Launching

A year an a half ago, my life changed on two fronts at almost the same moment. In June 2006 I married a man I had begun to believe didn't exist, a man who could love me with all my strengths and my flaws, a man who understood my need for "a room of my own" in order to pursue my work and humbly gave up the only spare room in the house to me. In the same month, Anhinga Press launched my first book, Blood Almanac. I have to admit that opening that box of author's copies was much more exciting than opening the wedding gifts we'd received -- mostly because I'd already sent the thank you's to Reginald Shepherd, who judged the contest, and Rick Campbell and Lynne Knight of Anhinga Press. I'm not sure we ever finished writing all the wedding thank you's. (If you're one of those we forgot, we hope you know us well enough to forgive us!) In the year an a half since the book came out, I've toyed with the idea of establishing a web presence. I've hesitated because the marketing side of publishing has never been my strong suit and because during the hubbub of ramping up for the book and the wedding there wasn't time, and then during the traveling and PR phase of having the book newly published there wasn't time, and then I spent most of 2007 recovering from 2006. However, in the past two years of going to AWP and also traveling for the book, I've met so many fantastic people that I've begun to feel a calling to connect myself to others who share the crazy need to attempt to put the unsayable into words. I launch this blog with many of the same emotions with which I launched both my marriage and the book--eagerness blurred with anxiety, hopefulness mixed with nervousness, and confidence made humble by doubts. So far, both the marriage and the book are thriving, which may bode well for this blog. I hope to write each week about what I'm reading, how the writing goes, and to brag a bit about the envelopes and emails fat with acceptance letters (for myself and friends). The title of the blog comes from Emily Dickinson's letter to T.W. Higginson, July 1862. It comforts me.