Fall is for poets (but so is winter)

Titles are hard. It's been another busy couple of months since my last update. Here's a quick recap of the fall so far: 


Book News
September and October were full of readings at home and in the Philadelphia area. I celebrated my dear friend Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach's book launch for her collection The Many Names for Mother. And Julia and I read with our friend Nancy Reddy for our (M)other(ship) events. 


I've still got one more reading coming up. If you're near the Washington, DC area, mark your calendars for December 6 at 6:00 p.m. at Zed's Cafe in Silver Spring, MD. See you there!

I visited a very welcoming English 101 class at Washington College and talked to them about Catechesis and poems and fairy tales. They were such a smart, curious, and very insightful group. 



 I was also lucky enough to receive two very generous book reviews for Catechesis so far this fall. Here are some highlights: 

This collection is a stunning pastiche, interwoven with references to Grimm's Fairytales, Silence of the Lambs, anatomical drawings from Grey's Anatomy, and botanical references, all done in gorgeous, precise verse. This book studies the overwhelming horror and beauty of the natural world as well as the overwhelming unease of being a woman.
—Jessica Drake-Thomas, This Week, I Read

In Catechesis, Lusby not only subverts liturgical catechesis via creating her own transfiguration narratives and imagery, but she also offers a bad-ass tribute to Silence of the Lambs and Alien, two thrillers featuring female protagonists pitted against evil. Whether composing "traditional" poems, or crafting visual poetry, Lusby deftly creates, deconstructs, and bridges high and low culture.
—Stephen Scott Whitaker, The Broadkill Review


I've also been lining up some readings and talks for Winter/Spring 2020. There are still some potential events in the works, but this is what I've got on the books right now:
  • University of Utah Guest Writers Series: A Reading by Kimiko Hahn & Lindsay Lusby—Thursday, January 16 at The University of Utah, Finch Lane Gallery in Salt Lake City, UT.
  • Life After the Book Deal: A Talk about Publishing & Marketing (working title)—Saturday, February 1 at the Kent County Public Library in Chestertown, MD.
  • The Turning Wheel Reading Series—Thursday, February 13 at DogStar Books in Lancaster, PA.
  • NHCC Meet the Authors Reading Series—February 2020 (exact date & time TBD) at North Hennepin Community College in Minneapolis, MN. 
  • University of Cincinnati Clermont Poetry Series—Wednesday, April 8 at UC Clermont in Cincinnati, OH.

New Publications
Last month, my poem "Presswife" was published in the new issue of Gulf Coast. Such a big, gorgeous volume and my poem about historical American women, letterpress printing, and the Japanese fairytale, "The Crane Wife," gets three whole pages to herself.


My first book review was also published in the new issue of The Cortland Review! I reviewed Aviya Kushner's chapbook Eve and All the Wrong Men, published earlier this year by dancing girl press. You can read the full review here. And then you should head over to dgp's store and buy yourself a copy of this smart & beautiful chapbook.

I've been sending out new my Poltergeist poems and my remaining letterpress lady poems, as well as my true crime lyric essay, to literary magazines for the past several months; but none of them have had any luck yet. We'll just keep on keeping on though. 
Other Ventures
I've been taking on a number of freelance broadside design jobs lately, building up my graphic design portfolio. I've had the pleasure, so far, of working with poets: Mary Ardery, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Justin Hamm, Kelly Grace Thomas, and Amie Whittemore. I'm hoping there will be many more to come! For more info about my broadside design services, you can check out my website here. 


I'm currently working on the design and letterpress printing of a broadside for the poem that won the first annual Rossetti Broadside Prize from the American Literary Review. Mag Gabbert's prize-winning poem "America" has been such fun to work with. I think I managed to come up with an eye-catching and cohesive design that extrapolates from the tone and content of the poem, without producing a literal visual interpretation of the text. I cannot wait to share the final printed version when the broadside is released by ALR early next year!

Issue 6 of Cherry Tree is currently in production. After a busy open reading period, we've accepted incredible poems, stories, and essays from a whopping 49 contributors—even our first translation! I've been busy compiling contributor bios and publication contracts, arranging the issue specs with our printer, overseeing the work of our Production Intern as she completes the initial layout and typesetting of the volume, and various other managing editor tasks. Soon it will be time to perform the deep proofread, compile proofs and style sheets, and send the proofs out to the contributors—all before the Winter Holiday Break. 

My final piece of news is that I will be serving as a preliminary judge for the 2020 Dorset Prize from Tupelo Press. For the month of January, I will be knee-deep in poetry manuscripts and I am so thrilled to have this privilege. The contest deadline is December 31, so if you have a full-length poetry manuscript ready for sending, I hope you'll consider submitting it to this contest. All submissions will be read blind (without identifying information). And the final judge for this year's contest is the magnanimous Maggie Smith! 

For now: the moon is waxing, the autumn is waning, and the days are getting shorter, darker, and colder. Every season is a poet's season. Stay cozy!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There are birds here

Image
We are now in the full porch-swing of summer, which means Summer Poetry Salons at my beloved Lit House. In celebration of the second salon of the summer on June 24 (tomorrow!), I was given the unbelievably fun task of designing and printing a letterpress broadside for Jamaal May's poem "There Are Birds Here,"  a love song for Detroit. As much I loved this poem on my first reading (and second and third), it was a particularly difficult design challenge. Don't get me wrong — there are so many ways  to illustrate this poem because it is so packed with images. But to illustrate it in a way that actually adds to the text, that builds on the complex foundation set down by the poet — that is the challenge to be met. That is the challenge we always aim to meet at the Literary House Press .   So that means no birds and no buildings. For me, those are the two most obvious, but least important images in this poem. Those details are just the shell around the ...
Read more

"Imago" on Hannibal season finale

Image
While watching the eagerly-awaited season 2 finale of Hannibal (one of my absolute favorite TV shows of the moment), I was happily surprised when a vocabulary lesson emerged mid-conversation between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. — "Do you know what an imago is, Will?" — "It's a flying insect." — "It's the last stage of a transformation." — "When you become who you will be?" — "It's also a term from the dead religion of psychoanalysis. An imago is an image of a loved one, buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives." — "An ideal." — "The concept of an ideal." Of course this term, in both of its definitions, has some great significance for me. It is a word I didn't even know until I stumbled across it in my dictionary browsing and knew immediately that this is the title of my chapbook . It was perfect. So when it snuck up on me again in my favorite TV show, in...
Read more

On the end of a year & a decade: 2019

Image
In this last month of the year, I've had five poems accepted by three different literary journals and two new reviews of my book appear in The Cincinnati Review  and Harbor Review . I also completed the letterpress printing of the Rossetti Prize broadside for American Literary Review , designs for four more digital broadsides , and the initial edits & contributor proofs for Cherry Tree 's sixth issue. Whew! It's been an amazing and overwhelming and utterly fulfilling year ; and I'm riding into the new year on 2019's coattails.  Also featuring the gorgeous handmade scarf that Jehanne Dubrow wove for me this past year. One of my favorite December inventories will always be reflecting on a year's worth of personal accomplishments and progress. By the time the end of the year arrives, it's so easy to forget all that happened just a few short months ago. Making a list has a way of bringing it all into perspective. Here's my roundup for the yea...
Read more