Translator friend in Ukraine sent me this: Very hard to focus on work right now, but I try to keep amplify Ukrainian voices. If you or someone you know is interested in finding out more about Ukraine, here are some excellent translations of recent Ukrainian books into English:
Always found it amazing to read all of an author's work in order, novels, short stories, poetry books. I remember doing that one summer with Alice Munro & being amazed. Who would you like to read from beginning to end if you had/ could make the time?
I am utterly delighted to announce that my latest poetry collection I WANT TO TELL YOU will be published by
@PittPoetry
in Spring 2023. And special thanks to Nancy Krygowski, Jeffrey McDaniel, and Terrance Hayes for believing in the work!
Envy as fuel? When I was at Iowa, a prof there pointed to a pile of books on his coffee table & said, "Those are the writers who got the awards I deserved." What kind of lesson is that? Life is that? Envy is the writers' disease. I remember that moment & try hard not to go there.
Envy is fuel. Every time we look at someone else’s win & get that sick, hollow feeling of “that should be mine,” we’re right! Envy means we’re close. We don’t envy success we’ll never have, we envy those only a few rungs above us on the ladder.
Two years ago, locked down in Montevideo, Uruguay, I contemplated drawing for the first time in my life! I bought these 76 colored pencils! So I guess today is my Artist-a-versary!
Cover reveal for my new poetry book I WANT TO TELL YOU out from University of Pittsburgh Press in January! Art by the amazing Uruguayan artist Virginia Patrone! Poetry friends, I would be delighted to Zoom into any of your Spring semester classes!
Woke up to find my essay collection HOW CAN THERE BE NOW IF THERE WAS NO THEN is a finalist for the Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction
@awpwriter
. Judge Chloé Cooper Jones has the hard job of picking a winner ! !
Total surprise! A box arrived and it is copies of my new book, I WANT TO TELL YOU, from the
@PittPoetry
! (Surprised because the official pub date is January 31 so was not expecting them so soon!)
Sunrise through my hospital room window. Was in surgery for 5 1/2 hours yesterday evening but all went well and this sunrise was a lovely sight to see! Thanks for all the good wishes--really helped!
In March, 2020, locked down in Montevideo, Uruguay, I wrote: "I now have 76 colored pencils! So, what should I do with them? Can I possibly learn to draw or cartoon?" Now finishing my graphic memoir FRENCH GIRL which will be published by
@FieldmousePress
this coming year.
Headed to the hospital for some major but pretty common surgery. Technically a left hemicoloctomy (taking my left intestine out because of diverticulitis). Turns out we have more intestine than we need! Good news! So see you back here in a bit.
Tomorrow morning, in honor of AWP, I am going to pretend I am having coffee at the Starbucks in the food court at O'Hare because my flight is delayed and NO WAY am I making my connection.
In France, where I was born, it already my birthday (even if it will not be here in Chile where I am now for 5 more hours). So, let the birthday celebration begin!
@antoinewilson
The visiting writing faculty at Iowa who said what my female character needed was for someone to beat the hell out of her and all my workshop classmates nodding l
104 years ago today, the great Uruguayan poet Idea Vilariño was born! My translation of her book Love Poems was published by
@PittPoetry
! You can read one of her poems published in the
@NewYorker
here:
In France, where I was born, it already my birthday. In Japan, where my daughter Magda lives, it is a good 8 hours into my birthday already and she just called wished me Happy Birthday! So, let the birthday celebration begin!
I started drawing every day in 2020, when the pandemic hit. I'd never drawn before, not even as a child. Here's an early ones! Soon my graphic memoir FRENCH GIRL, with 250 pages of my drawings, will be published by
@FieldmousePress
! I'm still pinching myself!
@PineStatePub
Ah, alas, I am sick. Headed for surgery in 2 weeks. Am not well enough to do my daily sketch lately. So, a flashback! Started drawing on lockdown in Montevideo, Uruguay. Never drew before but had a box of colored pencils & lots of time. Here is one of my first--
On this day in 2020, locked down in Montevideo, Uruguay, I bought colored pencils! I asked friends, "Can I learn to draw or cartoon? Advice?" Now in 10 days pre-orders will be available for my graphic memoir French Girl which is being published by
@FieldmousePress
!
@chelseabwrites
Happened to me--like every author. Also went to a reading by David Foster Wallace & it was me, two friends & a homeless woman wearing a sheet as a toga who took photos of him with an old flashcube camera. The librarian introducing him excused himself and did not stay. So, yeah.
What I am proud of having done in 2023? Published 6 books. I keep saying it was because some books had pandemic delays but still--6 books. The first one in was my 6th poetry collection I WANT TO TELL YOU
@PittPoetry
At 91, the amazing Uruguayan poet Circe Maia has won the International Federico Garcia Lorca Poetry Prize for her life's work!f you want to read her work in English, check out my translation The Invisible Bridge from
@PittPoetry
!
Meanwhile, outside (the sun rising through my hospital room window). I am better! Just not quite where the doctors want me to be before they let me go home.Thanks for all the kind and healing words! It helped.
Okay--what is your very favorite brand/type/kind of pen? A friend just asked me about ordering some and was surprised I knew exactly. Is that a writer thing? A poet thing?
What's the oldest submission you still have sitting, neither rejected nor accepted, in Submittable? I'll start: I see I have one I submitted in 10/8/2018.
Thanks to Wendy Lesser
@3pennyreview
, one of my long time favorite magazines, for nearly instantly taking the essay “Today is a Deaf Day” I wrote during my December residency
@VCCA
!
Delighted to get an acceptance from
@brevitymag
! Huge fan of the magazine & the always amazing Dinty Moore! Thanks to him for running this essay earlier--
When I was a kid if I was sick, my mother would give me ginger ale & saltines. If I was a little better, a soft cooked egg & toast. Did you have special healing childhood foods? Do you have go to foods now for when you do not feel well?
Triple delighted today--Blackbird is out with an essay by me, "Sharp," an interview and two prose poems! Here is a link to a page with links to all the work. (And, as always, check out all the amazing people in this issue!)