October 23, 2012 1:13 pm | Tags: Books By the Banks, Cincinnati, MOTR Pub, Readings, The Missouri Review | No Comments
Last weekend, I was back in Cincinnati, my hometown, for two events. The first was a reading/hangout with old friends (I mean, people that go back to my elementary school days) and graduate students at the University of Cincinnati. The event was in the Sword Room of the MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine; I ended up skipping the reading part to chat up my friends, sign books, drink pints, and watch baseball. I’m pretty okay with that turn of events! The second was on Saturday, at the wonderful Books By the Banks festival, held in downtown Cincinnati.
Which gave me an opportunity for a little writer-envy.
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October 17, 2012 11:08 am | Tags: Rachel Patterson, Reading, Vouched Books | No Comments
In my latest post for Vouched Books, I briefly discuss poet Rachel Patterson’s chapbook IF I AM BURNING, which is available through Main Street Rag, a publishing company based in Charlotte. You can read the whole post here. Read it! (please?) It’s not that long. Encouraging people to read books, and specific books that I love and admire, should be really easy, and in discussion it is, but when writing out the Why is actually fairly challenging for me. I start thinking about the cohesion of my sentences, word choices, paragraphs, the What Am I Trying To Say that is a challenge in academic and creative writing, regardless of one’s experience.
I’ll keep it simple: read Rachel’s book. You won’t be disappointed.
Follow Michael on Twitter: @mpnye
October 16, 2012 12:13 pm | Tags: Readings, Strategies Against Extinction, Vouched Books | No Comments
This month I’m blogging at Vouched Books, an organization whose sole purpose is to promote small press literature. I recently wrote a post about the first two public readings I gave from Strategies Against Extinction. The first reading was before an academic audience at DePaul University in Chicago. The second was at Orr Street Studios, here in Columbia where I live, as part of the Hearing Voices/Seeing Visions series.
The full post is here at Vouched Books. While there, check out the other terrific works and Vouchin’s that Laura, Christopher, and Tyler have been doing!
Follow Michael on Twitter: @mpnye
October 9, 2012 3:55 pm | Tags: Edward Sharkey, Marie-Helene Bertino, Strategies Against Extinction | No Comments
My first book, STRATEGIES AGAINST EXTINCTION, has now been out in the world for one week since October 2nd, the “official” publication day.
For weeks now, people have been asking me how I feel about this, and for weeks, I have shrugged off the question. It’s my nature to not call attention to myself. I don’t like attention, and never have, and probably never will. I also know that talking about the book, what the stories mean to me, what questions I try to explore, is worth talking about, is incredibly important to me. I’m not, though, always sure how to approach it, how to discuss with people, even those that know me quite well, what publication of this book means. (more…)