AWP Recap—Part Two

Thursday night at AWP in Chicago, I was a co-host of Ragdale @ AWP, a reception for Ragdale alumni. This was held in the penthouse (22^nd floor) of the Cliff Dwellers, on Michigan Avenue facing the lake. Here are some photos of the spectacular view out the windows and from the huge terrace outside the penthouse. Thanks to Mario Duarte and Miguel Morales for these photos.

 

One of my dear friends, José Faus, stands on the terrace outside the penthouse to enjoy the view. I was fortunate to be able to invite a number of friends who are fine writers to meet the wonderful Ragdale staff. I hope all of them will apply for a Ragdale residency. I know most of them will. And I had the added pleasure of introducing people I love to one another. This was a joyous occasion, bringing people I love together with Ragdale, which I love.

 Another of my beloved organizations, Macondo, had a fantastic session featuring the incredible Dagoberto Gilb (pictured here) and Luis J. Rodriguez in a creative dialogue moderated by John Santos.

Since Luis and I were the only ones to staff our table, I had to remain in the book fair so that he could make this great session. We've decided that, at the next AWP, we will ask some other people to make commitments to help us with the book fair.

We had book signings all afternoon beginning with Michael Warr and ending with Gloria Vando. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of those. They were quite popular, and we sold books, which is the purpose of such things. Our authors had a lot of fun with them, too.

Right after the book fair closed, I hurried down Michigan Avenue to Columbia College to give a joint Latino Writers Collective-Proyecto Latina reading. Here is Diana Pando, one of the Proyecto Latina masterminds, reading with the rest of the readers in the background.

We had a receptive audience of approximately 30 men and women, which surprised me since we were competing with dozens of other AWP offsite readings. The audience was illustrious with

Francisco Alarçon, Odilia Gálván Rodríguez, Diana Garcia, Carlos Cúmpian, and many other powerful writers. The material read, poetry and fiction, was strong, humorous, and dramatic, and afterward everyone enjoyed visiting with friends not seen for a long time.

Saturday morning, Ben and I had breakfast with Francisco Aragón and Luis before Ben left for the BkMk table and Luis and I headed back to the Tia Chucha/Scapegoat table.

On Saturday, the general public is allowed into the book fair, and it became truly hectic. By this time, I was losing my voice, and I had a panel coming up at 3:00 with other members of the Latino Writers Collective to discuss our writing workshops with the children of migrant workers. I'd been sucking on cough drops earlier, but Saturday I survived on herbal cough drops.

Here is part of our panel, right to left, José Faus, Miguel Morales, and me. Not shown in this photo, Gabriela N. Lemmons.

This panel is concerned with a central project that the LWC is involved with. The work we've done with these children of migrant workers has been emotional, draining, and satisfying since our first session with them. During our meeting back in Kansas City to prepare for the panel, we swore to each other that we wouldn't cry at the AWP, even though the stories and memories always throw us into tears. As we explained the program and the impact it had on these kids, as well as their great need, we each at one time or another broke our promise, but the audience cried also.

It was the next to the last session on a day when many attendees have already left, so it was a small audience--but such a passionate and involved audience! We felt grateful to be able to have a discussion with such attentive people.

I had to apologize since my voice was mostly gone--from three solid days of speaking to thousands of people a day in the book fair, I thought. This panel brought one more reward for me. Joy Castro and I have been communicating on Twitter and by email but had never met in person. Joy had shown up at the book fair on Friday, and we met. Now, she came to our panel, and Mario Duarte caught a photo of us together.

And that's an appropriate place to end. We left after the panel, and the great joy of AWP, as always, was seeing so many dear friends, most of whom were not photographed. Deborah Miranda, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran, Susan Deer Cloud, Ruth Behar, Allison Hedge Coke, Travis Hedge Coke, Susan Page Tillett, Regin Igloria, Eduardo Corral, Richard Blanco, Sherwin Bitsui, Maria Melendez, Alice Friman, Marilyn Kallett, Robin Becker, Judith Podell, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Ching-In Chen, and many others. For some of us, far-flung across the states, AWP is the one time we get together. And it's what I always look forward to the most. My one regret this time was not having a chance to attend anyone's panels. Next year, we'll fix that, though. So good-bye , my friends, it's email, Facebook, and Twitter until we meet at the next AWP again. Next year in Boston!

Catching Up—Las Comadres, AWP, Woven Voices

Las Comadres is a 25-year-old national organization that brings Latinas together through email, teleconferences, and in person to engage in dialogues around culture and other aspects of life. They have a national series of teleconferences in which their members all around the nation discuss books they've read with their authors--Las Comadres Conversations With...   

And Every Last Secret has been selected for one of these conversations in May!

This is a real honor, and I’m very excited. This is a great organization that's doing such essential work in many ways, but especially promoting reading and literature this way. So I’m really looking forward to my teleconference with these bright, inquiring Latina minds!

Right now, I’m getting ready to head to the Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) national conference for a crazy, hectic week. I’ll be co-hosting the Ragdale reception on Thursday evening at the Cliff Dwellers, and I hope to read at the Guild Complex/Tia Chucha Press reading afterward—if I’m not too physically worn out by then. Then, on Friday night, I will read with the Latino Writers Collective and  Proyecto Latina at Columbia College Chicago in one of the off-site readings. With our great Chicago friends, the damas of Proyecto Latina, we hope to put a distinctive Midwestern spin on this national celebration of the written word.

I will also be on a panel with fellow Latino Writers Collective members on Saturday from 3:00-4:15 pm that will discuss our experiences with offering writing workshops to the children of migrant farm workers. This has been such a fruitful and satisfying project for the Collective, and the feedback says that we’ve really made a change in these young people’s lives. We’ll talk about how we started and how other groups could do something similar in their areas.

I will be working at the Tia Chucha Press/Scapegoat Press table (B12, like the vitamin) in the bookfair much of the time I’m at the conference. I’ll have ARCs of Every Last Secret with its gorgeous cover top show off to any of my friends who visit me.

 I hope everyone will also check out the dynamite new book I edited—Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertorriqueñas Look at their American Lives. This book braids a conversation of poetry among three very different but truly related poets, Anita Velez-Mitchell, grandmother and mother, Gloria Vando, mother and daughter, and Anika Paris, daughter and granddaughter.  

Ruth Behar, author of An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba says, “Woven Voices is like no other poetry book! Here is a gorgeous trio of poets, a grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter who share family ties, a common Puerto Rican history, and the twists and turns of a diasporic journey. Each speaking in her own unique voice, Anita, Gloria, and Anika write with honesty and tenderness about the big themes of home and mortality as well as about everyday lessons and losses. Read the poems together and separately and you'll find yourself singing along, entering a world of beauty and truth you didn't know existed.”

On Thursday here in the Literary Mystery Novelists series, you can read an interview with Rhys Bowen, author of two current mystery series plus an earlier one that have won many awards. An extra bonus if you’re jones-ing for a Downton Abbey fix—one series is set in that time period among Britain’s aristocracy.

Then, on Monday, we’ll return to the Books of Interest by Writers of Color series, and midweek I’ll try to post another installment of the series on Juggling the Two Jobs of Writing Novels and Promoting Books.

Good-bye 2010, bienvenidos 2011!

2010 was very good to me professionally, but it had some major drama. I began the year with an incredibly creative and productive one-month residency at Ragdale, where I made friends with artists I have kept in touch with throughout the year. I finished my final draft of a novel, Every Secret Thing, and sent it to a waiting editor. I wrote almost the entire first draft of a new poetry book,Dark Sister. And I applied for the NEA Individual Artist Grant (which I didn't get, unfortunately, but I was so pleased to see that my friends Blas Falconer and Michelle Boisseau did). This was all as a result of receiving the Midwest Voices and Visions Award from the Alliance for Artist Communities and the Joyce Foundation. This residency (and its accompanying stipend, which paid for transportation costs for the residency and then paid for my participation in the AWP national conference in Denver) was a huge gift to me, and its effects are still rippling throughout my life in a very positive way.


This is my writing studio in my suite at Ragdale.

















The next month, I flew back to Chicago (Ragsdale is right outside of Chicago) to read in the Guild Complex's wonderful Palabra Pura Reading Series. We had a great turnout and a very receptive audience at Decima Musa. I love all my Chicago friends!

In April, I went to the AWP with the Latino Writers Collective. I had written a proposal for us to read from our award-winning poetry anthology as a panel at AWP, and it was accepted. I worked the Scapegoat Press booth in the bookfair for a lot of the conference, but I still had a chance to attend many of the panels I wanted to see, and lots of writer and publisher friends, old and new, came by the bookfair or made appointments with me to get together. It was an exhausting but wonderful five days!


Latino Writers Collective members at the AWP after our panel presentation.










At the very end of April, we brought in Luis J. Rodriguez for LWC's Cuarta Página Reading Series. Luis is, of course, a fabulous poet and great community activist, and he worked with members of the local Latino community, as well as many LWC members, in conversation and discussion to help both groups in achieving their goals. After this whirlwind one evening and all another day--interspersed with media interviews--Luis was due to give his big public reading and talk at the Plaza Library in the evening. My husband, Ben, and I were on our way to pick him up at his hotel on the Plaza when Ben suddenly began to have problems. In the parking lot of a Plaza restaurant, I was frantically calling 911, then Chato Villalobos, an LWC board member who had taken an active part in all of Luis's visit. Chato left his dinner with friends and sped to the Plaza to pick up Luis to take him to the Library.


Luis J. Rodriguez and Chato Villalobos

(I have never yet mastered the art of placing photos in Blogger, so please ignore all photo awkwardnesses.)

















Meanwhile an ambulance showed up for Ben. After oxygen, the stubborn man was feeling better and insisted on sending the ambulance home--against the EMT's and my wishes. I had already arranged for Chato to take my place introducing Luis, so I started to take Ben home. Two blocks away, it hit him again much worse, and this time there was no doubt in my mind that he was having a heart attack. I pulled over and called 911 in a huge panic since his face was turning blue before my eyes, and he could hardly speak. (I must say, in both cases, the ambulances and firetruck got there in seconds! Can't say enough for those guys and gals!) This time I insisted EMERGENCY ROOM. After a very tough night and morning, they found a big blockage in an artery that would normally necessitate cardiac bypass. Due to Ben's youth (not quite 49) and the good shape of his other arteries, however, they put in a special kind of stent. And now nine months later after 3 months of cardiac rehab and the loss of over 30 pounds (on a man who was already thin), Ben is doing extremely well. Well, yes, there's been a complete change in our diet that hasn't been easy, but he's in very good shape. So the story has a very happy ending.

In July, I began a months-long battle with the city over our yard. Perhaps it stemmed from the time of Ben's heart attack when the lawn wasn't cut nor the garden tended for about a month. Oldest son Niles finally came and weed-whacked the back yard, and our dear foster-son Gustavo came (even though he was working and going to school, both full-time, and preparing for the imminent birth of his first child) and mowed the lawn several times when I realized it was a problem. (Had sort of been preoccupied, you know.) We have always had problems with these neighbors who have a hate for nature calling on our prairie garden over the years, but usually I explain to the city inspector and it's all okay. Only this time that wasn't an option. Had to go to court. That meant missing most of Macondo and spending two entire days in Housing Court--a very enlightening experience. As you might suspect, the rich slumlords get their lawyers in there and get themselves off, but as you might not expect, the judges and the city attorney really work with the poorer people and show them a great deal of respect and consideration. Unfortunately, they're hampered by the super restrictive ordinances. At any rate, I survived and kept my garden.

In the midst of this, Ben and I drove down to San Antonio for Macondo since we had committed to doing a seminar on small press publishing there. I was signed up for the week-long workshop and had to back out because of the initial court date. I just hated that since I love the Macondo writing workshop and the Macondo community so much. However, we wanted to keep our commitment to the seminar so we drove down for Friday when it was scheduled and then left to come back Saturday. It was lovely to at least get a little time with the Macondistas who were present, and it was nice for Ben to have a chance to meet them (though he already knew a good number). The seminar went well, and we had a lovely time at the big final pachanga.

Later in the year, Marjorie Agosin, my dear friend, came to Kansas City (see the post prior to this one). Shortly after that, at the annual Thorpe Menn Award luncheon I received the 2010 Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence. And the lovely extra was that my dear friend Nancy Pickard was the keynote speaker and also won a lifetime achievement award. I had a table of women writer friends there to celebrate with me, and it was a delightful time.





Nancy Pickard and me after the Thorpe Menn Award ceremony








This is my wonderful new foster grandson and his mother, Erika Noguera. Erika brought month-old Bequer (more familiarly known as T-Rex) to the Thorpe Menn luncheon with her mother in a lovely gesture of support. Becquer is a beautiful mix of Gustavo and Erika's features and is beginning his life surrounded by poetry and writers. He is a very lucky boy, and he picked a wonderful set of parents.






Right after the Thorpe Menn event, I flew to Chicago for a panel on unrestricted grant-giving at the Grantmakers in the Arts national conference. I was to speak from the artist's viewpoint. Our panel had three directors of national and regional arts funding organizations besides me, and I found it fascinating to listen to them and the heads of all kinds of small to large such organizations in the packed audience. It's always educational to see an issue from an unexpected perspective. I was quite impressed with all of them and the care and good intentions with which they try to balance artists' needs and funders' demands.

That same evening, I joined my pals at Proyecto Latina to give their regular monthly reading. Diana Pando and Irasema Gonzalez head a fabulous team of young women writers who are doing a much-needed job in the local Chicago arts scene. This group of high-energy, large-visioned young Latina artists offer a monthly reading series, periodic other artistic group projects, at one time a radio show, and now a website that's full of life and spice. We had a great audience and lots of fruitful discussion. Love Chicago!

A little while later, Ben and I made a trip to Milwaukee, where he presented at a big academic conference and I gave a reading at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with the ever-wonderful Paul Martinez Pompa. This was set up by Brenda Cardenas, Milwaukee's poet laureate and author of the stunning Boomerang, and the event was sponsored by the Latino Student Union, an impressive group of students. We had a standing-room-only audience, so of course, Ben and I got lost on our way to the university and got there late. Fortunately, Paul had kept them mesmerized. Attending this event was Bonnee Badger Lugauer, a friend of mine from high school that I hadn't seen since our graduation day over forty years ago. What fun!

I've left a lot of other readings and trips and events out of this account. Actually, I've done more professional traveling this year than ever before--even the year I ran back and forth between the Women's Center in Kansas City and the UN. But I don't want this post to run on forever.

Finally, December rolled around. Ben and I celebrated our 18th anniversary. Very special this year since I came so close to losing him earlier. Then I learned that I would receive the ArtsKC Fund's Inspiration Award and would be able to take a research trip in 2011 that I otherwise could not afford. An absolutely lovely way to end the year!

I hope your 2010 was excellent, but with less drama than mine. And I hope 2011 will be a hugely successful and happy year for you and for me.

Masterminds, AWP in Denver April 7-10, and Other Items

My writing office at Ragdale

National Poetry Month is here, as is the AWP and spring--three of my favorite things. Today's entry is full of random poetry- and AWP-related items.

First of all, a couple of long-promised Ragdale photos (courtesy of Irasema Gonzalez) and a link to Proyecto Latina's site where they have a slideshow of more photos taken during their visit with me at Ragdale and recordings of Diana Pando's interview with me and me reading some of my poems.

Ragdale House as Diana approaches

Now, for National Poetry Month, one of my poems about poetry readings.

COYOTE AT THE POETRY READING

He walks in late,

of course,

and sits in the back row

even though he’s on the program.

Coyote wraps a storm

around him like a protective shield,

wears his leather like armor,

stares the woman in business suit

and her partner in high-style casual

into dropping their eyes. Coyote

makes everyone nervous.

Whispers circle the room.

Who asked him to read?

“Must have been some woman,”

one bearded man says, with a sniff.

“A guy would have known better.”

“Probably thinks it’s some kind of slam,”

one professor tells another.

When they call his name,

Coyote stalks to the podium

and growls into the microphone,

while, around the room, the air

burns with after-lightning

ozone and smells of blood

and splintered bones.

---Linda Rodriguez

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)

And a link to some others.

Next is the selection of the Latino Writers Collective as one of The PITCH's four Masterminds of 2010. This identifies us as one of the creative forces of Kansas City (and gives us a chunk of change to keep doing our work--Mil gracias, PITCH!).

Finally, for everyone going to the AWP national conference in Denver, come hear the Latino Writers Collective read at 4:30-5:45 pm in Rooms 102-104, Colorado Convention Center, Street Level on Saturday. And drop by the Scapegoat Press table, Exhibit Hall A, #B13, in the Bookfair any time--especially for my booksigning at 3:00 pm on Thursday, Francisco Aragon's (The Glow of Our Sweat, his wonderful brand-new book!) at 10:00 am on Thursday, and LWC's at 10:00 am on Saturday.