Al Maginnes
Al Maginnes, a fine poet based in Raleigh, N.C., is the focus of this week’s blog How A Poem Happens. I’ve admired Maginnes’ work for a long time and even worked with him briefly when I was a managing editor at Spectator Magazine (the precursor to today’s Metro Magazine), so I was especially pleased to see him turn up online here talking about the genesis and the process of writing his poem “What Maps Will Not Show.” Definitely worth checking out!
Add to Facebook: 
I’m very pleased that one of my stories, “Here for You,” was accepted for publication by Fiction Weekly and has just been posted as this week’s showcased story on that site (along with the cool cat photo reproduced here). Fiction Weekly — based at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA — was first recommended to me by Laura Ellen Scott (with whom I chatted about 0nline short fiction not long ago, in a post that quickly became one of the most popular on my site), and I received great encouragement from Fiction Weekly editor Jason Reynolds on my first two submissions before finally earning some real attention for my third. His suggestions for revising my manuscript — restructuring it, really — were both thoughtful and detailed, and I was grateful for all the consideration he showed my work. (A note to short story writers: We should all be lucky enough to have an editor so attuned to questions of craft.) For information on Reynolds and his work, check out both the site, which speaks for itself, and this October 2008 profile of his work, at LakeCharles.com.
Michael Sims, interviewed here a couple of weeks back, is the guest blogger this week at Penguin.com in conjunction with his new book, The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime. Additionally, check out a nice radio interview with Sims for the program Viewpoints.
And two good friends, Nancy Pearson and Sheri Sorvillo, are among the featured readers this month for the Cheryl’s Gone reading series. They’ll be part of “an evening of poetry and burlesque” on Thursday, April 16, at Big Bear Cafe in D.C.
Add to Facebook:
Several events vying for attention on my personal calendar this weekend.
A few months back, I quoted on this blog an article by Charles McGrath about a new film, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, and mentioned that I was looking forward to seeing the film itself. It’s taken a while, but not only is the movie finally opening in Northern Virginia on Friday, April 2, but Cinema Arts in Fairfax is also welcoming director Kevin Rafferty to introduce a special screening on Saturday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m.
Then, there are two events to mention on Sunday — though I’ll only be able to make one, a book launch party that I’ve had on my calendar for months.
On Sunday at 2 p.m. in Bethesda, MD, the Writer’s Center hosts Richard Currey reading from Fatal Light, a 1998 novel being republished by the Santa Fe Writers’ Project. No less a celebrity than Tim O’Brien called the novel “one of the very best works of fiction to emerge from the Vietnam War,” and I’m excited to read the book now that it’s in print again. In advance of the event, don’t miss a great interview with Currey here. And check out information on the book itself at Currey’s own website here.
At the same time, in downtown D.C., the National Museum of Women in the Arts hosts a reading from Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv, offering… well, poems from the Women’s Poetry listserv. The event features at least two of the anthology’s co-editors, Rosemary Starace and Leslie Wheeler, as well as readings by poets included in the collection.
Add to Facebook:
April is National Poetry Month, of course, and two of the Triangle’s independent bookstores are getting in on the action, celebrating North Carolina poets in particular.
Durham’s Regulator Bookshop kicks things off tonight, Wednesday, April 1, at 7 p.m. with Liz Beasley and Tony Tost and then hosts another pair of poets on other Wednesday nights throughout the month:
Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh has set aside Sunday afternoons (except Easter) for its month of poetry events:
In addition to these bookstore readings, the City of Raleigh is also hosting 2009 Piedmont Laureate Jaki Shelton Green for a special reading on Thursday, April 2 at 5:30 p.m. as part of the opening of the “Southern Vernacular” exhibition in the Miriam Preston Block Art Gallery, located in the Avery C. Upchurch Government Complex, 222 W. Hargett Street.
A few poetry events are already on my radar in the D.C. area as well, including George Mason visiting writer Kristin Prevallet, a poet, essayist, and translator who will read from her work on Thursday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Research I, Room 163, at Mason’s Fairfax, VA campus.
A week later, the Cheryl’s Gone reading and performance series welcomes poet Nancy K. Pearson, author of the terrific collection Two Minutes of Light, to headline its April event, which also features Ed Davis and Sherri Sorvillo. The night is billed as “an evening of burlesque and poetry” and includes performances by Lil Dutch & Candy Del Rio. All of it unfolds on Thursday evening, April 16, at D.C.’s Big Bear Cafe.
And throughout the month, be sure to check out Brian Brodeur’s great blog, How A Poem Happens, where contemporary poets talk about their work.
Add to Facebook:
More than two months ago, I began asking when some of North Carolina’s bookstores might be hosting a visit by Matthew Vollmer, an N.C. native and author of the great new short story collection Future Missionaries of America. I had the great honor of interviewing Vollmer about his debut book back in January, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am to know that two Triangle bookstores will be hosting Vollmer this week: Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh on Thursday, March 26, at 7:30 p.m., and McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village on Friday, March 27, at 2 p.m.
Talking about the craft to which he’s dedicated himself, Vollmer is both charming, insightful and surprising — qualities that can also be used to describe his fiction. Just to give readers a taste, here’s the opening paragraph to the title story of the new collection:
It’s sleeting on Valentine’s Day. I’m in the back booth of the Franklin Street McDonald’s, waiting for Melashenko to deliver the robotic baby we’re supposed to keep from suffering the slings and arrows of an unhappy infanthood, and writing him a letter on a napkin with the emergency topless ballpoint I keep in a hole in the lining of my hoodie. I write a I. in the corner of the first napkin and below that the date, February 14, 2003. I consider adding a little arrow-pierced heart, but I don’t want to conjure even the smallest of question marks in Melashenko’s head, so instead I draw a phantom heart in the air above the paper, which only confirms that I should definitely not draw it for real and that hearts are even more dangerous than sentimental closing signatures like Love or Love ya or Yours, any of which could inspire Melashenko to think I might think or even hope that we’re anything more than we are. So, potentially disastrous heart drawing averted, I begin the letter, as usual, with Dear Melashenko (his first name’s David but I use his last because I like the way it sounds, plus it ensures that I maintain a certain level of formality). Ten minutes later I’ve scribbled seven napkins’ worth of words, which I roll in a floppy scroll. I snap a hair band around the middle and draw the letters of his name down the side in the Gothiest font I can muster, to give it this look like it might’ve been written by an ancient scribe, one who’d dreamed of future devastations and consigned them to this fragile parchment, to be delivered on this date to the father of a baby who’s never been born.
And if you think the opening is good, just wait for the story’s remarkable twists and unforgettable finish. And don’t miss Vollmer’s visit to the Triangle this week.
Also noteworthy on this week’s literary calendar for the Triangle and Eastern North Carolina:
Bart Ehrman, chair of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and author of the bestselling book Quoting Jesus, with his new study, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions of the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) — on Wednesday evening, March 25, at Quail Ridge Books; on Tuesday evening, March 31, at Durham’s Regulator Bookshop; and on Friday afternoon, April 3, at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village.
Shelby Stephenson, award-winning poet and editor of Pembroke Magazine, on Thursday evening, March 26, at McIntyre’s.
John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed, author of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, on Saturday afternoon, March 28, at the Barnes & Noble, New Hope Commons, Durham.
Lynne Hinton, bestselling author of Friendship Cake, with her new book, The Order of Things, on Monday evening, March 30, at Quail Ridge Books.
Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, with her new guidebook, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, on Monday evening, March 30, at the Regulator Bookshop.
And Raleigh author Therese Fowler, author of Souvenir, with her new book Reunion, on Tuesday evening, March 31, at Quail Ridge Books, and again on Thursday afternoon, April 2, at the Country Bookshop.
For updated information on literary events in North Carolina, bookmark the MetroBooks calendar.
Add to Facebook:
You are currently browsing the archives for the Poetry category.
