Hey there. I can’t let the month go by without posting. Happy Leap Day! The world is a crazy place. I won’t burden you with my opinions on any of it. I'm just trying to stay positive. And, by this time you probably don’t need any more reminders to wash (and dry) your hands and stop touching your face. I thought instead I’d tell you about two recent books by Solace in So Many Words contributors. Published recently by the University of Arizona Press is Kafka in a Skirt … [Read more...]
New books and writing tips
Hey there. I have not been around because life got in the way. July got off to a rocky start. But here are some new books for you to investigate and some links to writing and reading. Daniel Chacón's latest book is The Cholo Tree, published by Arte Publcio. Margarita Engle (the U.S. Young People's Poet Laureate) has a new book called Forest World. It comes out this August from Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Jen Cullerton Johnson (who is also a Kiss Me Goodnight … [Read more...]
New writing, new calls, found beauty
June has been flying by. Hope you have been soaring. Here’s some news. Congrats to Kerry Langan who has a new book of short fiction—My Name is Your Name and Other Stories, published by Wising Up Press. BTW, Wising Up has a call for submissions -- Longer Than Expected: Adulthood After Life Threatening Childhood Illness. You may be bewitched by Donna Hilbert’s new poem “Domestic Arts” in Verse Virtual. Looking for something to listen to? Daniel Chacon’s Words on a … [Read more...]
Ambivalence, being judge-y, and links
Yesterday on the local talk show from Chicago, Windy City Live, I heard it’s almost been the coldest average February in Chicago since the late 1800s or something—we’re only missing it by a degree or two. It’s a record I don’t care if we break. Ambivalence – it’s a quality I am trying to develop, especially as it applies to wanting something too much. Well, at least that’s what I think this morning. That’s because last night I read Amy Poehler’s book Yes Please and in the … [Read more...]
Spring books: Chacon, Powers, Sklar
Three contributors to Solace in So Many Words have new books! Congrats! Daniel Chacon’s newest publication is Hotel Juarez, which was published in March by Arte Publico Pr. Here’s what Publishers Weekly said in its starred review: “Chacon, winner of the 2007 Hudson Prize for Unending Rooms, returns with a collection of short fiction concerned with American and Mexican relations in which a world of race and identity politics emerges. Linked but never repetitive, these … [Read more...]