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Coffee, Cigarettes, and Kaleidoscope Eyes

Posted by Ladytea on January 30, 2015
Posted in: Poetry, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Five years ago this month, I retired from my full-time job as a bookkeeper.  My son was my main reason for taking the leap — he had spent half his life in daycare at that point, and I wanted to be the one to raise him — but finding time for my writing was a close second.

I remember driving home from work one day, getting an idea, and reaching for a pen at the stoplight, only to realize that not only did I not have a notebook with me, but it’d probably been months since I’d thought to carry one. As someone who has often relied on writing for survival — quite literally — that was a major wake-up call.

My salary was a good one. Giving it up was hard, and definitely came with emotional struggles as well as financial ones. But we were able to make it work, and for that I will be forever grateful, because I feel like the most important part of my life started the day I traded my calculator for a keyboard.

One of the first poems that I submitted for publication was to a literary journal called Kaleidoscope, published by United Disability Services in Akron, Ohio.

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The poem, “Portrait of a Woman Drinking Coffee,” is a somewhat goofy but earnest reflection on unipolar disorder, also known as cyclical depression, dysthymia, or whatever label the DSM wants to give it this year (basically bipolar disorder with no highs, only lows) – a condition I’ve struggled with since I was a little girl.

My late-teens and early twenties were the hardest (they typically are, aren’t they?) I lost a great scholarship, some good friends, and several years of writing  — almost lost my life, too.

By twenty-five I had my shit (mostly) together (chain-smoking notwithstanding), graduated college with honors, and was working a good trade. Just as important, I was finally able to hold a pen again and start picking away at the emotional scabs that had been keeping me from putting down words in a coherent and meaningful way (and isn’t that an attractive metaphor? pick, pick).

Once I would have tumbled into this emotion
a storm’s eye sitting
in a broken coffeehouse chair
once I would have seen it as poles colliding
closing in on every last spark of joy
but now I see it as an old
familiar friend;
the kind that puts out a cigarette in your coffee
and reminds you
of everything you try to ignore

“Portrait of a Woman Drinking Coffee” is from that era, written in the corner of the Brew Ha Ha balcony in a messy notebook with an ashtray full of clove cigarettes in front of me.

ashtray-295028_640Though it took them nearly five years to publish it (five years!!!), I let UDS take their time (with only minimal grumbling) because I couldn’t think of a better home for a poem like this than Kaleidoscope, a magazine “creatively focuse[d] on the experiences of disability through literature and the fine arts.”

Putting aside the notion that many of the best artists, writers, and performers are/were nut jobs (though they totally are/were), the arts themselves are an important means of therapy and self-expression. This is true for everyone, but perhaps especially so for those whose ability to function day-to-day is a constant challenge. Kaleidoscope provides a forum, a spotlight, for artists with disabilities, including the so-called invisible disability of mental illness. As a survivor, I am happy to be living in an era when the stigma of difference is being tested, shaken, picked at like an ugly scab on our social conscience (see what I did there?) I want to thank projects like Kaleidoscope for adding to that momentum.  I am honored to have even a small part in it.

To download this (Issue #70, “Journeying to Acceptance”) or other issues of Kaleidoscope, visit http://www.udsakron.org/kaleidoscope/issues.aspx.

 

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THE POWER OF WHAT IF – From Generating Story Ideas to Engendering the Future

Posted by Ladytea on November 13, 2014
Posted in: Fiction, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

With MiniWriMo come round again, I’ve been thinking about what to write this month – which led me led me to look back on what I have written, and, more specifically, how those stories came to be.

head-113927_640Sometimes, stories are NOT born because a mommy story and a daddy story loved each other very much.

Sometimes, story ideas come about fully-formed, like little gifts from fiction heaven. (And isn’t it peachy when THAT happens?)

Other times, it takes a lot of forethought and muscle on the writer’s part – like, conjuring one’s inner Frankenstein to hack and sew words together and scream at the Gods until the Thing takes a life of its own.index

And then, sometimes, the process falls somewhere in the middle. A little prompting, a little “hmmm-ing”, a little pen-to-papering, and then… hey, look. An idea begins to grow.
For me, this often takes the form of a “What If” story.

What If… Bad Was Good?

In April of this year, my flash fiction story, DEFIANCE, appeared in Plasma Frequency Magazine.

Issue 11 Cover Preview

DEFIANCE is a fun little piece. Written in late 2012, it predates – I swear! – the Syfy show of the same name. While both the story and the tv show involve alien invasions and pockets of humanity that remain, erm, defiant, that’s pretty much where the similarities end (at least as far as I’m aware – I lost interest in the series halfway through the first season. Sorry Rockne).

In my DEFIANCE, the main character is a soldier in Earth’s resistance against aliens that have enslaved most of humanity. Poised for a sniper attack on the roof of an old elementary school, Jackson recalls his pre-invasion childhood of classroom tantrums and frowny-face notes that made his mother cry. While we learn that it was his inherent defiance that got young Jackson separated from his mother in civilization’s final hour, it was also what spared him from slavery – and presumably it is what helps him thrive in an alien apocalypse.

So how was this a “What If?” Back in 2012, my six-year-old had a disciplinary record that could put any teenaged hoodlum to shame. He is a brilliant child and the apple of my eye, but our boy was (and still can be) a holy terror to his teachers. A year later, he would (finally!) be diagnosed with Aspergers/Autism Spectrum, but at the time the “whys” of him were a mystery. One of the labels bandied about was Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which is another way of saying “irascible, recalcitrant little butthead syndrome”.

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irascible, recalcitrant little butthead syndrome

On the verge of seeing my baby expelled from first grade, I spent one afternoon crying into my hands until, when my own brand of stubborn kicked in, I poured myself a glass of suck-it-up and sat down at my computer. “What If,” I pondered, “being a born butthead was a survival skill? What would that look like?” An hour of fevered-typing later, the world of DEFIANCE had taken shape. Murky shape, maybe – it is only 800 words long, after all – but lo, I’d invented a possible future for my son that wasn’t all bad.

 

WHAT IF can offer new ways of thinking about old problems – and conjure up kick-ass stories, too.

 

What If… Left Was Right?

Science Fiction is an especially appropriate Petri dish for “What-Ifs”; it is, after all, speculative by definition. What if we had the technology to…? What would the future be like if ?

My story, GHOST-WRITER (published thiScigentasyWEBheader2s month in Scigentasy) tackles the Sci-Fi challenge of “What If” in a couple of ways. The primary question, dealing with possible technologies, comes from a note-to-self I found while flipping through old files in search for story ideas: [sic] what if someone’s brain hemispheres suddenly switched dominance?

For those of us who aren’t psychology nerds, “lateralization of brain function” describes the different but complimentary personalities of the left vs right sides of the brain. Though the subject has long made my geek happy (google split-brain experiments), I had recently read a book that was a game-changer for me: My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor, in which a neuroanatomist describes how her life was enriched by a stroke that disabled her left hemisphere. Free from the constrains of language-labeling and logical thinking, Dr. Taylor describes a world she perceived as free-flowing, creative, and spiritual.

Blausen_0215_CerebralHemispheres
With my, “What If”, inspired by Dr. Taylor, I tried to imagine what it would be like not to lose the functions of one hemisphere or the other, but to have the hemispheres up and trade places – prince and the pauper-style? Would wacky hjinks ensue? Would the body even notice, short of some vertigo, a Matrix-like glitch? The brain is superbly plastic; science has shown that under the right circumstances it can recover from grievous wounds, basically re-wiring itself to restore lost functioning.

It was from this line of thinking that GHOST-WRITER was conceived. In it, my neuroscientist, Carla, has invented a means of restoring function to brain-damaged patients by getting the remaining, healthy hemisphere to annex the dead tissue and graft its own programming there. Though the titular “Ghost-Writer” project is still in its exploratory stage, wrapped up in the proverbial red-tape, an inoperable brain tumor and a pending divorce compel Carla into taking matters into her own hands.

All fiction can be a “What If” playground; as writers, we can pose the question and invent answers within the parameters of any genre. Science Fiction just happens to lend itself particularly well to pushing the boundaries of possibility.

 

What If… Maybe Was True?

For this reason, a lot of Sci-Fi doubles as social commentary: if we can imagine a future or world or an alternate universe with even a minor shift in our cultural norms, what would that look like? Sometimes this socio-political exploration can be overt, with plots that cover the author’s agenda like a dancing green alien’s chemise (*cough* Star Trek *cough*).

In other cases, like with GHOST-WRITER, the questioning can be more subtle. My “What-if” about the brain’s hemispheres was my primary reason for writing it, but because my main characters are gay women, the story naturally raised questions about the future of gender and sexual politics, in particular same-sex marriage (which was not recognizedl in most states in 2011, when GHOST-WRITER was written).

Gaymarriage

So I wrote Carla and Maggie as a married couple –more significantly, I chose not to comment on it. I wanted to create a future where same-sex marriage is not only legal, it’s a non-issue. And I wanted to allow for fluidity, too: when Maggie turns down a date with another doctor it is for emotional reasons – not because he’s a he.

These were little things – I think I said more on the topic by not saying much – but the fact that beta readers were surprised when Carla’s spouse turned out to be a female pleased me, because it means my  take on “What If” here had the power to challenge assumptions.  And that’s, well, something.
What’s great about “What If” is that it inspires us, as writers and readers, to consider possibilities. Not necessarily large or paradigm-changing ones; we should not expect, when we sit down with our laptops or pens, that what we write will save a life or change the world. But, then again, we can always ask:  – What If it could?

What_if_I_ask_for_help

Cape Henlopen Poetry and Prose Writers Retreat 2014

Posted by Ladytea on October 23, 2014
Posted in: Awards, Dragon Mom, Poetry, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

I almost didn’t make it. The GodKing hurt his back last week, the Kinglet is having a rough month at school, and, at four months, I’m still nursing my baby girl. To ditch them all for a sequestered, catered four-day weekend felt terribly self-indulgent. So when a transportation issue came up and I couldn’t find a ride down, I was like, well, I guess I just won’t go.

besides, how could I leave THIS?

besides, how could I leave THIS?

But my husband was having none of it. He was preparing to take off from work and drive me to Lewes himself when, thankfully, my poet friend Phillip Bannowsky welcomed me to ride with him.

Even still, it was touch-and-go that whole first morning. At breakfast I got an email from the Kinglet’s teachers explaining how he was getting kicked out of enrichment class rather than implementing his IEP; in full-on Mother Dragon mode, I’d responded with one of my signature Strongly Worded Letters while simultaneously cramming a bagel into my face-hole. Then I thought I’d lost my purse – spent an hour or so driving around looking for it when I’d meant to be packing and getting ready. (Never did get around to shaving my legs). Found the purse and managed to stuff my stuff into my bags and lug them to the porch by 11, still basically hyperventilating and wondering if I’d be able to relax at all.

I can’t say that I ever truly did – the combination of mommy hormones, social anxiety and over- caffeination had me feeling rather bipolar that entire weekend – but that wasn’t really a bad thing. I experienced some crystal highs on this retreat: getting to know colleagues a little better, starting new friendships, sharing in society with other poets and writers – “the tribe”, as JoAnn called it. People who speak my language, who love words and wordcraft. People who get it.

And I wrote. Not prolifically, but some, which is more than I’ve done in longer than I can say. Though I’ve been very productive in the last year with getting things published, I’ve produced very little new work, for one reason or another. The one thing I’d hoped to accomplish on this retreat, above all else, was to start the momentum again – and that, so far at least, I definitely have done.

Some thoughts and tidbits:

– During introductions on the first night, I mentioned that I’d just had a baby and that I was away from her for the first time. Thus I became known as the one with the baby for the remainder of the weekend. People kept coming up and asking, “So how you doing? Holding up okay? Sleep okay? Did you call home yet? How’s the little one?”

I laugh, but I really did appreciate it. It helped break the ice with people I didn’t know, and kept me “checked in” with those I do, who knew what a Big Deal it was for me to be there, away from my kids.

To answer the questions: I held up okay. It wasn’t as hard as I feared it would be, but it was definitely surreal. I kept thinking, Isn’t there someone I’m supposed to be taking care of? And for the first time in years and years and years, the answer was NO. I was responsible only for ME, having thoughts that were 100% my own. I felt younger, if that makes sense. Like twenty-something me was waking up from a very long sleep – which might also explain the bipolar feeling. But that’s okay! Crazy makes for better poetry.

– TheVirden Center isn’t the Ritz, but it’s perfectly sufficient to a writer’s needs. The personal screened porches were great (mine came with a pet preying mantis, for that extra little poetic symbolism), small but cozy, and Godz, if we didn’t have great weather for it.  Sunny, breezy, cool at times but not cold, and blue skies!

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Works for me!

My only beef about the accommodations were that 1) the nightstand was across the room from the bed rather than next to it, so I had to keep my night stuff (eyeglasses, saline, cup of water) perched precariously on a desk chair, and 2) the handle to my toilet stuck. You had to jimmy it or else it would keep running, which I kept forgetting, so I’d be staring into space trying to write a poem and then realize I was still hearing that damn toilet’s heavy, watery exhaling (inhaling? hmm.)

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shall i compare thee to a toilet’s whooooooooosh…

 

Oh and, 2b) I finally got in the habit of jiggling the handle by the last day, but now I’m trained to it, so every time I flush at home and hear the tank filling up I have the urge to go back and fondle the toilet. Thanks, Virden Center.

– The thing that most surprised me about the retreat is how little time I actually had to write. Part of that was unique to me – I spent an average of two hours a day pumping and storing breast milk, and, really, everything I did had to be scheduled around how long I’d have until I had to quick back to my room to pump again (oh, and did I mention, I got a nasty carpal tunnel flareup from what I thought at first was due to scribbling poems longhand (for want of a printer) but realized later, face-palm, was due to two hours a day minimum of squeezing a breast pump… TMI?) – but between that and workshops and needing to be in the dining room for meals at a specific time, I felt like writing was something that happened in the margins. You pretty much had to skip meals, sleep, or socializing to get any real work done. Being a nursing mom and always always hungry and always always tired, I went with option three, eschewing company except during meals and group.

– Not that anyone was knocking down my door; I felt a little lost at times.

– BUT ON THE OTHER HAND. I relished how open and friendly everyone was. Whenever I stepped into the dining room, there was a moment of “hmmm” – that flashback to grade school or camp or whatever, when all the cool kids bunch together and you wonder if and where there will be a space for you. I can’t be the only one who went through that. – But it wasn’t like that. By any stretch of the imagination.

I made a point of sitting at a different table every time, with different folk, trying to get to know new people, seeing the place from new angles – and for the most part it seemed like everyone else was doing the same. I thought a lot about how small the Delaware writing community is – even people I didn’t know, coming down, I realized I have seen before, or am only removed from by one or two Kevin Bacons. I like that kind of intimacy. It feels good to be a part of it.

– About food: I heard some mumbles about the buffet. This being my first retreat, I have no basis for comparison, but I was impressed with the grub. It was diverse, always something new, with options for veggies and carnivores alike. I thought it was pretty stellar, actually – but, then again, all of my food was cooked for me personally due to my dietary restrictions. Maybe I got extra special treatment, in which case, lalala for me! I loved having grownup food (artichoke hearts! sundried tomatoes) that met my needs that I didn’t have to cook myself. I was bowled over by how accommodating the chef and the staff were – the servers even knew to bring me the honey bear for my coffee by the second night (which I use because I can’t have cream). I felt truly pampered, and I wish I could bring them all back with me to My Real Life.

– Ah, pie in the sky dream.

So those are my impressions. It was an expensive trip, in more than just the cost of registering, but totally, I think, worth it. Coming back to reality this week, I felt refreshed and rejuvenated in a non-cliché way, a way that goes beyond “post-vacation bliss”. I feel as if I finally got a handle on where I am in my craft, in my career. I produced some work that I am proud of – more importantly, I am sharp with intention, the impetus to create more. Plus, I met a host of great people, colleagues, and gained a broader sense of community.

Oh, and gratitude. Thank you, Universe, and you, Delaware Division of the Arts, for sponsoring and, you, Oh Unknown and Unbiased judges, for selecting me as a participant. I am so honored and glad to have been counted among so many hugely talented writers.

It was, in short, really swell.

 

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In which the poet is accomplishing muchly.

New Review for UNDOING WINTER at Amazing Stories Mag

Posted by Ladytea on October 15, 2014
Posted in: Reviews (of), Undoing Winter. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Much thanks and kudos to fellow SFPA’er Diane Severson Mori over at Amazing Stories Magazine for her review of UNDOING WINTER!  In addition to maintaining a regular column at Amazing Stories to highlight speculative poets and poetry, Diane also manages the not-insignificant task of rounding up the spec-poetry related publications and activities for Science Fiction Poetry Association members.

If you haven’t already, please do check out Diane’s thoughts on UNDOING WINTER, complete with recordings of three poems from the chapbook!

COVER FROM WEBSITE

I’m busy getting ready for the DDOA Poet and Prose Writer’s Retreat this weekend (leaving my babies for four days! EEP!) but Diane’s post provides some food for thought that I’d like to revisit later [Watch this Space!!] To wit: while it’s true that none of the poetry in UNDOING WINTER is SciFi – indeed, i think I have all of one poem in my entire portfolio that I’d call straightup Science Fiction – I draw much of my inspiration from myth, folklore, and dreamscapes – all of which are snugly at home under the “Fantasy” category, which also counts as “Speculative Poetry”.

I think Speculative Poetry can be read in layers. The poems are metaphors, yes, but they also speak of their own realities. In my opinion, poems of ghosts, pagan gods, and slipstream are no more or less metaphorical than of any other genre – for what is SciFi, really, but the same, age old questions of the human condition, wrapped up in futuristic tropes?

Living Glass-Full

Posted by Ladytea on August 18, 2014
Posted in: Appearances, Events, Fiction, Readings, Written Remains Writing Guild. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

This is my favorite picture from the Someone Wicked Publication Celebration at Newark Arts Alliance on Saturday, where eight of my fellow authors and I performed excerpts of twenty stories from the spectacular Someone Wicked Written Remains anthology.

 

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photo by Justynn Tyme

I had a blast at the event – loved talking with friends and fans, loved listening to the stories,  and loved performing.  I even slipped into a southern drawl during my performance of Chantal Noordeloos’ “Mirror Mirror” – something I hadn’t planned to do, but the dialog seemed to invite it, so I rolled with it.

Unfortunately, though, this is going to be one of those memories I avoid revisiting in pictures because of how I look.  I’ve lost half of my pregnancy weight in just 10 weeks, but for me, as with many women, it’s hard to look at HOW we look with anything but a glass-half-empty mentality.

Weight has always been the Achilles’ Heel to my ego.  I was fat as a kid, and tormented for it, and turned into an anorexic teenager to make up for it.  Even after I found my ideal weight, my height has always made me feel like a giant compared to other women.  It’s been a lifelong challenge to embrace my body type, to love who I am inside AND out.  Add *cough*-ty pounds of baby weight, I end up feeling like a holiday float.

So when I look at the pictures from my reading, I don’t see a lady who is already halfway back to her pre-pregnancy figure.  I see a holiday float in front of a microphone.

someone wicked 2

photo by Robert Lutz

But that’s ok.  Looking back through my old journals, I reminded myself that it took eight months to lose the weight from my first child (which is fair, I think, since it took ten months to put it on!) Thanks to nursing and a whole foods diet, I also lost *cough*-ty extra pounds, so that by the time my son had his first birthday I was sleek and happy in my size 10 jeans – just right for my type.

I’m hoping to do the same thing this time around.  I’m eating healthy whole foods again,  aspiring to exercise (heh), and watching the weight come down in a natural way (read: slow).  In the meantime, I’m trying to be kind to myself.  I’m enjoying my baby girl.  I’m embracing the things that I love, like writing.  Like performing.  I may never be able to gaze at those pictures of me at the mic with a warm fuzzy feeling, even when (and if) I lose the weight… but at least I’ll have the memories.  Float or no float, I did go to that party, I did get up to that mic, and I did do my thing.  And it was awesome.

I think that’s key to a full life: you don’t HAVE to love every inch of yourself, but you do need to be kind to you, and love you as a whole.  You need your whole self to show up, after all.  If you’re half-glassing it, you’re only half living.

I do need to get a babysitter, though, so I can get myself to that salon.    Note to self.  A nice cut and color can do wonders for self-love.

 

They’re here! They’re here!

Posted by Ladytea on July 30, 2014
Posted in: Poetry, Undoing Winter. Tagged: , , , . 2 comments

 

Lookie what came in the mail last week….

 

chapbooks

 

There are many emotional peaks and valleys in the journey towards publication, but certainly the best high (so far, anyway) has to be holding your own flesh and blood (read: paper and ink) book in your hands… and seeing your own happy mug there on the back, in living color.

SO COOL, Y’ALL.

SO VERY COOL.

And as reports of preorder arrivals have begun to trickle in from my friends and cohorts around the globe (yes! I even have a fan across the pond! *waves*) I’m reminded again of how many people have encouraged me on this journey with their love, their facebook/blog shares, and their hard-earned dollars.  THANK YOU, everyone, for your support.

So I haven’t been sleeping very well lately (if why isn’t obvious, scroll back a few posts…) but I have spent the last few days and what brian power … er BRAIN power… I have on getting my little authorly self together.  For starters, Undoing Winter is now on Goodreads!  Please do check it out and, if you liked the book, feel free to leave a rating or a review!

For those still interested in purchasing a copy, Undoing Winter is available through Finishing Line Press.  The cost is $14 plus shipping — OR, come find me in person and buy a signed copy direct from the source! See my CALENDAR OF EVENTS for a list of upcoming appearances.

I’ll be sending out review copies soon, too, so if you’ve got an in with a publication or blog and want to help spread the love for Undoing Winter, LET ME KNOW! You can contact me here, on Facebook or through the usual channels.  I’ll get back to you with alacrity… assuming I’m not napping off the trauma of a sleepless night.

UNDOING WINTER – a journey into dark

Posted by Ladytea on April 22, 2014
Posted in: Poetry, Undoing Winter. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment
441px-Demeter_mourning_Persephone_1906

Demeter mourning Persephone (Evelyn de Morgan, 1906)

The special promotional period for my poetry collection, UNDOING WINTER, ends this Friday, April 25th.  To mark these final days, I thought I’d say a few words on one of the central themes of the book – katabasis, or “descent”.

From the Greek word for “down”, katabasis is a term beloved by psychologists and scholars (especially Jungian lovers like me).  It refers to a downward journey – “a descent of some type, such as moving downhill, or the sinking of the winds or sun, a military retreat, or a trip to the underworld.”  (See the Wikipedia article on katabasis here.)

The Easter holiday just passed celebrates a katabasis of sorts, and my favorite kind: the ancient story of rebirth, or return.  Like Christ, many figures of myth undergo a journey into death, darkness, or despair, often in order to accomplish something superhuman – to resurrect a loved one, perhaps, or to bring a message of love and hope to mankind.

The titular poem in my collection, “Undoing Winter”, explores several other examples of katabasis.  Perhaps the most obvious to fans of Classical myths is the story of Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture and mother of Persephone, a hapless maiden who was abducted in the bloom of her youth by Hades, Lord of the Underworld.  As the story goes, Demeter in her grief defies the mighty Zeus, leaving the earth to languor in a perpetual winter so long as Persephone remains in her dark prison (spoiler alert: eventually Demeter wins her daughter back, though at a cost).

I faced the shining wrath of the sun
on your behalf
while you cried your soul away.
I made excuses to the earth and sky
and fed the peasants gravel.
Give it time, I said. She is composting.
Come again tomorrow.

Ishtar_goddess

Burney Relief / Queen of the Night

– from UNDOING WINTER* – Finishing Line Press

Ever the fan of layers, I wrote UNDOING WINTER with other versions of the descent in mind as well – specifically Orpheus (the mythic Greek musician/poet) and Inanna (Sumerian Goddess of Awesomeness), both of whom braved underworld trials in order to bring back lost loves.

Arno_Breker,_Orpheus_u._Euridike(1944)

Arno Breker, Orpheus en Euridike (reliëf 1944)

 

 

 

 

 

It should be no surprise that such stories hold a constant place in the repertoire of faith– (and art, for that matter!  How many modern fictional heroes can you think of who manage to fight their way back from certain death – and at what price?)  As mortal beings, we face the loss of loved ones and of self at every turn.  The hope that there is life beyond death is naturally something that occupies our collective psyches.

Yet stories of resurrection needn’t always be taken literally, nor do they only belong in the realm of heroes and gods.

In psychological terms, katabasis can be a metaphor for depression.  This, too, is one of the central meanings of UNDOING WINTER, both the titular poem and the book as a whole.   Though for me, the journey in and out of clinical depression happens to be a lifelong condition, many people (most, even?) have or will experience the long dark night of the soul.

This, I think, is another reason why stories of katabasis are so eternal.  Life is hard – so hard, sometimes, that giving up or giving in seems preferable.  Like the heroes of myth, it often takes great will or faith to overcome the lure of the dark.  Sometimes returning to the light hurts like hell.  As lovers of stories, we’re not just hoping to hear that death is not the end of us – we’re looking for reassurance that we have it in us to survive.

 

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Ultimately, “Undoing Winter” is about self-rescue.  The poem gives homage to – and takes liberty with – a powerful archetype found again and again in our collective archives.  The collection, UNDOING WINTER, carries the idea even further.  In this arrangement, I hope to bring the reader into some dark places… echoes of where I have been, and what I have endured… but there’s a reason for it.  I promise.  Because, for me, katabasis is not just about the journey down.  It’s about coming back… by tooth and claw, if necessary… to find we are stronger… better… more ourselves than ever before.

COVER FROM WEBSITE

 

 

Want to show your support for UNDOING WINTER? Pre-order your copy today at Finishing Line Press.

Hey there, novel. Remember when we used to hang?

Posted by Ladytea on March 20, 2014
Posted in: Dragon Mom, Fiction, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

I’m meant to be working on my novel today.  I’m all set up in my comfy chair with my laptop and my coffee, but instead I’m turning to you, blogosphere.  Because that’s almost as productive….

writers block

It’s been ten months since I did anything with COVENANT.  Last spring I revamped the outline and rewrote the first few chapters.  I was really happy with the way they turned out – I even included an excerpt in my application for a major award and went on to earn an Honorable Mention over dozens of applicants.

But then I put it aside.

It was supposed to be just a summer break sabbatical.  My son, the Kinglet, would be underfoot all the time – there would be swimming lessons and summer camp and far too much noise under one roof for me to get anything done.  I intended to start back up in September, but then it turned into a So-it-turns-out-the-Kinglet-has-Autism-but-the-School-wants-to-Fight-Against-Services-Oh-By-the-Way-I’m-pregnant-Hello-Morning-Sickness-Happy-Holidays-More-Morning-Sickness-Get-the-Nursery-Ready-Why-Am-I-Still-Throwing-Up-Oh-Look-It’s-Spring sabbatical.

Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Now my novel is like a friendship left too-long untended… you think about it, you say to each other “we really should get together soon”, but so much time has passed since anyone made an effort that you’ve crossed into awkwardness and no one really knows what to do about that. I miss it – I know I need to do something, especially now, before the baby comes and steals my sleep and every ounce of creative energy, but gah, where to start? Do I even know this novel anymore?

awkward

I guess the only thing TO do is just dive back in, no matter how awkward it feels… just open up the file, find the place where we left off and … start writing.  If it’s anything like real-people friendships, pretty soon we’ll be sharing mental martinis and tripping over things to say to each other.

drinks

It’ll be like no time has passed at all. Right?

Right?

UNDOING WINTER – advance sales now through April 25th!

Posted by Ladytea on March 18, 2014
Posted in: Announcements, Poetry, Undoing Winter. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

Dear Friends,

Winward_Shannon_Connor_CovAs you may have heard, my first collection of poetry was selected for publication through the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition from Finishing Line Press.  The collection, titled UNDOING WINTER, will be released as a limited edition chapbook (short book) on June 21, 2014.

UNDOING WINTER contains some previously published poems along with others debuted especially for this collection.  With subjects ranging from romantic love to motherhood, fantasy to history, death to resurrection, UNDOING WINTER represents nearly twenty years of writing, and is an exciting milestone in my creative journey. 

UNDOING WINTER includes original, color cover art, “Moon Shadows”, by my long-time friend and mentor, Lisa Lutwyche.  Poet, playwright, watercolorist, and actor, Lisa has published in the US and the UK, and has taught Creative Writing and Watercolor at community arts centers for over twenty years.  

The press run for UNDOING WINTER will depend on the number of sales made during a special, pre-publication period that is going on NOW through APRIL 25th.  If you would like a copy, please don’t wait – you can reserve a copy online at Finishing Line Press.

The cost of the book is $14.00, with a special discounted shipping cost of $2.99 for orders placed by April 25th.

Please do pass this along to anyone you think might be interested.  I encourage you to place all orders by April 25th, as this will help determine the ultimate press run. 

All orders will be shipped after June 21, 2014. 

I want to give heartfelt thanks to my family and colleagues for your enthusiastic support, both personal and professional.  This has been an amazing year.