An anthology from Kore Press
On November 11, Veterans Day, Kore Press will release Powder, an anthology that “brings us poetry and personal essays from 19 women who have served in all branches of the United States military.” I am one of those 19 women, and this anthology will feature my essay “Falling In.”
(I spent 8 years in the Air Force, not six, but never mind.)
The list of people who have helped me with this essay scrolls out the door and down the street. It appeared in early drafts in workshops in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco; had buckets of TLC from Lisa Catherine Harper, my thesis adviser; then was lovingly pulled limb from limb by both my local writing buddy Lisa and the local writing critique group I run (“What does THAT mean? What does THIS mean? The beginning feels muddled”).
(When it comes to structure in essays, my mantra is now WWLD — What Would Lisa Do?)
Last December I spent an entire day unfuddling the muddle in this essay, and then sulked that I didn’t like the revision as much as the earlier version… then picked up “Falling In” again a month later and realized how much better it had become. Baby just needed new shoes.
I have several more military essays ready or near-ready to send out. I have one that feels just right for O, but I can’t figure out how to submit it to them. If you have contacts, yes, I’m groveling. It’s an essay about a Thanksgiving meal I prepared in my room at the officers’ barracks at Osan Airbase in 1990.
“Thanksgiving 1990” might easily go into various journals — it’s about food, family, friendship, the military, and sweet potatoes — but sometimes I get this feeling, “this belongs THERE,” and I’m not satisfied until they agree or disagree with me. I never hold a grudge if I’m wrong (well… almost never…). Karl Soehnlein once said that every good piece of nonfiction will eventually find its home, and it’s my job to help it get there — which means both making it good, and finding its right home.
On other publishing news, I see that 12 libraries now have WorldCat holdings for The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 2, which means I only have to travel 387 miles and cross three state lines to check out a copy. I know adding a book to a library costs more than its cover price, but you can buy it from Amazon for under $10… and it’s such an easy book to book-talk. A great book to read bit by bit. A busy-life book.
I’d really like to see more libraries holding The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 2. It’s 300-plus pages of really great writing (including my essay, “Range of Desire”) and has 4.5 stars from the highly discerning readers at LibraryThing. I have a pile of postcards for this book so if you send your snail-mail to kgs at freerangelibrarian dot com I will send you a postcard begging you to buy it. In Librarian Haiku, no less!
Posted on this day, other years:
Regarding “The best creative nonfiction. vol. 2”, I only have to travel 161 miles, and into an adjacent state. One of my wilder wishes is for a button — let’s say on a book’s page on WorldCat — which would let me offer to buy the book for my local library network.
I have no idea whether this makes sense to anyone else, but it makes sense for me. I ran out of space on my shelves a long time ago, so my limit on books is shelf space — something the library has plenty of.
Well, I’ve managed libraries where shelf space was quite the issue, but I like the idea of offering to buy a preprocessed book for a library region, and then let some lucky library in your service area be able to be honored by a purchase. This is just a slight riff on your suggestion to put the book in your hands but broaden the scope of where it is housed.
I’m totally with you on shelf space — there are many books I love that I no longer own (or never owned). It’s even worse if you move a lot.
Is Vol. 2 on the bookstore shelves? I bought a one year sub and no delivery yet.
It’s on Amazon — I have had a published copy for a bit. Wonder if the Man from Norton is reading this..?
Hmm. It’s not available through Baker & Taylor, at least not yet. I can buy through Amazon, but I suspect there are libraries that can’t.
We bought our copy at our local independent bookstore last week, and read your piece, and loved it, I might add!
K,
Gotta wonder how many of us ex-military, current librarians are out there? A strange amalgam. Congrats, I’m very happy for you.
Amy, I bet there’s a few — it’s like librarians-who-like-to-hunt… they exist as well (don’t count me in THAT group… I’m strictly apres-ski 😉 )
I’ll have to check out the forth-coming book. As an Air Force wife, I’m particularly interested in the perspectives of our military. You might be interested in Bombshells, which is available through Amazon and features one of my poems–it’s an anthology of writings by military family members. Best part is that part of the proceeds benefit Fischer House.
Oops, typo above… Fisher House.
[…] Volume 2! Oooh, I can see Charlotte-Mecklenburg from my house! I sent out two postcards with Librarian Haiku — one was solicited, one wasn’t. Geeze, I can’t even GIVE away my haiku. Really, […]
Three months later, WC is up to 54 copies of BCN2. Six are within 250 miles of Pittsburgh. None is less than 100 miles. 😐 Still, progress, I suppose.
Jonathan, I know… I feel that, too.