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.

Books Acquired Recently

Bellamy, Dodie. When the Sick Rule the World. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2015.

Kapil, Bhanu. Schizophrene. Callicoon, NY: Nightboat Books, 2011.

Patel, Shailja. Migritude. New York: Kaya Press, 2010.

I made all three of these book purchases after a stellar last class of the semester earlier this week. In the case of Patel, we read an excerpt of Migritude that brought tears to my eyes for reasons I didn’t understand, so I decided to read the entire thing. In the case of Bellamy, I had never heard of her until about two weeks ago, and since then her name has come up three times (the last in our class conversation), so, rule of threes, the universe is telling me to read her work. The same thing happened with Kapil, whom I had heard of before, and then heard referenced a bunch in short order, so it’s also time to read her.