gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
I got a Moderna booster this afternoon. Typically this knocks me flat for about half a day (starting in the middle of the night), and I have planned accordingly. The timing is good, because we're having a mini heatwave, and the worst of it will be tomorrow.

Yesterday I learned that Erica Jong has dementia. Her daughter Molly Jong-Fast is publishing a memoir next month, How To Lose Your Mother, and an excerpt appeared in Vanity Fair. Having lost my father to Parkinson's, I really related to Jong-Fast's essay. (My mother had memory issues towards the end of her life, but she was already in her nineties when that happened, so, as hard as it was, everything kind of felt like gravy by that point.)

As a mother, Jong apparently left a lot to be desired. But the revelation that she has dementia hit me like a gut punch, because she was tremendously important to me as a young writer. Growing up, I knew who she was, because she was very famous. I think my copy of Fear of Flying was my dad's, which I took from one of his shelves and never gave back. But the way I got into Jong's work is more mysterious.

One day when I was a senior in high school, just getting into reading and writing poetry--I'd already written a lot of fiction by that point--I found a yellow paperback in my mom's room called The Craft of Poetry (1974). It's a collection of New York Quarterly interviews with poetry heavyweights. What's weird about this is that neither of my parents were readers of poetry, and I have no idea how the book wound up on their shelves. (It didn't occur to me to ask, and now there's no one to ask.) I certainly started reading the book because Anne Sexton was one of the interviewees. I would eventually read the whole book. (I still own it.) But the interview that changed my life was Jong's. Not just because the way she talked about writing poetry was so engaging, but because that interview was like a syllabus to me. It's where I learned about Colette's Earthly Paradise (indeed, I am certain it's where I first heard about Colette), Virginia Woolf's Writer's Diary, the poems of Pablo Neruda and Denise Levertov, the biography of Theodore Roethke, and more.

Jong was, I think, the first living poet whose work I loved. (I also read Adrienne Rich for the first time around this period.) I read and reread Jong's first two poetry books, Fruits and Vegetables and Half-Lives. Her influence on me was so strong that, a couple of years later in a college poetry workshop, the professor handed out copies of Jong's "Arse Poetica" when it was time to discuss one of my poems! I devoured her novels, too; probably her third, Fanny: Being the True Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones, is the best (though I haven't read it since the 1980s), a rollicking 18th-century adventure tale told in 18th-century style.

Time went on, and I moved on to other writers and other influences. I couldn't help but notice that Jong's work began to deteriorate. Fame didn't help, I suspect (and possibly substance abuse was at play, too). I find her later novels fairly unreadable, though in 1993 she published The Devil at Large, a very good book about Henry Miller. I can imagine a Jong who didn't hit it big with Fear of Flying and whose work continued to mature. But the fact that she is now no longer the person she was--the writer who inspired me--is hard for me to fathom.

I love this photo of Jong with Eileen Myles, Fran Winant, Joan Larkin, Jean Valentine, Honor Moore, Susan Griffin, Toi Derricotte, and Anne Waldman. Not a celebrity, but a poet among poets.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
My collection of short fiction, Sinking, Singing, came out in October. Writing-wise, the year was mostly taken up by revising my novel Thank You for Sending Me an Angel, working on a sequel, and doing yet more revision of Thank You! (Fortunately, I really enjoy spending time with these characters.)


fiction

Sinking, Singing (Aqueduct Press)
Includes four original stories ("The Discography of Theodore Grayson," "A Good Cast Is Worth Repeating," "Resolution," and "De Bergerac Duels His Dragon") as well as seven reprints ("We Gotta Get Out of This Place," "Emily and the What-if Imp," "Sinking, Singing," "Beyond and Back," "The Clockwork Cat's Escape," "The Two Mrs. Mansfields," and "A Wild Patience").


poetry

"Universals" in Dreams & Nightmares #126 (January 2024)

poetry reprint

"midas" in FUMPTRUCK: Open Letters, Essays, Fiction, Poetry, Artwork & Other Creations for & Inspired by the 47th President of the Divided States of America, edited by Anonymous (Written Backwards Press)
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
My poem "portrait of the artist as a young gorgon" will appear in an upcoming issue of Penumbric! The poem began life as a half-written short story, inspired by the Hammer film The Gorgon. (I couldn't figure out how to make the story work, but maybe someday I will.) It's not the first time I've turned a failed short story into a poem.

Meanwhile, I'm nearly done polishing my novel Thank You for Sending Me an Angel. With any luck, I will be able to start querying agents in the next few weeks.

March is my birthday month, and for the first time in years, I celebrated my birthday in-person with friends! It was really nice.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
The mail brought my contributor's copy of Dreams and Nightmares #126, featuring my poem "Universals." The poem started out as my attempt to write about classic Universal horror films in the style of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.

I am in the midst of polishing Thank You for Sending Me an Angel. This is vastly more enjoyable than writing a query letter and synopsis (though those things are happening too).
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
The Worlds of Possibility anthology, edited by Julia Rios, is now available in print and ebook formats! It includes my poem "the jacarandas consider blooming," as well as fiction and poetry by R.B. Lemberg, Keyan Bowes, Valerie Valdes, and many others.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
I spent the bulk of 2023 revising my novel Thank You For Sending Me an Angel (only two chapters to go!), but all my publications this year were poetry.


"when Ruth invented the Empathy Pill" in Kaleidotrope (Spring 2023)

"ode to The Swarm" in Penumbric (April 2023, Vol. 6, Issue 6)

"dear Tom Cassidy's daughter" in Strange Horizons (10 April 2023)

"dear Aunt Clara" in Not One of Us #75

"the jacarandas consider blooming" in Worlds of Possibility Anthology, ed. Julia Rios

"the ending" (reprint) in The Deadlands: Year One
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
My poem "Universals" will appear in a future issue of Dreams & Nightmares. It started out as my attempt to write about classic Universal horror films in the style of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. I'm not sure the Stein influence is evident, but it was a lot of fun to write.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
I had a wonderful Readercon, which is a good thing, considering how difficult it was to get there. Bad weather resulted in my flight being diverted to Pittsburgh, where we sat in the plane for three hours and in the terminal for another hour. Fortunately, we didn't have to spend the night in Pittsburgh, though I didn't make it to my hotel until after 3 a.m. Once there, it was great to catch up with friends, and I thoroughly enjoyed the panels and readings I participated in and those I attended as an audience member. The Sylvia Townsend Warner panel and the Fantasy Magazine reading were especially rich.

There are friends who I wish could have been there, and other friends I only got to see in passing, but I'm very glad I attended. For the most part I was impressed by Readercon's COVID precautions. I was less than thrilled that some participants ignored the very clear masking requirements or treated them as something to negotiate on a case-by-case basis.

Now I am home and wildly jetlagged (after a blessedly uneventful trip home), and I'm happy to reveal that my poem "the jacarandas consider blooming" will appear in the Worlds of Possibility anthology, edited by Julia Rios! I got to debut the poem at Julia's Readercon reading, which was a lot of fun.

Pete Brown

May. 20th, 2023 02:12 pm
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
Pete Brown has died. Most famous for his Cream lyrics (he was the Brown in Bruce/Brown), he was also a wonderful poet and performer, and a kind, delightful man. I feel so lucky to have known him, though I wish we hadn't fallen out of touch in recent years. Here's something I wrote about him long ago, originally published in LOCA, and reprinted in Shuffle Boil in the early '00s. I recall sending Pete a copy of the latter magazine, and he replied by letter. I hope he knew, from what I wrote, how much he meant to me.

Tea with Cream )
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
My poem "dear Aunt Clara" (inspired by Bewitched) will appear in a future issue of Not One of Us. Though I've been working hard on novel revisions, this is turning out to be a good poetry year for me.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
I'm so pleased that my poem "dear Tom Cassidy's daughter," inspired by Psycho (1960), is up at Strange Horizons.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
This week I have two poems coming out, both of them inspired by movies! The first, "ode to The Swarm," is up now in the April issue of Penumbric. In order to write this poem, I had to watch The Swarm all the way through, which was no mean feat.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
April is National Poetry Month. Fittingly (albeit coincidentally) I will have three poems published this month! The first one, "when Ruth invented the Empathy Pill," is in the new issue of Kaleidotrope.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
I'm happy to announce that my poem "dear Tom Cassidy's daughter," inspired by Psycho (1960), has been accepted by Lisa M. Bradley for Strange Horizons. It is my favorite poem that I've written in awhile, and I'm so pleased it's found a home at Strange Horizons.
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
This was a rough year for me, to put it mildly, but writing was a source of comfort. (So were reading and listening to music.) I didn't publish all that much in 2022, but my debut novel came out in January.


novel

Can't Find My Way Home (Aqueduct Press)


short fiction

"Beyond and Back" in Not One of Us #70 2022


short fiction reprint

"The Imaginary Friend" in Zooscape April 15, 2022


poetry

"a homecoming, a leave-taking" in Musings of the Muse (Brigids Gate Press)

"The Golem (1933)" in Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People, edited by Andrea D. Lobel & Mark Shainbaum (Ben Yehuda Press)
gwynnega: (Leslie Howard mswyrr)
It's been a long and circuitous road to publication, but Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People is available from Ben Yehuda Press! Edited by Andrea D. Lobel & Mark Shainblum, the book includes work by such authors as Harry Turtledove, Lavie Tidhar, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Gillian Polack, Matthew Kressel, Rivqa Rafael, and Bogi Takács, as well as my alternate film history poem, "The Golem (1933)" (which prominently features Leslie Howard).
gwynnega: (Leslie Howard mswyrr)
The Kickstarter for Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People is live! This anthology was originally supposed to be published by CZP, but it's since been picked up by Ben Yehuda Press. The book will include my alternate film history poem, "The Golem (1933)," as well as work by such authors as Harry Turtledove, Lavie Tidhar, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Gillian Polack, Matthew Kressel, Rivqa Rafael, and Bogi Takács. I am excited to see this anthology finally see the light of day!
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
Musings of the Muses, published by Brigids Gate Press, is available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon. It includes a slew of fiction and poetry based on Greek myths, including my Penelope poem, "a homecoming, a leave-taking."
gwynnega: (Default)
I'm pleased to announce that my poem "ode to The Swarm" will appear in a future issue of Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine. (This is the poem I sold last week.) This poem was a lot more fun to write than it was to watch the entire Irwin Allen production of The Swarm.

two sales!

Feb. 18th, 2022 01:55 pm
gwynnega: (books poisoninjest)
I sold a poem, then sold a story less than twelve hours later! I don't think that's ever happened to me before. I'm delighted that my punk-rock time travel story "Beyond and Back" will appear in a future issue of the wonderful Not One of Us. (I will talk about the poetry sale in a later post.)

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