Cyberflanerie: Bill Cunningham, Brattlecast, Rudy Rucker, Sturmfrei & More

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

As of 2019, when there is one, the fifth Monday of the month rounds up some cyberflanerie. >>CONTUNUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

Q & A: Clifford Garstang Author of “The Shaman of Turtle Valley”

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

This blog posts on Mondays. This year the fourth Monday of the month is devoted to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

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Frederick Turner’s “In the Land of the Temple Caves: From St. Emilion to Paris’ St. Sulpice, Notes on Art and the Human Spirit”

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

Thanks to my fellow typospherian Joe van Cleave's recommendation, in Frederick Turner’s In the Land of the Temple Caves: From St. Emilion to Paris’ St. Sulpice I now have both a sparkling addition to my annual Top Books Read (posted every December) and to my workshop’s list of recommended literary travel memoirs. What prompted me to read In the Land of the Temple Caves, aside from an avid interest in American literary travel memoir, is that I’ve been a devotée of rock art ever since I first encountered some jaw-dropping examples of it in remotest Baja California and, as those of you who follow this blog well know, I have long been at work on a book about Far West Texas, and that includes the Lower Pecos which has some the most spectacular and ancient rock art of the Americas. 
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“Advice for Writers”: Spotlight on US Poet, Playwright and Translator Zack Rogow, and His Mega-Rich Resource of a Blog

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019 the second Monday of the month is devoted to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. (You can find my workshop schedule and many more resources for writers on my  workshop page.)

This past spring I attended the Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) annual conference and bookfair, where I read from Meteor, my book of poetry, as part of the Gival Press 20th anniversary celebration. AWP is not for the FOMO-ly challenged. In the crowd of 15,000+ conference-goers I missed many events and many friends, among them the poet, playwright and translator Zack Rogow. And it didn’t seem at all right to have missed Rogow for, the last time I was at AWP, it was to participate on his panel with Mark Doty and Charles Johnson, “Homesteading on the Digital Frontier: Writers’ Blogs,” one of the crunchiest conference panels ever. (You can read the transcript of my talk about blogs here.)

Should you try to attend AWP next spring 2020 in San Antonio? Of course only you know what’s right for you. But I can say this much: AWP can be overwhelming, an experience akin to a fun house ride and three times through the TSA line at the airport with liquids… while someone drones the William Carlos Williams white chickens poem… AWP can also prove Deader than Deadsville, if what you’re after is, say, an agent for your thriller. Book Expo it ain’t. 

On the bright side, however, Zack Rogow attends AWP. He is one of the most talented and generous poets and translators I know. Watch this brief documentary about his life and work and I think you’ll understand why I say this:

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Catamaran Literary Reader and My Translation of Mexican Writer Rose Mary Salum’s “The Aunt”

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

I am delighted and honored to announce that my translation of Mexican writer Rose Mary Salum’s short story “La tía” as “The Aunt” appears in the shiny new Fall 2019 issue of Catamaran Literary Reader– check it out here. 

“The Aunt” is from The Water That Rocks the Silence, Salum’s collection of linked stories set in Lebanon, two other stories of which have previously appeared in Catamaran. Originally published in Spanish as El agua que mece el silencio (Vaso Roto, 2015), it won the International Latino Book Award and the prestigious Panamerican Award Carlos Montemayor.

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