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All the parts of my life
All the parts of my life

"I am trying to hold in one steady glance / all the parts of my life." — Adrienne Rich, from the poem "Toward the Solstice"

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All the parts of my life

"I am trying to hold in one steady glance / all the parts of my life." — Adrienne Rich, from the poem "Toward the Solstice"

About

About me

Before participating in my first local author fair at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library (TSCPL) in December 2015, I made a bookmark to help promote my poetry collection. The front side had a description of the book, and on the back, I made a list of facts about myself. It looked like this:

About Me bookmark

I’ve never been good at “About Me” pages, probably because I can’t decide where to start, and I wouldn’t be sure where to stop, and I’d leave out things I really wanted to put in. For years, when this was a Blogger blog, all I had in my “About Me” section was, “I’m thinking…”  So, to the list on the bookmark, go ahead and add “master of indecision,” and perhaps “connoisseur of procrastination.”

At the local author fair, I was paired with a wonderful poet, a woman named Elizabeth Schultz. I learned that she had taught for a long time at University of Kansas, and is a Melville scholar. In the years since she retired, she’s published several volumes of poetry. I felt very much the amateur sitting next to her with my one book, but she was very kind and helpful. After reading the list on my bookmark, she gestured toward it and said, “That’s very brave.” It doesn’t feel brave, though, to me. One of the reasons I titled my book Happenings, Heartbeats, and Mental Breakdowns, and put a strange filtered photo of myself on the cover, was to let potential readers know what they’d be getting. My poems are rarely “happy” or uplifting. The cover, the title, and the details on the bookmark are all in service of truth in advertising. If none of those things appeal to you, my poems probably won’t, either. If they pique your interest, then my poems might be a good fit for you.

 

About this site

In May 2008, soon after starting my blog on Blogspot, I wrote a post entitled “I call it ‘All the parts’ because…” and that really sums up what I’ve always tried to do here in these pages. My blog has been a haven for me to record and reflect upon whatever’s going on in my life, and any topic that crosses my mind. As I continue writing, and learning more about publishing — as well as running a small publishing business — I hope to write about my progress and setbacks in those endeavors here on my site. I’ll try to be better about posting book reviews, at least mini-reviews, of other self-published and small press books I’ve enjoyed, and of those titles and authors I especially love, even if they’re published by bigger outfits. I’ve never been a true “book blogger,” but simply a lifelong Lover of Books, so I can’t not talk and write about them; but I like having the option to talk and write about anything and everything else, too.

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