July 29, 2017 at 9:42 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Links, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Publishers, Recommended, television, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: adaptations, California, Calyx Press, fantasy, Game of Thrones, Gendry, indulgences, poetry, Saturday, summer
It is sweltering here up in the Pasadena Hills, and self feels no inclination to go outside. In the daytime, Pasadena is a sleepy city. At night, everyone drives with fury almost, zipping past slower cars and switching lanes with abandon. Self finds it very disconcerting. Especially as her GPS Navigator tells her where to turn only after she reaches an intersection, at which point she is usually in the wrong lane.
So, no going outside today. She’s re-reading a Calyx poetry anthology, A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women’s Poetry, which she stumbled across in her house two weeks ago. Here’s the first half of a poem by Sheila Demetre:
A Woman Is Running For Her Life
Under my ribcage a live coal
is singing. It wheedles from its hutch
of bone, glows blue in every kindling breath.
I need these bright shoes to burn up centuries
of inertia, of sickness holding me limp
with forehead ground against my tangled knees.
Celestial now, I’m all brush and sweep.
My elbows scribble, quickening the air I slog.
Don’t touch my sparks, my hieroglyphs of heat.
She absolutely loves the “hieroglyphs of heat.”
Tomorrow is Episode 3 of Game of Thrones. Does Euron die? Does Yara die? Does Ellaria Sand die? Does Olenna Tyrell die? Does Grey Worm die? If Grey Worm dies, will Missandei go crazy? Does Meera Reed die? If Meera dies, does Bran get to have a wheelchair at last? Do we see Gendry (finally? Cause the tweets are getting ridiculous) Do Brienne and Podrick get to spar again? Does Ned Stark come back from the dead? Does Stannis Baratheon come back from the dead? Will we see more of Ser Jorah’s horrible greyscale? Will Sam be retching again? Will Dany continue to be her insufferable self? Will Sansa be more of her cryptic self? Will Jaime continue to be disconcerted? Will Cersei continue to be sarcastic? Will we ever find out which skilled blacksmiths created the Giant Crossbow aka Dragonkiller? Will Arya Stark continue to evolve? Will Wun Wun come back as a wight?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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July 19, 2017 at 6:00 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Calyx Press, poetry
An excerpt from Paula Gunn Allen’s Dear World, included in the Calyx anthology A Fierce Brightness: Twenty-Five Years of Women’s Poetry
Dear World:
Mother has lupus. She says that it’s a disease
of self-attack. That it’s like if a mugger broke
into your house and you called the cops
and when they came they beat up on you
instead of the mugger.
I say that makes sense. It’s in the blood,
in the dynamic. A halfbreed woman can hardly
do anything else but attack herself.
Her blood attacks itself. There are historical
reasons for this.
I know you can’t make peace
being Indian and white.
Paula Gunn Allen, who passed away in 2008, was Lakota, Sioux, and Lebanese. She edited several anthologies of critical studies and American Indian fiction. She published two collections of essays, two volumes of poetry — Skins and Bones; Life Is a Fatal Disease — and a novel, The Woman Who Owned the Shadows.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 8, 2017 at 11:01 am (anthologies, Books, Filipino Writers, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers)
Tags: Asian American Writers, book lists, Calyx Press, Cassandra Clare, Doreen Fernandez, dystopia, Jane Austen, Lydia Davis, nonfiction, novel, poetry, science fiction, short story collections, Steampunk, The Hunger Games, The Infernal Devices, YA
Books that rocked self’s world:
- Break It Down, by Lydia Davis
- Empty Chairs, by Liu Xia
- The Charm Buyers, by Lillian Howan
- Yes (A screenplay), by Sally Potter
- The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
- Night Willow, by Luisa Igloria
- Palayok: Philippine Food Through Time, by Doreen Fernandez
- The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
- Bad Behavior, by Mary Gaitskill
- Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
- After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
- Memories Flow In Our Veins: Forty Years of Women’s Writings from Calyx, edited by the Calyx Editorial Collective
- The Infernal Devices Trilogy, by Cassandra Clare
- Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
- Going Home to a Landscape: a Filipino Women’s Anthology, edited by Virginia Cerenio and Marianne Villanueva
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October 7, 2016 at 4:19 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Places, postaday, Publishers, Traveling, Venice, Women Writers)
Tags: Calyx Press, Fridays, Italy, Margarita Donnelly, memories, nostalgia, postaday, postaweek, Venice, Wordpress
More from the watershed trip self took with Margarita Donnelly (founder and managing editor of Calyx Press) in April/May 2013, less than two years before she succumbed to cancer. We rented a small two-bedroom apartment in Ca’ San Toma, Venice. Margarita’s adventurous spirit far exceeded self’s.
The Bridge of Sighs, April 2013: View From the Doge’s Palace
San Marco Square on a Rainy April Day
Self on the Rialto Bridge, April 2013: Margarita must have taken the picture. Even though self’s face isn’t visible, she really likes this picture for the mysterious red umbrella.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 25, 2016 at 8:50 am (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: art, Calyx Press, discoveries, Just published, London, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
- Jubilant, adjective: showing great joy, satisfaction, or triumph; rejoicing; exultant
This 40th Anniversary Calyx anthology, published April 2016 by Ooligan Press, is everything:
A sunny day in Dublin is always cause for celebration:
April 2016: Bed and Breakfast, Inchicore, Dublin
Last but not least: On self’s first day back in London in 2016 (early April), she met up with poet Joan McGavin, who took her to the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Self is always jubilant to be back in London:
The Most Beautiful Window: Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Self is at her best when she is traveling. Her state of mind when traveling can best be described as jubilant.
If you try to stop her from traveling, she will be in a bad mood.
Not only that, she will hate you forever.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 3, 2016 at 8:41 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Publishers, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: AWP, Calyx Press, Events, Hotel Amerika, Literary Magazines, Mayor of the Roses, science fiction, short pieces
Look here!
2016 AWP Bookfair, Los Angeles Convention Center
Lit Mag: Publishes only West Coast Writers, one of the first to publish her speculative fiction
Next year’s AWP Conference and Book Fair: Washington, DC.
You do not want to miss it. For sure.
Stay tuned.
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April 27, 2016 at 3:02 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Publishers, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: AWP, Calyx Press, Events, Hotel Amerika, Just published, Literary Magazines, Los Angeles, Mayor of the Roses, memories, writing conferences
Awesomeness is a book fair.
A few people were saying the latest AWP book fair was too big, too spread out. But self doesn’t see it getting any smaller. And okay, she probably only saw 1/10 of the publishers who were there. But, still, fun times!
Okay, so Chris Hemsworth was NOT actually at the AWP Bookfair in Los Angeles, earlier this month. But, please, why would self ever shy away from including a fabulous hunk of eye candy like Chris? Are you crazes? He was on the cover of Angeleno magazine!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 27, 2016 at 2:53 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Publishers, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, AWP, Calyx Press, Events, Just published, Literary Magazines, Los Angeles, Mayor of the Roses, memories, Readings, writing conferences
Just look at all this literary goodness!
Self decided to give herself a pick-me-up after reading today’s New York Times. What better way than by reminding herself that — people, America is full of writers/artists/publishers who soldier on, no matter what the odds! And who manage to look like they’re having a great time while they’re at it! Without needing comb-overs!
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March 13, 2016 at 4:07 am (Books, Filipino Writers, Places, Recommended, short story collections, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Calyx Press, Events, Mendocino, short story collections, Sundays
Tomorrow! Sunday, 13 March 2016: Book Event at self’s FAVORITE BOOKSHOP IN THE WORLD:
Gallery Bookshop, Main Street, Mendocino
If self could live in a bookstore, she would live in Gallery Bookshop. Because all she has to do is look out the window and she sees the bluffs and the mighty Pacific Ocean.
Self’s Books, Available Now in Gallery Bookshop, Main Street, Mendocino
Self is signing at 1 p.m.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 7, 2016 at 5:46 pm (postaday, Publishers, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Calyx Press, Gardens, memories, postaday, postaweek, praise, Wordpress
Self is still posting on this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, the first Photo Challenge of 2016:
CIRCLES
Calyx Press, based in Corvallis, OR, published self’s first book, Ginseng and Other Tales From Manila. The editors are self’s second family.
Santa Monica Wharf, after the Cirque du Soleil Show
Ripe Figs, Backyard: Self has three fig trees.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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