Hand Therapy--A Writer's Poem for the Labor Day Weekend

After two months of immobilization of the right arm and shoulder to try to begin the healing for my badly shattered right shoulder joint that needed but couldn't have complete surgical replacement, my right hand was not working well. I couldn't sign my name, and my signature with my left hand was totally illegible.

As I've been able to slowly begin physical therapy for the shoulder and arm, I've also been doing PT exercises for the hand, as well. Two weeks ago tonight, I gave a poetry reading at The Writers Place in Kansas City, and I was able to sign copies of my new book of poetry, Dark Sister, that folks so kindly bought. This was a big step forward for me.

I have always been a handwritten journal person. I collect beautiful notebooks and journals and fountain pens, and people give them to me as gifts. I wrote in one most days of each week. I haven't been able to since April 4th, when I fell and shattered this shoulder. But tonight I have handwritten a short paragraph in my current journal. My therapist told me to do it every day now until it hurts, along with spinning and knitting, because it will help exercise and strengthen the muscles and tendons.

Something about this whole idea reminded me of what we writers do, so here's a poem about that.

HAND THERAPY

Bring your palms together in prayer

against your chest. Feel the pull

in the once-broken right wrist.

Release, relax, and repeat ten times.

Squeeze the putty to make a fist.

Pinch it between your thumb and each finger,

one after another down the length

of the squeezed-out roll, creating a wavy snake.

Hook the tips of all four fingers, trying

to touch tips to bases, but inches of air

keep them apart. Pull those fingertips

to the center of the palm to make a fist

without the putty’s help. Stretch them

down toward the base of the hand.

Struggle to hold a pen and write a line.

Stop when the fingers tingle and go numb.

For what are we humans without the hand, clever, useful

appendage, connected so closely to our big brains,

that cuts, creases, carries, and caresses

our way through daily obstacles and opportunities.

Write another line and a second before the pain

sets in—the way every writer has to work.

Book Tour Whirl

Photo by Vinnie Iuppa

I have been so busy with traveling and book tour that I've neglected my blog. I'm going to use this post to catch up with readers on where and what I've been doing after the launch of Every Last Secret and what's in store for the future. Then I'm returning to the previous format of a post on literary mystery novelists early in the week and one on books of interest by writers of color later in the week. It will be a couple of months before I have the time to resume my series on juggling book promotion and writing, though. Look for more posts on that in late June-early July.


This is a photo of the beautiful cake my oldest son gave me for Every Last Secret's launch. Moist chocolate cake inside and a most delicious icing, or so I've been told. I was busy and never got to taste it. But others said they really enjoyed it.

Photo by Valerie Bonham Moon

Early the next morning after my book launch, Ben and I took off by train for Malice Domestic 2012, a national mystery conference that takes place annually in the DC area. While there, I participated in the New Authors Breakfast and then moderated a panel called "Have Gun Will Travel: Mysteries Set Out West." In the weeks before the conference, I've introduced my blog readers to the fine writers on this panel, but here's a photo of all of us as the panel was taking place. This panel was a big hit with the audience laughing along with us as we played out a humorous give-and-take over the merits of the West as a setting for a book.

  On Sunday, it was my turn to be a panelist and hand the reins over to moderator Judy Hogan for "Well Schooled in Murder: Academic Mysteries." This was another well-attended panel with lots of audience participation. Judy did a fine job of moderating, and we panelists had a lot of back-and-forth over various aspects of universities and high schools as a setting for mysteries.

Later that afternoon, Ben and I took the Metro back to Washington's Union Station and entrained for Kansas City. Train travel is such a civilized way to go from place to place, especially now that air travel has become so frustrating, that I found myself wondering how we ever allowed ourselves to be convinced to give it up.

Once returned to Kansas City, I did two radio interviews and prepared for a very busy weekend. Last weekend, I first gave a talk and signed books at the Sisters in Crime meeting at I Love A Mystery Bookstore in Mission, KS.

Photo by Clarence Simmons

 We had a SRO crowd and it was great fun. Lots of interesting questions and feedback from the group assembled. We sold lots of books, and that made the I Love A Mystery staff as happy as it made me. 

Here are photos of the lovely display the I Love A Mystery staff arranged for this event 

Photo by Clarence Simmons

and of the crowd as Gwen Ervin, president of Border Crimes/ Sisters in Crime, introduced me.

On Sunday, I did a three-hour book signing at Books A Million in Kansas City, KS, and then rushed across the metro area for the launch of a wonderful anthology of poetry by three Puerto Rican poets who are mother, daughter, and granddaughter, Woven Voices: 3 Puertorriqueñas Look at Their American Lives (Scapegoat Press). I edited this book, weaving the three poetic voices into a conversation with one another, and it's been a private passion of mine for some time now. It was such a joy to see Gloria Vando and Anika Paris reading their own poems and those of Anita Velez-Mitchell, 96-year-old mother and grandmother at The Writers Place in Kansas City, Missouri.


Now, I'm off to get ready for another reception and book signing this evening at the Ruiz Library in Kansas City, MO. See my earlier post about this great event. 


Until next week, have a great time!

Phil Miller, Poet, Literary Activist, Educator (1943-2011)

Phil Miller reading one of his poems. Photo by Bonnie Walker.

On Valentine's Day, February 14, 2011, Phil Miller died in rural Pennsylvania where he had retired with his wife, Nancy. Many of you who read this and live outside of Kansas City will have no idea who he was, but all the Kansas Citians will recognize his name. I counted him a friend, as did so many poets and other writers in the area. He gave me my first public poetry reading a long time ago when I only had a few poems published in scattered magazines.


Phil was a fine poet himself with several collections of poetry published and a number of anthologies that he had edited or co-edited. But it's easy to forget that, because he poured so much of his time and energy (which often seemed boundless) into building the public poetry community in Kansas City and later in Pennsylvania. With no funding, Phil co-founded the Riverfront Reading Series in Kansas City in 1987 and ran it for decades. It continues to this day as one Kansas City's major reading series. Later, he and I were part of the founding board of The Writers Place in Kansas City, which is eighteen years old and still going strong. I remember when Ben and I got married at The Writers Place the year it was founded. Phil organized the reception entertainment--Riverfront Reading at the Wedding. Later, Phil became president of TWP's board. He taught at Kansas City, Kansas, Community College and mentored many working class and minority poets through the years.


None of this gives a true sense of the man, however. Phil was a really sweet guy, and he could be funny as hell, wry and sardonic and witty. He was a great ally to have when you were struggling to try to create something for the community. He was a hard worker. He was the kind of person who was loved by scores in Kansas City. He was also a fighter when he had to be. He had been fighting cancer for several years and refusing to let it knock him completely out of the community or out of poetry. He continued writing to the very end. His newest book, The Ghost of Every Day and Other Poems (Spartan Press), is forthcoming.


We will--I will--miss him. I suspect we'll not see his like again soon. I only wish more people could have been blessed by knowing him. I would wish him to rest in peace, except I know wherever Phil is he is raising hell and trying to get some readings started and persuade someone to write poetry and more to read it. Phil was never a man to rest in peace. He was always too alive for that.

Friday night reading and Saturday workshop--DON'T MISS!

On Friday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m., at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania, Gary Gildner and Christie Hodgen will read from and sign their newest books. This reading will be excellent—two award-winning writers! Bios below. Join us.

On Saturday, September 25, Gary Gildner will present a workshop for fiction and creative nonfiction/memoir writers focused on using the techniques of narrative to best effect. At $20 for TWP members and $30 for non-members, this is a real bargain. Read the bio and workshop description below, and you’ll see why.

These events are co-sponsored by BkMk Press and The Writers Place and were made possible in part by funding from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency.

Gary Gildner is the author of 21 bookS, including The Second Bridge (a novel), Somewhere Geese Are Flying (new and selected stories), The Warsaw Sparks and My Grandfathers Book (memoirs), and Cleaning a Rainbow (his latest collection of poems). He has received The National Magazine Award for Fiction, Pushcart Prizes in fiction and non-fiction, and the Iowa Poetry Prize. His stories and essays have appeared in New Letters, The Georgia Review, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Southern Review, Grand Street, Antaeus, The Paris Review, and in many anthologies and textbooks.

Workshop by Gary Gildner

Saturday, September 25, 10 AM – 12 PM Body and Soul with Gary Gildner. This workshop is devoted to the writing of fiction and nonfiction and how they can enrich each other in the pursuit and practice of good narrative. For fiction writers who want their inventions to sound and feel real, be entertaining, and matter, and for writers of memoirs and essays who wish to organize their work by borrowing story-telling technique, the workshop will look at the major elements of fiction—character, dialog, exposition, plot—and engage in useful exercises. Bring your work in progress. $30 Nonmembers $20 Members

Christie Hodgen is the author of the novels Elegies for the Brokenhearted and Hello, I Must Be Going, both from W.W. Norton & Co. Her collection of short stories, A Jeweler's Eye for Flaw, won the Associated Writing Programs Award for Short Fiction, and was published by UMASS Press. Her stories have appeared in over a dozen journals and anthologies, and have won two Pushcart Prizes, a grant from the National Endowment for the Art, and the Tobias Woolf Award, among others. She teaches at UMKC.

"Voicing the Spiritual Self: The Interfaith Language of Doubt and Belief " at The Writers Place last night

Here I am opening the evening and welcoming our audience of 60+ to The Writers Place on behalf of the board. This TWP event is just one of a number of events that take place all over Kansas City for the Festival of Faiths put on annually by the KC Interfaith Alliance. This is the second year we've done this at TWP.

Donna Ziegenhorn from Festival of Faiths welcomes and announces some of the final FOF events.

Lee Slusher (Stumbling Deer) plays inspirational Native American flute throughout the early part of the program.

Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star editor, author of two books and one of Kansas City's primary voices of reason and tolerance, served as the evening's emcee.


Two of the event's authors, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Diane Glancy, in the audience at the beginning of the evening.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, poet laureate of Kansas, begins the evening's readings. "I've ventured into midrash on this, the traditional Jewish practice of reinterpreting Old Testament stories. Or if you want to be academic, you could call it a feminist revisionist subversive postcolonial recreation."

Diane Glancy, Cherokee writer extraodinaire, reads a short essay that takes us flying the Great Plains with her. "Often people ask me to speak on Native American spirituality, which I do, but when they ask me to speak on my own, I speak of Christianity. They're always disappointed."

Karta Purkh Singh, practicing Sikh since the early 70s, reads a meditation dialogue with his mind and a list of rules for life. "Sweat some each day. ... Serve someone else, the most humble person you know."


Xánath Caraza, one of our great Latino Writers Collective writers, reads poetry in Spanish and English about key moments in her life. "When I came to the United States, I suddenly became a woman of color. In Mexico, I was just a woman--with challenges, of course. Now, I found I was a woman of color, and I thought--how wonderful! I can be purple or gold or green or whatever color appeals to me that day since I am a woman of color."



Natasha el-Scari reads from her poem, "I Am a Citizen of the World." "You're going to have to change the color and shape of that box if you want to put me in it."


Bukeka Shoals graces the end of the evening with her powerful voice and original music.


This was a remarkable evening of talent and diversity of voice and approach to spirituality. Alejandro Siqueiros, cultural attache to the Mexican Consulate, attended and said, "This was marvelous. I have never seen anything like it. The different voices and different beliefs! It was a wonderful and enlightening evening."

And all I can say is, Amen!

Tercera Pagina, Latino Writers Collective Reading Series, Ends With Fiction Anthology Launch

Xanath Caraza reads one of her mystical stories.

Natalie Castro Olmsted reads a story about growing up Mexican-American in Wichita, KS.

Jason Biggers reads poetry about the Juarez murders and the death of teenaged friends.

Juanita Salazar Lamb, husband Bill, Sofiana Olivera, husband Tim

The new Latino Writers Collective fiction anthology,
Cuentos del Centro: Stories From the Latino Heartland

It was a dark and stormy night--well, actually it was. Monsoonlike torrents of rain, heavy thunder and lightning, and tornado watches and warnings. Still, we finished our third annual Latino Writers Collective reading series, Tercera Pagina, on a high note, celebrating with advanced copies of our new fiction anthology, Cuentos del Centro: Stories From the Latino Heartland. Two of our long-distance members who appear in the anthology, Juanita Salazar Lamb from Houston and Natalie Castro Olmsted from Wichita, drove up to Kansas City to read at the event. Some of our audience members came from as far away as southern Colorado. In spite of the dangerous weather, over fifty people turned out to celebrate the end of our most successful series ever and the birth of our second book. And the news, received just before the reading began, that LWC had achieved our official federal 501(c)3 status finally.

So, while the sky turned black, lit by strobelights of lightning, and the wind roared around the old stone castle of The Writers Place, we partied. Dramatic and funny readings, good wine, lots of delicious nibbles, a fascinating mix of people, and the first copies of our gorgeous new books.

This series was our biggest-to-date, and right after it began, we had grant funding pulled due to the economic crisis. We decided we'd make it work anyway. Calamities like this kept striking at each individual event in the series also, yet each event was more successful than the other successful ones we've had in past years. No one has any fingernails left, but we've got big smiles. Almost 1500 people turned out for various events in the series this year. And this was the year we brought the wonderful Sandra Cisneros to Kansas City.

Also to be celebrated is the fact that our first anthology (poetry), launched at the end of last year's series, has been named a finalist for three national book awards, coming in second in one (the 2009 Eric Hoffer Book Award in Poetry), and we're still waiting to hear results from several others. So the new baby on the block has a lot to live up to, but we think it will surpass its older sibling.

So, with our diehard fans who braved the elements for us, we had a terrific fiesta, and all the good times drove the storm away. We all left the building late to find clear night skies outside. One last little grito of joy here.

Latino Writers Collective Tercera Página Reading Series Presents Gloria Vando March 27

For the third year, the Latino Writers Collective brings to Kansas Citians local and national Latino writers in the Tercera Página (Third Page) Reading Series, which offers four events in 2009. The second event in the series will take place at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania, at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, March 27, 2009.

Reading from her work will be nationally known, award-winning poet, Gloria Vando, a Los Angeles resident who has longtime roots in Kansas City. Vando’s most recent book of poems, Shadows and Supposes, won the 2003 Best Poetry Book of the Year Award from the Latino Literary Hall of Fame and the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has won numerous other awards and fellowships. She reads her poem, “Fire,” on the 2007 Grammy-nominated CD collection, Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work, 1888-2006 (which features Tennyson, Browning, Walt Whitman, who were recorded by Edison when he invented the phonograph). A Puerto Rican born in New York City, Vando has had her poems adapted for the stage and presented at Lincoln Center and Off-Broadway. She is publisher and editor of Helicon Nine Editions, a small press she founded 30 years ago and for which she received the Kansas Governors Arts Award. In 1992, she and her husband, Bill Hickok, founded The Writers Place, a literary center in Kansas City, where they lived for many years. They now live in L.A.

Also reading will be Latino Writers Collective members, Carlos Duarte, Ignacio Carvajal, Miguel Morales, and Sofiana Olivera. The event will also feature the music of Melek Ta’us. RSVP to llrodriguez@sbcglobal.net or 816-333-6349.

Next in the series will be nationally acclaimed author Sandra Cisneros at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., for a reception, reading, and book signing. To be assured a seat, RSVP soon to llrodriguez@sbcglobal.net or 816-333-6349 for this event which is expected to reach capacity early and be closed to reservations.

The series finale will feature Latino Writers Collective members Juanita Salazar Lamb, Jason Biggers, Natalie Olmsted, and Xánath Caraza reading at the launch of the Latino Writers Collective fiction anthology, Cuentos del Centro: Stories From the Latino Heartland at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, May 15, at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania. RSVP to llrodriguez@sbcglobal.net or 816-333-6349.

The series is co-sponsored by BkMk Press, Guadalupe Centers, Inc., Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City Hispanic News, the Kansas Department of Hispanic and Latino Affairs, Longview Community College, Mattie Rhodes Latino Cultural Arts Division, New Letters, Park University, UMKC College of Arts & Sciences, UMKC Multicultural Student Affairs, and The Writers Place.