Launch in 14, 13,
Launch in 14, 13...
the radish is about to land.
In under 2 weeks the pet radish, shrunken hits paper—March 5th. That's the big news. In under 2 months across 9 readings, it's about 1300km round trip of readings from BorderBlur in St. Catharines, Ontario, to Twigs & Leaves in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, with stops in between for the BookThug's Toronto Spring Season Launch.
And I'll be at Versefest. 63 writers in 6 days. Some amazing talent: Nicole Brossard, Daphne Marlatt, Herménégilde Chiasson, Chilean Raúl Zurita Canessa and Patrick Lane... I've also got gigs coming up with the Ottawa Writers Festival and at AB Series.
Over at my author site now there's www.pearlpirie.com/radish with some reviews starting. www.pearlpirie.com/events shows the upcoming events. I'm also speaking as the skyped-in writer to a class in Calgary at the Alexandra Writers Centre Society. That should be fun.
I was asked where the book name comes from. Good question. You know how you lose food to the back of the fridge, come across a soft-bodied or shrivelled hard radish and ask yourself, when did we buy radishes? Is it ours now to protect? We've had this longer than the cat. What is our duty? What is our duty to anything? The poems in the book sometimes follow similar quirky tangents.
By this time next month I should have the chocolate poems chapbook anthology all wrapped up with a satin ribbon. Probably title: Cocoa Cabin. I've got a lot of good poems for it. Choosing will be hard. There is still time to squeak in though before the deadline. The end product would be a dozen poems that rhapsodize the holy bean, launching April 8th, 2015 in Ottawa. To be sold on etsy and at local shops, including the launch place, A Thing for Chocolate on Wellingston. More details.
Keep your eyes peeled for another phafours project of Vispostcards, a set of vispo from international people, sold as a set at the small press fair in June and etsy as well.
How's your writing life been? I'm making a chapbook of poem prompts, for when you want to get out of a writing rut. It may be out in late March.
Blogwise, it's been the Monday to Friday week at Eaten Up with a lot of international food lately. Over at Humanyms there's been some slow down as caught up in other things but what you might expect, Winterlude and the cat, never the two shall meet.
I've got almost 3 dozen shows done at Literary Landscape. This year, Kate Hunt and I welcomed a new co-host, JM Francheteau, as Dave Currie has moved on to cherry-blossom pastures of B.C. as we suffer in -32 degree lack of heat. Can hardly blame him.
For those of you who don't already know, I've passed over the reins of the Tree Seed Workshops after 5 years. Chris Johnston is heading it up now for the Tree Reading Series. It continues second and fourth Tuesday of the month at the Black Squirrel.
Are you on twitter? I am most busy there at pesbo,
Until next time, keep reading and keep writing,
Pearl