I have a thousand reasons why I’ve been away for so long, each one more elaborate than the other.

Let’s just say it’s been several months of change, good and bad. But I’m ready to start again, and what better way to start than with a new publication!

You can now purchase a Post-Card of my short-short, A Thousand Marilyns, from Post-Card Press! They are a fairly new lit journal that makes wonderful postcards of short-short fiction and poetry.

My piece is based on a true person, which I’m hoping at some point to turn into something bigger. Novel, bio/memoir, who knows?

In any case, I hope you’ll buy the post card and support this lovely new press! Purchase it here, heck get a subscription; you’ll get one postcard of poetry or fiction each month! And, they make great fun gifts to send to someone (remember that thing called snail mail?).

More blog posts to come, I promise!

Anyway I went to The Grove Bookstore in South Park San Diego (where I ran into a few other San Diego writers including Jill Badonsky) to find the book Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson which is getting great reviews (read this one from the NYTimes by the also wonderful writer Stacey D’Erasmo–just the first two paragraphs of the review had me hooked).

“By delving as deeply into the lives of her characters as she does, tracing their long relationships not only to one another but also to various substances, Henderson manages to catch something of the bloody, felt intersection of lives and cult bands, of overindulgence and monastic refusal, of the dark, apocalyptic quality of the ’80s. She gets extremes, and people who gravitate toward them.”

Alas, the book was not in stock so I purchased something else: The Crafter’s Devotional by Barbara Call. Sure, I need another book on craft projects like I need a hole in the head, but this one is different–really! It has something to do for every day of the year, i.e.

Monday: journaling

Tuesday: recycle, reuse, or revive

Wednesday: collection, stash, and materials

Thursday: personal history

Friday: noncraft inspiration

Sat. and Sunday: collaborate, gather, and experiment

Just something to keep the creative juices flowing. Right? See a sample page here.

So, where did YOU go and what did YOU purchase on Save a Bookstore Day?

Also, you may have heard, if you’re my Facebook friend, that I had a great time in my Sewing Class and came away with a really cool tote-bag. The class taught the basics of sewing machines and we practiced various stitches on a swatch of fabric until we felt confident enough to do some real sewing.

There were several different styles and designs of fabric for the bag but I decided upon the burlap coffee sack– acquired by Home Ec Studios by a local coffee merchant. For the most part the sewing was easy– straight lines up and down the sides of the tote bag, but then I had to sew a liner inside the bag, and then straps, and you have to do it all inside out which is very confusing, but somehow it all worked. And it was fun. It was me and 6 women– all laughing and chatting and breaking thread and getting our stitches all knotted up.

Now I just have to remember it all so I can use my own machine. I have a ton of really cool vintage fabric, mostly of cowboys and cowgirls, that I want to turn into pillows.

Here’s a poem  by Naomi Shihab Nye

Sewing, Knitting, Crocheting,

A small striped sleeve in her lap,
navy and white,
needles carefully whipping in yarn
from two sides.
She reminds me of the wide-angled women
filled with calm
I pretended I was related to
in crowds.

In the next seat
a yellow burst of wool
grows into a hat with a tassel.
She looks young to crochet.
I’m glad history isn’t totally lost.
Her silver hook dips gracefuly.

And when’s the last time you saw
anyone sew a pocket onto a gray linen shirt
in public?
Her stitches must be invisible.
A bevelled thimble glitters in the light.

On Mother’s Day
three women who aren’t together
conduct delicate operations
in adjoining seats
between La Guardia and Dallas.
Miraculously, they never speak.
Three different kinds of needles,
three snippy scissors,
everybody else on the plane
snoozing with The Times.
When the flight attendant
offers free wine to celebrate,
you’d think they’d sit back,
chat a minute,
tell who they’re making it for,
trade patterns,
yes?

But a grave separateness
has invaded the world.
They sip with eyes shut
and never say
Amazing
or
Look at us
or
May your thread
never break.

In any case, I did read the 5 Nonfiction pieces by: Jennifer Egan, Junot Diaz, Tea Obreht, Edward P. Jones, and Salvatore Scibona. They were all good, but my favorites were Scibona’s Where I Learned to Read, Jones’ Shacks, and Diaz’ The Money (and also Jones, but I’ll save that for another blog post).

As a side note, I’m currently reading Tea Obreht’s novel, The Tiger’s Wife, which is getting phenomenal reviews, she’s being called a new wonderkind, and Colum McCann says, “Téa Obreht is the most thrilling literary discovery in years.” I’m only about 100 pages in though I’m enjoying it–especially the magical stories the narrator’s grandfather tells her (hence the title), that are woven throughout the book, which is essentially a mystery (the narrator is trying to discover why her grandfather left home to die without telling anyone).

Anyway, back to the 5 Nonfiction pieces. I love it when NYer does these 1 page shorts, because they’re so easy to use/teach in a writing class. I’m definitely going to be using these in my Fall Creative Nonfiction Workshop at the college.

Scibona’s particularly appealed to me because it’s basically a love letter to reading– though told through a twisty series of events in his young school life. But it reminded me of my own growing up, sneaking away at recess and lunch to the library in grade school to read those short bios of famous people– called the Childhood of Famous Americans Series: Lincoln, Dolly Madison, Jim Thorpe, Betsy Ross, Jane Addams. Remember those bios? They were meant for grade school, probably only about 50 pages (if that) and had the most basic information about the peoples’ lives– though all told very melodramatically (lots of exclamation points!). These were some of my best friends from 2nd to 6th grade.(I SO remember reading this one– Narcissa Whitman, Pioneer Girl).

In talking about finding his way to reading Scibona writes:

By senior year at St. John’s, we were reading Einstein in math, Darwin in lab, Baudelaire in French tutorial, Hegel in seminar. Seminar met twice a week for four years: eight o’clock to ten at night or later, all students addressed by surname. On weekends, I hung out with my friends. The surprise, the wild luck: I had friends. One sat in my room with a beer and “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” reading out a sentence at a time and stopping to ask, “All right, what did that mean?” The gravity of the whole thing would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so much fun, and if it hadn’t been such a gift to find my tribe.

You can also find out what these writers are reading this summer.

Yesterday had a great time at the Blazing Laptops Write-a-Thon to support San Diego Writers, Ink– the non-profit writing organization that I’m a part of. (you can still sponsor me! I really did write for 9 hours!). I’m offering a homemade collage postcard or collage book mark to anyone who sponsors $10 or more.

At the Write-a-Thon (which I did/teamed up with my BFF Kelli) I worked mostly on my novel. I did try a few of the prompts that were given out during the day but the bulk of my writing went to a new chapter. I drank a lot of coffee! Now that I’m off from teaching and have basically no real work for the summer (a good thing? a bad thing?) I’m ready to dive back in full time on the novel. As much as I had fun yesterday, I have to admit that being in a room full of people and trying to seriously write was difficult. I’ve always been one who needs quiet and my own space to write in.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being in the company of other writers and creative people, but I really cherish my office and how I can close the door and be in my own world in there. It helps that it has a terrific view of the Coronado bridge and some of downtown San Diego. I can’t remember if I’ve posted pics of the office here, but I’ll post some soon just in case.

The scene I was working on yesterday had several characters (most of them minor minor) talking– the main character of the book (or one of the main characters) was describing a scene where a bunch of Hollywood suits comes to his reservation to talk about the upcoming filming of a movie– and I realized that when I’m writing dialogue I need to ‘talk it out’ while writing, which was kind of hard to do in a quiet room of 20 people! I practice the dialogue that I write to see how it sounds, but I couldn’t really do that yesterday! arghh! I guess I’ve always done this but it seemed much more obvious to me yesterday because I couldn’t do it.

It made me think about writers who are good with dialogue– who are they?

I suppose Hemingway is considered a strong dialogue writer.

I like the dialogue in the new Nicole Krauss book, Great House, too. Though for me it’s always been about the interior monologues of her characters.

I’ve always thought Joshua Ferris was a master of dialogue (though he’s a relatively new writer).  Read his NewYorker story The Dinner Party to see what I mean.

Here’s an excerpt:

“They come in,” he said, “we take their coats. Everyone talks in a big hurry as if we didn’t have four long hours ahead of us. We self-medicate with alcohol. A lot of things are discussed, different issues. Everyone laughs a lot, but later no one can say what exactly was so witty. Compliments on the food. A couple of monologues. Then they start to yawn, we start to yawn. They say, ‘We should think about leaving, huh?,’ and we politely look away, like they’ve just decided to take a crap on the dinner table. Everyone stands, one of us gets their coats, peppy goodbyes. We all say what a lovely evening, do it again soon, blah-blah-blah. And then they leave and we talk about them and they hit the streets and talk about us.”

“What would make you happy?” she asked.

“A blow job.”

“Let’s wait until they get here for that,” she said.

She slid her finger along the blade to free the clinging onion. He handed her her glass. “Drink your wine,” he said. She took a sip. He left the kitchen.

He sat on the sofa and resumed reading an article. Then he got up and returned to the kitchen and poured himself a new drink.

“That’s another thing,” he said. “Their big surprise. Even their goddam surprises are predictable.”

“You need to act surprised for their sake,” she said.

“Wait for a little opening,” he said, “a little silence, and then he’ll say, he’ll be very coy, he’ll say, ‘Why don’t you tell them?’ And she’ll say, ‘No, you,’ and he’ll say, ‘No, you,’ and then she’ll say, ‘O.K., O.K., I’ll tell them.’ And we’ll take in the news like we’re genuinely surprised—like, holy shit, can you believe she’s knocked up, someone run down for a Lotto ticket, someone tell Veuve Clicquot, that bastard will want to know! And that’s just the worst, how predictable our response to their so-called news will be.”

“Well, O.K.,” she said. “When that happens, why don’t you suggest they have an abortion?”

He chewed his ice and nodded. “That would shake things up,” he said, “wouldn’t it?”

“Tell them we can do it right here with a little Veuve Clicquot and one of the bedroom hangers.”

“Delightful,” he said. “I’m in.”

“He’s O.K.,” he said. “They’re both O.K. I’m just being a dick.”

“We do this, what—at most, once or twice a year. I think you can handle it. And when they have the baby—”

“Oh, Christ.”

“When they have the baby, we’ll see even less of them.”

“Holiday cards. Here’s our little sun-chine. See our little sun-chine? Christ.”

“You aren’t the one who’s going to have to go to the baby shower,” she said.

“How much you wanna bet they buy a stroller?”

“A stroller?”

“A stroller.”

“A stroller,” she said. “To cart the baby around.”

He put cheese on a cracker. “For to cart the baby around in, yes,” he said.

“And you, if you had a baby, there’d be no stroller, right, because it would be oh so predictable? Absolutely no stroller?”

I have just one more day of giving final exams– next Wednesday– and then my summer begins.

Summer, for me, equals:

finishing current draft of novel (updates to come)

reading (my book list to come)

movies (what’s a summer without movies?)

making stuff (did I mention I’m going to take a class on how to use your sewing machine?)

travel (maybe?)

work– oops, nope! no work/teaching for me this summer! (good or bad thing?)

Here’s a good thing: poem, Summer Trips, by Jonathan Greene

Summer Trips

As a child sequestered in
the back seat on a long journey,
exiled in one’s own world,
a refuge. Deep sleep naps.
Ice-cream stand oases after
a long stretch of highway.

A whole year of work
brings us this week at the beach.
The Devil’s bargain parents made,
a contract that renews every time,
weary after the nine-to-fives,
they unlock the front door.

“Summer Trips” by Jonathan Greene, from Distillations and Siphonings. (c) Broadstone Books, 2010. From The Writer’s Almanac.

Finished Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff. I loved the information about Egypt and Cleo and Mark Antony, but I was missing dialogue (the book is serious nonfiction). Still, Schiff impressed me with her knowledge and Cleo impressed me with her sheer tenacity.

My office at home is looking like one of those NYC apartments where the reclusive tenant saves every newspaper, magazine, letter,  leaflet and flyer. I’m too embarrassed to post a picture of it.

I cut the tip of my middle finger off and it hurt. Ok, it wasn’t really the tip, more like the corner of the tip. But it still hurt. For a couple of days I had to wear one of those splint-thingies so that I wouldn’t bump it on anything, but it definitely made it seem pretty drastic (but if you know me, you know how melodramatic I get with just the sniffles). And then I had to learn how to type without using that finger, which a couple of days ago I finally mastered. But now the finger is healing better and I can pretty much use it, only I have to re-learn how to type with it. Arghh!

While I was in the Emergency room Ted brought me Nicole Krauss’ Great House to read. I absolutely loved The History of Love and have been wanting to read this. It doesn’t disappoint. I read about 50 pages in, but I’m also reading another book so I may have to put the Great House aside until then.

Speaking of books…though I’m not finding, or rather making, the time to write as much as I should (I think that I somehow didn’t get the gene for discipline…), the little bits, spurts of writing that I’m doing I’m pretty pleased with. I’m loving working on two characters that I’d only been sketching out, or had only been on the periphery so far– the young female English High School Teacher with the secret stash of lipsticks in her desk drawer at school and the Shivwit Indian boy, Limpie, whose POV is told entirely through an essay he’s writing. It’s funny how developing these characters more and letting them lead me on this journey has sparked such new energy in me.

Ted‘s out of town for a week visiting his mom and then our new niece, and the cats, Betsy and Jack, are so neurotic (i’m fine though, thanks for asking)! They are completely underfoot. Betsy sits with me while watching TV, her head resting in my lap.

On another note, I’m obsessed with this website Instructables–have you seen it?– from which you can learn how to do anything from how to tie a tie, how to kiss, to other more craft-oriented tips such as  book-making, how to knit, make mosaics, origami, and my recent obsession: how to make linocuts.

I really really would love to have a letterpress machine, but this linocut thing looks a bit simpler (and less expensive). See the samples of what you can do below.

Many of the how-to’s have step-by-step photos and videos. Check them out, search for how to make or do just about anything.

Watched the last episode of TCM’s Moguls and Moviestars– the epic documentary series about the rise and fall of the movie studio system. It was completely fascinating. I couldn’t help but feel for the movie stars and studio heads when the studios started crumbling around them; not to mention the footage of the old studio land that was sold off.

Went to a fantastic reading Friday night at The Ink Spot. James Meetze (in the picture) read from his book of poems DAYGLO of which Rae Armantrout says “James Meetze is, in some sense, a ‘landscape poet,’ except his landscape includes ‘FA-18 Hornets’ that ‘boom above the freeway / as eucalyptus leaves rustle.’ He has a feel for his hometown, which is also mine. In fact, San Diego, with its ahistorical ‘Dayglo’ pastels, best glimpsed in passing from a freeway, is where we all live now, somehow, or soon will.”

Ryan Murphy (a friend from grad school!) says “Dayglo is a conscious artifact…”

Indeed, his poems took me back to my days growing up here. The beaches, the sunsets, the valleys and malls. But also they look at Southern California, and San Diego especially, through the eyes of someone who left here and then came back. They speak about beauty and warmth, of Eucalyptus trees, freeways and fluorescent lights, but also separation, isolation, regret, disappointment.

I’m particularly taken with the first two lines of the poem “To Make You Surfer”:

In all the movies about California youth,

we are made to believe in gold everywhere.

Rob in EW

My letter was regarding a fantastic review they gave Mark Richard for his new book, House of Prayer No. 2, A Writer’s Journey Home, a memoir.Richard’s been compared to Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and I feel like he could be a distant brother to the late, great Barry Hannah (Airships is his masterpiece).

If you’ve never read Mark Richard please please search him out, especially the book I mention in the letter, Charity, which features, in my opinion, one of his best stories, “The Birds For Christmas.”

We wanted “The Birds” for Christmas. We had seen the commercials for it on the television donated thirdhand by the Merchant Seamen’s and Sailors’ Rest Home, a big black-and-white Zenith of cracked plastic and no knobs, a dime stuck in the channel selector. You could adjust the picture and have no sound, or hi-fi sound and no picture. We just wanted the picture. We wanted to see “The Birds.”

You can read the whole story on Boldtype.

House of Prayer No. 2 also has a fantastic cover by artist Michael J. Windsor

Ok, enough objectification.

The night was so literary! One of the best events we’ve had at the Ink Spot and surely one that affected all who attended. Ulin was there, courtesy of the PEN Center USA and the always wonderful Amy Wallen,  to plug his new book, The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, but he gave us much more than that. The book began as an original essay by Ulin from the LA Times 2009.

Says Ulin:

Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves.

Here’s another thing that Ulin said at the event that really resonated with me. Rather, it was more of a suggestion:

He explained that reading a book for 20- 30 min. before bed isn’t enough-- one should dedicate a good couple of hours every few days, or a few hours on the weekend, say a Saturday, to really read a book.

What a concept!

Most of my reading is propped up on my pillow at 11:30 pm (much like the lovely James Franco in the picture to the left). Me and Ted touching elbows as we read our books. But by the time we go to bed i’m so tired I can usually only get in about 15-30 minutes of reading before my head starts nodding. There are exceptions, I mean I have been known to read for an hour or more at bedtime but that’s usually because I’ve had too much coffee during the day.

I’d really like to take his advice though, and set aside a couple of hours to read each weekend (cuz lord knows I can’t do it during the week with my schedule). But how luxurious! Right? Reading a book for three hours on a Saturday. Who does that? Do you? It sounds wonderful.

The other anecdote (among many) that I loved but I can’t remember if it was Arthur Salm or David Ulin who told it was this little story:

A [fairly well known] writer [I can't remember his name!] had a visitor to his house and the visitor, looking at all of the books on his shelves, of which there were hundreds and hundreds, asked this writer, “Oh my, have you read all of these books?”

To which the writer replied, “Of course I haven’t read all of these books! Who would want to live in a house with books you’ve already read?”

I can’t tell you how many times people have asked Ted and myself this same question!

*Photo courtesy of the Guardian UK’s Writer’s Rooms series.

I love the movie– you know, massive tidal wave flips over a cruise ship and survivors, including Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, and Pamela Sue Martin, have to climb their way to the top, er, now bottom of the ship.

Great Fun!

In any case, I’m hoping 2011 will bring a full-time teaching job for me; a substantial draft of my book; much creative inspiration; new friends and stronger ties to current friends; travel; bigger things for the writing community in San Diego; even greater love, closeness and appreciation for my wonderful husband, Ted; a vintage letterpress (anyone know where I can get one?); more visits with family; more reading for pleasure (so many books, so little time); more time spent in NYC; patience and understanding; health and prosperity; peace.

Below are some of my favorite photos and memories from the year (especially the bloody Justin Bieber that I made with a faux-wood stamp! and Hermia, my cat, 1991-2010).

I’m almost finished reading the book I spoke about in my previous post (The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me) and I’m eying a stack of books by my bed. Which one next? The Pure Lover by David Plante? Model Home by Eric Pucher? A Case for God (got this last Christmas but still haven’t read it!) by Karen Armstrong? Great House by Nicole Krauss ? I absolutely loved The History of Love, her last book. I’m thinking I might start with A Case for God; every time I see it on my shelf I think about pulling it down and reading it. I’m compelled yet maybe intimidated by it. Time to do it!

In addition to reading, though, I’m finally getting back to the book I’m writing. It’s not a lot of time, three and a half weeks, but more than I usually have so I’m hoping to make some more progress. Lately I’ve been writing chapters involving a brand new character in the book–Limpie, a 17 year-old Shivwit Indian boy– well, he’s been in the book since the first chapter but I’m finally telling his story, as it were, in his chapters. His story actually comes through by means of an essay he’s writing in school, and so pieces from his essay, which read like letters to his teacher (he’s writing this essay as an extra credit assignment over the summer so he can graduate from high school), are in between the more traditional narrative. I’m finding so much heart and humor in Limpie who originally was going to just play a very minor part in the book.

Finally, I’m hoping to do some more creating–with my hands, but not just typing up my novel. I’ve got a few projects I’m working on or planning. Stuff to do in my little craft station out in the garage. One project involves these little freckled doll heads. I’m thinking of doing something like this. It involves plaster of paris! Unless someone out there has better ideas?

I’d also like to do something with these orange guns. Not sure what, though. Or maybe something with these cool old iron-on transfers from the 1940s (this one is of Van Johnson). And then I have all of those beautiful old window frames with the glass in them that I’d like to play around with.

Sigh.