Just received word The Wild Rose Press wishes to contract Deidre's Secret, a teen paranormal romantic suspense. When Deidre Roux begins having premonitions of danger, watch out! But can she convince her new friend, Mark Cummings, to believe that she truly sees a world of danger headed their way before it's too late?

That's author Felicia Sullivan reading from her new memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible from Here. While that spooky scene sounds perfectly rehearsed, Sullivan obsessed about the reading for days on her blog and in real life. 

Most writers are shy, strange people, and fear of public speaking is built into our DNA. Today, this Columbia University MFA graduate and Pushcart Prize nominee explains how she combats anxiety in her daily life.

Sullivan is our special guest this week, discussing the fine art of memoir in my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing. 

Jason Boog:
You gave a great reading at Barnes and Noble the other night, but you said in your blog that you were deathly nervous. How do you combat anxiety at readings? Generally, how do you control anxiety and fears in your writing life?

Felicia Sullivan:
Years ago a teacher of mine recounted her first Barnes and Noble reading where she ended up fainting on the way to the podium and woke to a sea of panicked faces. I nodded. Of course this would one day happen to me! How could it not?! Continue reading...

Whew. I just finished my fourth round of edits on my new YA. That means...it's finished! After one more round of reading and checking for silly grammar mistakes, off it goes! I'm so, so excited to have that *this close* to being finished. Getting the draft down was exciting, but I'm ready to have someone else read it and give me feedback.

I sent a two magazine queries out this weekend because it felt, well, weird not to have any queries out there. I've just been accepting assignments as they come and not querying, but I'm trying to break into bigger, glossier mags this year and I've got to at least send a couple queries.

Before I started writing fiction, at my peak of magazine querying, I had 30 queries out at once. So you see how zero feels odd. But I do think taking a short break from magazines and writing only fiction has helped, but I'm at the point where I can slowly start working on breaking into different magazines while keeping my focus on books.

In Being Bodies, Lenore Friedman and Susan Moon offer the perspectives of a variety of women with varying Buddhist practices. The result is a contemplative and compelling work dealing with what it means to be female, what it means to fully and consciously inhabit the female body.

The last wave of the Western women’s movement critiqued the idea that a women was her body. In fact, a major focus of that movement was the position that biology was not destiny. This was primarily a response to the social construction of women’s identity, the objectification of a women as nothing more than physical self. However, there was little offered to support women in learning to fully live in that physicality, to know it as both vessel and endpoint. Being Bodies offers a view that a woman’s self-knowledge is rooted in the flesh. Women’s awareness is based in surrendering to the body’s impermanence, its joy, its suffering, and its death. One of the most thought-provoking essays is Linda Chrisman’s "Birth".

In it, she describes the process of labor, and giving birth to her son. What's striking about this experience was how Chrisman was both deeply enmeshed in that process and separate from it. The most telling lesson, for both Chrisman and the reader, occurred at the height of labor. Here she realizes that all her physical conditioning, all her contemplative practice would not save her from pain. This selection beautifully illustrates the message of Being Bodies. There may be another path for women, rooted in surrender to the fullness and limits of the body. Through that choice, a woman may find self-knowledge and ultimately, freedom. While the focus of Being Bodies is the female experience, it is a universal and object lesson about Buddhist ideas of impermanence, and becoming fully present in every moment by letting go. I was moved to tears reading this book. It reminds me that true beauty is the sum of both pleasing things as well the scars.

I feel such a strong, visceral connection to the stories of the women profiled in this anthology. (Interesting that "visceral" is the only word that comes to mind in reviewing a book dealing with the experience of being grounded in the body and the odyssey of transcendence.) This book is a pivotal one as I try to develop a deeper spiritual practice - moving East in order to come West, hoping to re-encounter and reinterpret my own ideas of embodiment, spirituality and existence.

ISBN-10: 1570623244 ISBN-13: 978-157062324

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Acentos and AWP Conference News

On Tuesday, January 29th at 7pm, we break from our normal schedule to bring you ACENTOS on a FIFTH TUESDAY, in conjunction with the Bay Area's own Craig Perez and Achiote Press.

The featured poets that night will be two amazing young writers:

Marina Garcia-Vasquez, acontributor to the press' ACHIOTE SEEDS, Volume 2, and Javier O. Huerta, author of the acclaimed debut collection, SOME CLARIFICATIONS Y OTROS POEMAS. As always, the Uptown's best open mic will precede the festivities, and your host will be John Rodriguez.

On Thursday, January 31st at 6pm, the Con Tinta collective presents its annual awards dinner and reading.

Lifetime achievement awards are to be presented to Nuyorican writers Sandra Maria Esteves and Tato Laviera. The dinner will take place at Mojitos', located at 227 E. 116th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. The reading will be held in conjunction with PALABRA, a journal of Chicano and Latino literary arts. Your hosts for the evening will be Urayoan Noel and Rich Villar.

Finally, on Friday, February 1st at 6:30pm, El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños presents ACENTOS: A Gathering of Latino and Latina Poets. The event is slated to take place at the School of Social Work at Hunter College, 129 E. 79th Street, at the corner of 79th and Lexington. A lineup of more than 20 emerging and nationally recognized Latino and Latina poets are set to take the stage, including Martin Espada, Sandra Maria Esteves, Brenda Cardenas, Aracelis Girmay, Willie Perdomo, and many more.

It's going to be a busy January for your crew at Acentos, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Keep an eye on this list for further updates, news, features and even more poetry events for the '08, as well as information about our fifth anniversary show in March.

Details for all our January events are listed below. See you all there!

Peaces,
Rich Villar
for the Acentos crew.

Tuesday, January 29th @ 7pm ACENTOS Bronx Poetry Showcase A reading in collaboration with Achiote Press featuring JAVIER O. HUERTA and MARINA GARCIA-VASQUEZ plus the Uptown's Best Open Mic

The Bruckner Bar and Grill One Bruckner Blvd. (corner of Third Ave. and Bruckner Blvd.) 6 Train to 138th Street Station Hosted by John Rodriguez FREE! ($5 suggested donation) Thursday, January 31st @ 6pm Con Tinta's Annual Award Ceremony and Reading Honoring the work of Nuyorican poets SANDRA MARIA ESTEVES and TATO LAVIERA Mojitos' Bar 227 E. 116th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Ave.) 6 Train to 116th Street Station Hosted by Urayoan Noel, Rich Villar, and the Con Tinta collective FREE and open to the public.

Friday, February 1st @ 6:30pm ACENTOS: A Gathering and Celebration of Latino and Latina Poets Presented by El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueñ os at Hunter College and Acentos Bronx Poetry Showcase

Featuring over twenty emerging and nationally recognized Latino and Latina poets
The School of Social Work @ Hunter College 129 E. 79th Street (corner of 79th and Lexington) 6 Train to 77th Street Station, two blocks north to 79th and Lex. FREE and open to the public.

Acentos: The Bronx's Premiere Spot for Poetry

http://www.louderarts.com/acentos

"Acentos is one of the best audiences, one of the best venues, I've ever seen. The organizers do a great job, not only in terms of spreading the word, but also in terms of creating anticipation. I feel like I'm part of a community, part of a movement. Aquí estamos y no nos vamos." Martín Espada

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GREAT TEATRO LUNA NEWS!

CURRENTLY PLAYING:

MACHOS

After a sold out run at Chicago Dramatists, MACHOS is moving to the 16th Street Theater in Berwyn, IL, conveniently located near the CTA/Blue Line Austin stop.

Tickets are already on sale, and I hope you will help spread the word!

Here's the scoop:
MACHOS At 16th Street Theater 4 weeks only! January 25 through – February 17, 2008

Fridays at 7:30 PM Saturdays at 5:00 PM Saturdays at 8:00 PM Sundays at 6:00 PM

BUY TICKETS ONLINE at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/25539


Lisa Alvarado

Sheryl Luna, author of Pity the Drowned Horses, an award-winning book of poetry, will grace the NY poetry scene:

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/events/books/41746/gabe-gomez-
sheryl-luna-erika-wurth

Finding Us

Bluestockings is located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 172 Allen Street between Stanton and Rivington - which means that we are 1 block south of Houston and 1st Avenue.

By train: We are 1 block south of the F train's 2nd Avenue stop and just 5 blocks from the JMZ-line's Essex / Delancey Street stop.

By car: If you take the Houston exit off of the FDR, then turn left onto Essex (aka Avenue A), then right on Rivington, and finally right on Allen, you will be very, very close.....

What do you do when you are in a writing funk?

I was feeling swamped by all my projects this week, and I tried everything to raise my spirits: the gym, a glass of whisky, and a book by my favorite writer. Nothing worked. 

Then, last night, I went out to a reading. 

I took some video, and I'll show you something if I get the time. The reading celebrated the literary journal, A Public Space, featuring an amazing list that included Ian Chillag (a producer at NPR's amazing Fresh Air), fiction writer Jack Livings, and my favorite National Book Award nominee, Jim Shepard. And a band, just to break things up... 

The event was hosted by kooky novelist Amanda Stern, who actually ended up cutting Ian's hair by the end of the night. It was a friendly, free community that I didn't even know existed.

If you feel swamped, hopeless, or writers-blocked, just go to a reading and meet some new writers, just like the Happy Ending reading series. Within five minutes of sitting down, I remembered why I love writing. That's all you need. 

I try and attend one storytelling event or book reading every week. I love reading my work out loud, and I know that reading your stories out loud in front of a happy audience (or a web video camera) can win you some die-hard fans.

If you're looking for guidance about readings, the MFA Blog has some great ideas about choosing your material. Guest blogger Anna Mendoza asks readers:

"I've found that some of my poems are better read aloud than read on paper, and vice versa. When at an open mike, should I present something that's funny and likely to be crowd-pleasing (even if it's somewhat shallow), or something that's more intellectually substantial but might be hard to get?" Read the responses here.

Some people think readings have grown too unruly, but I have to disagree. There are ten million books out there right now, gathering dust in warehouses. Why not give your book a chance to grab some new readers, and deliver a short, punchy, and dramatic reading that will make people excited about your work? (Thanks, Bookninja)

Finally, putting my money where my mouth is, here's a decidedly lo-fi, swear-word inclusive, 30-second clip of me reading one of my stories out loud... 

Though I am shamefully behind in blogging, reviewing, interviewing, and e-mail answering, nonetheless, I am not dead yet. Just busy in the midst of a few different things, especially trying to figure out how to teach anything to energetic 9th and 10th graders and, in the bits of spare time that allows, reading stories for the next edition of Best American Fantasy (thanks, by the way, to Rick Klaw for a very nice review in The Austin Chronicle).

Proof of my status as a living, breathing human being can be found at two upcoming public events in Manhattan. First, on October 30, I will be participating in the Interfictions reading at the wonderful McNally Robinson bookstore, with some of my favorite fellow-readers, Tempest Bradford, Veronica Schanoes, and Delia Sherman.

And then on November 21, I will be reading at the KGB Bar with Lucius Shepard. (I expect to read a story that will be coming out in the next issue [I think] of LCRW.) This is something I'm looking forward to tremendously, because Lucius Shepard's story "R&R" was the cover story of one of the first issues of Asimov's I ever read, and the story perplexed and bewildered me in just the right way (I was far too young to understand it all) that it helped make me a devoted reader not only of science fiction, but of contemporary short stories. I've been reading Shepard ever since, and some of his more recent work, especially Viator and Floater, are among my favorite novellas of the past decade or so. I've never gotten the chance to either meet him or hear him read, so my plan is to read as quickly as possible myself so he can have most of the time (this is assuming I'm the first reader; if I'm second, I'm just going to encourage him to keep going as long as he wants). (And while I'm talking about Shepard, will somebody please collect all of his Dragon Griaule stories in one book?)

Further posting around here is likely to be minimal for the next month or so.

At the Guardian, Sam Jordinson wonders why writers don't hang around a boozy old Bohemian spot in England--asking "Where did all the bohemians go?"

Bookninja has his own answer, but it's worth asking the question about the United States as well. I've noticed the same thing in New York, as cost-of-living prices have pushed my writing friends out of the city to new places like Brooklyn, Queens, and Oregon.

Nevertheless, I still spend time at some key Manhattan writing hangouts, like KGB Bar. Their reading series consistently features some of the best journalists and writers in the business, and it's intimate enough that you can actually chat with your literary heroes.

I'll head out there next Tuesday for the The Best Creative Non-Fiction reading featuring some big names in magazine writing. These readings, no matter where they are held, are vital for fledgling writers. You can meet other friends, hear some great prose, and most importantly, relax without feeling guilty about leaving your writing table.

Dig it:

"Lee Gutkind is the editor and founder of Creative Nonfiction and the editor of the Best Creative Nonfiction series, of which Vol. 1 was published in July by W.W. Norton. His most recent book, also from Norton, is Almost Human: Making Robots Think."

"It’s a wonderful book, filled with the grace and wisdom of being present, at every moment, and reminding us to do the same." Sandra Cisneros

And by-the-way, don't forget about Raúl Niño's upcoming Chicago readings at: the Sulzer Regional Library tomorrow, October 4th, at 7PM, or the DvA Gallery on Friday, October6, at 8-9:30PM. Available through MARCH/Abrazo Press


And good news about La Bloga's René Colato Laínez:

Byrd, Lee Merrill. (2006). Lover Boy/Juanito el cariñoso: a Bilingual Counting Book. Illustrated by Francisco Delgado. Cinco Puntos Press ISBN 0-938317-38-5. Grades PK-2. (Bilingual, English/Spanish) Reviewed in Críticas Magazine: http://reviews.criticasmagazine.com/BookDetail.aspx?isbn=0938317385; School Library Journal, Jun, 2006, Vol. 52, Issue 6, p. 142; Kirkus Review, 3/15/2006, Vol. 74, Issue 6, p. 287.

Juanito loves to count in English and Spanish, the kisses he gives to family, friends and pets.

Canetti, Yanitzia. (2006) Ay, luna, luna, lunita… Illustrated by Ángeles Peinador. Editorial Everest, S.A. (Distributed by Lectorum).ISBN 84-241-8774-1. Grades PK-2. (Spanish)
Reviewed in Críticas Magazine: http://reviews.criticasmagazine.com/BookDetail.aspx?isbn=8424187741

Farmer Federico Feliciano de la Feria never suspects that all the animals on his farm, except for one, are unhappy with who they are and wish to the moon to make them a different animal.

Colato Laínez, René. (2005). Playing Lotería/El juego de la Lotería. Illustrated by Jill Arena. Luna Rising. ISBN 978-0-87358-881-2 and 0-87358-881-9. Grades 1-3. (Bilingual, English/Spanish) Reviewed in Críticas Magazine: http://reviews.criticasmagazine.com/BookDetail.aspx?isbn=0873588819; School Library Journal, Oct. 2005, Vol. 51, Issue 10, p. 148.

A boy reluctantly spends the summer with his grandmother in Mexico. They have fun learning each other's language using the game Lotería, or Mexican bingo.

Garza, Xavier. (2006). Juan and the Chupacabras/Juan y el Chupacabras. Illustrated by April Ward. Piñata Books. ISBN 978-1-55885-454-3 and 1-55885-454-1. Grades 2-4. (Bilingual, English/Spanish) Reviewed in Kirkus Reviews, 10/15/2006, Vol. 74, Issue 20; School Library Journal; Oct. 2006, Vol. 52, Issue 10, p144.

After hearing their grandfather describe his encounter with the Chupacabras, Juan and his cousin Luz go into the corn fields at night to find out if the Chupacabras is a real monster.

Gonzalez-Bertrand, Diane. The Ruiz Street Kids/Los Muchachos de la Calle Ruiz. (2006). Piñata Books. ISBN 978-1-55885-321-8 and 1-55885-321-9. Grades 3-6. (Bilingual, English/Spanish) Reviewed in School Library Journal, Oct. 2006, Vol. 52, Issue 10, p. 144.

The Ruiz Street kids wonder why David, the tough-looking red-haired kid, has a different bike every time he rides down the street. They all think David steals the bikes and the rumors begin.

Hayes, Joe. (2005). A Spoon for Every Bite: Una Cuchara Para Cada Bocado. Illustrated by Rebecca Leer. Cinco Puntos. ISBN 0-938317-93-8. Grades 1-5. (Bilingual, English/Spanish)
Reviewed in Library Media Connection, Feb. 2006, Vol. 24, Issue 5, p. 57; School Library Journal, Oct. 2005, Vol. 51 Issue 10, p. 148-149.

In this folktale, a poor man tells his rich compadre that he knows someone who uses a different spoon for every bite. The envious rich man spends his entire fortune buying enough spoons for every bite he takes. He is surprised when he finds out how a poor man uses a spoon for every bite.

Mansour, Vivian. (2005). El Enmascarado de Lata. Illustrated by Trino. (The Tin Wrestler) Fondo de Cultura Económica. ISBN 968-16-7672-6. Grades 4-6. (Spanish) Reviewed in Críticas Magazine: http://reviews.criticasmagazine.com/BookDetail.aspx?isbn=9681676726

In this comical story, a small puny boy tries to convince his schoolmates, who pick on him daily, that the famous wrestler, El enmascarado de Lata (The Tin Wrestler), is his father. When his plans fail, he discovers the true meaning of friendship and integrity.

Villaseñor, Victor. (2005). Little Crow to the Rescue/El Cuervito al Rescate. Illustrated by Felipe Ugalde Alcántara. Piñata Books. ISBN978-1-55885-430-7 and 1-55885-430-4. Grades 2-4. (Bilingual, English/Spanish) Reviewed in Kirkus Reviews, 11/15/2005, Vol. 73, Issue 22, p1236-1236; Booklist, 10/1/2005, Vol. 102, Issue 3, p. 66; School Library Journal, Feb. 2006, Vol. 52, Issue 2, p. 127.

When Father Crow warns his son to beware of ungrateful humans, who do not appreciate what animals have taught them, Little Crow makes a clever suggestion to stay out of danger.

Lisa Alvarado