Random Musing
The folks over at Blue Fifth Review included my painting "Deep Sea" in their September issue! You can check it out here.

Random Musing
Whitepoint Press just released my collection Searching for a Pulse! They accepted the collection last September (which you know if you've stuck with this blog for a long long time) and it's surreal to have it finally out in the world. Surreal in the best possible way of course. (The line from Notting Hill when Hugh Grant's character says meeting Anna was "surreal but nice" just popped into my head. Okay, tangent over.)

It's available both on the Whitepoint website as well as on Amazon, and there's even a Kindle version if you're really into your e-reader. Having just gotten a Kindle, I totally understand if that's the way you choose to go. They really are super snazzy.

If you do end up buying the book, I want to take this opportunity to thank you - though I'll happily thank you in the real world too if our paths cross. I really appreciate all the support I've gotten regarding this collection - in fact, it's rather humbling. Thank you for supporting my work even if poetry (let alone morbid Sylvia Plath inspired poetry) isn't really your thing. It means a lot.

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The Fat City Review just published two of my paintings.

You can find "Strung" here, and "Black/White #3" here.

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Midnight googling can lead to some rather lovely discoveries.

Long-time readers are probably aware that Diana Wynne Jones passed away in March of 2011 - I wrote a pretty harebrained blog post about it. She's one of my favorite authors and wrote some truly wonderful fantasy novels and short stories. This might be news - I tend to post mostly about poetry and literary fiction on this blog - but I really really love fantasy.

I grew up a part of the Harry Potter Generation, and I had to fill my fantasy quotient with something while waiting for new J.K. Rowling to come out. Enter Diana Wynne Jones (among other authors of course, but she was definitely the most important). I stumbled on Howl's Moving Castle while wandering Borders' Fantasy Section (how depressing is it that no stories post 2011 can involve the phrase "wandering Borders"?). There was a blurb on the cover saying "Mad about Harry? Try Diana," which was a pretty solid recommendation for someone deep in Hogwarts withdrawal. The book is just fantastic (and way better than the movie - I feel the need to point that out because so many people seem to have seen the movie and liked it but never bothered to read the novel) and I quickly started making my way through Jones' canon. She was definitely not a one-hit wonder; the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark Quartet, Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Merlin Conspiracy, and so many other of her novels are just loverly. They're funny and incredibly clever and honestly, they give J.K. Rowling a run for her money. If you're at all a fantasy fan, you need to go out and get your hands on her books.

So when Jones passed away on March 26, 2011, it felt like the end of a wonderful ride. There was only so much more of her writing that I hadn't yet read, and it was depressing to know that I'd soon be through with it all. I've gotten pretty close - out of over 50 publications, I have her very first obscure non-fantasy novel, an essay collection she compiled, and two collections of short stories (that I suspect I've actually mostly read since a lot of the stories were included in other anthologies) to go. I haven't been looking forward to getting through it all actually - I've been kind of dreading it in fact - and so when some chance googling informed me that a new Jones' novel (co-authored with her sister) is coming out in 2014, I was ecstatic. New whimsical and wonderful fantasy to look forward to! Yes! Yay!

It's titled the Islands of Chaldea, and while I'm aware that it's probably not going to be classic Jones - the co-authorship basically makes that a done deal - it's still very exciting. Now I just have to wait at least seven months for it to come out (I suspect the UK release date is significantly earlier than the US one). I'm going to be plenty busy in between now and then - working on my thesis, teaching those precocious freshmen, assistant editing - but I'm still impatient. Commence counting down the many many days to go.

I wanted to share the excitement and new novel news for those of you who are also Diana Wynne Jones fans. As for the rest of you, take this as encouragement (or a sign) to start reading her. Just dewit. I recommend starting with Howl's Moving Castle. It's a classic.

Random Musing
The folks over at FLASH MOB 2013 recently requested to use one of my paintings for their website header. The site is a hybrid blog carnival and competition celebrating International Flash Fiction Day, which is on June 22nd. You can take a look at the art work, and see what they're all about, here. Think about submitting if you have some flash fiction lying around.

Random Musing
I'm officially a Goodreads Author! It's a bit bizarre, and a lot delightful. I regularly spend quite a bit of time on Goodreads - it's the main way I keep track of all the books I've read as well as all the books I want to read - so having an author's profile is honestly surreal. Having searching for a pulse on the site is even weirder and pretty snazzy.

To make this new development more exciting for the rest of you, Whitepoint Press is actually giving away ten free copies of searching for a pulse! That's right, I said "free." Get excited people. (Especially since I can't think of a single person who doesn't like free stuff.) The drawing runs until May 31st, and if you're a Goodreads member, you can enter the giveaway here. Don't worry if the odds don't work out in your favor though - you'll still be able to buy your own shiny new copy on August 5th.

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I have a tiny poem on page 29 of the newest issue of Bohemia. Check it out here.

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I have a few paintings in the newest issue of splinterswerve. You can check them out here.

Quotations
"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things." -Lemony Snicket, The Reptile Room

"…And if along with these should come
          The man I held as half-divine;
          Should strike a sudden hand in mind,
And ask a thousand things of home;

And I should tell him all my pain,
          And how my life had drooped of late,
          And he should sorrow o'er my state
And marvel what possessed my brain;

And I perceived no touch of change,
          No hint of death in all his frame,
          But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange." -Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A.H.H.: 14"

Bosola: Doth not death fright you?
Duchess: Who would be afraid on 't,
Knowing to meet such excellent company
in th' other world? -John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

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I think of you often so it's still very strange to realize another whole year has passed. Rest in peace Erica.

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I just finished reading Mindy Kaling's book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). It was pretty entertaining, and I found myself laughing out loud exactly twice. I chuckled silently to myself many more times than that. This post isn't going to be a book review though. The book is a quick and fun read and if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, then I'd go ahead and spend a couple of hours reading it. I'm more interested in one very small selection from the chapter about Best Friend Rights and Responsibilities:

I know when you fall in love with someone that you will completely forget about me. That hurts my feelings, but it is okay. Please try to remember to text me, if you can, if you know I have something going on in my life, like a work promotion or something.

Re-read that. One more time. I'll wait. Done yet? Okay, good.

So that is the biggest piece of bullshit I've seen on the written page in a very long time. And I read the news. I mean, come on. You're giving your alleged best friend explicit permission to ignore you, to blow you off. Why Mindy, why? Why would you do that? People who blow you off are not good friends. They definitely aren't your best friend. Best friends don't blow each other off. I think that's actually a rule in the Unwritten Best Friend Constitution:

1A. Do not ignore your best friend for a boy. No matter how cute they are.

The only reason I can think of that Mindy Kaling condones this behavior is that she does the same thing to her friends when she meets a boy and so wants to pretend that it's okay. And having read her book and liked it, I really hope that's not the case. Because it isn't okay. If you entirely drop your friends - and I count only getting in touch for incredibly huge life events the same as "dropping" - when you meet a guy and fall in love, then you probably didn't deserve good friends in the first place. And definitely not a best friend.

Okay, rant over.  I just had to make sure that people were aware that Mindy Kaling made a mistake about one crucial aspect of best friendship.

In case you were wondering, I didn't find anything else in the book infuriating. It was a very pleasant read otherwise. So to try and end this on a more positive note, here are two quotes I really liked:

"One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about."

"There are time when friends have said they hooked up with someone and all it means is that they had a highly anticipated kissing session. Other times it's a full-on all-night sex-a-thon. Can't we have a universal understanding of the term, once and for all? From now on, let's all agree that hooking up = sex. Everything else is 'made out.' And if you're older than twenty-eight, then just kissing someone doesn't count for crap and is not even worth mentioning. Unless you're Mormon, in which case you're going to hell."

Random Musing
Catawampus Literary Journal just published three of my poems: "In the Ballroom," "Three Sheets Front and Back," and "For Typewriters." You can read them here. In a pleasant set of circumstances, a fellow MFA-er from Oregon State also has poems in the same issue, so make to check out Sean Beld's poetry as well.

Random Musing
I got my copy of Bank Heavy Press' Kisses with Fishes in the mail today! It's the first exclusively print journal I've ever had work in actually, which is exciting even if it also means that I can't share a link and show you the painting they liked. If you're incredibly curious - somehow just can't resist not knowing what the painting looks like - you can buy a copy of Kisses with Fishes here.  The painting (a black and white one) will be on page 18.

Random Musing
I saw this recently on my friend Claudia's blog, gruesome thursdays. The illustration is by Yumi Sakugawa and has been published in Sadie Magazine.

I find it absolutely loverly.

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It's announcement time: Whitepoint Press has accepted my poetry collection she wears grey for publication! It's incredibly exciting. Uber exciting doesn't even begin to cover it. There will one day be a book out there with my name on it - how bizarre is that? I have to say, I feel very fortunate to have found such a good home for a collection I really am proud of.

I got this news a few months ago, but I held off on announcing anything until some headway was made in the lengthy publishing process. I was just added to the Whitepoint Press website (check out my bio here), so this felt like as good a moment as ever. I've deleted almost all the Rosemary/she wears grey poems from the blog - a contract stipulation - but no fear, you can read them all (better, edited versions for the most part) in a shiny new paperback in only so many months (I'd specify exactly how long, but I actually have no idea yet).

I'll be sure to make announcements about all of this as I get more information, so keep an eye out!

Random Musing
Go vote. There's really not very much else to say. It's election day. If you're at least 18 years old and a US citizen, you need to go vote. It's important. You can't really complain about how screwed up the country is - a beloved pastime for many US citizens - if you don't at least make the effort to influence who gets to screw it up for the next four years. So go vote.

In case you needed celebrities to impress on the you the importance of voting, here you go:



And yes, the whole "make your own video" bit near the end is irrelevant at this point, but the rest is pretty spot on.

Quotations
"'November is the most disagreeable month in the whole ear,' said Margaret, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden.
'That's the reason I was born in it,' observed Jo pensively, quite unconscious of the blot on her nose.
'If something very pleasant should happen now, we should think it a delightful month,' said Beth, who took a hopeful view of everything, even November." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

"November was stingy of its sunshine that year: raw winds blew through the bare, silver-branched maple grove and the Hollow was almost constantly filled with mist…not a gracious, eerie thing like a fog but what Dad called 'dank, dark, depressing, dripping, drizzly mist.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

"'There are two adjectives that are never separated in regard to a November day — "dull" and "gloomy". They were wedded together in the dawn of language and it is not for me to divorce them now.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"October drifted into November and the chill, drear days came.  To Cecily the whole outer world seemed the dismal reflex of her pain-bitten heart." -L.M. Montgomery, "The Promise of Lucy Ellen"

Random Musing

Random Musing
A Baker's Dozen included a painting of mine in their latest issue. You can see it here, just scroll down to item #3.

Quotation
"I want a book that acknowledges that life goes on but that death goes on, too, that a person who is dead is a long, long story. You move on from it, but the death will never disappear from view. Your friends may say, Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn't, but eventually you'll feel better. You'll be yourself again." -Elizabeth McCracken, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

Random Musing
Strange to think that it's already been a year. Time moves really fast. Rest in peace Chip. As always, my thoughts are with your friends and family. I hope they're on the road to feeling like themselves again.

Random Musing
So I began the rather terrifying process of applying to MFA programs in poetry this past November.  I didn't have too much faith in my prospects of getting in anywhere - MFA programs have notoriously low acceptance rates - but I was fortunate enough to be accepted to four of the nine programs I applied to.  Let me tell you, there was a ridiculous amount of celebrating after each of those letters/emails arrived.  Lots of tiramisu.

Ahem, anyhow, in the end, after weighing the various pros and cons of these programs, I decided on where I'm going to be this fall: Oregon State University. That's right, I'll be a beaver come September.   Not nearly as cool a mascot as the wolverines, but it'll do.

OSU's program is excellent (despite sharing the whole "OSU" thing with Ohio State); I'll be working alongside very talented individuals and it actually fully funds each of its MFA candidates for the full two years.  I was lucky enough to receive a diversity fellowship from the school as well that literally doubles my original stipend for this upcoming year.  So on top of receiving my MFA at a great school - getting to work almost exclusively on my poetry for two years - I won't have any financial worries.  It's really ridiculously ideal.

I will be sad to leave Ann Arbor for Corvallis, OR though.  I've really grown to love my college town.  This is why, quite a long while ago, I mentioned already being homesick for Ann Arbor - knowing you have to leave somewhere makes you all the more fond of it.  This move to the west coast is going to be a very big change.  I've never lived anywhere but Michigan my whole life.  Here's hoping it's a good one though.

Random Musing
This is a bit late - I'm not sure how I forgot to post about this earlier - but Word Gumbo published one of my poems in their last issue. You can read it here, just check out page seven.