have also been hard at work in the yard. Spent most of today for example in the garden. And I found this lovely quote to share;
     "If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need." ~ Cicero
     I found it at this site, http://bookshelves.tumblr.com/, which is rather odd, but I found it quite enjoyable. Maybe you will too.
     Okay, all excuses for being a slacker aside, I did get out five submissions this week, and am rather pleased about that, though they were all poems. It's more than usual. I got my column submitted on time. Yesterday I also worked out some more details with the publisher for the chapbook that looks like it really will be going to press soon, and I am very excited about that! I have been working on it for sooo long. Unfortunately, I am not quite done, and still have a little more research and writing to do. I got some research done this week, but not as much as I should have, and I have to do better next week. I also got my will rewritten this week. Can I get any credit for that?

Successful Aging

     Just heard that Art Linkletter died today. He had a good long run. We should all be so lucky. But his death does give anyone in my generation pause for reflection. He was a part of my childhood. A fixture of it. He made my parents smile. A lot. Now he is another measure of what once was. 

      I decided to post this previously published article I wrote about him a few years ago. Everyone is familiar with his television work but he was also a prolific author.

Art Linkletter on Successful Aging

by Tammi J Truax
Wow! is pretty much all I could think after hearing Art Linkletter speak when he came to town recently to entertain a large crowd of smiling people, as he has been doing for the last sixty years.

Called the poster child for aging the 95 year old gentleman of radio and television history was brought to Portsmouth by The Boulders at Riverwoods, and packed the grand ballroom at The Sheraton Hotel twice in one day.

Still working very hard, and doing very well, it seems more than fair that he should give us all some tips on successful aging, which he did throughout his off-the-cuff talk. Because he doesn’t prepare a speech he does ramble a bit, jumping from such varied topics as his own childhood to cell division to the current state of Medicare, but it keeps his talk spontaneous and very humorous.

Just some of Mr. Linkletter’s accomplishments are having two of the longest running TV shows in history (House Party and People are Funny), publishing 28 books (three of which are autobiographies), running several businesses and foundations, traveling 100,000 miles a year to lecture and do charity work, receiving 28 honorary doctorates, and a successful marriage of 73 years which has produced 18 great-grandchildren so far.

At first three autobiographies seemed excessive to me, but after hearing him speak I can see how it would take three volumes to get the job done. Mr. Linkletter has had a fascinating life. Abandoned by his birth parents he was adopted by an older Baptist preacher and his wife, in a part of Saskatchewan called Moose Jaw. Maturing just in time for the crash and the great depression he became a bonafide railroad hobo for a couple of years before settling in California to go to college to become a high school English teacher. While still in school serendipity got him into entertainment radio at KGB, where he started the “man on the street” interview concept. Broadcasting soon lead to television, a brand new medium that Mr. Linkletter helped to shape. He admits that it was in talking to kids that he discovered the gold mine in his career, and estimates that he has interviewed 27,000 children over the years.

He speaks with sadness and serious conviction about how his life changed forever in 1970 when his 20 year old daughter took her own life, probably unintentionally, while under the influence of LSD. Soon after her death he began several decades of work in drug abuse prevention, and is now concerned and educating others about seniors misusing drugs.

Most recently he has taken on serious senior advocacy including promoting Alzheimer’s research. He is founding member and chairman of the board of The Center on Aging at UCLA. Two of his books are specifically aimed at seniors, and based on my experience hearing Mr. Linkletter speak, are certainly worth checking out. They are titled; Old Age is not for Sissies, and the just released, How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life. He should know.
A Few of Art’s Tips for Successful Aging

Try new things.

Laugh a lot.

Adapt to change.

Plan for your future.

Volunteer for a charity.

Make new friends.

Have faith in something.

Do your very best.



“You have an intellectual and spiritual obligation to ask ‘Am I happy, if not, why not?’”

~ Art Linkletter

For more information about Art Linkletter’s work on aging visit www.aging.ucla.edu.

Scarier than Stephen King

     Last night I finished reading Still Alice, a novel by Lisa Genova. It was something I read for the graduate class I just finished called Narrating Illness, which was a writing course taught by a medical doctor at Harvard Extension School. In the course we read and discussed a variety of illness narratives written by well established authors, and each of us work-shopped two of our own over the semester. While Still Alice was not on the required reading list, I chose to read it because of it's subject matter, early onset Alzheimer's disease, and the fact that it was set in Cambridge, sometimes in Harvard Yard.
     At first, I was not particularly impressed. It takes a little while for the story's teeth to sink in. But I am left with a big bite mark, an overwhelming feeling of awe for this book. It is a remarkable achievement for a writer. Truly remarkable. That someone could describe, both accurately and eloquently, the unstoppable and terrifying descent into dementia that is Alzheimer's, who has not of course, experienced it, is an example of the consummate skill that every writer aspires to. Lisa Genova nails it. And the progression from beginning of illness to end is brilliantly played out, with a fascinating sub-plot about suicide that was a heart-wrenching stroke of genius. The book is quite obviously a product of intense research but most of the time doesn't come off heavy handed with information, it is well balanced.
     Here is a randomly chosen paragraph from the middle of the book, a conversation between Alice, who had been a Harvard professor, and her doctor;

"Okay Alice, can you spell the word water backwards for me?" he asked.
She would have found this question trivial and even insulting six months ago, but today, it was a serious question to be tackled with serious effort. She felt only marginally worried and humiliated by this, not nearly as worried and humiliated as she would've felt six months ago. More and more, she was experiencing a growing distance from her self-awareness. Her sense of Alice- what she knew and understood, what she liked and disliked, how she felt and perceived- was also like a soap bubble, ever higher in the sky and more difficult to identify, with nothing but the thinnest lipid membrane protecting it from popping into thin air."

     I read lots of books, and most fall into the dark abyss that is my own memory black hole. Unless there was something there that made the book unforgettable to me. I will remember this book.
     Just discovered that the author has a blog where she speaks directly to writers about a variety of subjects, so you might want to check that out; http://www.stillalice.blogspot.com/.

Worn-out wrap-up

     Met with a publisher this week! And an illustrator! Very exciting. Not as exciting as it might sound, but still very exciting to me. It is the culmination of a something I've been working on for a couple of years. I've started the last rush of research for the final bit of writing I need to do to complete this baby, and have been working on that ever since. Will probably stay in much of the weekend to continue. Will make more of a major announcement on this project when all details are finalized which I hope will be quite soon.
     Also started the week off by attending a writer's conference. I studied with a New Hampshire newspaper columnist named John Clayton. He happens to write for the newspaper that I was raised reading. When I left home for college I stopped reading that particular paper primarily for political reasons, and so didn't know his work. I'm a fan now and will continue reading him on line. Here is his link;
http://www.unionleader.com/clayton/columns.aspx/John%20Clayton?channel=1c995e31-2510-4986-94ad-a70698fbcb4d
I think he taught me a few things about being a columnist that will improve my work. Only time will tell about that of course. I can say that I wrote my next column this week just a few days after the workshop, and it was a serious variation from my usual model. There is a fair amount of risk taking with it that I'm not sure I would have taken before. I am really looking forward to hearing how it is received by readers which of course is the real test.
     My graduate class ended a few days ago, but I have not received my grade report yet. Will, of course, keep you posted. Reading, writing, weeding, meeting, and battling sneaky teenagers like a Jedi all week has worn me out far more than usual. I wish I could write myself some more energy, and maybe a maid ... and a yard boy ...

It's weird, but cute...

and a little helpful.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Well,...

     Just got home from the local beauty school. Because I'm broke, because I'm a free lance writer, I needed to go to the Friday noon blowout for two bucks special. I was sitting in the twirly chair for awhile before I noticed someone was staring at me. I've been having trouble sleeping for, well, three years, so sometimes it appears that I am awake when really I'm not. So there I was, pretending to be awake in the twirly chair while getting my hair untwirled, when the staring face right in front of me came into focus. It was a little scary as I took it in. Kind of Avatary, with reptilian eyes and ears, on her perfect ivory skin topped with a layered mane of brunette hair. We stared each other down awhile, then I looked around and  noticed that I was pretty much the only client in the place. Well, the only human client that is. There were these plastic heads all over the place, business was in fact booming for plastic heads. I had never noticed this before. The room was filled with young women, well girls really, not much older than my own daughter who will soon come sidling home from the eighth grade. They were all similarly coiffed including the one named Amber working on my real head. They all had colored hair cut relatively short and at asymmetrical lengths. The colors were not the attempts toward inconspicuous "naturalness" that is my own strategy, quite the contrary. They all had some sort of stripes in their hair, jaggedless zebraness. Except for one who had black hair tinted blue that looked just like the handsome male superheroes in the comic books of my childhood used to have. Funny it didn't seem comical on them. I watched them working with their heads, which each had. I think that the end of Friday afternoon must be work on your plastic head time at the  beauty school. The one staring at me, perhaps because her human was attending to me instead of her, wore a label on her neck indicating that she is known as YXT53648. It worked well with the Avatar thing she had going on, but made me wonder if the girls named their heads. I would think it would be irresistible to name your head. If I had a head I would name it. I watched them work with a growing fascination. One was shampooing her head, sort of straddling it in a way that you could only if your client doesn't have a body so I wondered about the efficacy of that lesson. The girl with blue-black hair was giving her head a mohawk and another was giving hers a do of fat spikes that I'm sure has a name I'm unaware of. I figured they were gearing up for prom season which is just about upon us. I don't think the wedding season is going to be demanding euro-hardcore-punk hair styles. A supervisor came to inspect another girls completed work on her plastic head. They discussed the results very softly and briefly, and the girl took her head away. I turned my attention back to YXT53648 who was still staring me down. Though I usually appreciate life, I've been kind of depressed lately. (I tend to be quite optimistic. Many wise and pessimistic people have told me so. Ask Shayne Kevin.) Today though, my tired toward depressed self started thinking about how much better the plastic head woman had it than me. She was so pretty with her lizard like features. Her eyebrows were perfect, as was her skin. Without any pores she didn't have to deal with all of the magazines and cosmetic aisles, and well, mirrors, telling her that her pores are too visible. She could age without aging, a cool trick. She had permanently colored eyelids, cheeks and lips, and her lips were tiny little pert things that probably didn't have to yell at errant teenagers, or well, eat or breathe both of which I do fairly often. It goes without saying that her hair was lovingly tended, while mine is stuck with the occasional two dollar beauty school special. Even the stick body seemed enviable. The same estrogen attacks that have been robbing me of sleep for three years have also made me long and fight for a stick body. I would like a stick body more than I would like to forgo pores. She even had an interesting foot pedal at the bottom of her stick body to change her height at will. How damn handy would that be?! Just before I got up out of the chair to take my old flawed self home in time to meet the errant teenagers I looked around at all the pretty plastic heads, and reminded myself that the one thing I have never been able to tolerate is an empty headed chick.

Dirty Girl...

     Got more writing and research done in the last week than usual, far more. Deadlines will do that. I guess deadines are our friends. Not the fun kind of friend that you like to hang out with, but the one that helps you do what you must even when it is no fun at all. Very excited about the progress I've made on my book, and workshopped it for awhile last night with some writer friends. Will be putting the whole book synopsis up to peer review for my final paper this week in my graduate class, and have put a lot of time and effort into preparing for that. I think I'm ready.
      Also put a lot of time and energy into throwing the Post Card Party last Friday nite which went amazingly well. We had approximately 300 people show up to see about 200 poems and post card size works of art on display, three of the poems were mine. It was a lot of fun but so exhausting I slept for nine hours that night, which is rare for me. You can find out more about the post card project by visiting http://www.pplp.org/.
     Right now I'm finishing up on my last critique paper for class, and then have to put my work away to figure out how the heck I'm going to get hot water back in my house. What is it with plumbers not calling back? They always act like they are the cutest boy in class. And treat you like you are the unbathed girl with your nose in a book, and a sink full of dirty dishes. Oh, yeah, that is me... but it's good for my writing, my character hasn't bathed in months ... nah.

Tea for Two: Thelma Barlow: Just made do with what I had | SeacoastOnline.com

     Here is my column out today in case you spilled your cheerios on your morning paper.
Tea for Two: Thelma Barlow: Just made do with what I had SeacoastOnline.com . Am still seeking recipes of long standing from this general area (Seacoast New Hampshire/ southern Maine) for a book project. Please let me know if you have one you think should be included. What dishes do you consider traditional eats for the area? What do you serve to out of town guests? Maybe most telling, what do you most miss the taste of when you are away?
     I am also looking into Scribd and am considering publishing some writing there. My techno-savvy, but overly-cynical son, insists that it is a bad idea. I think it might be necessary as it is one of the places where publishers go trolling. Would like to know if anyone has had any experiences with it, or similar sites, positive or negative.

RESPECT~Find Out What It Means To Me

     Attended Writer's Night Out last night, a social gathering of people in my region, trying to make their way as writers. While sitting with a small group of women of varying ages the topic of discussion turned to respect. Sadly, only one of the four women felt that the most significant people in her life really respects what she is doing for a living. Often the work was only considered worthwhile if it earned money. Some of the significant others come right out and make their lack of respect clear, and others show it in a more covert, but not much less hurtful, ways. Each of us felt that we have experienced a lack of interest in our work, and a lack of support in getting our work done, that we couldn't imagine would ever be the way we would treat a partner who had goals along any type of similar vein. We talked about how it felt that most other types of female artists we know; painters, photographers, actresses, etc., seem to get more support than us. And one writer pointed out that many of the most accomplished writers she could think of had a partner in their lives who totally believed in them and encouraged them to become all they can be. I've been thinking a lot about that. Thinking about Donald Hall and his loving support of Jane Kenyon as just one example. There are few things in life as painful, I think, as having that which is most central to who you are being dismissed as insignificant, or worse yet, as a waste of time and energy, by the person who is most central to you. Sometimes it is even a deal breaker requiring that a new ending be written.

Endings

      National Poetry Month ends today, and I'd like to close it by sharing this poem. The poet, Deborah Digges, took her own life last year during poetry month. I am not usually attracted to dark poetry, but this one speaks to me. Tell me what it says to you.
          http://www.randomhouse.com/kdpg/poetry/poemaday/2010/poemaday_30_digges.html

Tired Writer, Bad Writer

     It has been an exhausting week, and yes I know it is only Thursday. My kids are home from school this week, a relatively unhealthy drama is being auditioned for me (I'm not an actress), and Jazzmouth: The Seacoast Poetry and Jazz Festival was inspiring but tiring as always. It was great fun to watch former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky doing the white guy boogie to our local jazz band. I have written quite a few new poems over the last week, certainly more than usual. One I actually like a lot. Submitted my column due out next week. Finished three short papers for my writing workshop last night. Got a few other submissions lined up but not out yet. But still have a lot of writing to do so ~ am going to get back to work now.
     But first I thought this looked very interesting and would like to see the whole thing. If anyone knows how I can please let me know.


Bad Writing - Official Trailer from Morris Hill Pictures on Vimeo.

John Sinclair at Jazzmouth

     Jazzmouth: The Seacoast Poetry and Jazz Festival is half over, but has already been fully fulfilling.I attended three different events yesterday, and heard poetry by many wonderful writers, most to musical accompaniment. Most notably one of my favorites Eric Mingus, son of Charles Mingus, and John Sinclair, a still inspiring poet activist. You may remember him from this;

Earlier in the evening I had read a spontaneously penned haiku at the poetry dinner that had a travel theme, as well as a poem written by my friend Hugh Harter titled Andrin, Spain. Here is my haiku;

Lusting for spring break in Greece

volcanic ash fall

dictates stay home, sky at rest.

This year's Jazzmouth chapbook, for which I wrote the introduction, is now on sale. If you can't come to the festival to get a copy contact Sargent Press.

I'll be hearing many others read today and tomorrow, including former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. You can join us. http://www.jazzmouth.org/.

Camping on The Merrimack River

     Here is my Earth Day gift for you; http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4232
     I didn't know until long after I had grown up and moved away from home that Henry David Thoreau had traveled to and written this book about canoeing and camping on the river that I grew up on. It bothered me to think that this information wasn't shared with all of the children who grew up in that town and went to the little country school a short walk from the river's edge. I think literary links like that can be very influential to a kid and wonder what I would have thought of it then. I'm certain I would have brought it up as a topic of conversation at one of the many teenage beer drinking parties I attended in those same woods where he camped.
     Granted there was no Gutenberg Project in those days making classic literature easy to give away. I commend this project for the fine work it does, helping to make the world wide web a real sign of progress. I think Thoreau would really approve.

Working Weekend

      Check out this link to a NYT article that has many messages for the struggling writer within, and a wonderful local link that makes me smile; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/books/19harding.html?pagewanted=1.
     The Writer's Day conference that I attended on Saturday was inspiring. I met writer Nicholson Baker and bought a copy of his latest book which I am anxious to read. It too has lots of local references and connections to my own life. Right on page two he mentions a guy I've been smitten with for years. It's charming. This is it;

     The biggest lesson I think I took from the day was that I am not submitting enough. One of my instructors said something to the effect of ~ you'd have to live to be at least 300 years old to justify sending things out to one publisher at a time, and that is what I have been doing, while patiently waiting for the reject letter to come. Instead we should be sending things out in batches, with a 'first response gets it' attitude. So I am going to try to adopt this overtly aggressive strategy, and have already sent something out this morning.
     I also attended a poetry workshop where we engaged in a fun little writing exercise that resulted in the following untitled poem;

Back when the world was divided
between the haves and have nots I fell
to Earth like a burnt martyr
volcanic ash disrupting flight.
I slept for years in an antique-white bassinette
before I woke to the the voice of Janis Joplin.
For years now I've been singing myself to sleep
with this refrain;
     I'd trade all my tomorrows
     for one single yesterday
     to be holding Bobby's body close to mine.
I am a cat between nine and five, and a racoon
for the rest of the day. Rabies on the rise.
What can I say as long as that music plays in my head.
My viens were filled with sangria before I fell to Earth.
It takes a long time to grow young. My future
has already occured and I'm here to live it as planned,
so passionately blind.
Give me a sword to write on the ground.
I make this promise to the world;
before the end of my tomorrows
I will sing every song that driver knew.

TJT

    I also went out of town all of Sunday afternoon to participate in a poetry reading to raise money for the Avon Breast Cancer Walk. I was one of four featured poets performing in a little coffee shop where $433. was raised. Very rewarding.

I'll take sandals

      Worked very hard this week, but haven't much to show for it. Certainly not anything in the way of monetary rewards. I do have a reject letter. One letter rejecting three poems, but with an encouraging little handwritten addendum. I have been preparing for two public readings this week, accepted a couple of assignments (both gratis), got some research for one of those and for my novel done, attended my writing workshop, got one submission out, and two new poems written, though probably not finished, and a bit of work done in planning the PPLP (I'm on the board of the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program) art reception finished. That's about it. Here is the poem I read last night at a celebration of the work of the original beats. It's a favorite of mine. Seems rather fitting since I will be traveling early in the morning to attend a writer's conference and I bought a new pair of sandals this week, and am happy about both.

A Traveler
by Denise Levertov


If it's chariots or sandals,
I'll take sandals.
I like the high prow of the chariot,
the daredevil speed, the wind
a quick tune you can't
quite catch
                 but I want to go
a long way
and I want to follow
paths where wheels deadlock.
                               And I don't want always
to be among gear and horses,
              blood, foam, dust. I'd like
to wean myself from their strange allure.
I'll chance
the pilgrim sandals.

The thing with feathers

     I've been hesitant to write this post, maybe because it is a little too personally revealing. I'm not sure.
     First, I said I would expound on the discovery I made while listening to Dana Jennings talk last week. Not a big discovery, but something that surprised me quite a bit. Didn't see it coming at all.
     Pretty much since I decided to get serious as a writer, I've been told that I have to declare a genre. Mostly by graduate schools, but one gets the question all of the time, even from other writers. Last week at Writer's Night Out, I was asked to write my genre on my name tag, and I couldn't do it. I put a big fat question mark there instead. This has been a problem for me for years now. I write across all of the genres, and I have no desire to change that. I really want to learn to be a better poet and fiction writer, not just one or the other. I've wrestled with this conondrum to a degree that would probably seem silly to most people.
     But it was while listening to Dana talk about his work (he also does several kinds of writing) and how one finds their voice, that I realized that most of the writing that I do, what I seem to be a bit better at, is actually non-fiction. Don't know why it took me so long to figure that out. The vast majority of writing projects I have been drawn too, including blogging, are non-fiction or creative non-fiction, often with a historical angle of some kind. So, I'm thinking that is where my authentic voice must be. But I still want to become a good writer in general. I can not imagine ever abandoning poetry.
       Yesterday, I had the good fortune of seeing a chataqua performance of Emily Dickinson at my local library. It was captivating. And I kept having strange feelings of affinity with Emily that had never occured to me before. Like Emily, I have been feeling more and more the need to withdraw and hunker down at home, where I can focus on my work to the greatest degree posssible. In examing her life and my own. I wonder ~ is this an ascent into a serious literary life, or a descent into middle age madness? Though she shunned personal interaction she wrote several letters a day to many different correspondents, and I chuckled at the correlation of that with my own FaceBook habit. The following is a list of quotes from Emily about her life, that reflect my very own feeings about mine, more than a century later.

~ This is freedom.
~ The perfected life.
~ How do people live without their thoughts?
~ Words are my dearest companion.
~  Home is my definition of God.
~ Publication is the auction of the mind of man.
~ We stagger under the wieght of grief.
~  ...  then the letting go.

 is the thing with feathers---

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—



And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—

And sore must be the storm—

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm—



I've heard it in the chillest land—

And on the strangest Sea—

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb—of Me.

Pausing to Write

     I went to hear Dana Jennings talk about his life story yesterday, and learned something about myself. I'll post more about my ah-hah tomorrow. This one is all about him. He was visiting our mutual alma mater, UNH, as The 2010 Don Murray visiting journalist.
     I was not familiar with him, but my friend and partner in The Prickly Pear Poetry Project, was a follower of his NYT Wellness Blog, and as I'm taking a graduate course called Narrating Illness, I wanted to attend.
     Dana's story is a fascinating one which is good since at 52 he is about to release his second memoir. He grew up in Kingston, New Hampshire, not far from where I live now. Like me, he was the first person in his family tree to go to college. Eventually he left our little apple state for the Big Apple, and became a writer and editor at The New York Times, while writing several books.
      Somewhere around his fiftieth birthday he was diagnosed with stage 3 prostate cancer, and he began blogging about it for The Times. The blog was, and still is, quite popular, and his latest book deal sprang from it. It has also earned him several awards.
      I liked what he had to say about blogging; that the craftmanship required of good journalism still applies, and that it is a valid contribution to the current canon. He feels unsure and skeptical about the future of newspapers, but more optimistic about the future of books. As with his battle with cancer, he knows relentless odds can be beat.
    I especially want to share the following post fom his blog, which he read to us during his lecture. I was so impressed, not about his cancer battle though I respect that immensely, but because he seems to have written what I feel, and for any writer to nail that, least of all a guy, is amazing. That is good writing. I would say Dana is no longer a man paused, he seems to be going strong, like a literary Lance Armstrong.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/my-brief-life-as-a-woman/?scp=1&sq=my%20brief%20life%20as%20a%20woman&st=cse
     Here he is giving an introduction to his next book, due out soon, about his dog and his recovery. Bloggers will be interested to know that this book deal came about due to his blog, when not one, but several publishers, responded to his post about his aging dog. He has already released one memoir that I am very intersted in reading that covers his youth here in New Hampshire, and seems to also be about country music, and what the two have in common. I am intrigued.

Upping the ante

      I went to hear two authors speak this week, and both made strong impressions on me. Especially the first, David Shields, whose most recent book is called Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. His talk was fascinating, quite provactive in the old and noble protest tradition, and I've been thinking about his message all week. He said a lot of things, many of them quite disturbing to much of the highly literate audience, but the major point I took from him is valid, and important. I believe he was saying that we, as writers, are not earning the title of artist anymore, because we are not pushing the envelope the way artists always have, and still do in the other arts. He sees most of us as simply regurgitating the same formulaic crap over and over again while we pander to the publishing powers that be. I have a couple of works in progress that I have been somewhat timid about before hearing his talk, but now I feel strongly that I am going to proceed in executing them exactly the way I envisioned them. Here's an interesting interview with him;
http://www.themillions.com/2010/02/the-millions-interview-david-shields-part-one.html
      "When we are not sure, we are alive."
     The other author was  home girl, Jodi Picoult. She gave both a great reading and talk. I was most surprised that she left me feeling something I don't usually feel at author events; envy. Inspired me to step up my game.
     Here is a list of books by Jodi Picoult. How many have you read? I stil have quite a few to go. She works so fast that she is hard to keep up with!

My Sister's Keeper
Nineteen Minutes
The Pact
Plain Truth
The Tenth Circle
Vanishing Act
Change of Heart
Keeping Faith
Salem Falls
Handle with Care
Perfect Match
Second Glance
Picture Perfect
Mercy
Harvesting the Heart
Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices
House Rules
Wonder Woman: Love and Murder
Sing You Home

     I noticed that she is not guilty of that which David Shields speaks. This Princeton and Harvard educated best selling author has been snubbed by the literary world in large part because she does push the envelope. She reminds me of my other favorite home girl Grace Metalious. Her well researched topical plots are often ground breaking, but dismissed as pulpy and popular. And she seems to be getting more creative all the time, as evidenced by her venture into comic book writing, (one of the first women to write Wonder Woman) and in her next book which she is releasing with a corresponding music CD.

      Last night I gave the first public reading from my memoir in progress. It was a nice little coffee shop venue, and I think it went pretty well. But I still want to be Wonder Woman.

Bits, Bites, and Buckets

     Plugging away on my writing and research inbetween rainstorms in my kitchen. Completed one interview, and set up two more for next week. Writing workshop in Cambridge went pretty well. Got two offers to do public readings this week. That's fairly unusual, and one of them is a paid gig! That's very unusual. Made some progress planning the PPLP reception (details later). And just got word that I will be able to attend the NHWP conference where I will be representing The Seacoast Writer's Association. Looks like it is going to be a great day. I rarely get a chance to attend so I am excited to be going. But I better get back to the kitchen now. I'm the cupcake mom today, and I hear there is another big rain on the way...   http://www.nhwritersproject.org/
Upcoming NHWP Events that I will be participating in:
April 5, 2010:   Seacoast Writers' Night Out

Common Man Restaurant, Portsmouth, NH

Join New Hampshire writers in a warm gathering of conversation at The Common Man (hosted by the New Hampshire Writers Project). This isn't a reading. Just bring yourself. This is our time to have a night out to connect with other writers and make new friends. If writing absorbs you, then you will find a room of like minded individuals. Call 314-7980 for more information and to RSVP. Spread the word.
April 17, 2010:   Writers' Day

Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester.

Join hundreds of other writers for a day of writing workshops, panel discussions, networking sessions, pitch sessions, Literary Idol, and much, much more! Featuring keynote speaker Nicholson Baker, best selling author of seven novels and three works of nonfiction, including Double Fold, which won a 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award. He will discuss his most recent novel, The Anthologist, which is set in Portsmouth and deals with the life of a poet.
© 2010 New Hampshire Writers' Project

Beautiful Writing About Complicated Things

      I've been studying the work of Atul Gawande this week. Very interesting guy. He's an MD, a surgeon actually, looks young and handsome. Coincidentally, he is primarily a cancer surgeon and he practices at the same hospital where my husband died an unnecessarily agonizing cancer death. I'm fairly certain though that our paths have never crossed. Dr. Gawande was the child of two doctors and he didn't want to become one himself, but he did. He is more well known, I think, as a writer. His essays on health care and medicine have been popular in The New Yorker for more than a decade, and he has written several books, many award winning. The one we've been reading this week for my class in Narrating Illness, is called Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science. It is actually a terrifying read for those of us on the soft side of the surgeon's scalpel, but it is honest. Well written and brave. That's all I think we should ask of a writer, and he delivers it, far more than most writers ever do. I found it interesting, in researching the man, that he keeps a copy of Sylvia Plath's poem about a surgeon (see below) on his desk, and of it he said; "Most writing about people in medicine casts them as either heroes or villians. That poem captures the surgeon as a merely human, slightly bewildered, a little bit benighted person in a world that is ultimately beyond his control." (Harvard Magazine, Fall 2009)
     For a quick taste of his work here is what he wrote about the historical events in Washington, DC this week which he and his son witnessed; http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/03/watching-the-health-care-vote.html
     I haven't yet read, but have researched, his current book, A Checklist Manifesto, which is as important as any book that has come along in decades, and in just this one manuscript, Dr. Gawande will do enormous good for his fellow man. More good than he can even as a gifted surgeon. Proof positve that the pen is mightier than the sword. Though I want him to keep writing I honestly hope, that should cancer ever strike my family again, that our paths actually do cross.

The Surgeon at 2 A.M.


The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven.
The microbes cannot survive it.
They are departing in their transparent garments, turned aside
From the scalpels and the rubber hands.
The scalded sheet is a snowfield, frozen and peaceful.
The body under it is in my hands.
As usual there is no face. A lump of Chinese white
With seven holes thumbed in. The soul is another light.
I have not seen it; it does not fly up.
Tonight it has receded like a ship's light.
It is a garden I have to do with --- tubers and fruit
Oozing their jammy substances,
A mat of roots. My assistants hook them back.
Stenches and colors assail me.This is the lung-tree.These orchids are splendid.
They spot and coil like snakes.
The heart is a red bell-bloom, in distress.
I am so small
In comparison to these organs!
I worm and hack in a purple wilderness.
The blood is a sunset. I admire it.
I am up to my elbows in it, red and squeaking.
Still is seeps me up, it is not exhausted.
So magical! A hot spring
I must seal off and let fill
The intricate, blue piping under this pale marble.
How I admire the Romans ---
Aqeducts, the Baths of Caracella, the eagle nose!
The body is a Roman thing.
It has shut its mouth on the stone pill of repose.
It is a statue the orderlies are wheeling off.
I have perfected it.
I am left with an arm or a leg,
A set of teeth, or stones
To rattle in a bottle and take home,
And tissues in slices--a pathological salami.
Tonight the parts are entombed in an icebox.
Tomorrow they will swim
In vinegar like saints' relics.
Tomorrow the patient will have a clean, pink plastic limb.
Over one bed in the ward, a small blue light
Announces a new soul. The bed is blue.
Tonight, for this person, blue is a beautiful color.
The angels of morphia have borne him up.
He floats an inch from the ceiling,
Smelling the dawn drafts.
I walk among sleepers in gauze sarcophagi.
The red night lights are flat moons. They are dull with blood.
I am the sun, in my white coat,
Grey faces, shuttered by drugs, follow me like flowers.

Sylvia Plath

Unreliable Characters ...

     Wow. Overwhelming is the only way to describe this week. I feel like I could stay home and work hard for three years, and maybe, just maybe, I'd catch up. The kids had a short school week so that really slows me down, among other unnecessary distractions. Let's see if I can come up with any accomplishments. . .
     I was asked to write the introduction to the 2010 Jazzmouth Chapbook which I got done and am happy to report it was well received. I'll post info when it rolls off the presses, but in the meantime you should be sure to checkout http://www.jazzmouth.org/ . I critiqued one classmate's writing, but have two to go this weekend, and one of them is 20 pages long. I got started on my class reading but have much left to do. I did get sidetracked with my research for my historical novel which is really where my attention wants to be. I tweaked and performed one of my poems at Beat Nite. Very rewarding as always. I scheduled an interview for next week for my next column, and agreed to do a series of gratis articles for the local paper (which really isn't a non-profit), but my nieghborhood asked me to do this and it's about local history which really is a passion of mine. Also got a call about some other free lance work that might be coming my way but is still in negotiations, am just now getting caught up on my blogs, and made a teensy bit of progress in searching for an agent. Considering all of the problems being lobbed at me this week, I guess that list isn't so bad. Is it?
     One other thing I did was attend my library reading group. I believe that being in a reading group is an important part of a writer's work. You can't be a good writer without being a good reader, and I find that whenever I participate in a book discussion group I gain insights about the book that I would not have had on my own. This time we were discussing The Art of Racing in the Rain. I most wanted to talk about the idea of the unreliable narrator which is what really struck me about this book, because the narrator is a dog. I found the weakest part in the book to be when the author actually has the dog give a disclaimer about how he didn't see or hear any of the next few things that were going to happen (because it was a court room scene that he couldn't work the dog into) but had gleaned info about overtime. That really took much away from the story for me which was otherwise a very interesting and witty read. Dog lovers especially will like it. I hear it is being made into a movie starring Patrick Demsey. This is the book's official trailer; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ0CTcU0Fd0  Oddly enough, the voice doesn't sound quite right to me.
     Here's a little more on the concept of the unreliable narrator (which are usually our species) if you'd like to know more, Unreliable narrator - The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Much Waiting, Not Much Working...

     Wow, that was a long hard week. Didn't get very much writing done at all, there were so many interruptions to my own work every day. I had been hoping that I could get ahead on a few things while I'm on spring break, and I think I've actually fallen farther behind. I haven't made any progress in finding an agent. Still not sure how to proceed. But the highlight of the week was the Sunday night finale ~ my stand up storytelling debut. It was a lot of fun to do, helped me finalize one of the yarns I'm gathering for my memoir, and it was a pleasure to contribute to raising money for charity. It was so well received we are all thinking about how to keep it or something like it going. It coincides nicely with the work I've been doing at our community radio station to establish a new show along the lines of NPR's StoryCorp. Similar to the black and white column I write, it will consist of the highlights of interviews with local people who might not be heard from otherwise. Here's the PR put out for last night's event. Stay tuned for more info about the impending radio show to be called Seacoast Journal. If you've never checked out the Moth here's a link; http://www.themoth.org/



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Winter's Tale Returns to The Red Door for Final Series Installment, "WAITING"

Last of Three "Storytelling for Grownups" Events
PORTSMOUTH, NH, March 2010 - The end of winter is in sight, and with it comes the last installment in the spoken-word series "A Winter's Tale." This series, featuring true-life tales told without notes before a live audience, debuted on the Seacoast in January and drew standing-room-only crowds to The Red Door in each previous performance. The three-part series concludes this month with stories told by a diverse gathering of local voices, all on the theme "Waiting."

The Red Door Lounge and Martini Bar, 107 State Street, provides a cozy and intimate setting for the experience. The event takes place from 7 - 9 PM, with doors opening at 6:00 for pre-show conversation and cocktails. The $5 admission fee will be donated to Seacoast Local's (H)EAT campaign, an effort to provide food and heating fuel to local residents in need. The event is co-sponsored by RiverRun Bookstore and The Wire.
Some of the Seacoast's best-known raconteurs (and some as-yet-unknown ones) have offered their talents for the event. The format is simply structured: on each night, eight people stand before the crowd, one by one, and tell a true story from their own life experience, depending only on their memories. Stories will be 5-10 minutes long. There are no prizes other than bragging rights.
Producer Michelle Moon says "Waiting is the perfect closing theme for this series. At this time of year, we're all waiting for buds to burst, seedlings to grow, a warm day to dawn. It calls to mind times in life when we've had to deal with patience and impatience, yearning and wishing, passing the time, waiting with tension or waiting with anticipation, or even waiting on other people." Producer Steve Johnson adds, "Great talent, great venue - why wait?" On Sunday night, eight speakers will each offer a unique approach to the theme. They represent a truly interesting and diverse set of local people from the worlds of music, theatre, food, literature, and more: Tammi Truax, Sharon Jones, Rick Dirck, Beth La Montagne, Genevieve Aichele, Evan Mallett, Mark Adams, and Rick Agran.
About "A Winter's Tale"
This series reinvents a tradition as old as humanity for tellers and listeners of the 21st century. It's the Seacoast's contribution to a nationwide storytelling revival sparked by The Moth, a New York City story hour begun by novelist George Dawes Green in 2001. Events inspired by The Moth are popping up across the country, wherever creative storytellers can be found.
Producers Steve Johnson and Michelle Moon, fans of The Moth and frequent participants in local cultural activities, thought that a storytelling event was a perfect fit for the Seacoast's arts scene, and a perfect fit for the quieter and more reflective months of winter.
The Red Door, an "urban lounge" where listeners can recline on comfortable couches and enjoy one-of-a-kind cocktails during the show, is enthusiastic about hosting the show. Additional partnership for the series comes from RiverRun Bookstore, a locally owned independent bookstore known for its creative event schedule and community support, and The Wire newspaper, an independent weekly newspaper resource for information about local music, arts, and culture.
(H)EAT Campaign coordinated by Seacoast Local: Seacoast Local is a not-for-profit network promoting community development in business, agriculture, arts and culture, the environment and civic life in Southern Maine and coastal New Hampshire. Its second annual (H)EAT Campaign aims to raise $40,000 in food and fuel assistance for local people in need.

http://www.seacoastlocal.org/

http://heat-eat.blogspot.com/

Agent Needed - Inquire Within

     So I did start looking at where I would like my manuscript to go next, and the conclusion I have come to today is that I have to get a literary agent. Virtually all of the publishers I will need to send it to from now on won't take unsolicited manuscripts, only those sent to them by an agent. An agent! How on Earth will I ever choose one? Seriously friends, I need help here. I'd rather not do this at all, or really, I'd rather do it myself. It's like when you are sending your first baby to school and you have to put him on the school bus. It's unsettling and scary. You would much prefer to hold his little hand, walk him all the way to the classroom door, and even wait awhile until you see he is settled in his cute little chair. Supposedly the up-side to this is that if I relieve myself of some of this business-BS of writing I will be able to focus more on the art of writing which would be a relief frankly. If the busdriver is any good that is, and takes good loving care of my baby.
     Here is a post I wanted to share, as I found it interesting, and maybe a bit disturbing....
http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Math-of-Poetry/64249/