Wednesday, March 3 at the Arts Club

...Before I segue to ACW matters, I should mention that I've been lucky enough to land a featured spot at the 17 Poets! reading series in New Orleans when I head into town for a conference this Thursday, February 25. If you're in that neck of the woods--or know someone who is--please encourage them to join us! The reading will begin around 8:30 PM, to be followed by an open mic. The series is hosted at the Gold Mine Saloon, at 701 Dauphine Street in the French Quarter....


And speaking of readings, my lordy, am I feeling lucky to host the next reading at the Arts Club of Washington on Wednesday, March 3. First, check out the basics:

Rising Stars: Poets Tom Healy &
Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Wednesday, March 3 - 7 PM

The Arts Club hosts poets Tom Healy (author of What the Right Hand Knows) and Gabrielle Calvocoressi (author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart and Apocalyptic Swing). Readings will be followed by a Q&A, then a light reception and booksigning. 

Free. Arts Club of Washington, 2017 I Street NW, DC. 

~

Now, check out the just-released list of finalists for this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry:

• Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Apocalyptic Swing (Persea Books)
• Amy Gerstler, Dearest Creature (Penguin Poets)
• Tom Healy, What the Right Hand Knows (Four Way Books)
• Brenda Hillman, Practical Water (Wesleyan University Press)
• Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, }Open Interval{, (University of Pittsburgh Press)

That's right--two finalists on one stage! When I named the program "Rising Stars: Poets Tom Healy and Gabrielle Calvocoressi," I didn't realize just how prescient my words would prove to be.


Our February launch was foiled by snow, and I'd like to remind the Arts Club that these free, public programs have the potential to draw new folks to the venue (because without the Arts Club's generosity, these programs would not exist).  So please, if you're in the DC, Maryland, or Virginia area, join us for this reading--and if you're not, spread the word to a poetry-lover who is. This line-up is too amazing to ignore. 


The full press release is below...


Rising Stars: Poets Tom Healy and Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - 7 p.m.


The Arts Club of Washington, 2017 I Street NW
Free and open to the public, reception to follow.


On Wednesday, March 3, the Arts Club of Washington will host Tom Healy and Gabrielle Calvocoressi, two rising stars of the poetry world, in celebration of their bold, inventive, and compassionate collections. Readings will be followed by a light reception and booksigning. This free event, which is open to the public, is part of an ongoing series at the Arts Club.

TOM HEALY is the author of What the Right Hand Knows, one of the bestselling books of contemporary poetry in 2009. He teaches at the Pratt Institute in New York and serves as a fellow at the Goreé Institute in Dakar, Senegal. He has traveled the world for AIDS prevention and microfinance efforts and was a member of President Clinton’s White House Council on AIDS. He lives in New York and Washington with his partner, Fred Hochberg who was appointed by President Obama to lead the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

GABRIELLE CALVOCORESSI is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart and Apocalyptic Swing. She has been the recipient of numerous honors including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University and The Bernard F. Conners Prize from the Paris Review. In addition to teaching in the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College, she is the Sports Desk editor at The Best American Poetry blog. Her poem, "Temple Beth Israel" was recently the Poet's Choice in The Washington Post. She lives in Los Angeles.




THE ARTS CLUB OF WASHINGTON is at 2017 I Street NW, near Foggy Bottom/GWU and Farragut West metro. Headquartered in the James Monroe House, a National Historic Landmark, the Club was founded in 1916 and is the oldest non-profit arts organization in the city. The Club’s mission is to foster public appreciation for the arts through educational programs that include literary events, art exhibitions, musical and theatrical performances.    


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Over at She Writes...

I'm getting all practical with today's "Countdown to Publication" post over at She Writes. An excerpt, from a section offering tips on author photos:

I really enjoyed Randy Susan Meyers' recent post on "Photoshop-Botox for Author Photos." An additional thought, based on my days at a magazine where I was in charge of photo-editing: Be careful of poses that are difficult to crop. Bringing your knee or your hand up by your head may look really cute when we can see the full-body posture. But if I've got a box in layout big enough for only your face, a random knee floating by your left ear--or an index finger thoughtfully crossing your chin--is going to look mighty strange.

Every author photo is really four photos: the color version, the grayscale version, and for each of these, a "big" and "small" version--a print-ready file of 300 dpi, minimum 4x6 inches, as well as a web-friendly version at 72 dpi, minimum 2x3 inches. Why multiple file sizes? Traditional printing processes require a lot more "dots per inch" of ink in order to define an image, whereas our eye registers a picture on screen using much less data. Those who work online don't want to have to upload hefty files that clutter their server space; printers forced to run less than 300 dpi end up with grainy or blurred images. JPG is the current standard format (a few publications request TIF, but can usually deal with JPG in a pinch). BMPs from Paintbrush are not acceptable, nor are GIFs--it's a function of file size, compression, and palette management.

Name your file "[Last name][First name]" (i.e., "DoeJane") or, if a credit is needed, "[Last name][First initial]Credit[Photographer First name][Photographer last Name]" (i.e., DoeJCreditMattBell"). I can't tell you how many author photos go to magazines having just been ripped from a digital camera--with the nondescript, overly long file name to boot. If a file like that gets saved to a folder, it's really tough to find again. And in the last-minute stages of proofing, it's really handy to have the author name (and photographer credit) embedded for reference.

You can read the whole post here.

Whirlwind

I've sat down several times this week, hoping to gather my thoughts on this past week's New York trip. Things did not begin auspiciously. Despite getting up at 5:45 AM on Tuesday, the combination of black ice, clunky snow boots, and an unannounced Metro delay caused me to run to the plaza at 10th and H Streets just in time...to see the Bolt Bus pull away. I had no choice but to hop right back onto the metro, wheezing and teary, and head to Union Station to catch the 8:10 Vermonter train instead. That was $106 I couldn't afford, but I had a 12:30 lunch date with my editor at Crown--a new editor--and I was not going to make a first impression of flaking out. 


Meeting an editor who has "inherited" your book (following the departure of a previous editor) is a terrifying proposition, but Sydny put my mind at ease. She's an industry vet, savvy to the latest marketing trends as well as the traditions of good editing; she worked for many years at Simon & Schuster, where she handled a series of successful books for food lovers. Most importantly, when they brought a humongous swirl of house-made blue cotton candy out with the bill, she helped me devour it. That's my kind of lady. 


The good news: the first 101 pages of the nonfiction book are in good shape. The bad news: that means I have no further excuse to put off the other 100 pages of the book. It's going to be a crazy spring.


Most of the rest of my trip was grabbing an hour here and an hour there with writer-friends in the city. We celebrated my sister's 20th birthday (!) with dinner at Hangawi, a midtown vegetarian/Korean place which won my heart with its tranquil atmosphere and its focus on mushroom rather than tofu-anchored meals. Their homemade kimchee (the real stuff--fermented as well as pickled) is amazing, as is their array of delicately flavored mountain roots.


Just be sure to wear presentable socks, lest you get caught off guard by the tatami seating. I had remembered this, all the way back in DC, and accordingly packed my Valentine's Day socks (red hearts) rather than my Christmas ones (candy cane-wielding reindeer). The only socks I own--because I wear them only on the occasions of snow and bowling--are novelty ones received at the holidays. That's right: my mom still buys my socks.


We opted for dessert at Veselka  after the movie (Fantastic Mr. Fox). It's one of my sister's favorite neighborhood places, and she says that every time she brings a friends they notice some minor celebrity--usually of the Gossip Girl variety. Sure enough, I think we were sitting next to Bryan Greenberg. At first I thought "no, that can't be him, he's too short," but we left at the same time as he and his date and he unfolded some astonishingly long legs from under that little cafe table. 


I'd like to claim I recognized him from How to Make it In America, which is the heavily hyped new HBO series. Nah. If it was him (the lanky build matched, as did the eyebrows and the prominent ears; the chin scruff did not), I recognized him from the sap-fest that was October Road. I'm a sucker for shows with a writer-as-protagonist. 


All of this goofiness aside, I did have one more important thing to do before leaving New York: filming an interview for Poets & Writers 40th Anniversary. I owe them such a huge thank-you for the doors opened for me through the Maureen Egen Exchange Award. When they asked if I'd be interested in sharing a few anecdotes for their birthday video, I was thrilled. 


Let's just admit this was not a good travel-trip for me. I dashed from another birthday celebration--this time at Angelica Kitchen (all the special women in my life are vegetarians, apparently)--down to the Broad Street office for my 1:30 PM call time...only to learn I was supposed to be at Writer's House, 26 blocks north. I got right back on the subway and proceeded to break every rule of etiquette: brushing my furiously windblown hair, powdering my sweaty forehead, checking my teeth. I was that person. I'm sorry, New York. 


Luckily the interview itself went fine, and I'll post a link if they do a longer version for the website. My interviewer was Elliot Figman, who is now the executive director but has been at Poets & Writers forever--he started out as a volunteer in 1977, and there are some great black and white photos to prove it. He sat just off-camera, asking leading questions (nothing quite like racking your brain while the film rolls, thinking OK, what story is it that I told him, that he clearly wants to hear again?). It's a good thing Elliot is such a sweet guy, because otherwise it would have felt like a scene from A Chorus Line. 


Talk about true celebrity spotting: I met Roxana Robinson on my way out, and later in the day Jonathan Franzen was coming in. How on earth did I get here?