AWP 2013- Boston Recap

I am actually too tired to write about things I just spent hours doing for a magazine. I was asked before I left if there was a possibility that a piece could capture the event for an editor/writer friend Val Russel, and of course I said yes.

The whole event was a huge undertaking, for AWP organizers and attendees. I am pooped. But came home with so much under my belt. I made new friends, and hooked up with semi-old ones. Athena and I are planning our next adventure in Seattle, and that's all she wrote. At least for now. I will catch up with my NOLA haunted plantation pics and posts. It is forefront on my mind as I made friends with some NOLA fiction writers, mainly Maurice Ruffin via the Seamus Heaney/Derrick Walcott keynote event Thursday evening, who are a part of Peauxdunque Writers Alliance, say that three times, all of whom were naturally southern friendly, because they consented to having dinner and drinks with us, which lead to a long night. We were invited to an after after party, but tired as we were no was said. If I was only ten years younger!

I also made a connection to more poets out of NYC, and one has coined a new phrase for me 'Literary Band', which now I can share with Flora, my partner in poetry jazz rhyme. The group Rough Magic lead by Cornelius Eady has consented to perform at WAMPP in May out of North Jersey. Yay! I also made friends with a group of Nipmuck Native Indian (north eastern tribe) Poets who have consented to perform in the future and to submit to my Cowboy Poetry Journal. Larry Spotted Crow Mann perform his tribal drum (a sacred honor for his people) and I find it is still popping along with Book of Hooks guitar and violin.

So much, so little energy to keep going...

I will say I have finalized not one, but two new manuscripts that are going out this week; one is for a contest I was just encouraged to try for through Finishing Line Press, and the other I will publish through Red Dashboard Publishing has begun to receive feedback in my email file. Lots of excitement, but there is always dark before the storm, and I am learning to forge my character and reactions according to the fires temperature. All is good and well.

I will post when the article appears, and any other submission I just sent out today.

(photo above is Cornelius Eady and Rough Magic performing at AWP 2013- featuring Cornelius Eady top right, writer Robin Messing top left, and bottom composer/guitarist,  Charlie Rauh, and violinist Concetta Abatte. Book of Hooks poetry chapbook and CD's)