Category Archives: blog

Shadowboxing the Spotlight

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Last Friday, even though I was thrilled to see this wonderful review/feature story on Immigrants come out in our local newspaper, I found myself facing the familiar discomfort of the spotlight. While I did what I knew I was supposed to do as a good book marketer: posting the link widely on social media and sending it around by email, there was a part of myself that just wanted to crawl into a dark place and hide from the rushing current of accolades. Can’t I just be humble? that small inner part of me whined. Why do I have to call so much attention to myself?

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the spotlight since I was little and wanted to be a Broadway musical star. Then in high school, I think I went for an entire year without raising my hand in class. As an adult, there’s a part of me (who lives with the hider) that loves to perform. I enjoy public speaking (something most people hate) whether I’m reading my work, speaking at a rally, facilitating a gathering or ritual, or presenting in a workshop. I might be a little bit nervous with bigger audiences or unfamiliar contexts, but I’ve been able to quell that by imagining myself *talking to* a body of individuals rather than *speaking at* them. In other words, as I’ve said many times to college students in business communication classes or adult Continuing Ed students in my course, “Public Speaking for the Terrified,” take the “public” out of public speaking and think of the experience as simply speaking to other individuals from your heart on something you care about.

While I certainly care about my writing, and wouldn’t have a problem speaking about it to an audience of 5 or 500, marketing feels like an entirely different animal. For one thing, I’m sending/posting material that people aren’t necessarily asking for and competing with thousands of other people doing exactly the same thing. How can I justify contributing to our daily overwhelm of information overload? And if you ask the marketing gurus of this world, I’m likely not doing nearly enough for my book to make a splash, which is not good news to the perfectionist straight-A schoolgirl who also lives inside me along with the hider and the spotlight-seeker.

But hey, maybe a splash isn’t the goal here. Maybe I can be satisfied with a quiet series of ripples. Really, I just want people to read the book, my way of speaking from the heart on something I care about. If they want to read it, that is. I don’t need or want to be an arm-twister. Life is short. People are busy. We make our choices about what nurtures us.

A friend once told me I should think of all this marketing as an offering or invitation. But when you invite 50 people to a party and only 10 people come, it’s hard not to feel like there’s something wrong with you. Easier not to have the party in the first place, which has often been my fall-back. But with marketing you just have to have the party. And then another party, and another. And some of us just aren’t party-goers no matter how well I might describe the enticing activities or the mouth-watering food.

If there’s a conclusion to all of this, I haven’t found it. Other than to bravely step into the spotlight when it’s shining right beside me, but not worry too much or run too hard when it’s not within my sight or grasp. Hopefully that spotlight’s shining on someone else during those times. Someone who is also speaking from their heart.

 

Gratitude

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It seems fitting to start the new year with a post on gratitude.

Even if it at times it might feel like too much of a cliché to switch up the angst of the day with thoughts about what we’re grateful for, I do believe the recipe works. Expressing gratitude may not always result in the gourmet meal of your life, but it can be like a sauce you pour over your food to make it taste better. Or what was that line from Mary Poppins, Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. In the most delightful way. Emphasis on delightful. 

And for the new year, I’m trying a new way of thinking about gratitude. Instead of generically thinking about what I’m grateful for, which often brings up variations on the same list: my partner, my children and grandchildren, my close friends, the beautiful area in which I’m lucky to live, having good health and privilege, yada, yada, I’m mentally cataloging my day with discrete moments that brought me gratitude. I got this idea from my friend and colleague Tzivia Gover’s book, Dreaming on the Page.

Tzivia suggests the prompt, If I could preserve just one thing from this day it would be….

On Monday, January 1, what sprung to the top of the list was the long, leisurely brunch conversation over homemade crepes in our dining room with my partner, Shel, my younger child, Raf, and their partner, Nick. It wasn’t so much that any topic stood out as much as an ease of being and connection that felt precious. And even sweeter: gone was the usual nagging voice reminding me of all the tasks I had yet to complete and should be doing instead.

Yesterday (Tuesday January 2), the moment that edged its way to the top was visiting the tree I call my friend–a stout and stately presence on the Bachelor Brook Trail. I always stop to say hello, and this time, I took a picture of the view upward, made even more special in the bright blue sky on the first sunny day we’ve had in over a week.

Today (Wednesday January 3) is young yet, but in the running at this moment is that feeling of my chest expanding and energy releasing from my body when doing a cardio-work out earlier this morning. It’s not uncommon for me to experience those endorphin rushes, but it was still different to stop and appreciate the feeling as a discrete and special moment.

I often feel flummoxed and shut down when I think about what I can do to prepare for aging, because ultimately, none of us know what challenges might lie on the horizon. But I do think gratitude can be an important foundational practice, and better to institute now when I’m healthy and strong, rather than waiting to find silvers of good in the midst of more challenging times.

So I’m looking forward to continuing this practice for a while, and perhaps, mining these moments that give me joy and finding homes for some of them in poems and stories.

 

TAKING STOCK OF 2023

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As the year draws to a close, here’s what I’ve done in the publication/submission universe:

POETRY:

  • 86 rejections
  • 18 journals accepted 22 poems (Including one poem in Rattle!)
  • 1 chapbook accepted–Very excited about Here in Sanctuary–Whirling, which is forthcoming from Querencia Press in 2024. This dedicated and spirited small press has been a dream to work with. Cover reveal is coming soon!
  • 2 Pushcart Prize Nominations: Thank you so much to Gyroscope Review and the River Heron Review for this recognition.
  • 20 submissions still pending

SHORT FICTION:

Since I knew Immigrants was coming out soon, I only sent out one short story that wasn’t in the collection. That story got 12 rejections, with 2 pending.

The more exciting news on this front was that Immigrants did come out just last month and has already gotten some lovely reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. (Of the 13 stories in this book, 8 have been previously published by other journals.)

For those of you playing the submission game, be aware that stories, especially those on the longer side are harder to publish than poems, especially for a print journal that has to deal with space considerations.

CREATIVE NON-FICTION:

Essays I sent out were rejected 11 times, with 6 submissions still pending. One of the rejections made it to a final round and one of the pending submissions is in the final round. Also in this category–2 guest columns submitted to and published by our local newspaper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette: Losing the Light and Let Them Wear Tutus.

LONGER WORK:

I queried 27 agents this year about my music memoir, Imperfect Pitch. Three agents sent actual rejection letters, 3 are still pending (sent within the last three months), and 21 ghosted me. Of those that ghosted, 2 of them first asked to see a proposal and then ghosted when I followed up.

I also sent the book to three small presses and received 2 rejections. One small press submission is still pending.

And finally, I did take another stab at submitting a novel I’d given up on when I found out that Delphinium was considering unagented queries. The editor asked to see the whole book, and rejected it a month later with a letter that began, “Deer Dina…”

All these rejections may sound depressing, but I’m really okay with them. I’m glad to have far exceeded my goal of getting 100 rejections, and as I’ve said to many fellow writers, I make a point of not letting any rejection bother me for more than 10 minutes.

Besides the successes are incredibly sweet, and I’m grateful (and, quite honestly, also terrified) any time some of my words make it past my computer into the big, wide world.

Onward to 2024. Happy New Year!

I Hear You

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Last night, I received an amazing gift–a long email from my cousin (someone I don’t see or talk to very often) containing heartfelt and thoughtful reflections on my music memoir manuscript, Imperfect Pitch. What struck me most was that even though his experience was different from mine, being 18 years younger and on the other side of the family tree, he could resonate with the way family messages contributed to the themes of the book, particularly around perfectionism. In other words, he heard me.

And as feedback about Immigrants oozes in slowly, I feel gratified for the readers who have mentioned the ways the book has touched them. I was particularly taken with the Amazon review that referred to the book as a “journey of the heart.”

Also last night, I attended a reading around 40 minutes away at the Lava Center in Greenfield, MA to hear my friend D.K. McCutchen read from her book, Whale Road. Before she read, many poets shared work at the open mic., much of which was–by their own admission–work in progress; some of it was written that day. While my inner perfectionist-in-recovery was awed by some of this risk-taking, especially when hearing a few hesitations as people paused over scratched out words and read phrases that my inner editor was ready to cut, the point wasn’t to read “perfect work.” The point was to be heard. Many people read highly vulnerable material, that exposed them in all their rawness. And the response from the audience, as appropriate, was simply, I hear you. 

This Third Tuesday reading series seems to have created a warm, accepting, enthusiastic and tight-knit community. While it’s doubtful I’ll attend regularly because of the distance, I’m glad it’s there. We all need to find “our people,” those who will honor our need to be heard.

At yet another writing event I attended this past week, a round table discussion by Straw Dog Writers Guild entitled Your Writing Practice: Pitfalls and Solutions, facilitated by two faves in my writing community, Michael Favala Goldman and Lindsay Rockwell, many writers who were there talked about community as one of their biggest needs. And as some attendants lamented about losing their “inner oomph,” others discussed how community is one of the best cures for getting that inner oomph back–someone (or someones) who can say I hear you, and who will give you encouragement to share your work with others, even when it’s not (yet) perfect.

 

 

Immigrants, Centos, and Celebrations

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Last night I read at the annual 30 Poems in November reading, an annual event where each writer who participated in the fundraiser is asked to read one poem. Meanwhile, I’ve been overwhelmed by my writing/book-marketing to-do list, at the top of which is wrestling these poems to have something to send to donors by the end of the month, and continuing to spread the word about Immigrants through my web of connected networks while taking the first dips into investigating blogs, podcasts, social media sites, etc. where I don’t have a personal connection. (NOTE: Any suggestions are welcome!!!)

Most moving at last night’s reading was hearing from three of the students at the Center for New Americans who shared heart-felt writing in both English and their native languages, as well as their deep gratitude for the hard-working teachers at CNA who are helping them build their new lives.

As the negative rhetoric around immigrants starts to build again, with Republicans in Congress demanding changes in immigration policy in exchange for aid to the Ukraine that would make it even harder for people threatened by violence to escape to the safety of our country, I’m remembering a writing workshop I co-led for women in the border camp. We introduced the beautiful picture book, Somos Como Los Nubes (We Are Like the Clouds) by Salvadoran poet, Jose Argueta, which talks about the hopes and dreams of Central American children walking thousands of miles in search of safety.

Then we asked the women to write or draw their response to the book. One woman sat and started to cry. “I can’t write,” she told me. Having heard this many times from leading writing workshops for most of my adult life, I mustered up my Spanish to give her a pep talk on writers’ block. But she wasn’t talking about writers’ block. She was talking about illiteracy. I felt so embarrassed as I asked a more fluent Spanish speaker to act as her scribe, but recognized that my embarrassment was nothing compared to hers. And when it was time for her to share, her story, like every story we heard that day about kidnapping, lost livelihoods, rape, threatened or dead children broke our hearts.

While only one of the stories in Immigrants is about the border, I wrote the book to showcase all the ways that immigrants interface in our lives. While some of the stories are more political than others, in all of them, the human story takes center stage. As I worry about all the ways the U.S. is becoming less safe, it feels like an impossible nightmare to think about leaving my home to go somewhere strange and potentially unwelcoming, especially today as the winter sun is slicing a comforting wedge of light through my large porch windows. Yet, that’s what the immigrants coming to this country did–an act of incredible bravery to leave everything you know. And that’s what people displaced in wars have to do, with no opportunity for choice.

But I didn’t read a poem about politics last night. My poem, a cento, was about loving the world despite its difficulties. A cento, which is a collage of lines from other poems, might be a bit of a cheat, but hey, when you have to write 30 poems in a month, sometimes you need to take some shortcuts. And the fun thing about this one was that I only used poems for source material from the prompts that were sent out every day to participating writers.

So next time you’re stuck, leaf through some poems and write down lines that strike you (best if you’re not sure why) and then try to meld them together. I guarantee, this will be fun, even if you’re just tasting other people’s words, whether or not you come up with a poem of your own. Here are the first few lines of my cento. Poetic sources are from Mary Oliver, Dean Young, Mahmoud Darwish, Winnie Lewis Gravitt and Richard Fox.

VOCATION

My work is loving the world.
Because of you, I’m talking to crickets, clouds.
I have a saturated meadow,
where, like plants sprouting where they don’t belong,
sorrow, grief and trouble sit like blackbirds on the fence
scanning the topography of prayer

Showing Up

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Last night I participated in an on-line reading organized by Colossus Press to celebrate their newest anthology of writing about the body. I was happy to be one of eight featured readers sharing deeply personal and compelling material. Tonight, I’m heading to our local monthly reading, Writers Night Out, to see my friend Carolyn Cushing, the poet laureate of Easthampton. Tomorrow night, if I didn’t have another meeting, I’d be hanging out on Zoom with my poetry gals extraordinaire, an invaluable support and critique group that someone I met at Writers Night Out invited me to join. Had I not come that night, I never would have found these folks. Yet, as usual, I had to ignore my introvert leanings and force myself to go.

Showing up pays off–nearly all of the time. As much as I might not be able to totally void myself of the notion that the ideal writer lives alone in a cabin in the woods and doesn’t speak to anyone for days in order not to interrupt the precious chantings of the muse, I’m happiest in my writing when I know there are others on my team who are all rooting for each other–supporting each other through challenges and celebrating successes.

I met my life partner, Shel at the first poetry reading I dared go to, in Greenwich Village when I was in my early 20s. My inner hermit screamed for mercy as I walked up five floors of smelly stairs in a green-walled brownstone tenement, finally landing in a messy closet kitchen, where poet Emilie Glen, a woman in her 70s with dyed blond hair wearing a frilly pink negligee, greeted me effusively. Welcome! Her accent had a tinge of south in it. Would you like orange juice, lemonade, or passion fruit? 

Shel and me in front of 77 Barrow Street in 2014. We met at a reading in this building in 1978.

Emilie’s reading attracted a quirky crowd, from established New York beat poets to street people, and getting to know them opened the gates of my world. I quickly made a new set of friends, as I did again when I moved to western Massachusetts and got involved with Amherst Writers & Artists and the National Writers Union (where I found my fiction group that’s been meeting for more than 30 years). More recently, I’ve made new relationships from my involvement locally with Straw Dog Writers Guild and the Forbes Library Writing Room, and–more peripherally–with my Lesley MFA alums and people around the country I’ve connected with through offering work to their journals and anthologies. What I love about these communities is that they’re mixed: containing people who’ve accomplished far more than I have as a writer and also people who have not yet been published. Yet, there’s no hierarchy. Everyone’s work is taken seriously.

As shameful as it is to admit, there was a time in my life, shortly after my two YA novels were published in 2006 by “the big guys” (Simon & Schuster and Farrar, Straus, Giroux) that I broke away from many of these community writing groups. I’m a real writer, now. I told myself. I don’t need to hang with the “wannabees” any more.

I could not have been more wrong.

In hindsight, I equate my bad behavior as analogous to suddenly being accepted into the “mean girl clique,” and thinking that to stay there, I, too, had to act like a “mean girl” –better than everyone else. But when the “big guys” didn’t accept any more of my books and I was metaphorically kicked out of the clique, I found myself with much less of a writing community. While my inner hermit enjoyed the reprieve from being “on” so much of the time, the rest of me felt lonely and depressed.

It’s taken years to build back to a place where I have many friendships and mutual support networks with other writers. And I feel so much gratitude that they (along with my other networks of friends and family) are supporting me by buying and spreading the word about my new book, Immigrants, just as I will continue to make the effort to buy and spread the word about their books.

And, whenever I can, I will show up.

 

Poem Wrestling

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Today I completed Poem #30 for the 30 Poems in November fundraiser for the Center for New Americans–a day ahead of schedule, Whew!

Since tomorrow is still November, I may attempt a final poem. Usually, I like to write a cento (a collage poem using lines from other poems) from all the poems offered as prompts over the month. That will enable me to drop a poem that’s not working when I compile my collection of 30, kind of like having the option to eliminate the lowest grade on a series of quizzes!

Of course, at this point, many of these baby poem-drafts aren’t working too well, and getting rid of only one won’t solve that problem. That’s where poem-wrestling comes in. My December writing focus will be on honing these poems into a shape I can share with those who donated to the fundraiser without being too embarrassed about them, even though most of them will still be far from my perfectionist standards.

But perhaps, part of this practice is also about being more comfortable showing my flaws in public–as I did, last weekend when I was asked to be part of the rotation of family musicians and play five minutes of background music on the piano for the appetizer hour of my nephew’s wedding celebration. I NEVER play the piano in front of other people, as those who are familiar my journey back to claiming my piano-playing past (which I wrote about in my not-yet-published memoir, Imperfect Pitch) already know. But I said yes, because I’m loyal to my family and my brother assured me no one would be listening. So, here I was, first on the list of the family players approaching the ivory among the (thank heavens) rising din of chatter. I pretended I was alone and played the pieces I’d prepared, even adding a little klezmer-inspired tune I’d composed on the spot the day before when humming to my grandchild to get him to take a nap.

I actually had fun, because I really was able to play as if I were alone in the room. And I think that’s what I’m going to have to do as I wrestle these 30 poems–pretend I’m alone in the room and see where they want to go without thinking too much about the added pressure of having to share them.

What will poem wrestling entail? Many things, but briefly–zeroing in on what the poem is really about and then thinking about whether each image builds on that or feels like a random aside. Also, looking closely at language and form: how do the words sound on the page. I play a lot with rhythm and repetition of sound patterns. I also look for places I can improve enjambments or use space more strategically.

And because I’m a perfectionist, I’m often writing 3 or 4 or 5 versions of each poem, then letting a version sit for a couple of days before reviewing it. Sometimes I’m so bemused by what I’ve done as in that funny Christine Lavin song, What Was I Thinking, I go back to an earlier version.

And as the days of December wane and my deadline for sending the poems to donors looms, like the cat hesitating at the open door, (an image in the poem I wrote today) I’ll just have to go bravely into the headwind.

 

 

The Perils of Publication

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Last Thursday evening, as I was packing frantically to leave the next morning for a week-long trip for family events in Minneapolis, I got an email from my editor that my book, Immigrants, was finally live on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Google Books. I still don’t have my author’s copies or any indication of what the final product (post proof corrections) looks like in print, so it felt a bit illusory to suddenly be published in the digital universe with no hard evidence.

Yet, finally here it was–available for any and all to read. And like–or not. And praise–or not.

While publishing is the goal for many writers, it’s also terrifying. Because even when it’s fiction–as this book is, your book is still a process of excavating the deepest things that matter to you and spilling them to the universe. And when you’re published, you no longer get to control who reads your work and what they’ll say about it. In fact, your goal is to get as many people as possible to buy your book in order to make your sales numbers look good.

This is why I always try to buy the books of writer friends I know, even if it might take a few months before I’ve have time to read them. And this year I’ve had some wonderful reads! Highlights were for adult fiction: Gene Luetkemeyer’s, My Year at the Good Bean Cafe, and Katheryn Holzman’s, Granted; for YA: Benjamin Roesch’s, Blowing My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, and Jeannine Atkins’ Hidden Powers; for memoir, Magdalena Gomez’s, Mi’ja and Ani Tuzman’s, Angels on the Clothesline; for creative non fiction, Anne and Christopher Ellinger’s Authentic Fulfillment; for poetry, Rich Michelson’s, Sleeping as Fast as I Can  and Lindsay Rockwell’s Ghost Fires, and for a book on writing, Tzivia Gover’s Dreaming on the Page. (Note: While I mostly used Amazon hyperlinks, because that was easiest to search for, most of these books can also be ordered from a local bookstore, or you can contact the author or publisher if you prefer not to use Amazon.)

And if you have something complimentary to say–whether you know the author or not–it can be very helpful to leave a short review (1 to 2 sentences is generally sufficient). If you’re not an Amazon user, they sometimes won’t let you onto their platform, but Goodreads is also an option, as is simply spreading the word to friends you think might also like the book.

So, here’s my shameless way of pivoting to book marketing–a task I find as appealing is cleaning the toilet. If you feel so moved, I’d be honored if you buy a copy of Immigrants. And if you like it, please do leave a review. Or write to me and let me know what you thought. And while you’re at it, please check out some of the titles above.