No More Leaping Forward, Please!

67º ~ the humidity returned this week with a wallop, still, the temperatures are lovely and the sun bright ~ these are the days to hoard and cherish before the suffocating heat of summer


Dear Reader, I couldn't stop it again this year; we went leaping forward and lost another hour (which will be returned but at what cost?).  I simply cannot understand how I've become so busy.  I am stunned to learn that I am busy with things I love to do: teaching, running the reading series, editing the school's academic journal, serving my department as we plan for a bigger & brighter future.  Yet, I'm so sad that I've been away from the blog and away from drafting for so long!

Sadly, there is no draft today either...hopefully next week? Maybe?  Gulp.

Above the entrance to the Fine Arts Building in Chicago.  My photo. Click for link to info about this amazing building.

Instead, this morning, I've spent what precious time I've carved away from the rest of the day working on answering interview questions for The Collagist.  Again, this is a delight, so I'm not complaining.  I've done several of these interviews with different journals now and I'm always humbled by how closely and carefully the editors have read my work.  This time is no different.  The interviewer asked three questions that made me look at the poems in a new way, questions that allowed me to expand on my process notes and allowed me to see a theme I hadn't even been aware of in my own work.  Kudos to all the editors and interviewers out there for doing what you do. 

In other news, if you follow me on Facebook, you've seen this, but for those who don't, I cracked one of my toughest publication nuts this week.  After 11 years of submitting (13 submissions total), I received an acceptance from Crazyhorse.  Crazyhorse is one of my all-time favorite journals.  It has roots in Little Rock, although it had left the state long before I arrived and is now published out of the College of Charleston.  When I was in graduate school, I took a class from fiction writer Molly Giles.  The class was on lit mags.  We read the big names as our text, along with whatever the latest Pushcart anthology was that year.  Then, each student had to research two journals by reading at least two issues, and then write a paper on their details (submission guidelines, history, university-run or independent, etc.) and their aesthetic.  We each gave presentations throughout the semester.  This was one of my favorite classes and so valuable, as I received the benefit of learning about many, many journals.  Someday, I'd love to teach a class or run a workshop along these lines.  (Thank you, Molly!)  In any case, one of my two journals was Crazyhorse.  I'd known about it before that class, but I really fell in love with it then and began submitting in 2001.  All this time later, voila! 

Next week is Spring Break and I'll be traveling up home, not only to see my family, but also to read for the "Writers Talk" series at the University of Northern Iowa.  I'm so thankful to Jeremy Schraffenberger and Vince Gotera for making this happen.  I'm already a bit weepy thinking about the reading as my family will be there and my best friend from childhood, whom I see far too rarely.

Tonight, I'll be on campus late again, celebrating the arts.  This is our annual fundraiser for our Business of Art Scholarship.  This program awards one scholarship to a student in the business program and one to a student enrolled in the arts.  It is both need and performance driven, and in the past I had two creative writing students who were so impressive that the committee voted to award extra funds that year so that they both could "win."  Wahoo.  There will be a silent auction of some awesome art donated by generous artists, so I hope to come home with something new to hang on the wall as well.  Oh, and did I mention that the event is catered by our culinary school...uhm, delicious!