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Excerpt
"The Fisher's Daughter"
Mother, the wind's a
web of rain and tide
your form a shadow
the storm throws against
black rock, grey sea. You
lean to the ocean
as though your will could
calm its roar into
insects' buzz in long
summer grass, change dark
heads of seals riding
waves to a spar that
the canny man you
love could use to rage
his black way home on.
Bio
I am Canadian by birth and inclination, but currently live in Seattle. I've published a lot of poems (including three books and a CD) and a couple of short stories, but have novelistic ambitions that I am using the Write-a-thon to help move forward. I attended Clarion West in 1996 and am currently one of the organization's two workshop administrators. This means I have extra challenges during the Write-a-thon, but also some extra inspiration.
Publications
I have a publication list here, which has links to my online work. I also have a story I put up online to celebrate International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, "Ars Poetica," which is my second published story and also my fourth-week story from my Clarion West session.
Writing Description
A reviewer made me blush about my last collection of poems, saying, "I love how intensely she leads us into greater and greater complexities, history and mythology and the most secretive parts of the heart all colliding in a grand burst of energy...the page lighting up like a meteor shower." Damn, I really want to live up to that in my poetry and now in my novels. Daunting, no? I'm not there yet, but I dream of it.
Goals
My personal goals for the Write-a-thon are 2 + 1 = week, meaning 2 submissions (of my novel to an agent, of a batch of poems to a journal, of my current poetry manuscript to a publisher, or one of my languishing short stories to a magazine) + 1 new draft (either brand-new or a major revision of a poem or short story) a week.
I would love, love, love to have everyone who looks at this page either sign up for the Write-a-thon themselves or donate at least $6 (that's $1 for each week of the Write-a-thon), and for those who can afford more to give more (more writing, more money!).
Anyone who donates will receive a small thank-you from me: either a copy of my poetry-reading CD if you don't already have it, or a lavender sachet from my garden, or something else I will come up with.
