your new year's annogram

Jimmy Santiago Baca and Free Ferry

Jimmy Santiago Baca, subject of the extraordinary documentary A Place to Stand, and poet of Singing at the Gates, has endorsed my new book, Free Ferry:

Jimmy Santiago Baca

“Compelling and timely, a journey across the lake of the mind where her language floats up like medieval sirens and archetypal creatures that lure us into another world, a haunting and magical world—highly recommended.”

I am thrilled to have a New Mexican poet comment, as my book references the first atomic explosion at White Sands. My publisher, Ann Starr, reports pre-orders are impressive. Thanks to everyone who is generating buzz by ordering my book prior to its April debut.

Matters of the Heart – A Meeting of Poets

Once again, Dr. George Kraus is convening an awesome group of poets for Sundays at the J with George and Friends at the JCC on the Hudson on Sunday, January 22 at 1:30pm. Come hear me read with poets Michael Carman, Susanna Case, Ruth Handel, Ann Lauinger, Loretta Oleck, Natalie Safir, Michelle Seaman and Meredith Trede.

Chasing Shadows

Rick Bria

Amateur astronomer Rick Bria will discuss the astrophotography of asteroids occulting distant stars on January 13 at 7:30pm in Lienhard Lecture Hall at Pace University in Pleasantville.  Bria, a founding member of the Astronomical Society of Greenwich, operates the Stamford, Bowman, and Mary Aloysia Hardey Observatories. He's a superb astrophotographer whose work is truly out of this world!

Gluten-Free Molasses Ginger Cookies

Before we bid the holidays adieu, let's warm a cup of tea and bake one more batch of cookies...courtesy poet and painter Linda Simone:

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup almond flour

1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/4 cup coconut oil (warmed to liquid)
1/8 cup organic blackstrap molasses
1/8 cup agave
1/4 cup crystalized ginger (diced)

Preheat 350° oven. In mixing bowl, whisk first four ingredients. In separate bowl, combine coconut oil, molasses, and agave. Add liquid ingredients to dry, and stir until dough is sticky. Fold in crystalized ginger. Scoop 1-inch balls of dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheet, leaving space between cookies as they spread while cooking. Bake for 6-8 minutes depending on altitude.

Petra Lewis

Calls for work / creative opportunities

Blogging Intensive Workshop, email petraelewis@gmail.com

Cathy's Comps and Calls for January 2017, literary calls

Development and Marketing internship, Poets and Writers

Speak Fearlessly, workshops with TV broadcaster Ira Joe Fisher

The Studios at Mass MoCA, residency deadline January 10

Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology, submission deadline February 14

ModPo, UPenn's acclaimed global online poetry course, September 2017

 

New releases

Marcela Delpastre, The Blood of The Stone, trans. Nicole Peyrafitte and Pierre Joris, (Mindmade Books)

Candace Habte, ed., Theories of HER (Mercurial Noodle)

J. Chester Johnson, Now and Then: Selected Longer Poems (St. Johann Press)

David Mills

Readings / presentations

Hotel Andaz, January 10, 7pm, poets Stella Padnos-Shea, Matthew Thorburn, Christina Cook 

McNally Jackson Bookstore, January 10, 7pm, poets Joshua Bennett, Jennifer Kronovet

Greenlight Bookstore, January 12, 7:30pm, Glen David Gould, Mar Cólon-Margolies, Brad Wetherell, Mallory Imler Powell, Andrew Mangan, and more

HVWC, January 13, 7:30pm, Stephen Massimilla and Myra Kornfeld on food and poetry ($10)

Cervantes

Bedlam, January 14, 8pm, George Guida, Estha Weiner

HVWC, January 16, 7:30pm, David Mills's One-Man Show about MLK Jr. ($10)

Center for Fiction, January 17, 7pm, William Egginton on Cervantes inventing fiction; translators Edith Grossman, Natasha Wimmer; author Álvaro Enrigue

HVWC, January 22, 4:30pm, publishing panel with Michael Pietsch, Hachette Book Group CEO ($10)

Katherine Hepburn exemplified
the 1930s "Mid-Atlantic" accent

'Round the Net

Editor John Amen for the 16-year anniversary issue 79 of the Pedestal Magazine

Editors Adam Berlin and Jeffrey Heiman for J Journal's new website

The NEA for a link to "How a Fake British Accent Took Old Hollywood by Storm"

UPenn Professor Al Filreis for free PennSound audio recordings, PoemTalk podcasts, critical essays in Jacket2 magazine

The Divine Thirst
Quencher by Sasha Meret

Art historian Beth Gersh-Nesic for curating Sasha Meret: Select Works at the Rafael Gallery in Manhattan through January 23

Poet Gary Glauber on his Pushcart nomination and poems in First Literary Review - East, translated work in International Poetry, and Verse-Virtual

Poet Cindy Hochman for reviews of Marylen Gringas's SHIFT,  Amy MacLennan's The Body, A Tree and Jordan Rice's Constellarium 

Poet Janet Kaplan on sharing this thought-provoking lecture, "Being Imagination, Being Love"

Translator C.M. Mayo for Yiddish translators Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub on translating Blume Lempel's Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories 

Laura Morelli talks Murano glass
(link at left)

Art historian and novelist Laura Morelli on this fascinating history of Murano glass

Actor Celia Pilkington on her upcoming role in Bigger Than You, Bigger Than Me at the Studio Theatre at Theatre Row in Manhattan

NYPL's Christopher Platt on encouraging readers to tweet or post what they are reading at #ReadersUnite

Fantasy writer Paul Russell on his Indie-a-Go-Go campaign to fund his new book, The Will of the Magi

Bass player Larry Schwartzman for this all-star performance of “Why I Sing the Blues”

Music archivist Jay Shulman for this article on Stevie Wonder's talent as a harmonica player; I also recommend Big Leon Brooks

Big Leon Brooks

Poet and painter Linda Simone for Frida Kahlo dressed as a man, Angelica Dass's diversity-inspired TED talk, interview with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch on WCW, Paterson and poetry, and poets picking their favorite words

Filmmaker Frank Vitale for sharing Episodes 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35 of "The Metropolis Organism"

Westchester Amateur Astronomers for great lectures, after January 13, first Fridays through June—see website for details

Zoomorphic for its newest anthology, DriftFish

Happy new year from snow-covered New York!  Digging out today.  While I might prefer to be a bear hibernating about now, January is great for writing, reading, and creating. Use it to your advantage and joyfully begin to fulfill your creative intentions and adventures….

Until next time,

Ann