“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:

>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

BatCat Press' Call for Submissions, Plus from the Archives: "Out of the Forest of Noise: On Publishing the Literary Short Story"

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.)

Now that anyone and everyone and their dog, cat, budgie, llama, and chartreuse polkadot giraffe can start a blog, or for that matter an online magazine (dub your blog an online magazine, pourquoi pas?), I am rarely asked, with that gaze of yearning, as I so often was twenty years ago, how can I get published? These days, um, lift a finger and click “publish.” 

Nonetheless it remains a fact that for most poetry, short stories, and literary essays, discerning readers will be easier to come by when said work is brought out not by its author, but by a print magazine or imprint of repute. (There are exceptions, but that would be another blog post.)

Back at the end of March I attended the annual AWP bookfair— this is the biggest litmag scene in the US– and what struck me about it was how little things had changed in the past 20 years. There were Poet Lore, the Paris Review, Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction— a whole host of venerable litmags that have been around since forever. (In the case of Poet Lore, that would be 1889.)

>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

Meteor (Gival Press Poetry Award) to Launch at AWP

My book Meteor, which won the Gival Press Award for Poetry, and was orginally scheduled to be published in late 2018, has been delayed slightly; it will be out in early 2019. 

I’m thrilled to see the cover, designed by Kenn Schellenberg, and to announce that Meteor which will launch at the Associated Writing Programs Conference in Portland, Oregon this March. If you’re going to conference, come on by my reading which will be part of Gival Press’ 20th Anniversary Celebration, and also to my booksigning the following day in the AWP Bookfair (details below).

[>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM]

Leslie Pietrzyk interviews me about Meteor on her excellent blog, Work-in-Progress. 

Visit Meteor’s webpage here. All of the poems in Meteor have been published, but only a few are online, among them: “In the Garden of Lope de Vega,” “Stay West” and “Bank.”

I’d be the first to say many of these poems could be considered flash fictions, and in fact, a number of them were originally published in literary magazines (e.g., Exquisite Corpse, Gargoyle, Kenyon Review), as fiction. But as I like to say, it’s all poetry– or at least, it should aspire to be.

March 29, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Associated Writing Programs Conference
Oregon Convention Center
7 – 10 PM
C.M. Mayo, author of Meteor, to participate in Gival Press 20th Anniversray Celebration Reading. More details to be announced.

March 30, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Associated Writing Programs Conference
Oregon Convention Center
Book Fair, Gival Press, Table # 8063
10-11:30 AM
C.M. Mayo will be signing Meteor.

Yep, I am still at work on the book about Far West Texas. I aim to post a podcast apropos of that shortly, however next Monday’s post– the month’s fourth– is dedicated, as ever, to a Q & A with another writer: David A. Taylor, who will be talking about his intriguing Cork Wars.

# # # # #

>Your comments are always welcome. Click here to send me an email.

Meteor, Ambiance, Influences

Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on My 1961 Hermes 3000

From the Typosphere: “Bank”

Writers' Blogs (and My Blog): Eight Conclusions After 8 Years of Blogging

Herewith, the notes for my talk for the Associated Writing Programs conference panel discussion "Homesteading the Digital Frontier: Writers' Blogs."

MADAM MAYO Blog is now on a new platform at www.madam-mayo.com. To read this post on the new platform, click here.

How to blog, how not to blog... that was a hot topic a few years ago, when blogging was new, and indeed in 2008, for the Maryland Writers Association conference I gave a talk on the best practices for writers' blogs. But that was then and this is now. Now I don't have so much advice; what I have are some conclusions about what's right for me and, sort of maybe kind of, by extension, for other literary writers. There isn't any one right way to do this-- what might annoy this reader enchants another, and anyway, someone is always barging in with something new.

To switch metaphors: this genre is built of jelly. Electrified jelly in rainbow hues.

I started blogging with Madam Mayo back in the spring of 2006. I kept at it, blogging once, twice, sometimes more often, every week. By the end of this March it will have been eight years. What have I concluded?


# 1. I remain charmed by the name of my blog, "Madam Mayo." 
I was a little uneasy about it at first. It seems nobody gets the joke, that it's a play on Madam Mao. Oh well. It still makes me chuckle.

As a reader, I appreciate fun or at least memorable names for blogs. A few examples:
Mr. Money Mustache
Pigs, Gourds and Wikis (Liz Castro)
Jenny Redbug (Jennifer Silva Redmond)
E-Notes (E. Ethelbert Miller)
Real Delia (Delia Lloyd)
Cool Tools (Kevin Kelly)
The Metaphysical Traveler (John Kachuba)
The Blue Lantern (Jane Librizzi)
Chico Lingo (Sergio Troncoso)
Quid Plura? (Jeff Sypeck)
Poet Reb Livingston's now unavailable blog, Home Schooled By a Cackling Jackal, that was my all-time fave.

#2. Whoa, blogging has an opportunity cost. 
For me, looking back at eight years, it's probably a novel that didn't get written, plus a few essays and articles in newspapers and magazines that didn't get polished up, submitted and published. Do I regret that? Yes, but not hugely because in those eight years I did manage to publish three books (Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion; a novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire; and Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual), plus I published several Kindles (Miraculous Air; From Mexico to Miramar; The Building of Quality; El último principe del Imperio Mexicano), plus I promoted a paperback edition of my travel memoir; I also published several articles, scads of book reviews, poems, more translations, and over 30 podcasts. Oh, and I wrote an ebook of writing exercises and an ebook, Podcasting for Writers. So you can't say I'm not a productive writer. But yes... (sigh)... I do wish I could have written that novel.

# 3. But on the plus side, frequent blogging, like a jogging routine for an athlete, helps me stay in shape as a writer. 
Indeed, if I hadn't been blogging over these past 8 years, perhaps I would not have been as productive as a writer. So maybe the opportunity cost was the other way around! But that's probably wishful thinking. My sense is I blogged just the right amount for me at the time. I blogged more frequently the first couple of years, back when I was still trying to get my mind around the nature of the genre. Looking forward: Best for me to blog once a week, maybe twice.

# 4. Although my ego would like Madam Mayo to draw legions of passionate followers, all perched at the edge of their seats for my next post, ready to fly to their keyboards with their hailstorm of comments...  The fact is, writing that strives for an ever-larger following is not the best strategy for me as a literary artist or as a person. 
I think egos are rather like big dogs. They protect you, they love you, but they bark a lot and sometimes they slobber. For me—a literary writer whose focus through several books in multiple genres has been examining various regions and aspects and periods of Mexico in an international context, numbers of followers... well, let me put it this way: If what I'd really wanted was a mass following, I wouldn't be writing the kinds of books I'm writing. QED.

> See The Whopper-Foie analogy.
> And: Through narrative we become more human. Truth is beauty. Exploration is infinite.

# 5.  Not all, certainly, but a sizable number of people who trouble to comment on blogs seem stuck in Emotional Kindergarten. 
One day they shall evolve to their next educational opportunity; meanwhile, I am not in the business of managing snotty little brats pushing each other off the swings in Blogland. Therefore I do not manage nor publish comments on my blog. But because I hope I am not shouting into the wind here— I do care about hearing from thoughtful and civilized readers— I always include a link that goes to a contact page on my website. So, with two clicks away from my blog post, any reader can send me an email. What I have very happily learned is that spammers and trolls don't bother. That extra click and knowing in advance that their comment will probably not be published, wow, that is a Mount Rainier-sized barrier. With my no comments but email link in place, so far, fingers crossed, I have yet to receive an email from anyone but the readers I want to have, that is, civilized and intelligent people.

# 6. Blogging is very much like publishing a literary short story or book— it goes out into the world to an opaque response. 
We might scare up some numbers, say, as how many people clicked on a blog post and at what time of day via which search engine, or how many bookstores ordered how many copies of a book. But even with endless hours of crunching through, say, Google Analytics, we may never know, the reaction of every single reader. All of us read thousands of things we never comment on, dozens and dozens of books we will never review—though some of them may prove deeply meaningful to us in the course of our lives. As anyone who has published a blog or a book knows, sometimes the silence can be downright eerie. So if you want to write a book or a blog post, it helps to have the tough-mindedness to accept that maybe... you will never know the true, full nature of the response. Maybe the person who will most appreciate a given blog post has not yet been born. Or maybe my best blog post will find its biggest fan next week. Maybe what I said yesterday changed someone's life today in... Australia. I don't know. And that's OK. I write anyway. That is the kind of writer I am.

# 7. More on the plus side: sharing what I call cyberflanerie and celebrating friends and colleagues and books and all wonder of things is a delight. 
(In ye olden days, we would take scissors and cut things out of magazines and end up with overstuffed files full of yellowing papers. Difficult to share.)

# 8. Madam Mayo is not so much my so-called "platform," but rather, a net that catches certain special fish— the readers who care about the things I care to write about. 
(And this is especially true for my other blogs, Maximilian-Carlota and Reading Tolstoy's War and Peace.)

This last conclusion is the one that took me the longest to reach. It seems obvious to me now, and it probably will for you also, but back when blogs were new it was difficult to appreciate both their nature and their potential. Back when, most people thought of them as a diary—a web log— which is how we got the term "blog." The idea, supposedly, was to talk about yourself, frequently. I know it turned off a lot of writers at the time. I had zero interest in blogging about my personal life.

Another way writers thought about blogs— and at first I had a foot in this camp— was as a digital newspaper column. If you were good, if you put out well-crafted and witty and super informative posts, you'd get readers. You'd be famous! You could sell more of your books! Wow, maybe even sell ads and ka-ching, ka-ching! 

But of course, anybody can start a blog. The gates blown open, suddenly, there popped up a million wonderful and a zillion crappy blogs, and everything in between, all muddled up together, hay, needles, kitchen sinks, elderly lama. Back in 2007, 2008, most serious writers I knew turned their noses up at blogging, as something for wannabes, for kids. But by 2009, 2010, those same writers, nagged by their publishers' marketing staffs, I suppose, had started blogging to promote their books. (From what I can see from all those blogs that petered out once the book tour was over, or sometimes not even halfway through, if marketing a book is the only goal, one is unlikely to be able to sustain the energy to keep at it for more than a few months, at best.)

But here's the wonder: The diary and the newspaper column of yore were not searchable the way digital material is. The paper diary was tucked in someone's drawer; the newspaper, after a day, lined the bottom of the proverbial parrot cage. OK, a very few people might go search things cataloged in a library. And a collection of newspaper articles might end up in a book... one day. But basically, massive an audience as some newspapers columnists enjoyed, before the digital revolution, their writing was ephemeral.

A blog, however, can be found at anytime by anyone anywhere (OK, maybe not in Burma). As people search for words, phrases, topics, names, and come upon Madam Mayo, and its many blog posts with many links to whatever interests me and all about my works, books, ebooks, podcasts, articles, newsletter, and so on and so forth, it serves as a kind of net that catches a certain kind of fish. Over time, as I continue to blog, to add tags and links, my fishnet grows. So now, after 8 years, I have a very big fishnet. And some very nice fish have come in. Though I don't know who you all are, I sincerely appreciate you, dear readers. Cheers to you!

More anon.

UPDATE 2016: On the occasion of this blog's 10th anniversary.
UPDATE 2017: On the occasion of this blog's 11th anniversary.

Gone to the Litblogs: Narrowcasting and More Notes Towards a Taxonomy

Ten Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Writing Workshop

Getting Started with Websites and Blogs: My Experience and Some Tips

Writing workshop schedule

Your comments are always very welcome.

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I also welcome you to sign up for my newsletter 

which is free, goes out every other month (more or less).

Click here.

Note #2 Re: Homesteading on the Digital Frontier: Readers? The Whopper-Foie Analogy

Yesterday I posted about my upcoming Associated Writing Programs (AWP) conference panel on writers' blogs, "Homesteading on the Digital Frontier," to be chaired by poet and Advice to Writers blogger Zack Rogow. First of all, when we're talking about "writers" at AWP we generally mean literary writers. And while "literary" and "the market" have been known to intersect, and sometimes clangingly so (e.g., Angela's Ashes, War and Peace), it's more often than not a sad song. Generally speaking, readers are few for literary works, while readers are legion for vampire / naughty whatnot / movie star shenanigans / UFOs / mysteries about murders and/or megalithic structures / anything about making money / bash 'em politics. Herewith the Whopper-Foie analogy:

You want to sell food to the masses, well, they like Whoppers.

You want to sell 5 Star fussy little plates featuring foie, there may be a very few (but, one hopes, highly discerning and loyal) diners.

Whoppers or foie? You decide. But it's pointless to cry / gnash teeth / grumble / spend hours on Google Analytics /FB /Twitter trying to grow your numbers when THE FACT IS, the most people say phooey to foie. (And the people who actually read your book, have you answered their emails?)

Take home point: if you're doing literary work, the numbers -- how many buy your book, how many followers for your blog or your twitter-- are not the only, nor even the main indicator of  "success."

I put "success" in quotation marks because it's just a story one tells oneself, after all.

What is the story you tell yourself? And what is the story you'd like to tell yourself-- and believe?

More anon.

See also:
> Homesteading on the Digital Frontier: My Humble Opinion on Google Analytics and Comments
>Why Aren't There More Readers? A Note on Curiosity, Creativity, and Courage
>So How's the Book Doing? (And How Many Books Have you Sold? And What Was Your Print Run?)
>Getting Started with Websites and Blogs

COMMENTS

Homesteading on the Digital Frontier: My Humble Opinion on Google Analytics and Comments

Madame Blavatsky
Mega-magnet on the digital frontier
(No relation to Madam Mayo...
but one sends a salute on the astral plane)

Gearing up for the Associated Writing Programs conference panel "Homesteading on the Digital Frontier: Writers' Blogs," to be chaired by poet Zack Rogow, whose excellent blog is Advice for Writers. Since I first started blogging back in 2006, writers' interest in blogs seems to have taken a rollercoaster ride from WOW! to bleh, and around-again. 

(Time machine: Gone to the Litblogs circa 2008 and my talk, "Writers' Blogs: Best Practices" for the 2008 Maryland Writers Conference).

Anyway, one thing that has not escaped my notice is that all the writers who turned their noses up at blogging back in 2006-2009, once they have a book to flog, they blog. Yes, they all blog. 

But who reads our blogs? 

Zack asked me about Google Analytics-- something someone is sure to raise a hand about. My (slightly edited) response:

MY HUMBLE OPINION ON GOOGLE ANALYTICS & COMMENTS

I think I looked at Google Analytics when it came out and that was the last time. If you were selling, say, on-line pizza, it would probably be a great tool. My personal opinion is that, for a literary writer / poet-- by my definition, that means one is not writing just for the market, and certainly not following it-- it's a dangerous time-sink.

If one wants to write for the numbers, may I suggest giving up literary pretensions and covering topics involving vampires / naughty whatnot / UFOs / movie stars / money $$$$$ / politics and preferably all mixed together in one super-steamy stew!!

So alas, I am not the one to say anything about Google Analytics. (Though I do mention astral wildlife / UFOs and politics in my latest book. But, um, in a literary sense.)

But I will say this: If one uses tags (or "labels") and searchable words in the titles and provides quality content, there will be readers. How do I know? Because people tell me when I see them, or in an email, or they mention something on their blog.

And also, on my blogger.com dashboard it does show the numbers of views for each post, so I am aware, for example, that my post about Madame Blavatsky works like an industrial-strength magnet, while my mention of a friend's literary magazine excited a cyber snore.

I am not bereft of handy tips, however, and neither am I wholly blind to numbers.  

Tip #1: Providing a link from a blog post to one's own webpage, article, book, or, say, podcast, will help oonch that up in the search engines.

Translation: I might not get crowds following my every blog post, but the people who really want to know about, say, Dr. Krumm-Heller and Francisco I. Madero, may Google and find precisely that, chez moi.

Once in a while I'll google something of mine to see how far up in the list it appears-- another pointless time-sink I occasionally fall into. But only up to the ankles.

By the way, I long ago disabled comments because I was getting pestered by mattress companies in Pakistan or else people I don't know who seemed stuck in a bad day in Emotional Kindergarten. I added a link to my contact page so that the readers who feel moved to do so can send me an email. I sincerely welcome emails from readers; I make every effort to answer, unless it's from a troll. Haven't had any so far! And the Pakistan mattress people go away, too.

More about writers' blogs anon. 

[UPDATE: My talk for AWP: Writers Blogs (and My Blog): Eight Conclusions After 8 Years of Blogging]

P.S. Zack Rogow advises, Don't Avoid the Book Fair. People, the AWP book fair is the point.

Your COMMENTS are always welcome.

Class and Conflict on the Other Side of the World

Here's what I'm up to this week, with three other novelists:

April 8, 2010 Denver CO
Associated Writing Programs Conference
Panel discussion: "Class and Conflict On The Other Side of the World"
10:30 AM to 11:45 AM
Scheduled Room: 210, 212 - Colorado Convention Center
R137. Class and Conflict on the Other Side of the World.
Panel Participants: Masha Hamilton, Thrity Umrigar, C.M. Mayo, Rishi Reddi.
As we become more globally linked, the role of fiction in providing a human and humane glimpse of "the other" becomes more important. But it is a challenging task. How do writers develop confidence to tell stories of cultures and countries where they don't reside? Why are such stories critically important? Authors—- who between them write about everywhere from Asia to the Middle East to Africa to Mexico—- explore this issue.

I'll post my notes on this soon. I plan to discuss a few scenes from The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire and, if there's time, talk a bit about the Reglamento y Ceremonial de la Corte, second edition, 1866. Read a few pages of that extraordinary tome here.

More anon.

Guest-blogger Clara Rodriguez on 5 Latino Stars of Early Hollywood

One of the many writers I was fortunate to meet at last January's AWP bookfair in New York City was Fordham University Sociology professor Clara Rodriguez, whose new book is Heroes, Lovers & Others: The History of Latinos in Hollywood (Smithsonian Institution Press). It's one of those rare books that is both armchair-reading fun and serious scholarship. Once upon a time, long before Salma.... long before even Ricardo Montalban... who were the Latino stars of the "silents" and early "talkies" era? Over to you, Professor Rodriguez!

#1 Myrtle Gonzalez (1891-1918) was the industry's first Latina star. A native Mexican Californian, she was the daughter of a Los Angeles grocer. Her first film was "Ghosts" in 1911. Between 1911-1917, she starred in more than forty films, many of them westerns and often portraying "vigorous outdoor heroines." She was one of the screen’s best-known leading ladies and was given the title at Universal of “The Virgin Lily of the Screen.”

#2 Antonio Moreno (1888-1967) was a huge star during the silent era. Born in Spain, he starred in a number of major silent films and had made at least 29 such films by 1929. He played the role of Cyrus T. Waltham, the son of a wealthy department store mogul and the handsome hero and love target of his co-star, Clara Bow, in the film It (1927). This is the film which is credited with introducing the term “the ‘it’ girl” into Hollywood.

#3 Ramon Novarro (1899-1968) was another one of the silent screen's handsome leading men and marquis idols. Born José Ramon Samaniegos in Durango, Mexico, he changed his name and went on to become a "guaranteed money-maker for MGM" and to star in many major motion pictures, e.g., "Ben Hur" (1926) and "Mata Hari" (1932) with Greta Garbo.

#4 Dolores Del Rio (1905-1983) is considered "the first Latina superstar." She was one of the top ten moneymakers during the silent era and after leaving Hollywood, she returned to Mexico and went on to become the "First Lady of Mexican Theater." The daughter of a banker in Mexico, she was "discovered" by a film director and brought to Hollywood as the female "Valentino." During her career, she played a wide variety of leading roles.

#5 Lupe Velez (1908-1944) was born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico and educated in a convent school in San Antonio, Texas. Her first major role was opposite Douglas Fairbanks in the silent movie "The Gaucho" (1928), where she played what was to be the first of a long line of "fire-spitting vamps." Already a star in the late 20s, she was able to successfully make the transition to sound movies in the thirties because her voice was "husky and cartoon-like" -- a clear asset in the comedic characters she played. Her career skyrocketed in 1939 when she began her "Mexican Spitfire" series. She was to make eight films in this series before committing suicide in 1944.

---Clara Rodríguez

--->For the archive of Madam Mayo guest-blog posts, click here.(and check out the recent guest blog post by Daniel Olivas on 5 influential writers in Latinos in Lotusland)

The Kindle: Madam Mayo is Simultaneously Impressed and Underwhelmed

Last January, I read Jeff Gomez's Print is Dead, and decided to open my mind to the wondrous possibilities of non-book-bound narrative. Soon thereafter, at the AWP bookfair in New York, writer and editor Tamara Sellman showed me her light-as-mushroom-dust Kindle and I was impressed. So, a few hundred smackos slapped on the credit card and the Kindle, amazon.com's newfangled electronic reading device, has arrived. I have to admit, however, that it's been sitting on a hall table, unused for more than a month.

The impressive:
--->The box it comes it is charmingly designed.
--->The apparatus is exceptionally lightweight--- goes in a shoulderbag, no problem.
--->Nice leather cover.
--->Love the elastic band on the cover, too.
--->Keyboard super easy to use.
--->The Whispernet thing is kind of cool.

The underwhelming:
--->The screen. It's OK for a screen that isn't back-lit. You need a light to read it, just as you would for an actual book. Whoever came up with the term "electronic paper" gets an A+ in Hot Air.
--->The blog thing. Pay to subscribe to blogs? I think not. And to read a blog without being able to follow links (i.e., surf the 'Net)? What, pray tell, is the point? In any event, a number of the very few blogs available for a Kindle subscription are just plain crappy. "Overheard in New York?" Puh-lease. I'll admit I've read that one in the past, and found it hilarious. But recently it's just turned into very boring, very repetitive p**n. Not even hilarious p***n, OK? As for the other blogs, such as Huffington Post, I sometimes read them on the 'Net--- but that's where they're free, and I can surf the links.
--->Newspaper subscriptions, such as the New York York Times, come without pictures, without ads, and abbreviated (!!!) articles. Madam Mayo shall continue recylcing her ginormous piles of newspaper, merci beaucoup. Alas.
--->The price. Ouch.
--->Whispernet. I realize that sounds like a contradiction, as I did say it's cool. But it's limiting. Whispernet doesn't cover the planet, exactly (mostly major US metropolitan areas) and it's just one danged more thing to have to figure out. And I don't want to have to haul around so many different gadgets--- cell phone, camera, video camera, laptop with a highspeed wireless connection, and (sigh), a Kindle with a Whispernet connection... umbrella... Chapstick... address book... notebook... Chiropractor emergency contact info...

Read what Seth Godin has to say about the Kindle here. Jeff Gomez expounds in multiple posts here. More anon.

At Tameme's Table in the AWP Bookfair NYC

C'est moi with visiting photographer Miriam Berkley---photo by my sister, Alice. I'm about to send out the announcements about Tameme's beautiful new chapbook of poetry by Jorge Fernandez Granados, translated by John Oliver Simon.... More anon.

Tamara Kaye Sellman on Why Writers Should Blog

At the Tameme table at last week's AWP bookfair in New York City (that's Yours Truly, left), Tamara Kaye Sellman (right) came by with her Kindle, the newest digital text reader-e-gizmo (aka "wireless reading device") which has a suprisingly light heft and bright screen. We had long a chat about blogs--- writers's blogs in particular, as, well, we're both writers and we both blog, but also apropos of the Washington Independent Writers conference this Saturday, where I'll be chairing the panel on writers's blogs. Just posted on Sellman's blog, Writer's Rainbow, Why Writers Should Blog:

"...Blogs make perfect calling cards for writers, first of all. If you're a writer, then you should have things to say, and you should have a way to structure the things that you have to say, and you should want others to read these things that you have to say. Otherwise, why are you a writer? But how to go about it, you ask? ..." READ MORE

--->And for more about writers's blogs and litblogs, click here.

Post-AWP Note-oid or, Paper Source: Antidote for Blog Fever

The past couple of weeks I've been thinking about blogging, talking about blogging, and blogging about blogging. Explanation: I've got a writers conference coming up this Saturday at (Washington Independent Writers All-Day Fiction Seminar at American University) for which I'll be chairing the panel on writers's blogs. And, I was just in New York at the AWP mega-powwow, aka bookfair, nonstop yadda yadda yadda, with Sergio Tronocoso, Francisco Aragon, Dawn Marano, Mark Statman, Leslie Pietrzyk, Richard Peabody, Christine Boyka Kluge, John Oliver Simon, to mention only a few, and plenty of the yaddaing about, yep, writers's blogs. Some blog, some don't, some care, some couldn't. Blogging is just a fad--- or it's the biggest thing that's happened to the literary scene since the 15th century. Or---? Well, happily for me, I'm walking distance to Georgetown's Paper Source, which has the most beautiful letterpress business cards, as well as endless racks of silky-looking papers and ribbons and, on the third floor, an Ali Baba's cave worth of doo-dads. Why not make an accordian book? With a cover of sparkly lipstick-red paper! "Do something creative every day" is their trademarked motto. Such wonders we have, yes, even amongst the Starbucks' and the Kinkos'. Yes, even as the book appears to be going, if not the way of the dodo, then, for the most part, into the digital soup. Plop.

More anon.

La Peña de Bernal

Mini-Matterhorn in Mexico. This is a photo from a visit a few months ago, which I've been meaning to post. Near the city of Queretaro, la Peña de Bernal is a curious monolith, one of the largest in the world. Anyway, this is sort of what the pile of "to dos" on my desk looks like as I'm just back from New York City's AWP bookfair for Tameme and signing Miraculous Air at the Milkweed booth. Among other sundry items, I hope to have some excellent new guest blog posts up later this week. Plus pix of El Olivido, Maximilian's little-known country house in Acapatzingo, Morelos. So: much more anon.

Tameme: Kudos & Off to AWP

Pictured right: The new Tameme chapbook, of poems by Mexican Jorge Fernandez Granados, translated by John Oliver Simon, has been shipped from the printers in San Francisco... I have yet to see it myself... I hear it looks good... It should be on the Tameme table at the AWP bookfair in New York City's Hilton this Thursday-Saturday. Here are some kudos for both Tameme's catalog and the first chapbook, published last January 07, (pictured left), "An Avocado from Michoacan", by Mexico's master of the short story, Agustin Cadena:

“The appearance of Tameme Chapbooks / Cuadernos #1 is an overwhelming success. Its vibrant four-color cover and expert design beautifully and subtly underlies Tameme’s important mission to promote artistic collaborations between English and Spanish translators and writers from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico... a resounding celebration of a new beginning for this necessary venture in publishing.”
—Harry Morales, literary translator

"This is a beautiful, evocative short story that's also handsomely produced."
—Daniel Olivas, author of Devil Talk: Stories (Bilingual Press), La Bloga

"A poetically spare story of love and loss... Reading this beautiful chapbook gave me insight into the writing and translation process... a delicious glimpse behind the scenes."
—Leslie Pietrzyk, author of A Year and a Day and Pears on a Willow Tree

"[A] really well put together chapbook. Tameme has been consistent in regards to one specific thing, everything they print is bilingual— the material is translated and as you turn the pages, the left side of the book is in the original Spanish, and the right side is the translated English. With the chapbook series, Mayo, who is also the publisher at Tameme, has also included her translator's notes, which are fascinating in their own right, and an interview, which is also bilingual in print. All combined, the chapbook is a very visually stunning book of 24 pages. The story itself is full of imagery...a great pace to it, and the images that the old woman and the narrator both bring out in their conversations are beautiful."
—Dan Wickett, Emerging Writers Network

"An evocative story... I enjoyed reading it enormously."
—Marco Portales, Professor of English, Texas A & M University, author of Latino Sun Rising

"Truly Tameme and C.M. Mayo are doing fine work and I hope others will visit the website and support the press: http://www.tameme.org/
—Robert Giron, in Chez Robert Giron

Kudos also from Amanada Powell, Rigoberto Gonzalez in the El Paso Times, Jeff Biggers in Bloomsbury Review, and more... Gracias to all!!

About the cover paintings:
--->On Cadena's "An Avocado from Michoacan": "Avocados" by Edgardo Soberon.
--->On Fernandez Granados's "Ghosts of the Palace of Blue Tiles" "Tiled Window, Seashell and View of Mexico City" by Elena Climent.