AWP Conference Book Signing

My first conference ever, the AWP Conference in NYC, is fast approaching. Next week! I am prepared to be both thrilled and overwhelmed. According to the AWP Web site, there will be 7,000 people attending. (Is that even possible?!) Registration has long been entirely closed out.

There are some wonderful events listed, both on and off site. I have a long list of ones I'd love to attend, including the intriguing "The Poet's Notebook: Charles Simic and Bruce Weigl, A Reading and Conversation," "Show and Tell: Collaborations of the Verbal and Visual," "Bending Genre," "Mongrels in the Park: an Investigation of the Prose Poem," "1000 Words: Picturing Fictions," and way too many others to fit in. I'm looking forward to meeting writers I admire and editors who have been supportive of my work. The book fair should be great. And although it will only be open on Thursday and Friday to those who have pre-registered, the good news is that the book fair will be open to the public on Saturday.

Ann Rushton and Kelly Shriver, the lovely editors at Bound Off , a fascinating monthly audio literary magazine, have invited me to sign copies of Stirring the Mirror at their table, #422, on Saturday, February 2, 2008, from 10-11 AM. Fellow contributor Nick Antosca will be signing his books during the same time.

If you have time for a brief detour in your day, you can listen to my disembodied voice read "Yellow Chicken Claw" (from Stirring the Mirror) in Bound Off's second podcast:

"Yellow Chicken Claw"

I look forward to meeting some of you next week.

Anthology Reading on Saturday, January 12th

Please come hear contributors read from Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers, this Saturday, January 12, 2008, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM at Julia L. Butterfield Memorial Library in Cold Spring, NY. Edited by Laurence Carr and published by Codhill Press, Riverine is a contemporary anthology of memoir, short fiction, and poetry by over seventy Hudson Valley writers. Hosted by poet Jo Pitkin, the reading will include the following poets and prose writers: Jacob Appel, Annecy Baez, Larry Carr, Brenda Connor-Bey, James Cotter, Christine Boyka Kluge, Will Nixon, Jo Pitkin, and Margo Stever. I hope to see you there!

Thank You, City Pages!

At the end of December, I received an exciting e-mail announcement from Matt Smith, managing editor of City Pages, an alternative weekly newspaper in Minneapolis. (It's a sister publication to The Village Voice.)

Here are the highlights:

You've been named one of City Pages' Artists of the Year.... Poet Ray Gonzalez, a professor at the University of Minnesota, has written a short tribute to you....

I'm waiting for the full-length print copy, but the January 2nd article is available online:

City Pages' Artists of the Year Feature

Thank you, City Pages and Ray Gonzalez! Stirring the Mirror thanks you, too!

Happy 2008!

Happy New Year! I hope this finds you off to a good start, beginning a creative and healthy 2008.

The year begins here with rain, sweet silence, and the good news of an in-depth review by JoSelle Vanderhooft of Stirring the Mirror in The Pedestal Magazine. The Pedestal is a bimonthly featuring the work of both new and established writers and visual artists, and offers interviews and reviews, as well as an online art gallery. Editor-in-chief John Amen is an accomplished poet, musician and artist himself. Sign up to receive announcements of new issues, and discover a terrific variety of poetry and fiction. This is the seven year anniversary issue, their forty-third. Check it out here:

The Pedestal Magazine
The review

Look for a new design launch of The Pedestal in February 2008.

Best wishes to all!