Rhymes with Bacon

Snack&Bath on B Street

2012-01-01T23:37:00.000-08:00

My friend, the oak titmouse, at a more bountiful moment.

I hadn't filled the bird feeders yesterday afternoon, though I should have; they were pretty low. A glance this morning through the window over the sink and I saw they were all seriously empty, even the bench where I place bread crumbs, mealworms, those little red peanuts. The backyard was still and barren, rigid in the pearly morning cold; no flutter of leaves or bird wing, no whistles or chirps. Everything had given up - I felt empty and unresponsive myself, quiet and cold. And yet, there was one lone grey bird, an oak titmouse, bulky with fluffed up feathers, perched patiently in the bare branches of the runty plum tree.

Okay, I get it, my birdy friend, but first, coffee. And a smackeral of breakfast.

By the time the coffee had spluttered to its end, the whole darn crew had descended upon our yard to join the buzzy-voiced oak titmouse; white-capped sparrows, house finches, purple finches, blustery scrub jays. They were perched everywhere, on the sorry-assed plum tree, the bedraggled apple tree further back, the tomato cages laced with brown vines and frozen tomatoes I haven't taken down yet. Little fluffy sentinels of reproach, unmoving, just sitting there.

The toast popped up and I buttered it - but I couldn't take it anymore. I slipped several layers over my pj's and out I went into the new morning; the birds, as usual, fleeing as the screen door banged shut behind me. I worked swiftly (it was barely above freezing; my hands were stiff and achy), filling up the two depleted feeders, dribbling the little red peanuts and dried mealworms along the bench, promising the goldfinches that I'd get more nyger seeds for them later on.

Back inside, nibbling on reheated toast, hands hugging a steaming coffee mug, I glanced through the kitchen window. All was still, no avian buzz and chatter. Had they decamped in disgust for more provident pastures? But by the time I plunked my plate in the sink and poured another cup, the back yard was a fluttering tableau of birds; finches squabbling around the tube feeder, sparrows making quick work on the mealworm bench and everyone taking baths and drinking up - another fabulous morning at the Snack&Bath on B Street.

I'd never felt that birdfeeder's guilt so strongly before. I've always figured, you know, birds: they're opportunists, they'll hustle on to their next stop, they'll find something else and come back later. Today, even though I wasn't able to recognize any one single particular bird, it's as if they were my "regulars" waiting patiently outside the plate glass windows and doors of my cafe, while I dilly-dallied around in my felted slippers and fuzzy robe, late to open.

It felt good to open the doors. A new morning, a new year.

The Charm of the Chickadees, the Music of the Season

2011-12-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a piece of mine just posted on the Sonoma State Newsletter. Pictures and everything!

The Charm of the Chickadees, the Music of the Season

Tis the Season - for Novels

2011-11-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

It's November and novelists are tucked into every corner of the coffeeshops, lurking in libraries, pounding the keyboards. For those of you still wavering on the fence on the the importance of this Novel-in-a-Month idea, Catherine Thorpe, has written an insightful blogpost on that very subject: Beyond the Purple Bar.

And you know, there is still plenty of time to sign up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)...and grab a table at your neighborhood coffee & tea establishment.

Teardrop Trailer - or Vacation in a Can

2011-10-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

Vacation does something to you; rearranges your brain molecules, restructures your thought-habits. After a week out of the office and camping out by the beach, I'm trying to ease back into town-life as slow as I can. Yes, laziness is a by-product of vacations.

We read bunches and bunches - first of all, because we could and second of all, because it rained the first day and night. What goddess prompted me to rent, in August, a Teardrop Trailer for our October vacation? "Rain, schmain " we said, warm and snug in our little bug.

The Teardrop trailer, named The Chili Pepper, a.k.a. our savior

(Rented ours from Vacations in a Can in Penngrove, CA. Great design, excellent craftsmanship; you won't be disappointed)

We camped at Bodega Dunes State Campground, one of our favorites go-to spots along the Sonoma Coast. The campground is set back from the Pacific ocean beach, hunkered behind long dunes; our campsite was bordered a thick stand of eucalyptus and a creaky hallway of old and dignified cypress, planted as windbreaks by farmers long ago. It's beautiful even in the rain, and especially beautiful from the cozy-warm hella-cute super-fab little tag-along.

Eucalyptus in the mist

A faint path wends its way between
two rows of cypress

Our morning espresso cart - a bit soggy,
but serviceable. Yay for canopies!

Reading nook extrodinaire! Note plenty of cubbies
for all your books, munchies, spare glasses, pens, notebooks.

Serendipitously, we had tickets for the Picasso exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco for that unexpectedly rainy day - perfect timing, eh? The drive to SF from Bodega is about about an hour and a bit, but heck, we were on vacation, but what else did we have to do? And nothing much better than a museum on a rainy day, I say.

So, after a few doses of camp coffee - note the espresso pot on the propane stove, 'cause that's the (only) way we roll, strong coffee, sraight up - we drove into P-town for breakfast, drove to SF for the exhibit (fabulous, of course - thanks, Stephanie!), drove back to camp and scurried into the Teardrop, visually provoked and culture-sated. And we still had plenty of time to read a bunch more before we went out for dinner at a seafood/Mexican place just down the road.

Still raining, before, during and after. Not a hard, sluicing rain, just relentless, thick and starting to get on our nerves. But, look, ma - no muddy tent, no soaked clothes, no damp sleeping bags on a cold mat or sagging air mattress - which, swear to Jumping Jupiter, starts to deflate from the moment you shove that little plug into the air vent. Much as we loved camping, that was the main reason we'd given up on it: our grouchy backs just couldn't take it anymore.

The next morning, the rain was over. A full moon graced the skies that night and the rest of the week was sunny, breezy, just about perfect.

We're so smitten with The Can, we're plotting ways to procure our own. Because between staying dry and sleeping on a real, very comfortable mattress, it feels like we can camp again.

Hallelujah!

Second Poem: Green Hills

2011-10-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

Here's my second re-orient-the-brain dual-purpose poem,*

Green Hills
by Kay Ryan

Their green flanks
and swells are not
flesh in any sense
matching ours,
we tell ourselves.
Nor their green
breast nor their
green shoulder nor
the languor of their
rolling over.

If that isn't the perfect rendition of the hills of West Marin and Sonoma, I don't know what is. Ryan captures our attention by telling us that the "green flanks and swells" really aren't body and flesh. And just when we are mentally contradicting her because yes, they do look like shoulders and thighs and the sway of reclining backs and hips, Ryan goes one step further and animates those green hills in that clever play on the rolling hills ... magnificent.

p.s. occasionally they do roll - like when the earth quakes.

links to photographic evidence:

green hills 1

green hills 2

• see previous post

Dual Purpose Poems

2011-10-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

Work has become its own beast lately, with a steep adjustment curve to new paradigms and programs. In an attempt to cope, I've started to memorize a poem a day, hoping to divert the obsessive part of my mind from continually rolling down the grooves of irritation, which with repetition, will only become deeper, the negative reactions more entrenched, more intractable. I felt that if I could interrupt the process, I could block the high hits on the Stress-O-Meter and halt the accompanying rise in cortisol. Plus give myself something pleasantly literary to think about. And liven up my little grey cells.

So when I feel the anxiety rise, I resort to the poem, reciting it under my breath like a verbal amulet or a Spell for Protection. It seems to be working; I don't feel so wound up in the morass of a SNAFU which is not of my making and which I can not change. Recalling the poem is sometimes all I need to regain a more tolerant and reflective state. Or at least get me though the next half hour without incident, embarrassment or name-calling.

There have been some unintended (though welcome) consequences of this practice: getting this close to poetry and language is firing up my desire to be swimming in the deep end of writing and literature. (More on that later.)

Because I so love her work and because she is one hella tight poet, I've started with poems by Kay Ryan. I'm enthralled with her imagery, rhythm, metaphors, the way her poems cinch right up at the end. There is never any doubt that you've landed at the end of a Kay Ryan poem. Doesn't hurt that they are often short; my old gray brain just ain’t what it used to be. And oh, yeah, the poem-a-day quickly became a poem-a-week.

So here’s the first poem, which has already stood me in good stead several times so far:

A Cat/A Future

A cat can draw

the blinds

behind her eyes

whenever she

decides. Nothing

alters in the stare

itself but she's

not there. Likewise,

a future can occlude:

still sitting there,

doing nothing rude.

Such plain-song, everyday language -- except for the tight arrangement, the rhythms, the internal and sprung rhymes: blinds, behind; stare, there; eyes, decides; occludes, rude. And except for the word occludes, which captures our attention at once: it is the mystery door into meaning. To occlude means to obstruct, shut off, block. The future is occluded, hidden from us as if by blinds; we can’t really see it -- we can only imagine it. It sits there, merely one second, one day, one year away, but unknowable, blocked off from us until it happens.

And in another way, the future itself occludes: our tendency to plan for the future can sometimes prevent us from noticing the beauty of the moment, the realities of now. We are so focused on the future, we become blind to the present. We project our imagined future in front of us, as if on a screen, but a screen that hides the only known future that awaits us all: the inevitable, unknowable end of our tunnels. That future is definitely there - but not there, because we prefer to (or need to) ignore it.

By the end of this poem Ryan has layered meaning onto object; has melded the cat and the future, both “still sitting there/doing nothing rude.” Sweet!

SFGate

MacArthur Fellow

Sonoma County Book Festival ( with Napa Valley Connections).

2011-09-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

What better way to spend a September Saturday in Sonoma than browsing the 12th Annual Sonoma County Book Festival? It's less then two weeks away (Sept 24th), so you still have time to pencil it in ~ and then do it! Courthouse Square in downtown Santa Rosa will bloom with tents, all filled-to-bursting with books, readings, panels, signings and all things literary. Events usually spill out of the square into venues nearby, with readings and panels at the Central Library Forum Room, Corrick's, Mary's Pizza Shack, La Rosa's Tequileria. Plenty of kid's activities and throngs and throngs of poets and writers milling about. What's not to adore?

Just published!

And among the throngs ~ Maxine Hong Kingston, Jane Hirshfield, Ann Packer...as well as Francisco X. Alarcon, Belva Davis, Zoe Fitzgerald Carter, Gaye LeBaron, Andrew Lam, Michael David Lukas. Some (like moi) might notice that the festival is seeded with Napa Valley-ites, both faculty and workshop attendees. Jane Hirschfield, one of our faculty stalwarts, and Ann Packer, faculty in 2008, will be reading at the Central Library Forum Room. I know of at least two alumni with reading slots, poet Judy Halebsky, from this past summer ("Sky=Empty") and Michael David Lukas, (2009) whose well-received debut novel "Oracle of Stamboul" came out in paperback just this September.

Judy Halebsky

There are probably even more, but I'll let you discover them for yourself. So pack up your spectacles, fleece for the morning fog, parasol for the afternoon sun and be ready to indulge in literature, writers and words all the live-long day.

9/11/2011

2011-09-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

The Harvest moon rises tonight on a nation as yet un-healed; ten years ~ not nearly long enough for our wounds to seal.

From Ailurophobia to Wamble; or Fall 2011 Underway

2011-08-23T17:20:00.000-07:00

And so the semester begins, with all its fits and starts. Students trying to get into classes, teachers trying to cram students into classes, new faculty and staff coming on board, retirees scampering out, ready to gallivant and giggit about the countryside. The usual office tasks surface: ordering supplies, copying syllabi and oh, ooops! the minutes from the final Department Meeting last semester. Been hustling those meaningless scrawls from four months ago something legible the past two days!

Transcribing minutes can be a somewhat tedious, thankless task. Which is why I try to add some sparkle and flair to them, figuring if I’m distracted into silliness, what about my readers? Don’t they need a little lift now and then? Though, my fun often means I have to attach a glossary to the minutes. For lack of anything more illuminating, I’m posting the most current glossary, just for ducks. You, my friends, get to imagine what sort of minutes I was typing…

Glossary
Ailurophobia – abnormal fear of cats
Borborgymus – the rumbling of gas and fluid in the intestine
Bosky –1) consisting of or having an abundance of bushes, shrubs or trees 2) tipsy, on the point of being drunk
Celsitude – 1) elevated position, high rank; eminence 2) exalted character
Divagate – to wander…though not necessarily lost
Fank- a sheepfold; a walled or fenced pen for sheep
Flub-dub - nonsense
Gallimaufry – jumble, hodge-podge, a ridiculous medley
Gledge- a sidelong glance
Grinagog – foolishly grinning
Hornswoggle – hogwash; to cheat, deceive or hoax
Huff-nuff – a braggart, a conceited, would-be swashbuckler
Nipperkin – small amount
Oculogyric – rolling the eyeballs in their socket (all parents of teens know this maneuver all too well)
Thingummy – a. k.a, dingus, thingamabob, whatchamacallit, doo-hickey, lick-em ups, or wham whams. Capiche?
Tiggy – hedgehog, or, colloquially, “it” in a game
Whippersnapper –a young thing, full of speed and attitude (but really, no match for age and treachery)

Other words I wanted to use, but just couldn’t find a way to shoehorn them into the notes:
Brool – a deep, low humming sound; a murmur, as of a large crowd.
Brimborion – a thing of no value, trash
Fopdoodle –a fool, simpleton
Leam – n) a ray, flash , or gleam of light v) to shine, to gleam
Slubberdergullion- slovenly oaf
Wamble- 1) to move unsteadily; to stagger 2) (of the stomach) to churn queasily

(all definitions courtesy of Foyle's Philavery, 2007. collected by Christopher Foyle)

D.A.Powell blurbs Paul Lisicky

2011-08-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

Napa Faculty folks continue to be busy: Check out D.A.Powell's exquisite blurb of Paul Lisicky's soon-to-be-published book, Unbuilt Projects, posted on Paul's blog . One could hardly ask for a more well-crafted and poetic blurb. Here's a tease: "If there's a place for poetry and prose to co-habitate, it's here in Lisicky's world: under the snowy rooftops and inside the empty rooms of apartments built, unbuilt, and destroyed. "

It does everything a blurb should do: it shares the promise of the book; it creates a longing and desire to read it; it's beautful in and of itself. Neither the book nor the blurb should be missed!

Doug Powell, faculty NVWC 2011

Paul Lisicky, faculty NVWC 2008

Doug Powell

Blog
Poetry.org

Paul Lisicky
Blog
Etruscan Press

D.A.Powell blurbs Paul Lisicky

Blog Tour: PlayAnon

2011-08-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Tooling around the interwebs, I often run into the blogs of great writers (crash, bang, etc- yeah, I'm a bit of a wacko driver, even virtually). I tend to slap them into the BlogRoller list and figure those who are curious will scope them out. Because that is what we do, isn't it? Putter and poke around, twiddle and fiddle away what should have been productive hours.

But I love traveling, discovering new places, new voices, stunning writing. And I don't think it is unproductive when I read someone's fabulous blog. It's inspirational, really; it prods me into stretching my own myself, my own writing. At the very least it counteracts the doom-and-gloom newspaper news, thus restoring my faith in humanity.

So I've decided to introduce the blogs as I discover them, so you'all will have a chance to twiddle away time in an equally awesome but, since I've done the research, a more efficient manner.

PlayAnon - Smart Spew, Straight Up is the subtitle and that pretty much says it right there. Catherine Kustanczy, a freelance journalist and broadcaster (currently back in Toronto, but recently nee NYC and missing it very much), blogs about all the usual things that strike one's fancy, like Ai Wei Wei's Zodiac Heads sculpture or attending the Colbert Report taping and letting her Hobbit Flag fly or an update on the Toronto Zombie Walk. But she also posts insightful interviews of theater and music folks and thoughtful reviews of plays, music, books, you name it. She's a "Journalist, Broadcaster, Writer, Thinker, Dancer, Prancer, Chancer, Vixen (sometimes)" as she says on her profile and has many radio spots to her name, which you can find at her SoundCloud. I think you all should drop by sometime and check it out.

And hey, if you know of any great writing-based blogs, post them in Comments, er, BaconBits! I always enjoy having a destination when I amble around the Blogiverse.

Conference returned; update a bit late, but worth the wait (maybe?)

2011-08-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

Daniel Alarcon, concentrating on one of his workshoppee's manuscript.
We were honored to be Daniel's first summer workshop

The first day is always about the naps and the laundry. And the second for processing all that went on. Words escape me in my toasted-brain state, so I"ll rely on this group of photos to tell some of the tales from the Napa Valley Writers Conference 2011. More photos in a bit!

Jack Leggett, past Director of the Iowa
Writers Workshop,
and co-founder of the NVWC
(along with David Evans),
enjoying the Mondavi winery.

Novelists and poets: Adam Hazelett chats with Lan Samantha Chang,
current Director of the Iowa Writers Workshop (foreground).
Background, poet Major Jackson and novelist Lois Leveen.

Angela Flournoy, Ayana Mathis, Michelle Huneven ~

watch for novels from each of these writers in the future.

From left, unknown gentleman, Pat Perini,

Eleanor Coppola, Jack Leggett, past Director of NVWC

and Andrea Bewick, current Director of the NVWC

Conference Staff, Jeannie Kim-McPherson,
and Christy Pallella, with

poet Aaron Di Franco

Sue Brown and Janet Constantino, Participantes Extrodinaire.

Somehow It Seems Sufficient

2011-07-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Holy Toledo ~ The 2011 Napa Valley Writers Conference is about to start! Feels like I'm in the batter's box, waiting to get called to the plate.
Last few days have been all about prep: arranging classrooms, writing introductions, finding my suitcase, cleaning my dress-up outfits. Tucked into one of the side pockets of that suitcase, was a much creased piece of paper, notes scribbled all over it, with lines and arrows and exclamation marks*, and this poem from Major Jackson's inspiring craft-talk last year.

(I love how the whole poem rolls down the page, with the slow, intense weight of a running stream, pushed by the commas and colons, the only punctuation until the final period.)

Gravelly Run

I don't know somehow it seems sufficient
to see and hear whatever comings and goings is,
losing the self to the victory of
   stones and trees,
the bending of the sandpit lakes, crescent
round groves of dwarf pine:

for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
   by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:

the swamp's slow water comes
down Gravelly Run fanning the long
   stone-held algal
hair and narrowing roils between
the shoulders of the highway bridge:

holly grows on the banks in the woods there,
and the cedars' gothic-clustered
   spires could make
green religion in winter bones:

so I look and reflect, but the air's glass
jail seals each thing in its entity:

no use to make any philosophies here:
   I see no
god in the holly, hear no song from
the snowbroken weeds: Hegel is not the winter
yellow in the pines; the sunlight has never
heard of trees: surrendered self among
   unwelcome forms: stranger,
hoist your burdens, get on down the road.

~ A.R. Ammons

* and directions to the Martini House on the back

Parking Ticket Appeal

2011-07-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

I am somewhat of a parking zone scofflaw, I admit that. I'll race onto campus, getting as close to my office as I can (because, yes, I'm running a tad late) by sliding into the 30-Minute Zone behind the Library. Then, when I go for coffee at the campus cafe, I'll re-park in something more legal. If I remember that is. Sometimes it can be an hour or two before that gob-smacking moment when I realize I've got to move my car before the Parking Demon slides a ticket under my wiper. Mostly I make it, because the budget cuts are making for fewer and fewer Parking Demons. Sometimes I fail. And then I'm faced with whether to make an appeal or not. I mean, there's no denying that my car was in a 30-minute zone for 4 hours, but still one has to try, right? At least it delays the painful moment when I have to cough up the $45 for my space-cadet law-breaking ways. Plus I think a good story might persuade them to drop the fine. What do you think....will the explanation below get me off the hook?

"Although I had every intention of returning to my vehicle within the allotted time, I was held up by several extenuating factors. First of all, the meeting I was already late to had relocated to The CB Cafe; I had to scoot, flying like a mad Banshee down the steps leading from Darwin to CB's. I didn't trip, or fall or break my leg, but I think I was moving so fast I must have slipped into another dimension of the time/space continuum. Well, whatever it was, it was warped. At CB's, my mates were chowing down on pesto-ciabattas and everything bagels, and gulping crazywild mugs of freeflowing coffee. It was a scene, I tell you, like that scene in the Outer Worlds bar in the Star Trek movie; loud, convivial, everyone wearing masks. I forgot all about my Blue Bomber Honda in the EarthZone. Captain Quigglesbottom finally marshaled us into the Return Capsule; we got back just in time for lunch. Only to find a ticket on my patient car. :-( I ask, that considering the stress of this unusual experience, this ticket be dismissed."

Readings & Lectures ~ it must be July!

2011-07-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

Join our internationally acclaimed faculty of poets and fiction writers for a series of public lectures and readings during the 31st Napa Valley Writers' Conference, which is hosted and sponsored by Napa Valley College.

The eight poets and fiction writers who serve as conference faculty are united by critical acclaim for their work. In fiction, Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic has been called “the first great novel of the new century,” while Michelle Huneven’s novel Blame was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics’ Circle Award. Daniel Alarcón’s novel Lost City Radio prompted Granta magazine to name him one of America’s top young novelists, while Lan Samantha Chang, director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, recently publishedAll is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, which National Public Radio called “a full and resonant story of the pains and perils, falsehoods and truths of trying to be an American artist . . . unforgettable.”

The poetry faculty includes Jane Hirshfield, whose collection After was shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Prize and selected as one of the top books of 2006 by the Washington Post. D.A. Powell’s Chronic and Major Jackson’s Leaving Saturn were both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award, while David St. John, author of nine volumes of poetry, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Study for the World’s Body: New and Selected Poems.

Morning and afternoon lectures on the art and craft of writing will be held at the Napa Valley College Upper Valley Campus in St. Helena. Evening readings are scheduled for various venues throughout the Napa Valley. The full schedule of readings and lectures is as follows:

Sunday, July 24
7:30 p.m.: Wine reception and reading with poet D. A. Powell and fiction writer Daniel Alarcón at the Upper Valley Campus, 1088 College Ave., St. Helena
Monday, July 259 a.m.: Poetry lecture by Jane Hirshfield, Upper Valley Campus
1:30 p.m.: Fiction lecture by Adam Haslett, Upper Valley Campus
7:30 p.m.: Wine reception and reading with poet David St. John and fiction writer Lan Samantha Chang, Rubicon Estate, 1991 St. Helena Highway, Rutherford
Tuesday, July 269 a.m.: Poetry lecture by D.A. Powell, Upper Valley Campus
1:30 p.m.: Fiction lecture by Daniel Alarcón, Upper Valley Campus
7:30 p.m.: Wine reception and reading with poet Major Jackson and fiction writer Michelle Huneven, Robert Mondavi Winery, 7801 St. Helena Highway, Oakville
Wednesday, July 279 a.m.: Poetry lecture by David St. John, Upper Valley Campus
1:30 p.m.: Fiction lecture by Lan Samantha Chang, Upper Valley Campus
6:30 p.m.: Wine reception and reading with poet Jane Hirshfield and fiction writer Adam Haslett, Educational Center for the Performing Arts, Napa Valley College, 2277 Napa-Vallejo Highway (Highway 221), Napa
Thursday, July 289 a.m.: Poetry lecture by Major Jackson, Upper Valley Campus
1:30 p.m.: Fiction lecture by Michelle Huneven, Upper Valley Campus
Tickets
Admission to evening readings costs $10. Admission to the daytime lectures is $25 apiece, $90 for the four-lecture series in either poetry or fiction, or $175 for all eight lectures. Tickets for all public events may be purchased at the door by cash or check. Students with valid student IDs will be admitted free of charge to all lectures and evening readings, along with conference supporters and community housing hosts.

For more information about the conference and the reading and lecture series, visit napawritersconf.org or facebook.com/napawritersconference.

Applause for Jerry

2011-06-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

Bravo for Governor Jerry Brown for recognizing a slap-dash hokey deal when he saw it and veto-ing the patched-together, inadequate budget yesterday. It's time for the Republican Obstructionists, who prefer to stick to principle in thier deck chairs even as the ship sinks, to man-up, woman-up, grow-up! for Pete's sake and get real about our finances. Those R.O legislators don't have a clue: people really do want parks, repaired streets, access to health services (senior care centers, child care centers, mental health support) and they see the need to fund them. The Obstructionists don't want to take the extension of taxes measure to a ballot initative because they know they'd lose. If they were confident that their principles were sane and correct, they should have no problem letting the people decide the fate of extending taxes. But they aren't, so they won't.

If the State were a family swimming in debt and heading into foreclosure, the Repubicans would be the spouse who refuses to get a job because it goes against his/her principles: I ain't working for the Man! or No way I'm getting up at 6 a.m, it isn't in my nature or I'm waiting for a call back, don't hassle me. As the family hunts in the couch for quarters to buy hot dogs, the spouse shouts, "Stop spending money!" But there comes a point when spending less is meaningless, like when you have no money to spend at all. If my spouse acted like an R.O., he/she would be out of the house and camping down at the river where he/she belonged, with the rest of the can't-see-beyond-my-own-frigging-nose folks.

So, isn't it time we took a page from Wisconsin and recall those Republicans who have signed that Pledge To Not Bring In Any Income? They aren't helping; they're adding to the problem and should be cleared out of the way. Perhaps they don't go to parks for recreation (maybe they have their own personal park surrounding their nice house?) or drive on roads (who needs roads when they have a private jet?) or don't understand why ordinary people don't go to the doctor anymore (why worry about other's medical predicaments, when their own health care costs are covered so handily by taxpayer dollars).

Yea-yah, that's right. Those R.O. Legislators use taxpayer dollars to pay for their full-benefits health insurance, but they are only too willing and happy to cut any programs that provide health services to the rest of us. Go figure. If those R. Obstructionist Legislators are so cut-happy, they should start looking at their own benefit packages. Start to live like the rest of us, paying full price for bad insurance, praying we don't get sick and trying to fit in a stay-cation or two to the nearest park to relieve the stress.

One that's open, that is.

But don't let me get started on the disaster of closing the State parks. Oy! we'd be here all night.

Happy Bloomsday

2011-06-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Took a break from Conference work today, to celebrate Bloomsday, not so much with kidneys for breakfast or a pint ( I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click.) - as those days of organ meats and Guinness stout are past (for the most part) -but to dip into my ragged copy of "Ulysses," ponder, free-associate, get punny. Other folks around the world are also celebrating June 16th (the day in 1904 that the novel takes place),with pub crawls, staged readings of the book, and these folks at Bloomsday Burst, who are tweetcasting the 600+ page novel.

Now that I gotta see...hear...receive? to believe.

On a Cold Summer Night, "Silver Sparrow"

2011-06-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been watching* Tayari Jones, following her blog and writing, for a while now. She's been turning up in all sorts of places, writing a popular blog on She Writes, being profiled in the MayJune 2011 issue of P&W( though that's not online, only in print - dang), winning awards here and there. Jones, a Professor in the Rutgers MFA Program, has wonderfully elastic prose and writes intriguing stories.

Her third novel, "Silver Sparrow," has just been released and I'm proud to say I scooted right down to Copperfield's Books (my Indie) to snap up a first edition.Yes indeedy.

Links to more legible version

Now here's the next fab thing: she'll be at a Rumpus Room Reading event, namely, Cold Summer Nights, on June 13th, in San Francisco. That's next Monday, folks. SF in June, brrrr! definitely a cold summer night, even in normal times. But what better way to warm up than hunkered down at the Make Out Room, with Tayari Jones, Camille Dungy, Tamin Answary and a host of others in a thick peasoup of fine words. So if you're in the neighborhood, go. And if you're not in the neighborhood, go anyway!

As a bit of a tease, here are the first few sentences from "Silver Sparrow" -
"My father, James Withespoon, is a bigamist. He was already married ten years when he first clamped eyes on my mother. In 1968, she was working at the gift-wrap counter at Davisons's downtown when my father asked her to wrap the carving knife he had bought his wife for their wedding anniversary. Mother said she knew that something wasn't right between a man and a woman when the gift was a blade."

Love the way she so succinctly gives us the time, the place, the situation, the conflict and a knife in three sentences. And makes it look so easy. Whoooeee!

(But of course, there's a Napa Valley Writers Conference connection: She studied in the Arizona State University MFA Program, working with Ron Carlson, one of our highly esteemed and more frequent faculty.)

* hey, not in a creepy way! interested-in-an-up-and-coming-writer way!

For the Love of Sniddle, Moff and Cheewink

2011-06-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Foyle's Philavery - Christopher Foyle

Perhaps you've discovered this book already and I am but late to the party, but it's a treasure-trove for any word freak. Christophor Foyle, over his years at Foyle's Bookstore in London, England, has collected unusual, quirky, little-known and infrequently used words, (sniddle, moff, cheewink, slubberdegullian, to name but a few) and offers them to us as a gift of splendacious fabulousity. I could fill the page with all the words that delight me, so I'll try to restrain myself with these few - for now.

sniddle: "1. coarse grass, rushed or sedge 2. stubble" (pg 195) As in: "My, what's that adorning your jaw, dear Rhett; is it the new fashion, then? Come closer, let me run my hands over your lovely, grey-flecked sniddle."

moff: "a silk fabric from the Caucasus" (pg 139) "The toff doffs his moff bowler in your general direction."

sluberdegullion - "a mean, slovenly oaf " (pg 195) .... need a great password? nickname for a grumpy, less-than-tidy cat?

cheewink - a wonderful, alternate name for towhees, those ground-loving, long-tailed members of the finch family, Piplilo erythrophthalmus (aka ground robin). They have a high-pitched, single-note call, like chink! ... then a few seconds ... chink! used to establish territory and communicate. If you have several nearby (as we do) and they start calling back and forth, it's like someone tuning a set of vibraphones of very narrow range. Cheewink is a such a better name for them, onomatopoetically speaking. (pg 40)

The best news? There's already a second collection: "Foyle's Further Philavery." Don't say I didn't warn you.

Kept Awake by Literature

2011-05-19T23:19:00.000-07:00

Like most writers these days, I have a day job. And by day, I mean it starts at 8 a.m. Not horrendous, but a daily challenge for a night owl like myself. I work at it. I use a blue light when I first wake up, hoping that it will rouse the bleary brain; I try to exercise vigorously, so the physical unit has an excuse to need sleep; I limit caffeine in the afternoon and double down on the Sleepytime tea. Sometimes all this works, sometimes even for several weeks in a row. My undoing, though, is when I take literature to bed.

Here are three of the latest culprits that have cut into my morning efficiency and effectiveness at the workplace.

Union Atlantic, by Adam Haslett.
Good Lord, what a story, such a cast of characters! Haslett presents the world of Wall Street and high finance to us for what it is: characters of odd moral character controlled by one of most basic motivators of all, greed. What appeared to me as a story too complex, too technical, too convoluted to tackle, instead became a Shakespearean tale, comprehensible to all. And not all that fictional, as we have come to find out.

Can't wait to delve into his book of short stories, "You Are Not A Stranger Here." It's on the bedside table, just begging to deprive me of honest sleep.

The Help – Kathryn Stockett.
So many people told me about this book that I had to read it. One of those recommenders simply pressed it into my hands saying, "Here, just read it. Then we'll talk." And so it happened.

Well, I found the story completely engrossing and compelling. Though I wasn't of the place, I am of the times; the book rang absolutely true for me. Stockett sets her novel in 1962, in Jackson, Mississippi, during the birthing pangs of what we all hoped would be a new era. Like all births, it was very rarely pretty.

The story is told from the points of view of three protagonists: a recently-graduated white journalist, Skeeter, just returned to her home town, and two black maids, Abileen and Minny, whom she enlists in her project, writing a book that will reveal the maids' true reality. I was terrified for the maids most of the time and irritated with Skeeter for so blithely assuming everything would be fine since she, white and privileged, was involved. Slowly, Skeeter begins to understand the real risks these women take in telling their stories.

While much has been discussed in reviews and the book-blogosphere about Stockett's rendering of the maid's dialect in the book, I found her ability to capture their vernacular impressive. And I found that it located this story in its era. I do think Stockett could have also rendered the white Southerner's vernacular and voice more accurately, which I think would have enriched the book and balanced the treatment of the voices. But I'm willing to listen to opinions of others.

Meanwhile, it kept me up way after hours, leaving me to stumble into work bleary-eyed and late every day for a week.

Blame, by Michelle Huneven – another compelling story, tautly written, that kept me up way past my bedtime. A cautionary tale from the get -go: a woman is convicted for a double murder committed during an alcoholic blackout. The enduring consequences are well captured, as Patsy's life is forever molded by the chain of events. Huneven's prose is sinuous and flexible, ranging from the tenseness of prison life to the lyrical beauty of landscape and oceanscape, a beauty too often ignored even by those free from prison bars. There is a beacon that shines below the text of this book, much as there is in our own lives, a beacon and a beauty just waiting to be acknowledged.

Full disclosure: both Adam Haslett and Michelle Huneven will be faculty at the Napa Valley Writers Conference this summer. Those participants are so darn lucky!

About a Word, About Paul

2011-05-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a very cool literary site you simply have to check out: aboutaword, which I discovered because I love to visit Paul Lisicky's fine blog, The Mystery Beast. Paul is one of the featured writers at aboutaword, where he talks about alligators and desire and his just-published new novel, "The Burning House."

Paul is also out on tour, so if he's in your neighborhood, go! And tell him I sent you. Then maybe he'll kickback a copy to me. So I can review it, yeah, that's the ticket, review it, not just indulge in reading it.

(kidding!) That book will be in my bookstack sooner than Paul can whistle Ned home, or Dixie, for that matter.

Hike and Write: Plein Air Writing

2011-05-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

The falls in full tilt boogie in
very early spring.

Docent training, hiking every Sunday from the end of February until mid-April around the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, had become part of my routine, a high point of the week. I loved being under the trees, along the creek, skirting the marsh, looking and listening, learning to identify creatures and plants, feeling welcomed by the world. When training came to an end, I knew I'd have to find a way to continue getting my nature-fix. I'd heard the calls of the Virginia rails, but I hadn't yet seen them. And the weather was finally starting to get better - no more slogging around in the rain and cold. Plus I knew I'd bulk up again without that weekly straight-up, straight-down-the-hill hike.

So I concocted a plan, a plan that combined my two desires: lead hikes for writers! Thus, the workshop described below was conceived. If you are in the area, come on up the mountain and join us. If you aren't, well, then, guess you'll just have to wait for the blogposts.

Workshop: Plein Air Writing: Combine your love of the outdoors and your way with words while exploring the varied terrains and habitats of the Fairfield Osborn Preserve located on the flanks of Sonoma Mountain. Join Lakin Khan, local essayist and writer, on a Sunday ramble, pausing frequently to observe and take field notes. Later, we'll use these notes as a basis for essays rooted in nature, writing on site at the Education Center, and continuing at home if you wish.

This is an ongoing series of six Sundays beginning April 10th (skipping Easter) until May 25^th. Meet at the Fairfield Osborn Preserve (link to directions below) at 10:30 a.m.; we’ll walk and write until approximately 2:30 p.m. Wear sturdy shoes, brimmed hat and sunscreen; bring a water canteen, bag lunch, journal and writing implements. Layered clothing highly recommended. $15 a session includes a donation to the Preserve. Four or more sessions, $50.

To enroll, contact Lakin at lakhan@sonic.net.

Directions to the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, which is at the end of Lichau Road in Penngrove.

Reduction Sauce, or On the Way to Orion

2011-04-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

From the Friends of Copeland Creek
website.

Once upon a time, a few years back, I wrote some essays about the interaction between our suburban/rural campus and nature, which were irregularly published in the campus newsletter. One of those essays was about Copeland Creek flooding the campus; the piece had some interesting observations, irrelevant asides and a mix of imagery. It was a bit chatty and close to 1,000 words long.

A little over a year ago, I dusted the piece off, tossed away most of the irrelevancies, reworked it to be more about rivers and streams in general and submitted it for inclusion in the Voice of the River book, edited by Patti Trimble. It came in around 600 words.

Then, about six months ago, I trimmed it down drastically to a something I could read in three minutes for the Women on Writers Conference at Skyline College. Whole paragraphs were lopped off, the rest of the asides and most of the witty remarks were slashed. I got it down to 450 words. It was acquiring some polish, I thought.

Okay. Last month, I took that same small piece, took out all the really unnecessary words (particularly the witty remarks), added back in the location details, tightened up the structure, smoothed out the transitions. I spent hours grinding and buffing it down to a condensed nugget of 350 words. This I submitted online to the "The Place Where You Live" feature on the Orion Magazine website in March.

I didn't get a response, so I chalked it up to experience and moved on. But then, last week, prompted by a teaser-message in my inbox for the new issue of Orion, I went by the site, read an article or two and clicked the link to TPWYL. And and lo and behold, there it is, under the red star marked Sonoma State University.

So if you enjoy writing about place, check it out, submit something. In time, the map will be filled with a billion red stars, each linked to a snippet about a particular location, which when read,will create an ever-expanding, aggregated collage of our planet, place by place, moment by moment. Now how cool is that?

Something about Spring and Squirrels

2011-04-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

The Rumpus is running Paul Lisicky's poem "Squirrel" as the POTD (Poem of the Day) for National Poetry Month. It's a charming prose-poem with fable-like qualities, that engages the imagination and plays with our fascination for worlds we can never know. Check it out!

Little Red Writing Book

2011-04-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

elizabeth in her writing blog, Fog City Writer, passed along this excellent idea: a dedicated journal to note what writing and/or writing business you do every day. A blog post, a query letter sent, two paragraphs on a story, a chapter revised. No comments, no kvetching, just a notation. Sometimes it might be only a brief note that you started editing that article before being interrupted by a bawling baby, or that, standing in the Express Lane while some Cro-magnon unloaded from his cart a month's worth of beer, franks-in-buns and pre-sliced cheese (just three things, see?), you suddenly realized that Billy in your latest narrative needs sagging jeans and a beer gut. Or that you had two hours of writing at the cafe. Hey, sometimes it happens.

This strikes me as infinitely better than those endless scrawled lists that I keep with circles and arrows and a few items blacked out: three blog posts (behind already!); submit, submit, submit; query Heyday Press, STAT! These lists are for the most part wishful thinking (really pure fantasy) about what I think I could and/or should do. They're also a constant set-up for failure because that list is never, ever completed - or if it is, another item pops right up on it. I even know the deal, yet I still feel like I've done squat-all as I add yet another impossible task to the list.

In the world of carrot and stick, this falls under the carrot method; that is, it functions as positive reinforcement. Look, I've done something! it tells you, unlike a list, where the crossed-out items disappear into the background, and you are left with all the things you didn't do staring right back at you.

For most of us with dayjobs, family and the need to walk at least around the block, time to write is limited or even nonexistent on any given day. Knowing that I've done at least something could be the morale booster to carry me through the week, to keep hacking at it until some time does open up. And as Susan Bono (of Tiny Lights fame) said in our conversation last Friday at the Press Table in Volpi's, it could also serve as an encouraging nag: well, have you done anything to note in your Little Red Writing Book?

At least today I can say yes: I wrote this post.

And posted it.

Skip the Lamb, Go to Ham

2011-04-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

Even though it was way too hot yesterday to make Bikini Lamb Stew, I did use the oven to bake. Briefly, like for 20 minutes, after 6 p.m. Et voila, the result.

In the words of He Who Ate Most of It:
Oh, tender spears of asparagus, anointed with extra-virgin olive oil, nestled in a creamy bed of melted pepperjack cheese, topped provacatively with thin strips of prosciutto on a raft of flakey puff pastry:
How yummy you are!

In Like a Grumpy Lion, Out Like a Lamb in a Bikini

2011-04-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Such a month.

Overnight, we've gone from the very, very long tail-end of winter with its grey skies and cold drenching days shortened by gloom and storm, to the shock of lambent, gentle air, intense sun and daylight past 7 p.m. No one knows when to eat; no one knows what to eat. Stews and casseroles no longer fit the bill, but who has watermelon and cold cuts on hand?

Today I woke to sun: bright sun, oh-my-god sun, eyeball-aching sun. Bird song was bursting out everywhere - the endless variations of a mockingbird across the street, the buzzy calls of a Bewick's wren, the twittering chatter of robins, the chorus of finches as they mob the feeders. The plants have gone on high alert, ramping up the pollen machines, pushing out buds and new leaves in double-quick time after such a rocky start to spring. Oh, allergy meds - where the hell are you? Do not forsake me now.

The shock of such brilliance after the weeks and weeks of rain and wind, threatened mudslides and downed power lines, has stunned us. We love it, we relish it, but we are unprepared - we search for sunglasses and sandals, wonder if there's still sunscreen from last summer. I finally find the shorts and tee-shirts, all tucked into the bottom corners of the drawers, out of rotation, wrinkled and looking worse for the storage.

A walk downtown to purchase something lighter for dinner rubs it in - my socks are pointless, the light jacket senseless. In my spring attire, I am woefully over-dressed. The large digital read-out at the Bank of the West unequivocally states 80 degrees Fahrenheit and it's not yet noon.

We have leap-frogged over spring and gone straight to summer. At least for now.

Napa Faculty Notes

2011-03-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

C.D.Wright at NVWC Picnic
talking with Jamie Figueroa and
unidentified participant

C.D.Wright, Poetry Faculty this past summer, just received the National Book Critics Circle Award for her book, One With Others [a little book of her days]. We had the privilege of hearing her read several excerpts from it in the brand-spanking new Performing Arts Theater on the Main Campus in Napa for our 30th Anniversary celebration. That was a pretty spectacular night.

Catherine Thorpe wrote a nicely crafted blog post on C.D.Wright as the first entry on our new NVWC blog. Cruise by and then join us in the search for a spiffy blog name; all suggestions welcome! Okay, maybe, not all.

A nice surprise in the latest Sunset magazine (April 2011) ~ a tender essay by Antonya Nelson about the extraordinary gardening skills of her treasured mother-in-law who passed away last May. It doesn't seem to be linked online anywhere, but perhaps you are a lucky subscriber....or know how to use a library. Do check it out if you get the chance. It is accompanied by a lovely painting by Jade Boswell Webber (Toni's daughter) of her grandmother tending the earth.

A Visit to The Fairfield Osborn Preserve

2011-03-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

The long and winding road to the Fairfield Osborn Preserve seems a most appropriate approach to the 400-acre preserve spilling along the north-west slope of Sonoma Mountain. The fifteen minute drive starts flat, running through pastureland and fields, then quickly rises, past old farms and ranches, pastures on either side sprinkled with horses, cows and llamas. Each new curve on the climb reveals a different angle to the spectacular view of the valley floor spread out below, edged by rolling slopes and ridges and the round rumps of coastal hills. Quotidian and mundane tasks that narrow our vision fall away, deadlines fade as the wide vision, the big view dominates. The road winds through the last few miles of oak woodlands; we arrive at the gate of the Preserve already in a different frame of mind, prepped to breathe the oxygen-enriched air of a natural, not a manufactured, world.

The Fairfield Osborn Preserve was created from a gift of land from the Roth family in honor of Emily Roth’s father, Fairfield Osborn, and dedicated to both nature education and scientific research. Originally owned by The Nature Conservancy (still an easement neighbor), it has been owned and managed by the School of Science and Technology of Sonoma State University since 1994. To protect the land and the integrity of its research sites, the Preserve (fondly known as FOP) has limited public access. However, there are guided hikes and workshops offered on many Saturdays for anyone interested. A calendar of upcoming events and hikes can be found on the FOP FaceBook page

Additionally, the Sonoma State Preserve Program has developed an extensive and well-respected outdoor education program for elementary school children. Through guided hikes and information, the program introduces them to the flora and fauna of our environment, the wonder of the natural world and research and the scientific process itself.

Throughout my own guided tour, I spot odd things in odd places: white buckets, data loggers, wire-fence exclosures (to keep the critters out), little flags of different colors marking trees and bushes, trees and bushes with labels and monitoring devices—all evidence of the research going on here. FOP encompasses various forested and riparian terrains: oak and mixed evergreen forests, grasslands and chaparral, a perennial stream, a marsh, a small lake, a vernal pool, which provides a wide canvas for environmental and ecological research. The projects, some funded by the National Science Foundation and others by more local entities, revolve around issues such as Sudden Oak Death, the effect of grazing on native habitats and the relationship between insect pests and their natural bug enemies.

As I leave, the road winds and curls, leading me downslope; the valley sits below, muted under a misty haze. In the far distance is a slim line of blue: the ocean. This brief introduction has only whetted my appetitite; I'll return for more hiking excursions on the Preserve. I'm even considering becoming a docent so I can lead tours of my own - and visit that much more often.

( reposting for logistical reasons, from early fall, 2010)

WOW

2011-03-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

... stands for Women on Writing, an annual conference held at Skyline College in San Mateo. I went a few years ago with a bwf (best writing buddy) where (among other superb writers) I first heard and met Yiyun Li; her novel "The Vagrants" had just been published. Her reading was electrifying.

This year, Alison Luterman and Li Miao Lovett will share the podium ... and moi during the Open Reading at the end. I'll have 3 minutes to stun the literary world with my, ahem, brilliance. Can it be done? Well, probably not, since brilliance is required. However, I'll give it the old college try. And I'll be meeting fabulous writers; you sure can't beat that for fun and grand stories.

More Napa News!

2011-02-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

Get your keyboard running. Get out on the Interwebs. I'm looking for some writing ... so send it on its waaaay!...(apologies to Steppenwolf and to those who don't recognize the reference and who therefore think I'm losing the few marbles I still have.)

Anyway - Applications for the Napa Valley Writers Conference open March 1st, day after tomorrow ~ yessiree-bob!

I've lubed-up my eyeballs, cleared a space in my office for submissions and given the cat notice not to bug me; now I'm just waiting for apps to be lobbed over the transom. Well, can't lob over transom too well anymore, guess it's more like clicked through cyberspace.

Be that as it may: bring it on! 10 to 15 pages of fiction, your choice of author to work with....all the devine details to be found on the Napa website. I'm awaiting and the cat is getting buggy.

Napa News!

2011-02-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

A two'fer for Napa alumni:

Conference attendee (2009) Michael David Lukas' debut novel "The Oracle of Stamboul" was published this February by Harper Collins. Yahoooiee! Michael brought his first chapter to workshop; I'm sure those of us who had the privilege of reading it remember the opening scene: white and purple hoopoes flying over the town square as invading Russian troops gather for their assault on Constanta, a father racing to his wife's side as their daughter is born. A wonderful interweaving of plots and characters, of rising tension and a future unfolding. Reviewers have called it "a gem of a first novel," "a delight," "enchanting." This one is getting fast-tracked to the top of my reading-stack.

Plus, Reese Kwon, a Napa attenedee from that same summer, wrote a lively interview with Michael David Lukas that was published on The Rumpus.

Read and enjoy!

Imperfectly Perfect

2011-02-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

The day began grey and thick with rain, a downpour so dense folks were actually driving slowly this morning, unable to see even with the windshield wipers going double-time. The ditches ran wild, water poured off the drowned campus lawn and over sidewalks in sheets. Now the storm has moved off to drench the inland valley, and the 99.9% full moon rides high and fuzzy in a cold silvery sky.

I've returned all jazzed and snazzy from a talk given by Zoe Fitzgerald Carter at the Writers Forum here in Petaluma about her book, "Imperfect Endings." An accomplished writer and journalist with an important and timely story to tell, she urged us to stick to our voice and honor our story. And cut, cut, cut all unnecessary digressions, anything that doesn't relate directly to the story we want to tell. Check out her blog and this story from the Washinton Post for all the details of her story.

It's a perfect ending, though to this ragged day, inspiration at its finest.

Pie-Kudos

2011-02-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

Heart on a Tart

Today, just for a lark, I went down to Copperfield's, our local indie-bookstore, to participate in their First Ever Pie-Ku Contest. ¥es, indeedy, haiku about pie. Copperfield's had teamed up with the Petaluma Pie Company for this pre-Valentine's Day event. Prizes and and refreshments (pie, of course) were promised.

Well, it wasn't just a lark. Haven't been writing much lately. Felt like I had forgotten how. So, I figured I'd at least go hang out with some writers who are writing, see if that wouldn't prime the pump. Not to mention the prospect of free pie. Excellent pie, too. The Petaluma Pie Company knows pie. Everyone in a 50-mile radius should be planning their pie-pilgrimage right now. Oh, heck, within 500 miles.

It was a nice gathering in the bookstore, some youngsters but mostly oldsters, maybe twenty folks in all. Maybe five and twenty. But we weren't baked in a pie. Just writing about pie. We scribbled for about half an hour on 3 x 5 cards, groaning and chortling over our work, some of us collaborating. I finished about 6 or so pie-kus.

One of them was just plain silly:

Pies will be square when
pigs fly, cows jump over moons,
my spoon becomes your dish.

another was goofy:

Rolling the elastic crust
Layering apples, butter
Dark mood skedaddles.

and this one took the, err, pie. That is, it was deemed Most Romantic.

One cold afternoon
kitchen steamy, the aftermath
of sweet love, pie, you.

So there's my pie-kudo for the week. I'd love to see your pie-kus! Just post as a comment on Bacon Bits below.

Word for the Year

2011-01-17T23:45:00.000-08:00

Rather than drawing up a bunch of Resolutions for the New Year, poet Molly Fisk and her cadre of friends choose a Word for the Year, by-passing all the guilt and grief resolutions seem to bring. You might have heard her radio-essay on the subject on KVMR, up in Nevada City.

So, I've been thinking about this for, like, 20 freaking days, trying to come up with my word.

A Word for the Year should be carefully chosen, I figure, for it would have the ability to direct my attention and intention, in conscious and unconscious ways, towards something - maybe something productive and positive, if I choose well - or into a divergence, a distraction from what I'd like to accomplish. Definitely want to consider this with all due diligence; it could be a case of being careful what you wish for. (Another blogger, Busha Full of Grace, also contemplates this Word-for-the-Year thing and has some interesting points to make.)

"Walk" struck me as a good word, full of purpose and promise. Going for walks, considering my walk in life, two topics nagging the heck out of me already anyway. "Change" perhaps? Aaack, a trifle over-used and way too ambiguous. Molly and her compadres chose some good ones: precision, sing, ease, simplify, minimize, reach, pause. Good words, but taken. Somehow, I want my own word. I've considered: flying, fountain, wamble, expedition, truckin', abundance. None of them, (though I do love the idea of traveling and abundance sure would be handy) grab me. If I keep this up, the year will be over before I've made a choice. Par for my course; decisions flummox me.

Little things, like deciding where to go for dinner (and then, oh horrors! what to have) or which jacket I should wear to work, can hold me up for hours. Sometimes, standing in decision-fugue mode in front of the coat hooks, I'll grab three jackets, stuff them in the car, and hope I'll figure something out before I get to work. If I'm lucky, it will start raining and my decision will be made for me. With luck, I snagged a raincoat. That shop of 31 Flavors? I just about short-circuited. The easy solution there was to pick a favorite, Jamoca Almond Fudge, which worked until the day they ran out of it. Then I stopped going.

Big things - I won't even get into the long, drawn-out dramas that major life decisions engender; suffice it to say there is a reason why my hair is thin and patchy. I'm usually holding out to the very, very last minute, muddling myself up by considering each and every option, all permutations of possibilities, the what-ifs and maybes, until the urgent necessity to make the decision overrides my reluctance to commit to a plan. Perhaps that is my word: commit.

Well, no. Commitment is one part of the process. But I've been committed to creating this book for year now. What I'm really interested in is completing the damn thing. Decisions are hard, committing is harder, but following through and completing something is hardest of all. Let's say I figure out which jacket to wear. Returning home, I usually dump it on the nearest chair, never getting around to hanging it back up on the coat hook where it belongs. Meaning that, the next day, once I've finally made a decision to wear it (half an hour there), I then have to search for it (another 15 minutes). Late for work, again! I'm not famous for putting things back, completing a task, finishing up. Thousands of little projects are all over the house, in corners, in bags, in stacks, waiting patiently to be finished: bills to be paid; books to be read and reviewed, cushions to mend, curtains to hem; workshop plans created and submitted; blog posts, essays, novellas (3!), query letters to write.....so yep, I think thats the word: completion!

and hey, I've finally completed this task. One down, 999 to go.

1/11/11 at 11:11 pm - yes!

2011-01-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

Napa Valley Writers Conference - Faculty posted! Check it out!

1/11/11

2011-01-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

I have had the privilege of working on retreat in Pt Reyes Station these past few days, putting together a book proposal that I will send out this weekend. I swear.

Today began chilly with high white fog cover, a day that called for a wood stove, or at least a lot of baking. By mid-afternoon, the air seemed polished, the chill overcoming mist, hardening it. The sun, sliding invisibly to the west behind the thick cover, nevertheless blushed the icy air a light pink over a pale arctic blue. I layered up in fleece, down vest and bits of cashmere here and there (gloves, long scarf) and walked down the slight slope to the library, admiring the briskness of the afternoon. And then a drop here, a drop there; by the time I returned my book and picked up another one, the afternoon had warmed up to rain, not a fierce rain, but still rain. Darkness settled in as I wended my way the two blocks to downtown, then to walk the two blocks of town and return, a warmer and wetter darkness than the brittle cold I had started out in.

And in the same unexpected manner, still in the first rosy blush of the year, 2011 has had its first sea change. ( I may be on retreat, but I'm not off the interwebs.) I am not an astute political pundit, much of what I think is knee-jerk liberalism which is why I avoid political commentary on this blog. But some things can't be ignored. Some things go beyond the political and begin to challenge the very core of what we think it means to be an American, what it means to have a democracy.

My heart goes out to Senator Gifford and to her family, and to the families of Judge John Roll and the others killed or injured in the Tucson shootings on Saturday. I can't help but feel we are at some sort of tipping point here.

This is what I think: The Republican leadership has a responsibility to be leaders, to model how democracy works, to be on better behavior than drunks at a honky-tonk. They need to be their better selves, even if they do represent drunks at a honky-tonk. They need to show that America is a country of debate not disparagement, of law and votes, not guns. And they need to leave the honky tonk in the honky tonk and act as elected officials - that is, adults, not bullies on the playground.

Nuff said. Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Just revvin' for 2011

2011-01-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

Now that we are over the high hurdle and hump of the holidays (hooray for h'alliteration!), it's time to get back to business, or as late-night tv used to announce - and nooow! back to Maverick! Do they still do that anymore? Probably not. Once again, I'm guilty of using a catch-phrase well past its prime.

And by back to business, I mean prepping for the Napa Valley Writer's Conference. Yesiree, Bob! (who, by the way, is really not my uncle. Sorry.)

A quick bulletin ~ the fiction line-up for this summer:
Two returning: Lan Samantha Chang, from last summer, & Michelle Huneven, from several summers ago, plus two newbies to our conference (though no way are they newbies to writing): Adam Haslett & Daniel Alarcon. Okay, so is that the natural limit for using colons in one paragraph?

I've linked each author to one of their official websites; you can Wiki and Google it from there, I'm sure. With this mix of characters, it promises to be quite a dynamic conference. The new application will be posted soon!

And... if you are in the Bay Area (or need an excuse to be here), you can catch Daniel Alarcon reading with Chris Adrian and Yiyun Li at City Lights bookstore, January 19th, for the release of the book 20 Under 40.

Boy howdy, do I have some reading to do!

The Season of Bread

2011-01-01T16:53:00.000-08:00

Our holidays were blessed and bookended by loaves of most delicious bread, each baked (by coincidence, not a bake-off), via the cast-iron pan method @ 500 degrees.
Oh, yummity yummity yum!

New Year's Eve bread, baked and given to us by David "Shahabaddin" Durr, mouthwatering delicious just to look at. Can't even begin to describe the crackly yet tender crust, the delicate blend of whole grain and white flours, the sense of presence this bread brought with it. Just looking at it felt like a promise of a better year to come. And tasting it? oh, oooo, la-la. Definitely better already.

Christmas Eve bread baked and brought to us from our now-official daughter-in-law, Jessica, accompanied by delicious dipping sauce from son, Immy. Yeasty, tender, sublimely delicious, with the chewy-crisp crust only high heat can create, and an aroma out of this world, a righteous tribute to the Christmas season. Paired this with butter-bath chicken (hey, that's what the recipe called it) and the meal was one of the best of the year, hands down.

May we all be blessed with bread and roses, with sustenance and spirit, all seasoned well with laughter and joy for the year to come. And bread. Don't forget the bread.

Zenyatta: All About the Heart

2010-12-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

Zenyatta kickin' it.

And now we must consider Zenyatta, that magnificent filly, who inspired a loyal following even among folks not normally given to horse worship. Who raced her heart out for 19 races, socking all of them into the win column. Who, in going for her 20th straight win, made a claim for the ages. Who reads as a winner in everyone's heart, if not the record book - her final race a virtual tie, separated by six inches. For her glory was not just in winning, but in heart, in presence, in her ability to inspire others to stretch for the finish line, no matter how far away.

Her story is all over the internet; many of you might know it already. But my friend Elizabeth Whitney has been following her quite closely; she flew to Churchill Downs for that race and posted this very thoughtful and rousing account of the race on her blog, Beyond the Horizon: Into the Vortex

It's long, but so well-written and thoughtful and captures all of the threads feeding into this story. And she has great photos. Be sure to check out the photos.

Then, for more even info and pix, check out Steve Haskin's post (from Hangin' With Haskin): Zenyatta Stirs the Emotions.

Be sure to go to the last picture there to see a connection between the two.

I'm baaaaack...as a Thief

2010-11-29T22:59:00.000-08:00

...what better way to get back into the blogging saddle than sharing a most excellent blogpost:

The Thief and the Soloist: A Very Brief Taxonomy of Writers

In this fella's (Lev Grossman) taxonomy I have to declare myself a Thief. Whenever I find myself writing-blind, I'll open up a source text: Ron Carlson, say, or Yi Yun Li (The Vagrants, in particular), Michael Byers, Barry Lopez, etc and see how they do it. How they open a chapter, how they weave details and dialogue together, how they create echoes and harmonies with objects and places, how they construct such marvelous sentences, how they end the damn chapter. You'd think I'd end up with a clunky mish-mash of unrelated styles and disparate techniques, but what I find is that these out-sources just serve as a jumping-off place and through revision after revision, the bumps and lumps are smoothed out, the sight lines tightened and it all distills into my own approach.

However. I'll also use Tarot cards, throw the I Ching, sneak in a Chinese Fortune Cookie fortune, roll dice (those Dungeon and Dragons dice are great -so many sides, so many options!), steal plot lines from Dear Abby and otherwise grasp at straws. But whatever helps me survive the draft (as Ron Carlson says), right?

And if I can't write a blogpost myself, I'll piggyback off someone else's brilliant post.

No Direction at All

2010-11-14T22:41:00.000-08:00

In the interest of seeming more professional, I've been updating my profile in all the Webby places: FB, Goodreads, Linked In, etc., etc., just in case some poor fool wandering the Web-o-sphere might be looking for a relatively un-published writer upon whom they can bestow, well, what I wonder? A contract, I guess, for the book I haven't yet written.

I've been pretty good with the submission bios, keeping them short and sweet, sticking to the basic facts with only a smattering of truthiness. I don't believe in tarting up my accomps any more than I have to. Not fond of being coy or cutsey-wootsy either, so I avoid statements like: "when not herding cats the size of watermelons on the far reaches of the Canadian Prairies, LK writes with gremlin-sharpened egret feathers dipped in ink of a giant squid the better to capture the pure essence of...well, whatever." or " LK waits for the dog of inspiration to drop the well-chewed bone of contention into her lap; then gets busy." Even if it is true. Or, true-ish.

But my professional cv is rather slim, having been busy with other things. Too many other things.

So, to pad things up a bit, I'm tempted to use this:

Lakin Khan has been, in no particular order, a gymnast (though you wouldn't know that now), an atheist (until I had children), a violinist, a tool-and-die machine shop programmer back when we used punch-tape to code the instructions (believe it!), a waitress, a short-order cook, a restaurant owner, a swimmer, a tabla student of Allah Rakha and Zakir Hussein at the Ali Akbar College of Music, a freelance photographer with a wandering eye, a wedding photographer's assistant who never understood the old cake-in-the-face business, a photo-journalist, a wannabe-acolyte in the church of my own creation, an English major, a flute player, and for one year, a double-major in math and French; a half-assed wife, a worrier par excellance, a born-again agnostic and a Neo-pagan Evangelical Unitarian, one of those truly bad girlfriends, a good-enough mother, a Fictioneer and A Friend to Poets; a professor-wrangler, cat-handler, badger-worshipper; and every other Friday in June, a banjo-strumming nitpicker with misplaced mordant wit and a bad case of insomnia.

Just the usual writer resume, all over the place with no direction at all*.

* with thanks to Bobby Zimmerman.

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. For realles.

2010-10-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

If I was really, really goode Ich be riteing this all in Middle English, but since I ain't, that's just about all you're gonna get. However. Those of you who love Chaucer, Middle English and all things mashed-up will want to check out Brantley Bryant's Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. Hysterically funny, sometimes punny and always Chaucer-referential, the blog makes Speak Like a Pirate Day look like kindergarden while sending up everything pop-cultureish; then and now.

The blog became so popular, it becameth a booke.

For realles.

Molly Fisk's Kickstarter Essay Project

2010-10-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

So have you heard about Kickstarter? It looks like a mighty cool way to get projects funded in a very interweb-tastic way. The main premise is a person with a project figures out what financial support would be needed to get that project under way, like a play produced, a movie made a cd cut, a book published... then posts a description of the project, with goals, prospects, benchmarks, etc. on the Kickstarter website.

Also included: a plea for funds ... but not just any old plea. First of all, a goal is stated, $1,000, $149, $10,000...whatever the creator determines is needed to get the roll going. Secondly, a deadline. The money has to be raised by such-and-so date, otherwise it's a no-go, and the contributions are rescinded. Actually, your credit card isn't charged unless and until the goal is reached by deadline day. Thirdly, there are many sorts of enticements for contributors: a copy of the book, perhaps, or acknowledgement in the program, or a poem a day, or a personal signed copy of cd or dvd. The projects are multifarious and the enticements (rewards) all over the map. It's worth checking it out. Because it may give you hope, a good kick in the pants, to get that book finished, if there might be a way to fund its publication.

Molly's latest poetry book
pub: March, 2010

Here's a worthwhile project to start with: Molly Fisk's Kickstarter Essay Project. I first heard about Molly Fisk when friends of mine signed up for her Poetry Bootcamp and raved about it and her. It's just what it sounds like, too. Six days, six poems, get real. Like her poems, real.

But I'll let Molly tell you about her Kickstarter project:

"I'm an award-winning poet and I write weekly four-minute radio essays called Observations from a Working Poet for my local community station. I've written 215 of them so far, gratis. People love them, and I love writing them. They're haphazardly funny, poignant, fierce and/or edifying, and always thoughtful. And I have a good voice for radio. You can listen to one here as a podcast and see what you think. http://kvmr.org/programs/fisk/index.html "

Molly's Kickstarter is to match a $5,000 grant from Corporation for Public Broadcasting to market her book to radio stations, do readings, send out podcasts and CD's etc. She has until Oct 22nd and she is oh, so close! No donation is too little (a cool thing about Kickstarter) as every little bit adds up. So, check out the website, check out the project, donate if you are inclined or spread the word to any and all who might be so inclined. Let's get the ball rolling!

September: The Write Month

2010-10-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

September is always a busy literary month around here: The Petaluma Poetry Walk one weekend, the Sonoma County Book Festival another. It's loaded with literary birthdays, too: Euripides, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, Truman Capote - and that's just in the final week. Like any good writer, the month is unpredictable: tar-meltingly hot one week, cold as the proverbial witch's-whatever the next.

Last Saturday, I squeezed in a quick visit to the Book Festival, hoping to hear Abraham Verghese and Yiyun Li at the Santa Rosa Library and Robin Ekiss and Molly Fisk at the Poetry Tent. It was a cooker of a day, though not the hottest it's ever been. Still, hot is hot. Fortunately, the library lecture room had air conditioning. Unfortunately, by the time my tardy self got there, the lecture room was packed and the overflow crowd crouched in every bit of the shade on the garden patio, where an excellent sound system was set up. Verghese's voice was clear and distinct in the baked air; even as I melted on a corner of a stone bench, I felt I was melting for a darn good cause.

I'm in the middle of Verghese's novel "Cutting for Stone" now; I loved his two previous books, the memoirs/personal histories, "My Own Country" and "The Tennis Partner." Between him and Atul Gawande, we are rich in doctor-writers with most excellent prose and great stories to tell.

Yiyun Li

We should count Yiyun Li in that category as well; she was on her way to a PhD in Immunology before she made the (excellent, imo) switch to writing. I was third in line to get into the lecture room for her reading, you betcha. She read an excerpt from "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl," just published Sept 14th. It sounds like it might be a kinder-gentler world than that of her previous book "The Vagrants," which is a stunning work of art. Can't wait to read the new book (signed, of course!)

A bit later on, I wandered around the square in a heat-induced daze trying to find the Poetry Tent and bumped into (yes, quite literally) JJ Wilson (co-founder and leading spark of the festival) and we both agreed that Yiyun Li's work and writing is just brilliant. I confessed to her that when I'm stuck on a fiction piece, I'll pick up "The Vagrants," find a sentence and use it as a model for construction and inspiration; it gets me going again.

To my regret, I missed both my poet-friends; guess the heat melted my synpases, particularly those relating to spacial orientation, and cooked whatever meager concept of time was left to me. Apologies to Molly and Robin!

JJ and I are not the only ones who think Yiyun Li is the bee's knees ~ she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (in September!) as announced here on the NewsHour.

Links:

from WWW
The Rumpus
MacArthur Fellow

Last Call from Wellspring?

2010-09-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

Some of my best times over the past few years, whether writing or relaxing, have been at a unique, though not secret, location in Mendocino County, the Wellspring Renewal Center. Now I've received some sad news. They are closing. I am bereft.

We all know the economy has been hitting everyone hard, particularly non-profits. Like many institutions, Wellspring has always had to work to keep their outgo covered by their income. It seems that it has at last become insurmountable and after 30 years of operation, their board made the difficult decision to fold up the tents and turn out the lights.

I imagine that letting go of the book-balancing struggle is a relief in itself. But the place will be sorely missed by so many people. Moi, especially. It was my own Writers Residency that I was always accepted to; it was a retreat to the soul-healing woods when I and the Captain (aka Nearly Normal Norm) needed a respite from work, family, suburban noise and strife.

It's where the cabin porch always beckoned.

Where the swimming hole had its own friendly beast.

Where I found an abandoned car in the forest.

It's also where the Captain and I shared our cabin with a bat, but that's another story, and sadly enough, I have no pictures of that. "What in flaming blazes was that?" and "Shoo, bat, shoo!" plus a frantic, high-pitched discussion about whether lights would attract or scare away flying rodents figured largely in that story. Eventually the poor beast found it's way out the opened door, and the next morning the staff treated us with that dignity reserved for suburban folk not used to country life, while patching the hole right away.

Actually, these were, in general, nice bats, important in maintaining an acceptable level of insect life nearby. The next night, the Capt. and I sat on the porch at twilight and watched them swing out and around the meadow scooping up all those annoying flying critters and we were content. Especially since the bats weren't using our cabin as home base.

There are more stories of course: the nightly call of owls, the sight of rabbits and herons, the amusing activities of the acorn woodpeckers and stellar jays - some of which I have told already. There were moments of poetry and moments of quiet companionship; there were times of insight and contentment only possible when the frantic buzz of our electronically-mediated world has seeped away. It will be difficult to replace this retreat in my life.

Wellspring will stay open through the fall season, until October 30th. Which means, if anyone is interested, there might still be time for one more visit, one more writers retreat. I'm plotting and planning right now.

Attitudes Not Platitudes

2010-09-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

The Goddess of Green Lights woke up on the wrong side of bed yesterday morning. So I had plenty of time to read all the bumper stickers on the dark green Mustang convertible in front of me, as we hit red light after red light on my way out of Petaluma to work.

I’d Tell You to Go to Hell But I Work There (and I don’t want to see you everyday)

How About a Big Cup of Shut The F**k Up

It’s been 365 Days Since I Gave a Sh*t.

I Used to be F**king Stupid But Then We Broke Up.

Who the f’ing hell drove this car? Tried as I did, I never got a good look at the driver and there wasn’t a passenger to give me any auxillary clues. The car didn’t pull into SSU as I assumed it would (had to be a student, right?), so I wasn’t able to park nearby to get a good look. Drat and dagnabbit!

I really wanted to know who drove that car. Would the persona created from the bumpersticker ‘tudes match the person who actually got out of the car? A fellow or gal as aggressive and rude as the stickers, short hair with a confrontational stance perhaps, with loud, even cruel, laughter? Or reserved, with a small ever-present smirk and few, though pointed, comments? Would he/she be constipated? Why do I think this car belonged to a fella?

Or would the driver be against type? Mild-mannered, the proverbial “nice, quiet, never any trouble” kind of guy yet seething on the inside, bones buried in the back yard, a secret room filled with the photos and trophies of a stalker. Were these bumper stickers meant in all irony? Perhaps it was an uncle’s car and they were somewhat embarrassed to be driving it. Maybe the bumperstickers were the only things available when rust spots began showing up. A soccer mom with a hidden message for the coach?

Near the key-lock for the trunk, sort of the center for all the wordy messages, was a sunbleached image of a Native American dreamcatcher with a superimposed wolf’s head in the middle and large feathers or long wooly tails hanging down. Now -- does this add depth and dimension to the character, create empathy? Does it blend with the messages or add a different, contradictory flavor? Or does it read as erroneous, something that came with the car (assuming it was second hand), or that someone stuck on as a joke?

Who do you see driving this car?

Major Jackson

2010-08-31T23:02:00.000-07:00

Major Jackson and Vicki Zubovic

The best thing about conferences: getting to meet fabulous writers and poets.

This conference, for me, it was the poet Major Jackson.

(I love this picture, even if I did take it myself. The smiles say it all.)

There is no question that Major Jackson is a formidable poet and a master of form. He's also an engaging, personable speaker, both as a reader of his own work and as a lecturer during the craft-talk at the NVWC. His reading at Mondavi took us everywhere: The Frost House in New England, the b'ball courts in his Philly neighborhood, a long chat with Gwendlyn Brooks. He read some poems from his just -about-to-be-published book, "Holding Company," and some from "Hoops." While some of the poems in the latter book soar and bounce with the jump-shot rhythm of basketball (Hank Gathers, Moose), the second half is a 70-page epistolary poem to Gwendolyn Brooks in rhyme royal. Like I said, a master.

Poetry of Place in Pt Reyes

2010-08-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

Next weekend, Brenda and Bob will be in the house. Not the house, exactly, but nearby. In Pt Reyes, out in West County (Marin). So I'm going. How could I not? The coast, the town, the poets, Toby's Feed Barn. (there's a link to the local weather on the FeedBarn site. Very useful if you're planning a day out there.) Cowgirl Creamery, too, but let's not get distracted by cheese.

I'm planning take Brenda's book, Cascadia, with me....but when I went looking to see what I have of Bob Hass's, I realized that most of my poetry books are still packed up. In the basement! Gaaaaack!!!

Though this does give me the excuse to pick up some more books.

So check it out....Brenda Hillman, Bob Hass: Reading in Pt Reyes. See you there? In spirit, maybe?

Running Hot, Then Cold

2010-08-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

It was so hot on Monday (100+ degrees), all I could think about was winter. Not just the mamby-pamby winter of the West Coast either, but deep winter. With refrigerant.

From the freewrite that night:

Winter echoes

Eaves plip, drip into soft snowdrifts

gritty along the crest,

The creak of ice over black branches, the

tight squeak of snow compressed under red boots

portals to our discontents.

And now, four days later, it might not break 80 degrees. No wonder our tomatoes are going nutz. During the three day heat-blast, several of our green tomatoes were cooked right on the vine, squishy and soft and warm. Ruined and sorta gross. And many more were sunburnt, semi-circles of crisp skin along their shoulders stretched paper-thin over green pulp. Don’t know if those will ripen or are permanently wrecked. Maybe it’s time to find some green tomato recipes.

Sigh.

I should say though, that the tomatoes in the straw-and-compost sandwich bed are in the best shape. Slow, of course, just barely coming in, but tasty. Fortunately, they get some late afternoon shade, so they weren’t heat damaged.

The Bookself

2010-08-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

Some might notice, over to the right, a blogroll that is slowly increasing. It's my collection of blogs from Napa Valley Writer's Conference participants, faculty, staff....anyone, actually, with any sort of relationship to the conference. I try to introduce them as I add them, but don't always manage that.

I just discovered Joan's blog The Bookself ...with some great posts about the NVWC conference and a truly hysterical (I think, anyway) staff photo. Not sure they'd run it on the website, but it cracks me up just looking at it; we were all rather punchy by then - as you might be able to tell.

Joan published quite a few posts from the conference, with perceptive and astute notes from the craft talks and workshops and some really good photos. Seriously. And she has a nice collection of blogs from Agents and Publishers, worthy of cruising, if anyone is so inclined.

So, check it out.

Lady GaGa - Library Fan?

2010-08-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

In honor of Lady Ga Ga being in town, I had to post this YouTube of the

Lady La La's

just check it out, if you love a librarian. Or a good library.

Held Breath

2010-08-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

These are the dog-days of August, the lull between the high activities of summer proper and the fall semester looming ahead. Usually, these are hot and even sultry days, but this year we awaken to leaden, fog-cold mornings and wait impatiently, bundled in sweatshirts, wool socks and fleece, for the heat of short afternoons.

Slow, even listless days. The very air is still; the campus silent with quietness of a held breath. No students chattering in the courtyards or calling across the quad; no bustle as throngs troop down the hallways, no lines (savor that!) at Charlie’s or Toast; no bands blaring at noon.

Walking along Salazar Hall, I miss the squeaky, buzzy swallows, their mud nests for the most part empty except the few hardy couples double-clutching, raising a second brood. The rest of the swallows, oldsters and youngsters, have decamped to begin the long trek to South America for the winter. Midday, I take the path over the little knoll to sit on a wide bench at the top edge of the Alumni Amphitheater grove just as the fog thins to blue. I welcome this lull, this silence, this held breath. Even the poplar trees are merely whispering in the faint occasional lackluster stirrings of air.

Juv. Cooper's hawk, photo: Becky Olsen

All last month, though, this small grove of poplar, pine and oak, was a noisy nursery for a clutch of Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii) fledglings. Becky Olsen in Financial Services had been keeping an eagle (ooops) eye on the nest since mid-spring, when a pair of hawks had taken up residence the large oak. One day last May, on a bird walk about campus, she took several of us to the south side of Salazar. “Stand right about here, “she said, directing our binoculars to the top of the majestic oak, “look into the middle of that dark section there.” And there it was, a very large collection of sticks and twigs, the work of several seasons. Truly, if you did not know the nest was there, it wasn’t.

After that, I planned my walk-about routes to pass by it. Several times, I saw the swoop of a parent hawk, mostly brown from my viewpoint, bringing tidbits to the nest. And every so often, I would see one perched on the branches of nearby trees, as still as could be. And then, in early July, I saw a fuzzy, white something poking over the edge of the nest: hatchlings!

Juv. Cooper's Hawk. Photo: Becky Olsen

By mid-July, they were fledglings and were hopping around the branches of the oak (known as branching); then, as they got the hang of flight, in nearby trees. And not just one, three! Quel surprise! Each day, they flapped a bit further, all the while begging keee!kee!keee! for tasty morsels. The parents were having a time of it, reminding me of the endless grocery runs when there were teens in my house. The Cooper’s hawks certainly picked their nest-site well. Their market is right next door, under the eaves of Salazar, for the main prey of Cooper’s hawks are small birds, though they are willing to vary their diet with little mammals and lizards if the opportunity presents itself, or if necessary.

The Cooper’s hawk is one of three species of Accipiters, the long-tailed, blunt winged, forest-dwelling group of hawks. They are swift, agile birds, designed to dodge through trees after their flying prey. Elegant and dignified in adulthood they are, with a slate-gray back (lending them the nickname big blue darter), ruddy-brown and white ribbing underneath and bright red eyes-though I have yet to see those with my own peepers. The young begin as those outrageous white puff balls that morph into yellow-eyed juvies, with barred brown-and-cream plumage

It’s thrilling to see these hawks on campus; they are every inch dignified and regal birds. And they have skirted the edge of extinction several times. They were once the bane of farmers, who thought they were drawn to chickens (thus dubbed “chicken hawk”) and thus hunted to dangerously low populations in the late 1800’s. In the mid-1900’s, they (along with so many other birds of prey), suffered from the ravages of DDT, which led to fragile-shelled eggs and the loss of several generations. Now they face loss of habitat as the wild woodlands are leveled or logged.

But they are doing their best to adapt. Once considered reclusive, to be found only it forests far from human habitation (gee, I don’t know why) Cooper’s hawks have been seen scouting and snacking at suburban bird feeders and even in urban parks. So it’s not that surprising that they nest here, in this park-like setting, with a ready supply of swallows, and people who leave them alone.

And though the bird-parents are done for the season, resting on their laurels, enjoying the peace and quiet, we will be faced with all the human fledglings, due to arrive in a week. Maybe they'll bring some hot weather with them.

more details on Cooper's hawks:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Coopers_Hawk/id

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper's_Hawk

http://www.wbu.com/chipperwoods/photos/coophawk.htm

From Napa Hills to Pt Reyes Bookstore

2010-08-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing quite like starting the day contemplating poetry and ending it with a reading. (Conferences are good for that!) Trying to do the former as often as possible, and always on the lookout for the latter.*

Here's a morning-kickstart poem from Brenda Hillman's "Cascadia."

The Rise of the Napa Hills

The sea has receded a little. Mild layers stack up

without panic, like e-mail. Twin frenzied suns watch the ocean

sediments settle under Oakville Grocer. Flittery

strings tied to the tops of young vines shimmer two versions of

the actual: red, white. The curfew vintner walks below,

tapping smooth metal vats with a spoon. He asks them the twelve

questions: Did you love your life? How 'bout now? Can you recite

the table of sunsets? Did the weather wait for you? Did

you wait back? When he shook before the world did you shake too?

Did you fall in the milky sunshine? Do you hear their

gritty theories still? Would you like a drink? Can you live in

two directions with border guards? You're not answering.

Why didn't you fight more? Didn't you love being bad?

Love the 12 Questions! and "flittery strings...shimmer two versions of the actual"

Talking as we were about Lab Lit, it's cool to note that Brenda's work is rich with all aspects of science, primarily geology in this poem. Yet "two versions of the actual" lead us to contemplate what is beyond the tangible world.

* as for an evening reading, Brenda Hillman and Bob Hass will be at Pt Reyes Bookstore on Sept 4th, at a benefit for West Marin Review. So ... supporting the local arts, and hearing the great poets of our age.
What's not to like?
I'll be there, foursquare.

Funny It Ain't

2010-08-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

Wrote a limerick for the Martini House Gang...and then realized why it wasn't much good. Just not funny. Can't be a limerick if there aren't any guffaws; the very structure of a limerick refuses any sort of seriousness. So this below might engender a quick smirk or two, but there's no real humor.

After 10 p.m. in the town of St Helena

no meal can be found, hi-fat or leana

'cept at the gas station mini-mart

there are bagel-dogs and apple-tarts

that we purchase from a counter-clerk named Tina.

Now, the task before me: funny this limerick up.

Science in Literature

2010-08-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently, it's a whole new genre, science in fiction -- as opposed to science fiction, that is. And here's a website devoted to it: Lab Lit.

Who knew?

2010-08-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I've done little except nap and read and try to recover my good senses, such as they are. After such intense experiences (the conference, wedding, readings,etc.), it's as if I have to crouch under a blanket and block all incoming input for a day or two. Nothing new, please! my system demands, I'm not done with the old stuff. No conversation, no hot discussions, sometimes not even music; I have to damper myself down.

So this weekend, I've bounced between reading a novel, taking 3 and 4 hour naps and lounging on the hammock with my new poetry books. And by bouncing, I mean dropping the book over my face as I fade into dreamland, or wavering down the back stairs to the hammock with a pillow, a blanket and a cup of tea. It feels wickedly indulgent. Especially the not talking to anyone part.

I'm adoring "Percival's Planet", Michael Byer's latest novel. The four storylines seem so far apart at the start; it's fascinating to see the little ways they begin to connect, pulling the web of the novel together. Like seeing the stars that you know make a constellation; first they are just bright, unconnected stars in a loose array at some section of the sky; then you begin to see the faint lines - then the whole constellation pops into place.

The characters, the place, the time, all are so loving wrought and evoked; I just fall into it. But I'm also kind of a sucker for science in literature. It's a huge chunk of what we know, for one thing; it's fascinating for another. And even though most of the math is astronomically (not sorry) over my head in this book, I don't have to parse out the equations, there will be no test; I get the gist of it enough to follow the story. And I love just hearing about the math and physics, seeing how it's used. The language of it. The derivation of linear least squares, the residuals. the complex laws of orbital resonances. I love that Byers includes all the mechanics of grinding the glass lenses, the Carborundum, the iron sesquioxide and the structure of telescopes; that he has shows us the unrelenting grind of most scientific work and the politics that swirl around discoveries.

But it's not just about deep sky; there are also dinosaurs involved. Deep time.

Napa Recovery Week

2010-08-06T16:45:00.001-07:00

As you might guess, I was way too busy and having far too much fun at the NVWC to post here. But other people not only worked hard, had fun, wrote a ton but posted, too. So here's a link to the fine blog of one of our fictioneers: Fog City Writer.

But I did take a few photos:

Brenda Hillman, Mary Shea and Andrea Bewick

Ron Carlson and workshoppees at Thursday's picnic

At the lobby table: considering plot, character or what's for lunch?

*Jiminey Cricket… I am my own 10,000th hit. Wanted to offer a prize to such a person, but of course had no way to figure out how to make that happen. Guess the universe responded...

30th Anniversary Reading & Lecture Series — July 25–30, 2010

2010-07-24T00:47:00.000-07:00

The Napa Valley Writers’ Conference presents:

In honor of the conference’s 30th year, we’re planning a party! Join us Tuesday, July 27, at 6 pm, at the new Educational Center for the Performing Arts at Napa Valley College for a literary celebration.

Hors d’oeuvres and wine will be served, and the evening program will include reflections on the conference’s 30-year history. In addition, a tribute will be offered to the late Dr. Chris McCarthy, who was president of Napa Valley College and a major supporter of the conference. The evening will conclude with readings by 2010 conference faculty members Curtis Sittenfeld, best-selling author of Prep and American Wife, and poet C.D. Wright.

The full schedule of faculty lectures and readings for the 2010 Napa Valley Writers’ Conference is as follows:

Sunday, July 25

*   7:30 pm Wine reception and reading with poet Arthur Sze and fiction writer Michael Byers, Napa Valley College Upper Valley Campus, St. Helena

Monday, July 26

*   9 am: Poetry lecture by C.D. Wright, Upper Valley Campus
*   1:30 pm: Fiction lecture by Lan Samantha Chang, Upper Valley Campus
*   7:30 pm: Wine reception and reading with poet Major Jackson and fiction writer Ron Carlson, Robert Mondavi Winery, Oakville

Tuesday, July 27

*   9 am — Poetry lecture by Brenda Hillman, Upper Valley Campus
*   1:30 pm — Fiction lecture by Michael Byers, Upper Valley Campus
*   6 pm — 30th anniversary gala reception, Educational Center for the Performing Arts, Napa Valley College, Napa
*   7:30 pm — 30th anniversary program and reading by poet C.D. Wright and fiction writer Curtis Sittenfeld, Educational Center for the Performing Arts, Napa Valley College

Wednesday, July 28

*   9 am – Poetry lecture by Arthur Sze, Upper Valley Campus
*   1:30 pm – Fiction lecture by Ron Carlson, Upper Valley Campus

Thursday, July 29

*   9 am – Poetry lecture by Major Jackson
*   1:30 pm – Fiction lecture by Curtis Sittenfeld
*   7:30 pm – Wine reception and reading with poet Brenda Hillman and fiction writer Lan Samantha Chang, Beringer Vineyards, St. Helena

Tickets

Admission to the July 27 gala costs $25 for the reception and reading; make reservations prior to July 20 by calling (707) 967-2900 x1611 or emailing writecon@napavalley.edu<mailto:writecon@napavalley.edu>. Tickets for the reading only will be sold at the door after 7 pm and cost $10.

Admission to all other evening readings costs $10, payable at the door. Admission to the daytime lectures may be purchased at the door and costs $25 apiece, $90 for the four-lecture series in either poetry or fiction, or $175 for all eight lectures. Students with valid student IDs will be admitted free of charge to all lectures and evening readings.

About the Faculty

Michael Byers is the author of the novels Long for this World and the forthcoming Percival’s Planet, as well as the story collection The Coast of Good Intentions. His books were named New York Times Notable Books, and his stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and the O. Henry Awards. He has won a Whiting Award and the Sue Kauffman Prize. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, he currently teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Ron Carlson is the author of ten books of fiction, most recently the novel, The Signal. Previous work includes Five Skies, At the Jim Bridger, and The Hotel Eden. His work is included in many anthologies, including the O. Henry Prize Stories and Best American Short Stories. In 2006, GQ Magazine called him “one of the great things about America.” Carlson is currently director of the graduate writing program at UC Irvine.

Lan Samantha Chang is the author of the novels Inheritance and the forthcoming All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, as well as the story collection Hunger, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award. Her fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The Atlantic and Best American Short Stories. She is currently director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Brenda Hillman’s eighth book of poems, Practical Water, won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry. Named by Poets and Writers to a list of the 50 most inspiring authors in the world, she is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary’s College and an activist with Code Pink.

Major Jackson is the author of three collections of poetry: Holding Company, forthcoming in August; Leaving Saturn; and Hoops, which was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literature: Poetry. He is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at the University of Vermont and the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the bestselling novels American Wife, Prep and The Man of My Dreams. Prep was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2005 by the the New York Times, nominated for the UK’s Orange Prize, and optioned by Paramount Pictures. Her work has appeared in many publications including Salon, The Atlantic and on public radio’s “This American Life.”

Arthur Sze’s acclaimed collections of poetry include Quipu and The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998. He won the Western States Book Award in Translation for The Silk Dragon: Translations of Chinese Poetry. For over twenty years, he has taught as a professor of creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.

C.D. Wright’s poetry collections include Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil and Deepstep Come Shining. Her other works include One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana (2003), with photographer Deborah Luster. A poetry professor at Brown and co-editor of Lost Roads Press, she won the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize for her collection Rising, Falling, Hovering.

Napa Valley Writers’ Conference
Napa Valley College · 1088 College Avenue · St. Helena, CA 94574
Phone 707-967-2900 x1611 · Fax 707-967-2909 · writecon@napavalley.edu

Napa Conference, go go!

2010-07-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

I was in St Helena today for conference prep; very pleasant, in the mid - 80s, buffered by fog in the morning that didn't burn off until mid-morning. Forecast, for what it's worth, calls for more of the same, with Sunday the 25th, being the coolest, maybe not even 80. The nights will go down to the 50's! So layers, folks, layers.

Hot Week, Full Moon.

2010-07-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

A week to go til conference-time: yep! yep!

Pulled up the extended weather report for St Helena for conference week.
Looks like temps will run from the mid- to high 90's. Hot, but not too hot.

But hey, it cools down at night.
Unlike some places in the country.

Plus the full moon on Sunday, July 25th.
Perfect for the plein-air reading that first night on the lawn.

Looks to be a grand week.

Of course the forecast could be off by several degrees in either direction.
But the moon will still be full.

Will I still be talking in couplets on Sunday?
Bets are being taken.

Winner treats at Ana's Cantina.

Curtis Sittenfeld

2010-07-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

I can't help myself, I'm addicted, I'm cruising all around the InterSchnitzels looking for tidbits about or by our NVWC crew of writers. But hey, research pays, check out this piece in the New York Magazine by Curtis Sittenfeld. A lively and sassy interview of two other authors, Meghan Daum and Emily Gould.

I was so completely impressed by "American Wife," Sittenfeld's latest novel. She has managed to create a book that is irrefutably fiction, yet offers insight into one of the most puzzling marriages in recent history, that of George and Laura Bush. It is a remarkable feat, this blend of imagining and inventing that brings understanding. There's plenty of discussion around and about it, too - as you might imagine. See what they say, starting here.

This is for the poets and those who love them

2010-07-14T22:52:00.000-07:00

...for those interested in a sneak preview to the NVWC, Brenda Hillman, one of our distinguished faculty at NVWC this summer, will be reading in SF this Friday, July 16th at a benefit for our friendly competitor, (cough, cough),The Squaw Valley Writers Conference. Of course, you have to be pretty local to make this one, but still. The reading is in honor of the great Lucille Clifton, the money goes to benefit The Poets Scholarship Fund and she's in great company: Forrest Gander (previous faculty at NVWC, also!), Kazim Ali, Evie Shockley and Dean Young.

Busy, busy summer.

Byers Breakdown

2010-07-11T22:39:00.000-07:00

Endless research on Michael Byers while avoiding actual productive work has gifted me with these two gems:

Hot Metal Bridge - an interview with Michael in this literary journal of University of Pittsburgh, where he taught for three years. Solid interview, which I will quote from, I swear, in my introduction at the conference. Also an awesome list of lit journals, ripe for the submitting. Go! - take your pick.

5Chapters - Holy Dickens, Batman....the daily serial is making a comeback. Check this out: one five chapter story per week, a chapter posted each week day. Brilliant! M. Byers has a story here, too, that involves a man plotting to kill his wife, one kangaroo and a pair of elderly lions. I know there are readers out there who have material to submit. So do it!

One Ron Carlson, One Story

2010-07-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

Don't know how many folks out there are One Story fans.... but I love 'em. It's like getting the New Yorker without all the ads or the extraneous non-fiction stuff. Just the story, ma'am, every three weeks. Check it out.

But wait, there's more.

For the 99th and100th issue (a few years back) they published one of Ron Carlson's stories, Beanball, as a deluxe, hand-press issue. Yes, our Ron Carlson, who's on faculty with the Napa Valley Writers Conference. Pretty darn cool, eh?

Napa Valley Writers Conference

2010-07-05T21:31:00.000-07:00

The workshops for Napa Valley Writers Conference have been created, the manuscripts are being uploaded (for the most part); let the games begin! Anyone who hasn't logged into their workshops's Google Group, time to get cracking--you've got reading to do!

And as a tidbit for all you workshoppers, here's a link to Kathy Stevenson's post about her first residency at Bennington. It's is just about too funny... and sooo true. Enjoy!

More constructing...

2010-07-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

...going on. A new look for a new month. Not a terribly edgy, just a somewhat eggy, look.

Voice of the River Reading! July 1st!

2010-06-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Petaluma has a river that runs through it? Come by the Petaluma Arts Center Thursday, July 1st for an evening of poetry and prose about said river.Starts at 7 p.m. Readers are contributors to the The Voice of the River Book created by Patti Trimble and Susan Starbird as part of an ongoing P. River consciousness-raising project. Yours truly, among many others, is one of those readers. Free to the public.

Summer is for Bloggin'

2010-06-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

Hotter than a pistol today. Yesterday too. Summer's arrived, skipping right over spring, which wasn't much of anything anyway. By hotter than a pistol I mean one that was recently discharged, like at least mid-90's, probably hotter. My working-studio faces west and I can feel the air heating up in the room right now, expanding, pressing on my eyeballs, fuzzing up my brain. I've penciled in a siesta starting in 20 minutes, so I hope to snooze through the worst of it. It's the only way to survive. Now if I could only get work to agree to this most sensible of plans.

I've been collecting the blogs of Napa Valley Writers Conference attendees past and present, faculty, staff and workshoppers. (see sidebar) I just added links for Michael Byers (Finding Pluto), Janet Miller (Persistent Unwanted Thoughts), Sandra Vahtel (The Sweet and the Sour). If any of you readers are NVWC attendee of any stripe and want to be included, let me know in the comments and I'll load you up. I'd love to get this to be about 50 blogs long.

Time to peace out; I'm breaking a sweat just typing. Catch you all on the flip side.

Under Construction....

2010-06-11T10:56:00.000-07:00

yes. I've been messing around with the template! please bear with me....I'll find something a little less busy, bland, neophyte, whatever...soon. I think.

Napa Valley Writers Conference Link

2010-06-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

A very nice article about the Napa Valley Writers Conference, which is celebrating it's 30-Year Anniversary. Includes some history and famous names.
Napa Valley Register

Aram's Last Supper

2010-06-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

(more photos)

Our favorite cafe and restaurant , Aram's, closed Friday night. We knew it was going to happen, just not when. Armenian to the core, it was my favorite place to hang out and not just because I loved William Saroyan's work or the Armenian Coffee that arrived at the table, steaming hot, in long-handled coffee pots, waiting to be knocked down ( 3 x 3 knocks, I had been taught once) and the slightly sweetened brew poured off, leaving the ubiquitous sludge at the bottom. The food was delicious, yes, absolutely. But the atmosphere was, too. The staff (Jenny, Stephanie, Carol, Kelsey and several others whose names have escaped my rattle-trap brain) tended to stick around, the sign of good treatment by management and customers alike. It was a community affair; customers were loyal and local. We were a type, the Aram's Krew. If we weren't friends already, we'd become so over the years; we could recognize others of our ilk in any crowd.

We changed our plans to be there Friday night for our last opportunity for Armenian Pomegranate Chicken, Shawarma and the particularly fine feta in their Greek Salad. More photos here of the place and people.

The staff will stay on for the new restaurant, Avatar's Punjabi Burrito; as long as I can commandeer my favorite table by the windows and Pomegranate Chicken stays on the menu, I'll be there.

A Random Plank

2010-06-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

A week ago Saturday was a bright day, hot for the first time this spring (or so it seems), the sky as blue as could be, endlessly blue. A day of de-clutttering and arranging, of uprooting crap from the basement and planting tender starts into welcoming soil. I even got around to clearing a bunch of stuff out of the studio -- it's become another collecting point again, an eddy in the river of crap that runs through our house, garage, yard.

Remember that Get Rid of 100 Things a Week project? That diet plan for my Inner Hoarder? The good news is that Saturday I managed to get rid of almost 100 things, if you count each hanger I took to Saks Thrift Avenue, that is.

But my reward for clearing out the crap was a trip with my sis to Heritage Salvage in Petaluma for garden supplies. This is like going out for chocolate cake and ice cream to celebrate losing two pounds. But we had a list and we'd stick to it, dammit: cinder blocks, a metal structure (bedframe, wire fencing) as a trellis for the clematis clinging desperately to the back deck, border-edging for the garden path. Didn't find any affordable metal trellis work, but we scored on cinder blocks and cadged a deal on edging rocks, red stone cut into long, roughly rectangular blocks.

Then a 7-foot long, 16-inch wide crappy looking plank called to me. It was splintery, weathered-grey, with surface splits and thin patches of ancient white paint here and there. The edges and corners practically ate our hands. But to me it had charm and character; it deserved to be rescued. With a bit of scraping, sanding and filing, I figured, it would be a fine, if very rustic, bench for my backyard.

And so it is becoming. The WP* was impressed with the plank's dimensions and suspected it might be old redwood; using the full complement of power tools at his disposal, he spent a good part of the weekend sanding, smoothing, patching and and then sanding that plank again. After three coats of spar varnish this week, the old, splintered, cracked piece of redwood (which is what it revealed itself to be) will be installed as a handsome garden bench, no splinters for the unwary behind or careless hand.

So. I dumped 100 things, purchased 24, ended up with a net loss of 76 things. And if the items I brought home have an immediate purpose and are a delight to behold, they don't count as clutter, right? right?

"Why take pictures of a plain plank when such a handsome, debonair cat-about-town is close by?"

*Wonderful Partner

Bird Walking with Becky Olsen

2010-05-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

One of the long-lasting effects from the last Staff Appreciation Day were the extra lunch-hour workshop sessions held over the year. One such was the Bird Walk led by Becky Olsen from Financial Services about two weeks ago. She's an experienced, excellent and enthusiastic birder who has been keeping an eagle (sorry) eye on birds in, around or flying over campus for fifteen years or so. She told us, as we gathered on the north patio of the commons, that she's seen over 100 different species of birds on campus during those years including resident birds, temporarily resident (wintering over or here for the breeding season) and migratory birds, aka "fly-overs." She's also been a long-time volunteer at the Bird Rescue Center for Sonoma County.

Becky led our merry (though shhh! quiet!) band of five from the commons along the paved path toward the creek. We stopped by the palm trees near the pond, looking for a hooded oriole, a bright yellow bird that I'd never seen before and didn't then either. (But I did on the walk back, thanks, Becky!) Just before the walking bridge, we took a jog to the west to watch a family of chickadees flit around some low bushes -- actually, the parents flitted around while the three or four kids (they all moved too fast to be counted) clutched skinny twigs and begged: dee, dee, dee, dee!

Chestnut-backed chickadees (Poecile rufescens) are plucky year round residents, living, breeding and raising their kids in the heart of Wine Country and on our campus. They are active, inquisitive, chattery, amusing little critters, about 4.5 inches long on a good day, feeding on insects when they can get them and seeds when they can't. In the fall, they'll cache seeds, storing them against the meager fare of winter. It's been estimated that one chickadee can hide and remember up to a hundred thousand seeds in a season. Bird brain indeed! I can barely remember where my 10 keys are at any given time and they're all on the same ring.

During the fall and winter, when chickadees cache and retrieve seeds, the hippocampus of their little birdy-brains expands; in spring and summer, when they no longer need that info, it shrinks down to normal. Certainly gives credance to the motto "use it or lose it," as it applies to brains. Time to break out the crossword and jigsaw puzzles, folks, take up a new language, find that guitar in the back of the closet and take lessons again.

There are seven species of chickadees in North America: Black-capped, Carolina, Mountain, Boreal, Mexican, Grey-headed and our Chestnut-backed, with little overlap in territories. Most are various arrangements of grey, black, buff, russet-red and white. Ours sports a dapper chestnut-colored back and flanks, appearing at times to wear a very dashing suit coat with grey sleeves, or perhaps a tasteful russet-hued vest for the holidays. With strong legs and feet, chickadees often hang upside down as they forage, which is somehow quite endearing. They are perching birds (passerines) and quite social in nature, existing in loose flocks of several chickadee families, as well as in mixed foraging flocks composed of warblers or bushtits. They often share territory with downy woodpeckers and nuthatches. But for all their tiny size, they are spunky and not easily intimidated; they've been known to mob predators such as owls or hawks.

Chickadees are cavity-nesters, often commandeering old woodpecker holes in trees. As our small birding band backtracked east and wandered along the creek toward the butterfly garden, Becky pointed out a snag -- an old, mostly leafless, tree trunk leaning over the creek. Near the top was a nice-sized round hole and within moments, a chickadee had flown into it and then after a bit popped out, flying off immediately. "Babies are still in there," Becky said, "hungry babies." Within the hole, there might be a nest similar to the photo below (courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), moss and strips of bark providing structural support on the outside, soft animal fur, hair and even feathers, providing coziness on the inside.

Fascinating to think that while we're busy in our offices and class rooms, contemplating numbers and philosophies, examining theories and texts, balancing budgets and signing contracts, these little chickadee families are thriving in the bushes and trees along our fringes, hatching and raising their youngsters, teaching them how to find tasty bugs and save seeds, how to evade predators, how to sing, find a mate and thrive.

Everywhere you look, brains are working, critters are learning.

More links for thought:

Madrone Audubon Society
Hiding seeds, Black-capped Chickadees
Hippocampus and the Chickadee
Cornell Lab of Ornithology

2010-05-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

We tried a new method of gardening this weekend, one designed to spare the backs and knees of the boomer generation. It's a variation of the Lasagna Lawn, though I call it Compost Layer Cake Gardening, or alternatively, Compost Cookie gardening. The best part? No digging involved. The next best part? Water thrifty. I heard about it from my Garden Maven friend whose mom emailed her this article from the LA Times. It sounded easy ... and it was. Really, really, really, no digging, just hoisting a few bales and hauling some sacks of amendments around.

So, for the Compost Layer Cake. First we laid down interleaved newspaper and cardboard (the plate) as a basic barrier against weeds, then plopped down the first layer of alfalfa flakes, added bone and blood meal (filling), slapped on a thicker layer of straw, tossed in a few soupcons of blood and bone meal (for flavor) and then iced it with a thick, choclately layer of compost.

Ours, being rather freeform, ended up looking like a tasty layer cake, or a gi-normous chocolate-drop cookie.

After it sat for a few days, I planted three Early Girl tomato starters in it late this afternoon, to take advantage of the predicted, though highly unusual, rain. Steam rose as I dug down into the hay, it was like a little furnace down in there. Man, that pile is busy!

I might give it another layer of icing this weekend. It's looking a bit naked there.

2010-05-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

When you get a new camera, ya just gotta play with it.

An Erratic Week in an Aberrant Spring

2010-05-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

After a weekend of stunningly perfect weather (bright blue skies, mild wind, brilliant sun), last Monday arrived cold and rainy, a thick sky of grim nimbus clouds and a wind too full of itself. Cloudburst, downpour, sprinkle, drizzle, rinse, repeat. The view out the office window was grey, grey, grey, all day. Still, not much daunts the intrepid Amateur Campus Naturalist and so, jamming the hat down to my ears and cinching tight all openings of the raincoat, out I went. Sticking to a route under overhangs and close to trees, I avoided becoming completely drenched while freshening my lungs with oxygen-rich air. Win, win, win. At least for me.

We're not used to this sort of wet and variable spring in Sonoma County. All this cold rain and dreary grey feels more like epileptic relapses into winter. April showers bring May flowers in other parts of the country. Here, the ultra-pleasant and dry weeks of April merely launch us full-tilt into summer; by mid-May, telltale patches of brown will line the crests of the hills as the winter rains recede into the water table. This spring though, with rains every other week, the hills are staying green, and with rainfall totals above normal, the three-year drought has been conquered. (Fingers crossed on that one.)

Walking just inside a silvery curtain of rain under the Salazar overhang, I wondered where the cliff swallows hide in all this wet. The birds had arrived per usual in mid-April, with their radio-static buzzy clicks, swinging freely over the quad in waves, then winging over the playing fields, scooping up their bug lunches. Certainly nest building has suffered from rain delays; under the eaves high above, I could see only the most rudimentary lines of daubed mud sketching in the nest foundations. How will this affect raising and fledging the next brood?

From Salazar, I hopped, skipped and skidded around the gym and up into the Kenneth Stocking Native Botanical Garden. Under the tree-canopy, the rain was but a minor nuisance. I wandered along the spongy floor of dense leaf-litter and needles, breathing deep, the air fragrant and damp, and stopped to watch through crossed tree branches as the lessening rain dimpled the pond. Suddenly I heard dee! dee dee dee! dee! shockingly close to my head. I spotted the commotion right away: two spry chestnut-backed chickadees bouncing around the branches and twigs just above me, gleaning insects and bugs as fast as they could to feed their fluffy, demanding, just-fledged progeny, three lumps-on-a-branch, barely moving, except to open their beaks for food or to dee! deee! deee! for more.

Obviously, this aberrant spring has had little effect on these adorable (admit it, they are) little busybodies. And it probably won't do more than slow down the swallows as they follow the inevitable course of actions leading to the next generation. Nor will it interfere with our own about-to-fledge graduates who, in about two weeks, will fling up their black caps, tassels and all, and come rain or come shine, fly on.

Settler's Chase

2010-05-02T22:43:00.000-07:00

My friend Doris Eraldi's second book, Settler's Chase, will be released in July 2010 by Berkeley. This is a sequel to her book, Settler's Law, also published by Berkeley in 1998. Now, it seems like a long time between books, and it is, but I happen to know that she's written at least one whole novel in between,while training a slew of horses, teaching horsemanship, coaching young riders and in general gallivanting around. No moss grows under her hooves. Anyway, as a first reader of her first book, I am now an eager awaiter of her second.

2010-05-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to send out the scholarship award letters for the Napa this weekend; how exciting! It's also the first hot-hot weekend of the year, 80's for at least an hour or two this afternoon, the sky brilliant and sun all over the place. Feels like the conference is about to start any minute.

"The Oracle of Stamboul,"

2010-05-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

Michael Lukas, a fiction participant at the Napa Valley Writers Conference last summer, wrote to say that his novel "The Oracle of Stanboul," has been purchased by HarperCollins and will be released in February, 2011. WhoooHoooo! ZZ Packer's group will remember seeing his first chapter.

From Michael's website:

I enjoyed reading the chapter which he submitted for his application; I particularly remember the image of hoopoes circling the harbor and the town and then settling, "coating the town like frosting," which opens the book. I look forward to reading the whole thing, printed and bound.
A thousand and one congratulations, Michael!

Napa Valley Writers Conference - Summer 2010

2010-04-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

Still time (just!) to send in an application to the 2010 Conference; check the website and fire away!

Michael Byers

2010-04-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

It might take a little searching to find Michael Byers's first book "Coast of Good Intentions" a collection of short stories, but it is well worth it. He writes with that quiet authority that holds us in the palm of his hand, guiding us to the end. Charles Baxter said his stories are "wise, beautiful and necessary, " and I couldn't agree more. "Long for this World, "a novel, is on my stack and I can't wait for his newest work, "Percival's Planet," due out August 3rd, 2010. Just after the Napa Writers Conference! Arghsnarfle!

Check out his site for more info, reviews, and yes! bonus chapters from the new book Especially check out the Essays and Stories tab. A super piece on revising, Faking Shapely Fiction, particularly pertinent for those lucky folks in his workshop at Napa. I have a feeling his lecture is going to be a must-go. And IF we're lucky, maybe he'll have some pre-release copies of "Percival's Planet." Just hoping.

Unbuilt Projects now being built! *

2010-04-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

Fabulous news from the Lisicky front: his book, "Unbuilt Projects" will be published Fall 2012 by Fourway Books. Here is a link to his blog- post running a video of him reading some pieces from the it. Congrats, Paul!

* sorry, couldn't resist.

A Bad Day for Daphnia

2010-04-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

They arrived sloshing around in four tightly-sealed jars tucked into corn-oil based pellets in a brown rush-shipment box. A quarter of them had croaked and were encapsulated in a thin moldy shroud, drifting in the dubious-looking water. The rest of the water fleas, after surviving this long, dark journey would soon be plucked from jar with an expertly wielded pipette, plonked onto glass slides and squished under the clamps of a microscope. Oh, the indignity of it all.

Daphnia

2010-04-18T00:17:00.000-07:00

Reading a new brain book,"Rewire Your Brain," by John B. Arden, Ph.D. (Maybe when I'm done with the book I'll be able to refrain from pronouncing that as Phud. With apologies to all my Phuddy Phriends).

However.

In the book is this paragraph (pg 3,4), which I found compelling enough to read out loud to my sister:
"The corpus callosum of a woman is denser than that of a man. This means that the two hemispheres of a woman's brain work more evenly together. The female brain is more symmetrical. The male brain has an asymmetrical torque, which mean that the right frontal lobe is larger than the left frontal lobe, and the left occipital (back of head) lobe is larger than the right occipital lobe."

To which my sister remarked: "So ....we can legitimately say that they are warped, right?"

"Or that they are legitimately warped," I replied.

Take your pick. In reality, I suspect that this arrangement has its advantages, for both genders.

WIR: Wellspring, Part 4: Random Notes

2010-04-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

Random Notes from the last few days.

The more birds I learn to identify, the more birds I see, both individuals and new species. It's sort of spooky. Now that birds are not just blue/somewhat blue, mostly brown, all black, raucus or quiet but rather Steller's jays, scrub jays, western bluebirds, white-capped sparrows, ravens, woodpeckers, chickadees, I've come to notice all the other birds that before escaped my notice: northern flickers, phoebees, juncos, yellow-capped sparrows, acorn and downy woodpeckers. Because they were all there. Without the name, I just didn't notice them. The world has expanded with the simple act of identifying, of recognizing and remembering.

This evening, as the sun faded, the birds burst out in a collective chorus, the squawks and peeers! of jays, the buzzzzy chirps of a Bewick's wren, the melodies of finches, the calls and clucks and squeals that I don't recognize (yet), often overlapping, resembling those wonderfully chaotic moments when an orchestra tunes up, though this would be more like tuning down, the last vocal hurrahs before dark.

Walked down to the river. On the way back, I found a collection of heart stones arranged on a bald spot in the grass near the edge of the bank. Suddenly it seemed like the best place for the three weighing down my jacket pocket. How many do I really need? So there are here.

Writer in Residence: Pt 3: Elk, California

2010-04-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, a side trip to Elk, a small town on the very edge of the coast, clinging like a limpet to bedrock jutting out into the Pacific.

....let's get a closer look at that bedrock...

I was hoping to visit the Greenwood State Park Visitor Center and Historical Museum, but alas, due to our rotten state budget, it was closed.

...but I got a shot anyway.

And besides which, there is a certain historical quality to the town in and of itself.

This is what I call the South Shore...a sand-barred cove with the Greenwood Creek seeking the ocean.

and this is the North Shore...stony bluffs, broken, toothy rocks strung out into the ocean.

Usually, the ocean is the ceaseless noise of Elk unless, like today, it's the wind. A fierce sort of wind, with a stern roar that overwhelms mind-chatter. A wind that requires buttoning up, requires pulling down into one's self, requires paying attention, watching where it comes from, where it's going to. The scuttle of clouds against the brightest blue sky. Little birds tucked under low bushes. Hawks and ospreys struggling, flying into the wind at a stand-still before tilting a wing and swinging around to try again later.

The sort of wind that livens the blood, stirs up the appetite and makes ducking into Queenie's Roadhouse Cafe more of delight than ever.

hmmmmm, corned beef hash, eggs over, a small tower of toast...

Writer-in-Residence: Part Two

2010-04-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

Today, sun. Lots of it. The meadow held the warmth all afternoon, the air hot enough to bring up thoughts of swimming. Thoughts only and then quite fleeting. I wouldn't even stick a tiny toe in the river; it is galloping for the coast at what looks like several knots an hour to me.

The sun made for some true basking on the porch though, watching red-shafted northern flickers (Colaptes auratus cafer) investigate the eucalyptus, stab for ants in the grass and dash around, with orange wings, white body in the air. Otherwise, the flicker is one fine dapper dandy of a dresser: soft grey basic coat, like dress-up flannels, with a tidy black ascot at the throat, a speckled waist coat and a striped jacket over that. The male sports a flamboyant red mustache-- or is it lipsitck from his lover? He only needs the sporty fedora ... with one of his own feathers in the brim. My camera sucks at getting bird pix (no real telephoto, slow as molasses) so I'm posting a link to about a thousand pictures of the creature.

In contrast, I just have to say, those Acorn Woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) are too much. As I said, they look clownish, with white eyes in a half-mask of white, a black bill and red topi. In flight they remind me of the Harlequin, black wings with a wide white stripe, a black back but a white rump. From the rear, as they fly away from me, they seem to be making wing-angles in the air; flying towards me, they just seem....goofy.

This is by far the best photo I found online, at Steve Velo's pix.
These are very interesting birds, residing in sizeable groups of 4 or 5 or more, and sometimes several groups at a time. They are larder-hoarders, hiding acorn like squirrels in granaries by drilling holes into old trees, stumps, the side of the water tower, then stuffing acorns in the holes, which the birds defend against all comers. Pretty fascinating.
We think of it as storage, maybe they think of it as art.

Jeepers, sounds like our family, stuffing things in boxes and bundles and defending them against anyone with plans to "organize." Must have some woodpecker in our DNA.

Writer in Residence - Trial Run

2010-04-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

To write about Wellspring Renewal Center, is to write about nature. The place sits just outside the hamlet of Philo, California, in Mendocino County; 50 acres of woods and meadows with the Navarro River running right through it. One long meadow, hemmed with small oaks and manzanitas along the north bank, parallels the river. Across it, redwoods spire to the sky, filling the horizon, topped only by trees of the hill commanding the horizon. Hendy Woods State Park is adjacent to the property, across and to the west down the river; it feels like the redwoods go on forever. Which they did once, but no longer.

The buildings cluster on the northern, top edge of the gently sloping meadow which rolls down to the deep banks of the river. In recent summers, the river has slowed down to barely more than a large creek in spots, winding in a shallow trench across the rocky river bottom; this winter the channel is filled all the way across as an astounding volume of water barrels out to the ocean. Nevertheless, the river hasn't risen to the top of these banks in living or even recorded history. If it did - now that would be scary-or a different eon..

The meadow runs east to west the long way and thus is graced with sun the full day long. The cabin I like to claim has a generous porch facing south, overlooking the meadow, several majestic oaks, the scrim of trees and brush hiding the river and the redowwds across the way. The river, even as full as it is right now, sits so far below the tall banks it is invisible; only the noisy rush and tumble of the high water gives it away.

To write about Wellspring is to write about nature; it is to write about the birds first, for they truly abound. Acorn woodpeckers, clownish in their half-masks of yellow and black, flit about, working their way, knocka-knocka-knocka, around the tall wooden water tower and the oaks; they are everywhere with their a-whacka-whacka-whacka calls. Vultures wheel around the sky, blue, grey or blustery. The call of hawks and ravens echo off the redwoods; closer by I hear the brash squawks and burry chirrrs of the scrub and Stellar jays, the funny whistles of the northern flickers, the pips and peeps of towhees, juncos, phoebes, sparrows, chestnut-backed chickadees.

(psssst: don't take this Writer-in-Residence bit as official, it's not authorized in any way by the Wellspring Renewal Center. I just wanted a project. Anything to distract me from the dang-blasted novel.)

Wrting, writing, writing, keep those authors writing....

2010-04-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

On my way up to the Wellspring Renewal Center for my Personal Writing Retreat (created by moi, funded by moi), I stopped at my favorite Indy Bookstore (Copperfield's Books in Petaluma, but of course) for some reading material. Some inspirational and reference books to keep me on task, some sexy-trashy magazines for the downtimes: Best American Essays 2009, a pocket-sized field guide to birds in California and The Writer mag. Yeah, so now you know, sexy-trashy = writer's mags.

But wait, before you dismiss outright, here's the article that got my attention in the middle of yesterday afternoon on a long covered porch in full view of meadow, with redwoods and mountains. " 'Writer in Residence' ? Sign me up!" by Kathy Stevenson...aside from the wonderfully complex instance of punctuation, I was struck by the circs that opens the essay: Alain de Botton had the gig of Writer in Residence for a week at ... wait for it....London's Heathrow Aiport. That's right: he spent a week at the airport * and wrote it up for a book.

Now how cool is that? Kathy Stevenson thinks like me: "Where do I sign up?" she asks.

As you imagine, these gigs are not growing on trees, and Kathy Stevenson puts her fertile good mind to use and comes up with all sorts of alternate locations where she might shine, W-I-R at Godiva Chocolates, for instance.

Which is when I wondered: couldn't I be the Writer in Residence at Wellspring?

* cool photo on that link

link to article on Kathy Stevenson's blog

3 a.m.

2010-03-29T04:27:00.000-07:00

Sky padded with fog, silvered by a thickening moon; a secret privilege to be awake feeling this quiet.

The jangle of day is not far ahead but for now not even the refrigerator hums and the owls are still.

Absolutely a Big F'ing Deal

2010-03-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

Just have to shout YAHOOOOIEEEE for the passage of the Health Care Reform Bill! To quote Joe Biden, yes, indeed, it's a big f**king deal. And I have to hand it to Obama, he's not sitting on his laurels; in the week since, he's given the Won't Do Party (the Great Obstructionists Party, whatever you want to call it) plenty of fodder to choke on: a jobs bill passed, a seder in the White House, an end run around their inability to cooperate by appointing officials during recess and today, he popped up in Afghanistan. He's a blur; they don't know where to focus or when to get riled up next, and by the time they do, he's onto some other thing they can't stand. Good for him! The Republicans showed their stripes as rabble-rousers and leaders of the ignorant. Their fears, their over-the-top rhetoric about Health Reform and what they think it will do to America....well, it just tells us more about them, about their ignorance and deep prejudices than it does about any of the issues. I predict that their resistance to Health Care Reform will hurt them in the next round of elections, even as they continue to bluff and posture otherwise.

Back in the day, the rhetoric about Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid was just about as vitriolic and insensible, and yet now I don't think there is one American who doesn't view either program as their inalienable right. Not even rabid right-winger Republicans. Except for GW Bush, perhaps, who seemed to think that the social security funds were fair game for the stock market. I don't hear anyone singing that tune now - no, siree bob.

And credit goes to Nancy Pelosi, too, who fought the good fight, didn't give up and produced results. Now is the time for us to support her: click to StandWithNancy

Paper Fan Shout Out

2010-03-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Wanted to thank anyone and everyone who not only read the Paper Fan story, but jumped over to Girls Write Now or bid for it on E-Bay. Someone won the fan for $21.50, a fair showing for the item+story, I thought. (Is this the sort of someone who will do something creative with the story+item, and send a photo of it into Sig Obj, as some bidder/buyers do? one never knows... ) But! more importantly, the money pot is filling up for Girls Write Now, well over $300 and rising.

There are more items+stories to bid on, so if any of you get E-bay fever....

But here's a nice shout out to Significant Objects from Girls Write Now that features a very familiar fan...

and if you enlarge the type, some familiar words... at least to me.

Fanning the Flames of a Bidding War....

2010-03-09T18:10:00.000-08:00

oh, dear...I forgot to mention that Japanese Fan item is only up for bid for a week at Significant Objects...and the week ends tomorrow morning at 6 am! so ...if you intended to bid but procrastinated, the time is now!

The fan is at $20 now (a steal for that and an inspiring story!) but the S.O. organizers are hoping to get a significant amount of money to give to for Girls Write Now. This wonderful organization, singled out by Michelle Obama for its successes, "provides guidance, support, and opportunities for New York City's underserved or at-risk high school girls, enabling them to develop their creative, independent voices, explore careers in professional writing, and learn how to make healthy choices in school, career, and life."

You can read more about at: http://www.girlswritenow.org/gwn/

And if you have the inclination, swing by http://significantobjects.com/2010/03/03/paper-fan/ tonight!

Muchos gracias, in advance!

Fan Mail from Your Favorite Flounder-er

2010-03-03T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hey, guess what! Significant Objects just posted a story I wrote about this sweet Japanese fan. As I've mentioned before, I have been fascinated with Josh Glenn and Rob Walker's project which seeks to show how our emotional entanglement with an object increases that object's value. All that makes sense, of course. But the beauty of the Significant Objects project is that they've devised a method to measure that increased value using the auctions on E-Bay.

So, here's the deal...swing by and read the story, then click the link that takes you to the ebay auction for it..and bid, bid, bid! You may win ... and if you do, you gain three things: the sweet little fan, a copy of my story to have and to hold, and the warm feelings of contributing to a very worthy cause, Girls Write Now.

And I'd love to hear what you think of the story, too.

True Confections & NPR

2010-03-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

Off to the side is a brilliant red and white Follower Badge belonging to Katharine Weber. It is the image of her book cover (on the left) of her latest novel, True Confections, which was published January 5th, 2010... and has already garnered a very tasty review from NPR Her blog, Staircase Writing, is one of my fav go-tos on my bloggy-bloggy list, so there is no excuse for me not trumpeting her pub date earlier. But do visit her blog for candy-lore, "staircase moments" and book-tour reports. And I'm sure you'll be tempted as I am to snag her book, too. It looks delectable. Like chocolate.

Significant Objects Volume 3

2010-02-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

Significant Objects is doing it again, yep, yep, Volume Three, proceeds to benefit the organization Girls Write Now. A great line-up of writers, too, for a worthy cause...including Charles Baxter (yes, the Charles Baxter) whose story is already up. So excuse me, I'm on my way to bid on the meteoric paperweight he so brilliantly created out of whole cloth.

Writing Lysacek Style

2010-02-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

Watching the Olympics these past nights, suffering from Olympic Narcolepsy all the next day...man, it starts late here on the West Coast and then goes later. Doesn't make sense, since we're pretty much in the same time zone as Vancouver, but there you have it. Media playing yank-the time-zones.

Still, it's worth the sleep deprivation, as long as you're not one of my co-workers, who have to bear the brunt of my Olympic-sized crankiness the next day.

The Men's Figure Skating Shoot Out at the Pacific Coliseumn...omg...Lysacek! * What a stunningly beautiful five-minute eternity on ice. The perfect flow of energy, grace, power, control. Nothing broke my attention on his flawless execution; I wasn't caught up in how high he leaped or how many times he spun. I was enthralled, enraptured, transported to those moments of lost-to-the-world concentration. It hit me then: we want this same sort of focused, breathless attention from our readers; we want them to be so caught up in our world that they are not aware of how high we leap or how many sentences it takes to construct the scene and setting; we don't want them to see any clunky transitions or biffed landings. We just want them there, an engaged witness to the story.

So I went out to the woodshed and began revising. Again.

But I work with hope in my heart and a somewhat clearer vision of the way forward: ditch the un-essentials, streamline, streamline, streamline and weave in about eight triple axels.

* Because NBC controls all video coming out of the Olympics, this link takes you to YouTube of Lysacek's 2009 Championship Free Skate. Pretty amazing stuff, but his performance at the Olympics was even more so.

Napa Valley Writers Conference - Summer 2010

2010-02-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

And speaking about the Napa Writers Conference ... it looks like another bang-up summer of writing and workshops for what I (personally) consider the Best Little Writing Conference in the West.

Okay, so yes, I'm involved (Fiction Director this year), but I was a workshop participant for two years and loved it just as much then. This summer, check it out: Ron Carlson, Lan Samantha Chang, Curtis Sittenfeld and Michael Byers as fiction faculty; C.D. Wright, Arthur Sze, Brenda Hillman and Major Johnson as poetry faculty. Spending the last week of July in one of the most beautiful valleys in California, working with fabulous writers...really, what's not to like?

Rolling admissions worked well last year, so we're doing it again, which means we'll be accepting applications beginning March 1st (in one week -yowzers! -- better get my eyeballs oiled and tuned up.) Scholarship deadline is April 1st....so, writers, grab your keyboards; send me some apps!

Some photos from last year, courtesy of participant Charlene Kwon:

Some plein-air workshopping with ZZ Packer's group

After the workshopping and writing, come the readings.

Gathering for wine and conversation before the Robert Boswell and Jane Hirschfield reading at Rubicon Winery (previously known as the Niebaum-Coppola Winery).

Ron Carlson - "The Signal"

2010-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Speaking of Ron Carlson (previous post, down at the bottom), I was so impressed with his latest novel, "The Signal." (Of course, I am an RC fan, so not soooo much of a surprise there.) Still. The man can write.

(Although dedicated to local indie bookstores, I've included the link to Amazon above, simply for the excellent Washington Post review posted there. Read that, then log off and order/pick up the book at your LIB. )

The Washington Post reviewer, Ron Charles, notes that Carlson "writes like Hemingway without the misogyny and self-parody." Amen. It is one of the Carlson's qualities that I most admire (aside from his prose, that is). He writes both men and women characters with full respect for their humanity, rather than privileging one over the other, or parroting the cultural baggage of being male in this society. His stories that involve parenting are gems for revealing the depth of emotion and reality of being an engaged father.

Carlson's prose has a poetically tensile strength that is at times simply amazing; it defies description and must be read to be truly appreciated. In "The Signal," he brings all the skills he's honed from crafting short stories, cutting out all the fluff usually acceptable in the form, so that it reads almost like a novella and yet.. it isn't quite. The prose is absolutely complelling; once I dip my eyeballs in the pool, I have to be yanked out by some obligation standing in front of face and shouting, "Hey, Mom, hey, Mom, hey, over here!" or the smoke alarm wailing because I've left the toast in the toaster way too long or the teakettle boiling to the point of a flamed and red bottom. And few authors can write the mountains the way he has in story after story, in "Five Skies", the previous novel, and now "The Signal."

And, even more fun, Carlson is one of the faculty this summer at the Napa Valley Writers Conference, the Best Little Writing Conference in the West, imho. So, folks, get your keyboards running: applications open March 1st and as Fiction Director this year, I'm waiting for your submission, yes, I am!