Geocached Poetry!

Isabel and I are working on designing a poetry geocache at Santa Fe Skies RV Park. It will be along the dog path, and consists of a series of cages, each containing a painted egg.

Inside each egg will be a suminagashi scroll, with part of a poem on it.

In preparation, we created a geocache of haiku signs on the westside (https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC75VNF_haiku-signs). Rather to our surprise, we immediately had visitors. We made a few mistakes, which folks were happy to help us correct. It now seems to be running smoothly–and people are enjoying the haiku treasure hunt.

Betrayal: Poem by Miriam Sagan in Free Lit Magazine

Betrayal

how did I expect
to be betrayed
and what supplies
did I prepare
for this betrayal?

my passport
printed with lace
my fingertips
marbled
in pink and black
my name and social security number
written on the bare flesh
of my arm
with a sharpie

in case of evacuation
in case of
emergency

Love the new issue of Free Lit Magazine where this just appeared.

News From Brass Bell

MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!!!

This is an invitation to submit haiku for the June issue of brass bell: an online haiku journal. The theme is a single date: Tuesday, May 23, 2017.

You can write about ANYTHING that you experience, observe, think about, etc. during this one day.

I will consider one-line and 3-line poems.

I’ll be reading work on Tuesday, May 23 and Wednesday, May 24 (up until 5 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time).

Yes, the submission “window” is very tiny!!!

Publication: June 1.

If possible, please send more than one haiku; the more choices I have, the better.

DO NOT send me anything before May 23. Whatever you write, it should be ABOUT YOUR LIFE, as you experience it, on that particular date. DO NOT include the date in the haiku! Naturally, your poems will not have been previously published because they will be brand new!

NOTE: I will send an e-mail to let you know that your work has been received. If I have questions or suggestions, or if I don’t feel I can use the haiku you send, I will let you know. Otherwise, I hope you will be pleasantly surprised when you see what I’ve chosen, when the issue goes online. I will send the link to you via email at that time.

Please follow the GUIDELINES carefully and REMEMBER: I am looking for NEW HAIKU that you write on Tuesday, May 23. That’s all.

Paste your haiku in the body of an email — no attachments — and send to:

zee@twcny.rr.com

Be sure to include your name exactly as you wish it to appear. INCLUDE YOUR COUNTRY, even if you think I already know! The list of countries will be noted at the top, not with each poem.

If you are new to brass bell and haven’t read any previous issues please look at the current issue as well as the archives before you send me work. This will give you an idea of what the journal is like.
http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.com/

IMPORTANT: it is very likely that brass bell will go on a summer holiday. After the June issue you may not receive another notice until late August, with guidelines for the September issue.

Fondly,
Zee

http://www.zeezahava.blogspot.com/
http://lostpaper.blogspot.com/
http://paintedparrot.blogspot.com/

Inside Story by Julia Goldberg

1. Julia–you’ve just published your first book–INSIDE STORY. The focus is a guide to writing creative nonfiction. I found the tone and approach very helpful. What in particular can the reader expect to learn?

My hope is that the book has appeal to many different types of creative nonfiction writers, from students to working writers and everyone in between. Inside Story delves into various categories of nonfiction—from memoir to journalism to the lyric essay. Each chapter endeavors to provide explanations about craft, writing exercises as well as references and resource lists. So, it’s a way to both learn more about the genre but also very much a practical guide to reporting and writing creative nonfiction. I have read many craft books myself, so I tried to distinguish my book in terms of it sounding like me—it has, I hope, much of the information one might find in a textbook, but it has a voice as well.

2. Was it easier–or more difficult–to write a book than you expected? You’ve been an editor in numerous capacities, including the Santa Fe Reporter but this is a different kind of endeavor. What surprised you?

I was surprised at how challenging it was! I’ve written on deadline my entire adult life and have written many long-form reported pieces. I worked as an editor on another book (Best Altweekly Writing, 2009-2010 from Northwestern Press). So I am familiar with many of the components needed to write a nonfiction book, such as research, reporting, organizing and, of course, the actual writing. But the accumulative process—writing for hours every day, day after day, and still not being finished, was a challenging—invigorating and difficult—experience. It set a bar in terms of my appreciation for the stamina it takes, for sure.

3. Anything else you want to add?
The book isn’t just my take on reporting and writing. I’ve been lucky in my career to both meet and read many amazing writers. I interviewed and reference numerous people for this book, whose own perspectives and experiences are in each chapter, and I’m very grateful for that.

4.How can readers buy a copy?
If readers are in Santa Fe, they can buy it at Collected Works. The book also is available on Amazon and all other online retailers. I’m also doing a giveaway on Goodreads May 24-June 23, so they can enter and maybe win one!

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Story-Everyones-Reporting-Nonfiction/dp/0997020776

Goodreads giveaway link: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/237632-inside-story-everyone-s-guide-to-reporting-and-writing-creative-nonfict

10 Days of My Suminagashi

Very excited!

https://sumi-a-day.tumblr.com/

Calling Up The Dead

When Itaru Sasaki lost his cousin in 2010, he decided to build a glass-paneled phone booth in his hilltop garden with a disconnected rotary phone inside for communicating with his lost relative, to help him deal with his grief.

Only a year later, Japan faced the horrors of a triple disaster: an earthquake followed by a tsunami, which caused a nuclear meltdown. Sasaki’s coastal hometown of Otsuchi was hit with 30-foot waves. Ten percent of the town died in the flood.

Sasaki opened his kaze no denwa or “wind phone” to the now huge number of people in the community mourning the loss of loved ones. Eventually word spread and others experiencing grief made the pilgrimage from around the country. It is believed that 10,000 visitors journeyed to this hilltop outside Otsuchi within three years of the disaster.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wind-telephone

What Are You Reading and Where? Part 2

Do Mi Stauber: Ellis Peters, The Knocker on Death’s Door (one of her George Felse mysteries, because I just finished all the Brother Cadfaels and couldn’t stand it). In the hospital with my daughter, who is going to be okay.

Rachel Ballantine: Color about the history of artists colors. in bed.

Marjorie Kamine: Sapiens while dog sitting in Abiquiu

Debbi Kapp Brody: I am reading several things right now, but the ones that might interest you most are; Leaping Poetry (Robert Bly) and Revisioning Activism (David Bedrick, JD, Dipl PW) Finished Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier and Split Second by Douglas Richards yesterday. Where? Everywhere, home, work, car, etc.

Kate McCahill: SFLR proofs at my kitchen table!

L.j. Mulry: Tana French, In the Woods, at night in bed.

Wednesday Nelena Sorokin: The New Yorker in my dining room, and The Gift by Lewis Hyde and What is Art For.

Devon Miller-Duggan: The Liddard book on Chaco/Mesa Verde ( at the breakfast table) and a right-wing post-apocalyptic trilogy (before bed).

Jane Shoenfeld: The human stain. Philip Roth. Dingle, Ireland

Linda Durham: Secondhand Time (The Last of the Soviets) by Svetlana Alexievich. It’s so rich! I have been reading it aloud to myself–off and on–in the bathtub (good acoustics) with a Russian-ish accent.

David Oates: Haiku and Inspector Rebus novels.

Nancy Sutor: The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit. Volcanoes by David M Pyle. And Transatlantic by Colum Mc Cann. Day bed in my studio and night bed in the house

Jane Rosemont: The manual to my new camera, in every room of the house.

Jeanne Simonoff: smart phone in orthopaedics office Taos

Marie Longserre: “NOFAs – Notices Of Funds Available” – several 100 page documents from the US Department of Commerce and others – in bed at night. Supplemented with an occasional paragraph or two of “Fortunes Children, the Fall of the House of Vanderbilt” – in bed in the middle of the night if the NOFAs keep me awake.

Virginia Oppenheimer: The Exiles Return by Elizabeth de Waal, about post war Vienna, in my living room, taking a break from gardening