Books Acquired Recently

Bellamy, Dodie. The TV Sutras. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2014.

My newfound obsession with Bellamy continues!

Nunez, Sigrid. What Are You Going Through. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020.

Nunez is teaching at Hunter this semester and is giving a reading tomorrow night. I decided to buy her most recent novel in preparation for the reading.

Ruefle, Mary. Dunce. Seattle: Wave Books, 2019.

Ruefle is also reading at Hunter this semester. I haven’t read any of her poetry before, but keep seeing her name pop up various places, and thus decided that I should read some of her work.

Books Acquired Recently: Lydia Davis Edition

Davis, Lydia. Essays One. 2019. New York: Picador, 2020.

—. Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

I love Davis’s Collected Stories, so when I saw it was possible to get free examination copies of these two books of essays at the virtual MLA 2022 book fair I jumped at the chance. They arrived in the mail yesterday. They are both beautiful volumes and I am excited to have them, but it is bothering me that one is a paperback and one is a hardcover! I am trying not to think about it.

Writing Activity, January 2022

Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself–to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of the pandemic (Which is still going on! Keep wearing masks!)–and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I will include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones. Pandemic depression weighed heavily on me this month, so I got less done than usual.

I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a queer disabled writer of color because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of a marginalized group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.

The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. “Attended” the Modern Language Association annual convention virtually. I attended some panels on life writing that were helpful for thinking about my own work.

3. Reviewed copyedits for a forthcoming book chapter on Mennonite literature.

4. Reviewed copyedits for my poems in the forthcoming Haiku Society of America mentorship anthology.

5. Reviewed copyedits for a book review coming out in the 2022 issue of the Journal of Mennonite Studies.

6. Submitted an essay that I wrote last semester to one of my school’s English Department annual essay contests.

Books Acquired Recently: Queer Edition

Bellamy, Dodie. Bee Reaved. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2021.

Bellamy’s latest book is the latest acquisition in my ongoing newfound obsession with her work. I was able to get a signed copy from the Strand.

Tea, Michelle. The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America. 1998. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007.

I love Tea’s nonfiction (I use her tarot book every morning), but haven’t read any of her novels. I was browsing at the Strand and found a copy of this, her first novel, which I decided to buy.

Books Acquired Recently: Poetry Edition

A friend sent me a surprise package of poetry in the mail. Here is what was included:

Knippen, James, Sierra Shellabarger, Anirudh Vyas, and Jamie Wimberly. Between Falling Leaves and Their Shadows. Alpharetta, GA: Redheaded Press, 2021.

McKibbens, Rachel. blud. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2017.

Ross, Noah. Active Reception. New York: Nightboat Books, 2021.

Books Acquired Recently

As I wrote yesterday, there are two factors playing into my current book acquiring: buying textbooks for the upcoming semester and constructing my own book fair in place of the in-person MLA book fair that I missed last week. Several packages arrived yesterday containing books in these two categories.

From the “book fair”:

Ruth, John L. This Very Ground, This Crooked Affair: A Mennonite Homestead on Lenape Land. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing House, 2021.

Wojnarowicz, David. Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Zoltan, Vanessa. Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice. New York: TarcherPerigree, 2021.

Textbooks:

Baker, Kyle. Nat Turner. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.

Keckley, Elizabeth Hobbs. Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. 1868. Hillsborough, NC: Eno Publishers, 2016.

Books Acquired Recently

I chose to cancel my plans to attend the 2022 Modern Language Association (MLA) convention due to the recent COVID surge, which meant that I was also not able to attend the book fair. So I went to the Strand yesterday instead. I’ve also had a few of my textbooks for the forthcoming semester arrive.

From the Strand:

Bellamy, Dodie. 1998. The Letters of Mina Harker. Madison, WI: Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.

Frazier, Jean Kyoung. Pizza Girl. 2020. New York: Anchor Books, 2021.

Zambreno, Kate. Drifts. 2020. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021.

Textbooks:

Adjmi, David. Lot Six: A Memoir. New York: Harper, 2020.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. 1853. New York: Penguin Books, 2012.

Writing Activity, December 2021

Since January 2021, I’ve been keeping a list of my writing activity for each month (here’s last month’s). I do so partly as a form of encouragement for myself–to show that I am still able to do some writing despite the energy-sucking terrors of the pandemic (Which is still going on! Keep wearing masks!)–and partly as an archive that I can look back on in the future. As such, I will include negative happenings (e.g., receiving rejections), not just positive ones.

I think that it is important for me to share my list publicly as a queer disabled writer of color because mainstream discourse tries to either pretend voices such as mine do not exist or actively tries to suppress them. Whether one is part of a marginalized group or not, writing is an essential act of resistance in these terrible times, so I hope that my list offers encouragement to others.

The list is basically in chronological order.

1. Wrote a haiku or senryu on most mornings.

2. Updated the Mennonite/s Writing Bibliographies website.

3. Completed the first semester of my MFA coursework.

4. Submitted an entry to Weird Laburnum‘s Modern Kigo competition.

5. Had the ten poems I submitted to Frogpond last month rejected.

6. Wrote and recorded my presentation for the March 2022 AWP conference.

7. Wrote and submitted a paragraph about my experience in the Haiku Society of America’s mentorship program for the forthcoming mentorship program anthology.

8. Wrote a review for the 2022 issue of Mennonite Life.

Books Acquired Recently: Post-Holiday Edition

I received some money as a holiday gift, and of course immediately used some of it to buy books!

Bellamy, Dodie. Academonia. San Francisco: Krupskaya, 2006.

I read Bellamy’s When the Sick Rule the World last week and loved it, so I decided to seek out more of her essays. When I went online to look for them I discovered that Academonia is rare, but I was able to find a copy for a good price (about $8.00), so I decided to buy it while it was available rather than something more recent.

Calhoun, Ada. St. Marks is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street. New York: W.W. Norton, 2016.

St. Marks (which I didn’t realize until now is sans apostrophe) Place was my favorite street to hang out on when I moved back to New York City after college in 2002. I only slowly began to learn about its mythological history in ensuing years. I recently discovered a reference to this book and decided I needed to read it.

Delany, Samuel R. Occasional Views, Volume 1: “More About Writing” and Other Essays. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2021.

—. Of Solids and Surds: Notes for Noël Sturgeon, Marilyn Hacker, Josh Lukin, Mia Wolff, Bill Stribling, and Bob White. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021.

As I’ve said here many times, I’m a huge Delany fan. I look forward to reading these two recently-released books over what’s left of the winter break. Regarding Occasional Views, Volume 2 is forthcoming shortly.

Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

I had heard of this book a number of years ago, and decided that it is time for me to read it now that I am in an MFA program in Creative Nonfiction.

Suicide, Missy. Suicide Girls. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2004.

I browsed through this book when it came out and I couldn’t afford it on my graduate student budget. For some reason I was thinking of it again a few weeks ago, and I was able to find a used copy for only $8.00.

Books Acquired Recently: Holiday Gift Edition

I received a number of books as gifts for the holidays. Here they are:

Chansky, Ricia Anne, and Marci Denesiuk, eds. Mi María: Surviving the Storm. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2021.

Davis, Chloe O. The Queens’ English: The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2021.

Florer-Bixler, Melissa. How To Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2021.

Funk, Carla. Mennonite Valley Girl: A Wayward Coming of Age. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2021.

Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. 2007. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

Metres, Philip, Ann Smith, and Larry Smith, eds. Come Together, Imagine Peace: Poems. Huron, OH: Bottom Dog Press, 2008.

Moniz, Tomas. Big Familia. Cincinnati: Acre Books, 2019.

Pizzarelli, Alan. Frozen Socks: New and Selected Short Poems. Bloomfield, NJ: House of Haiku, 2015.

Robiou Lamarche, Sebastián. Tainos and Caribs: The Aboriginal Cultures of the Antilles. Trans. Grace M. Robiou Ramírez de Arellano. San Juan, PR: Editorial Punto y Coma, 2019.

Thomas, Aiden. Cemetery Boys. New York: Swoon Reads, 2020.