Subject: Your chapbook should be ready by end of week!
Hey Julie,
Of course, I’ll follow up with you when your chapbook is in hand, but I saw the proof today on your chapbook and it looks GOOOOOOOD!
I’m VERY excited!!!
LOL,
Anne
Yesterday I received, signed, and returned my contract for Lemonade & Rumors. Yay! Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the printer to get around to my book.
Meanwhile, I’ve got my first “Featured Poet” event set up! Granted, it’s over 5 months away. So, on Tuesday November 7, 2006, I’ll be doin’ my thang at a certain Charlotte-area Barnes & Noble. 🙂
Don’t worry, I’ll remind y’unz guys. 😉
In other non-poetry news, yesterday was our third wedding anniversary. We didn’t get to do much of anything special, but we did get to go out for a late snack after munchkin was in bed. We stayed up too late, but fell asleep too early. (Preggo heartburn bites, I’d like to mention.)
After much deliberation, we pulled a few pieces from the earlier proofs of the book. The page count was putting us over budget, and to keep the poems meant messing with the visual flow of the book. And we couldn’t have that. SO. I made the painful call to pull even more pieces so now the final count is 44 (down from 51) and 42 pages.
In case you haven’t guessed yet, the release date has been pushed to June, but it’ll be ready to go to the printer by the end of the week. My apologies to those who’ve already preordered it and are itching to get theirs. SOON. Very soon. Anyhow, to recap, it will be released through THRIFT Poetic Arts. The book will be perfect-bound with 42 pages and a whopping 44 poems! If you would like to pre-order, $7 USD sent to artjewl@artjewl.com via PayPal will reserve your copy and include shipping within the US. (After the book is released, S&H will be an additional charge.) Be sure to include the address you’d like the book sent to if you place an order!
PS – if you’d rather send a check, let me know and I’ll give you the address.
In the meantime, here’s the LEMONADE & RUMORS TOC as it stands:
1. Disclaimer
2. Formication
3. Kernels Garnered in Reading, Pennsylvania
4. “Clear Prop”
5. out of the dust
6. I woke
7. Your Grasp, Tested
8. Weathering
9. A Testament of Blooms
10. Dear Julianna
11. beyond you, sister
12. forcefully
13. residual hauntings
14. Toasted Tomato-Peanut-Butter Sandwiches and Soap in the Mouth
15. gypsy moth
16. enTitled
17. Our Failed Casting
18. By the decade
19. our early hours
20. mistimed flirtations
21. Her Zucchini Confessions
22. I’ve forgiven you for using a mug
23. Icing
24. Under the bare March-blue sky
25. the prozac dreams were better
26. Shed Skin and Ashes
27. Sustaining
28. To the Floodstained Mother
29. Internal Bleeding
30. the normal psychosis of mothering
31. The Piece I Lost In the Shower
32. Cold Iron in Human Hands
33. Churchgoing
34. Where between
35. the weight of her faith
36. My First Scar
37. fifty-two
38. from the bed
39. Debunking Creation Myths
40. Shells
41. In the moment when I forget
42. Burrs Where We Walk in Fields
43. Just In Case I Die Today
44. over tea
So, for the random cool news of the day, yours truly has a 1 in 80 chance of winning a pair of tickets (including airfare & accommodations) to see the American Idol finale (which I’m not passionate about, but the trip would be fun) in addition to a year lease on a ford fusion. All I have to do is make a fool of myself and audition for a local ford dealership commercial, the kind I always make fun of. Winner will be chosen by random drawing, not based on how much/little of an idiot I look like.
I woke up this morning in the middle of a pregnancy-driven nightmare. I’ve had weird dreams and nightmarish ones before with this pregnancy and the last, but this one really had me shaken. Sometimes when you have a nightmare, you realize while you’re dreaming it that it’s just that, a dream. But this was one of those that leave you with your guts in a knot and sure that it was real.
This one involved the baby coming too early — NOW — 4 months ahead of schedule. I was going into labor, knowing something wasn’t right, trying to get SOMEONE to get me to the hospital, freaking out. No one else understood the urgency. (For some reason, DH wasn’t around, just my immediate family.) They were getting ready to take me, but weren’t rushing at all. Meanwhile, the baby is starting to come out breeched, (and this part is absurd, I know, but it was real in the dream) and at the end, the one leg kept popping out and I kept pushing it back in, crying and crossing my legs.
I’m sure it can be interpreted that it all means I just don’t feel prepared yet for this child — and in a lot of aspects, I don’t. But that aside, I’m still shaken by and feel sick to my stomach over it.
I’m glad I woke up when I did, because 10 minutes later and Jonathan would have already left for work, and then I would have been even more freaked. I’m also grateful that this little bugger is a kicker and was bouncing on my bladder when I woke — never has THAT sensation been so comforting.