June 9, 2017 at 2:33 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Links, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, breakfast, California, coffee, desserts, Fridays, Ireland, memories, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, websites, writing process
Self originally posted a different photo for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, but that was because she hadn’t read the prompt, only looked at the title, boo.
The prompt is supposed to be about finding Photo Ops In Your Own House.
Since self hasn’t been in her own house in years, here are the closest things to it:
- Her writing table at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, with her cup of coffee next to her MacBook Air. She always starts the day with a pot of coffee.
- A friend’s house in San Gabriel, CA
Crushing the Writing: Thursday, 2 July
Having breakfast outside with Connie Ignacio Genato, friends since grade school in Manila
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 9, 2017 at 12:34 am (Artists and Writers, Fan Fiction, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Everlark, Fridays, indulgence
Her fingers danced across the leather spines like thin spiders . . .
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June 6, 2017 at 1:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, Links, Recommended, Traveling, Writing)
Tags: causes, grief, inspiration, J Journal, Literary Magazines, London, news, wisdom, writing process
This morning, self was standing on Platform # 5 in St. Pancras, waiting for the Picadilly Line southbound to Russell Square, when she heard the announcement over the PA system: We invite you to take a minute of silence to remember the victims of last Saturday’s attack on London Bridge.
It just so happens she has the Fall 2012 issue of J Journal here in London, and here’s what she read in the Editors’ Note:
. . . after muggings in the park or fights on the street, after flood and fire, after 9/11 — why write? Why read? What good comes of either? Aren’t they just flimsy paper shields against what Yeats worries is “passionate intensity,” the eruption of chaos, of hurt and death? No. After violence, after strangeness on the street, after degradation and the jolt of darkness, what do people do? Grab someone and start talking. The writer grabs a pen and arranges events, turns abstractions into images, draws from chaos something to hold, something with meaning. In that way, perhaps writing is itself the first act of justice.
— J Journal, A Note From the Editors, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2012)
Could have been written yesterday.
J Journal is published twice-yearly by the Dept. of English of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 West 59th Street, New York City.
Stay tuned.
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June 5, 2017 at 10:30 am (Conversations, destinations, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: dystopia, fantasy, flash fiction, humor, Mondays, Paris, short story, writing process
Self worked on this story in Paris. It’s about the end of the world, naturalement.
A pink bathosphere named Pinkie Pi (Joke, joke, joke!), navigated by a pair of squabbling men, is the last to leave the surface of the planet (A new city awaits on the Ocean Floor):
We’re going under.
When?
Today.
Just like that.
Oui. N’est-ce pas. What do you think?
You’re talking about under.
That’s what I’m saying, oui.
That down there, on the ocean floor, we can — je ne sais quoi.
Yes.
In the shift and roll of waves . . .
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 4, 2017 at 7:04 pm (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Links, Publishers, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: dystopia, Events, fantasy, Literary Magazines, memories, Readings, restaurants, short story, Washington DC
Read it at Sixth Engine in Washington DC, at a group reading organized by Quarterly West in conjunction with AWP February 2017. The editors took a chance with this one, it’s all fractured syntax and stars a professor named Fire Lizard. Self is writing a sequel right now.
What a blast:
Quarterly West reading at Sixth Engine, Washington DC, February 2017
Discussion of the First Corollary: What is average is perfect. Thoughts dark as dark. Big arguing with her. But but but. Her winking at me behind his back. Me thinking: sunlight and glass.
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June 3, 2017 at 9:24 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Filipino Writers, Lists, postaday, Publishers, Relatives, short story collections, Traveling, Venice, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: AWP, Los Angeles, Mayor of the Roses, memories, Miami University Press, postaday, postaweek, teaching, UCLA Extension, Wordpress, writing conferences
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is FRIENDS.
Which is a very fun theme!
Three Cheers for UCLA Extension’s Writers Program! Love the people. Here they are, doing Spin the Wheel at the 2016 AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles.
Keith Tuma of Miami University Press, at the 2016 AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles
Self and Irene, Café Flor, San Marco Square, Venice: November, 2015
- Nutschell Ann Windsor, Program Administrator, UCLA Extension Writers Program (She writes, too!)
- Keith Tuma, Director of Miami University Press, which published self’s Mayor of the Roses, the first in their fiction series
- Amy Toland at last year’s AWP Book Fair in Los Angeles
- Irene Lacson, niece and travel buddy
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 28, 2017 at 3:53 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Holidays, Places, postaday, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Albion, Annaghmakerrig, art, California, happiness, inspiration, Ireland, memories, writing process
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is
WANDERLUST
- Have you traveled anywhere exciting lately? This week, let’s see where you’ve been. — David W., The Daily Post
Self is still in Ireland! Which is a long way from her home in northern California. Here’s a wee artwork that artist Bernadette Burns (who lives on Sherkin Island, West Cork — self met her at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre) left behind in her studio. Self taped to it to her MacBook Air as an emblem of what she is: a wanderer.
On Self’s MacBook Air: A Memento From Another Artist
Here’s a shot of Annaghmakerrig Lake in early March. The wind was blowing hard that day. Self was fascinated by the ripples on the lake’s surface and by the outline of trees on the far shore. She would never have known this lake if she weren’t seized by such wanderlust:
Annagmakerrig Lake: Cold Day in Early March
And here’s a picture of the view from Albion River Inn, California, where she spent New Year’s. And began writing a new story, called The Rorqual, which is about a sea invasion of Earth (by creatures called Longnecks). It was the first New Year’s she spent completely by herself, and she made the most of it.
Albion, California: January 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 17, 2017 at 10:19 am (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, inspiration, Ireland, Mondays, writing process
Writing. Writing and reading. Like mad.
Also, checking Facebook, lol
The card on the MacBook is from Jacinta Oreilly, an artist from Dublin.
The small picture taped to my keyboard is from Bernadette Burns, an artist from Skibbereen, West Cork.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 12, 2017 at 10:04 am (Filipino Writers, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, happiness, inspiration, Ireland, postaday, postaweek, short story, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Wordpress, writing process
- Share a photo that depicts your interpretation of security . . . It could be a worry stone you keep in your pocket or that favorite tee shirt that makes you feel awesome every time you put it on.
— Krista, The Daily Post
I can never be creative unless I have an absolute feeling of security. I always have that in Annaghmakerrig.
In the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, I sleep next to my writing desk. Because life is too short.
Main House, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig
The Main House, Under a Crescent Moon
Finished a story yesterday! A continuation to Magellan’s Mirror. Also, ordering more copies of self’s Mayor of the Roses.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 10, 2017 at 5:22 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Recommended, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, history, Ireland, J Journal, Literary Magazines, Michael Graves, Mondays, poetry, reading lists, Roman Empire, speculative fiction
Cain’s Father
by Michael Graves
Cain, I ate of it
Long before your mother did,
And not because some tempter spoke.
I feasted underneath the limbs
Of God’s forbidden tree,
And then I slept
Between two thick and twisting roots.
(posted by kind permission of the author)
All my reading, throughout this current residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, has been about ancient Rome. I started with Mary Beard’s SPQR and now I’m reading Tom Holland’s Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic. I’m very struck by the theme of “double-ness” which recurs again and again, from the founding of ancient Rome (Mythic: Romulus and Remus, twins raised by a she-wolf, but all kinds of doubles appear in other world literature too).
And of course, just in the middle of my residency, comes this new issue of J Journal (New Writing About Social Justice, from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City).
J Journal has always had a special place in my heart. You know it. Because it blends the fields of law, social justice, and creative writing.
I kept sending them stuff, because social justice is a theme that reverberates with all Filipinos. They published Magellan’s Mirror, a story that’s a magical/realist re-telling of Magellan’s first encounter with Filipinos (They’re giants). You can read part of the story on their site, here.
A few days ago, the editors (Adam Berlin and Jeffrey Heiman) sent an announcement/preview of their forthcoming latest issue (April 2017). It included the Cain poems of Michael Graves, which were the “very first pages in the very first issue” of J Journal. I wrote to the editors to ask if I could feature one of the poems on my blog, they contacted Graves, and he gave his permission.
So here it is, one of Michael Graves’. It is powerful as all get-out.
Thank you, Michael Graves and J Journal, for letting me share this!
Stay tuned.
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