Life Support: April Literary Events in Sacramento and Beyond

3rd

Susan Kelly-Dewitt, Libby Kovacs, & William O'Daly

Sacramento Poetry Center's Annual Writers Conference

1719 25th Street

Sacramento, CA

Susan Kelly-Dewitt is the author of five chapbooks and the full-length collection Fortunate Islands from Marick Press. Sandra McPherson says, "These poems are sure-footed, engaging, broad in subject matter but grounded in the poet's wary detective-mind."

Libby Kovacs is the author of the memoir Liberty's Quest: The Compelling Story of the Wife and Mother of Two Poetry Pulitzer Prize Winners, James Wright and Franz Wright. Besides writing, she worked as a marriage and family therapist.

William O'Daly is a poet and celebrated translator of Pablo Neruda's works. His translations include The Book of Questions, Hands of the Day, The Sea and the Bells, The Separate Rose, Still Another Day, Winter Garden, World's End, and The Yellow Heart. 

4th

Camille Dungy, Camille Norton, & Matthew Zapruder

Sacramento Poetry Center's Annual Writers Conference

1719 25th Street

Sacramento, CA

Camille Dungy is an award-winning poet and author of the collection What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison from Red Hen Press. Nikki Giovanni says, "Camille Dungy has a garden of verses that spring up with the sunshine or hide with you in the dusk."

Camille Norton is an English Professor at the University of Pacific in Stockton and the author of the collection Corruption, winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series selected by Campbell McGrath.

Matthew Zapruder's books include American Linden from Tupelo Press, The Pajamaist from Copper Canyon, and the translation Secret Weapon: The Late Poems of Eugen Jebeleanu from Coffee House Press. He teaches at UC Riverside.

6th

Julia Connor, Jose Montoya, Dennis Schmitz, Terry Ehret, Kevin Patrick Sullivan, Sam Pierstorff, & Carolyn Wing Greenlee

Book Release Reading for Sometimes in the Open, an anthology of poems from California's Poets Laureate

Sacramento Poetry Center

1719 25th Street

Sacramento, CA

Julia Connor: teacher, painter, and author of Bird: A Fable, x-ing the acheron, Gradual Map, A Canto for the Birds, and The Delta Poem. 

Jose Montoya: teacher, bilingual poet, and author of In Formation: 20 Years of Joda and El Sol y Los De Abajo and other R.C.A.F. poems por José Montoya.

Dennis Schmitz: former teacher and author of seven books, including Truth Squad from Copper Canyon.

Terry Ehret: teacher and co-founder of Sixteen Rivers Press, her books include Suspensions and Lost Body.

Kevin Patrick Sullivan: co-founder of the Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival and author of First Sight from Mille Grazie Press.

Sam Pierstorff: runs Slam on Rye, a Modesto reading series, and Querecus Review Press, which released Sam Slams, an audio CD of his work.

Carolyn Wing Greenlee: founder of Earthen Vessel Productions and author of Wildflowers in the Snow.

16th

Poetry of Color with Indigo Moor

Valley Hi-North Laguna Library

6351 Mack Road

Sacramento, CA

Past president of the Sacramento Poetry Center and editor of the Tule Review, Indigo Moor's new book, Tap Root, is part of Main Street Rag's Editor's Poetry Series. Jane Hirschfield says, "These are poems weighted with the real world, consequential, revelatory, and moving."

17th

Russell Howze

Avid Reader

617 Second Street

Davis, CA

A San Francisco resident, Russell Howze is the curator of StencilArchive.org and author of Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community, and Art. Stencil Nation examines the phenomenon of stencil graffiti found around the world and includes work from more than 350 artists.

18th

Poetry at The Vox: Benefit for Sacramento's Homeless

with Rachel Leibrock, Joe Atkins, Lytton Bell, Genelle Chaconas, James Benton, Jen Jenkins, Matt Veazey, & Crystal Anderson

600 4th Street

West Sacramento, CA

Rachel Leibrock: culture writer for the Sacramento Bee whose chaplet has been published by Poems for All.

Joe Atkins: graduate student at UC Davis and editor for Convergence: an online journal of poetry & art.

Lytton Bell: writer and teacher of poetry, with two chapbooks, The Book of Chaps and A Path Before Winter.

Genelle Chaconas: student of creative writing at Sac State, with poems in Rattlesnake Review and Calaveras Station.

James Benton: graduate student at Sac State, whose publications include New York Quarterly and Oregon East.

Jen Jenkins: local poet active in the Sacramento Poetry Center and the South Natomas Community Center workshop.

Matt Veazey: former student at University of Arizona whose poems have appeared in Convergance and Poetry Now.

Crystal Anderson: graduate of UC Davis and poetry reviewer for Sotto Voce Magazine.

19th

Russell Howze

Avid Reader at the Tower

1600 Broadway

Sacramento, CA

A San Francisco resident, Russell Howze is the curator of StencilArchive.org and author of Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community, and Art. Stencil Nation examines the phenomenon of stencil graffiti found around the world and includes work from more than 350 artists.

Selden Edwards

Amicus Books Literary Arts Center

413 D. Street

Marysville, CA

Selden Edwards is a Yuba-Sutter native and former headmaster of various independent schools. Richard Ford says his debut novel, Little Book, "is richly inventive, woven tightly with incident, and fully engaging. It is also superbly humane and readable."

24th

Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld, translators

Poetics & Politics

University of California, Davis

126 Voorhies Hall

Davis, CA

Chana Bloch is the author of The Secrets of the Tribe, The Past Keeps Changing, and Mrs. Dumpty. Chana Kronfeld is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. They will discuss their new translation, Hovering at a Low Altitude: the Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravakovitch. Ravakovitch is known as a famous peace activist one of the greatest Hebrew women poets of all time.

28th

Shawna Yang Ryan

Avid Reader

617 Second Street

Davis, CA

Shawna Yang Ryan is a writer, teacher, and author of Water Ghosts, otherwise known as Locke 1928. Yang Ryan's debut is the haunting story of a Sacramento Delta community of Chinese immigrants and the ghosts that haunt them. 

The Wrath of Dog

Thanks to a stray dog abandoned in our yard last week, our internet cable was lovingly chewed to pieces, so therefore, no Movie Monday. Apologies and assurances that it will return next week.

Weekend on the Farm

The weekend came early.

Detour Here

Some days, you just don't have much to say. This is one of those days for me. Things are piling up, and I have little room to be clever and interesting. So forgive me for simply directing you to another website, but that is what I am going to do.

Prick of the Spindle is a lovely online lit mag who just happened to publish reviews of new chapbooks from small presses in time for the closing of Small Press Month. Read the reviews here. Then read the rest of the mag here. Then, if you want, take a nap. Because that is what I will be doing.

Weekly Workshop: Bon Voyage

This week's workshop is inspired by the SFMOMA exhibition known as The 1000 Journals Project. Bringing audience participation to a global scale, this project started with blank journals left in various public places, asking finders to fill a page or two and pass it on. The result is an exciting collaboration of different personalities and spirits all living together in one book.

The exhibition runs through April, but I know some of you can't make it to San Francisco to participate. Instead, I challenge you to do the same in your neck of the woods: buy a cheap, blank journal, include a note with instructions in the front, and an address for return in the back, and set it loose. Like a message in a bottle, or tied to the string of a balloon, your adventurous little journal will travel into the unknown. Who will find it? Who will fill the pages? How far will it go? Anticipation is all part of the fun.

Blue Light Special

Weston Cutter is a wonderful poet with a wonderful blog of book and music recomendations. He wrote wonderful things about my book, which you can read here. And once you're done reading, be sure to check out some of his other posts. Because of Corduroy Books, I found out about this book...and this one. Thanks Weston!

Movie Monday: Man or Machine?

Though this post is not about a movie, the television series I'm about to write about started with a movie, included a movie in the middle of its run, and, if rumor is correct, will hopefully continue on, a la Sex and the City, on the big screen. So there.

One of the best non-HBO television shows on today is Battlestar Galactica. Now, I know there are sci-fi haters out there, who think that the genre is all about fulfilling nerdy male adolescent fantasies of conquest and control, and, sure, some of it is. Battlestar Galactica happens to be a show about a human/cyborg conflict that airs on the Sci Fi Channel, but don't let this simplistic description deter you from watching. This is science fiction at its best, a philosophical and political entity that examines our current condition with an unflinching and unbiased eye.

Don't believe me? Mirroring current events, season three of the show cast the heroes--the humans--as vengeful, bomb-happy "insurgents" launching sneak attacks at the occupying Cylons. Instead of demonizing the insurgents in this allegory of the Iraq War, the show's writers choose instead to examine the psychology behind such desperate violence by telling the story from the enemy's point of view. The entire show, in fact, plays with the idea of "enemy;" when our enemies look and act just like us, as the humanoid Cylons do, it is harder to treat them like monsters. Further complicating matters is the fact that we (humans) created our foes in the first place.

Because of its treatment of the Iraq War and other themes such as torture, justice, and freedom, members of the cast and production team recently participated in a panel discussion at the United Nations, attended by audience members from around the world. Though its final season is coming to an end, Battlestar Galactica has made a lasting mark on both the cultural and political arenas and has proven that bravery, honesty, and artistry can have a place in the world of entertainment.

Weekend on the Farm

It's Friday, I'm in Love...

With:

A $20 bridesmaid dress

Jane Hirschfield's airy poems

Yellow clover flowers

Duotrope's library of lit mags

Kate Towers' designs

Bunnies and blue jays

E.B. Goodale's chapbook press

Walking the dog

The Lesson of the Loon

Mark Doty is a writer of award-winning, elegant poetry and prose, and while I have not met the man in real life, I imagine him to be as thoughtful and collected as his work. What a surprise, then, to read about his recent hate experience in San Francisco's North Beach. Why this type of violent hatred continues to be perpetuated, I don't know. It makes me sad, deep down, to think about what we do to each other. So I turned to Doty's work to find a source of hope. I found this:

from Atlantis

5. COASTAL

Cold April and the neighbor girl
—our plumber’s daughter—
comes up the wet street

from the harbor carrying,
in a nest she’s made
of her pink parka,

a loon. It’s so sick,
she says when I ask.
Foolish kid,

does she think she can keep
this emissary of air?
Is it trust or illness

that allows the head
—sleek tulip—to bow
on its bent stem

across her arm?
Look at the steady,
quiet eye. She is carrying

the bird back from indifference,
from the coast
of whatever rearrangement

the elements intend,
and the loon allows her.
She is going to call

the Center for Coastal Studies,
and will swaddle the bird
in her petal-bright coat

until they come.
She cradles the wild form.
Stubborn girl.

We should all care for each other in this stubborn, selfless way. The entire poem can be found in Doty's Atlantis: Poems, or on the Poetry Foundation website.

Weekly Workshop: Googlisms

I don't know why, but there is something so fascinating about Googlism. Like an I Ching for the technology age, Googlism will generate a random list of phrases from the internet about a name, place, thing, or time period. These phrases are sometimes silly and strange, sometimes eerily prophetic. And they are perfect fodder for a playful found poem.

katie is better than lonnie
katie is coming across a little naive
katie is fellmongers' choice
katie is a 14 year old spayed female
katie is a lipsticked goddess
katie is a slight
katie is a bright 12 year
katie is such a bitch
katie is still doing fine
katie is obligated to take some action
katie is so insistent about jumping
katie is an 8 year old liver
katie is curious about babies and her own birth
katie is an absolute bitch
katie is a good reader of music
katie is in a brace which keeps her legs apart
katie is now 5 weeks old
katie is a very special dog
katie is no traditionalist or a charlatan of any bop
katie is from tacoma
katie is the melodic and lyrical backbone of the band
katie is scheduled to appear
katie is nine
katie is astounded to learn her ghost remains
katie is demanding that santa’s elves conduct a full recount of all her acts
katie is not indifferent to you
katie is now 2 months old
katie is not easily intimidated
katie is called the cat walk
katie is such a tortured soul nowhere
katie is the bomb
katie is called to california
katie is a little pale at first
katie is 4 1/2 and still uses oxygen periodically
katie is steering clear
katie is trying to use the foam
katie is her mother
katie is now in room 223b
katie is grey and white
katie is kidnapped
katie is the babe of the week

No Small Matter

March is Small Press Month, and as things bud and unfurl in these first weeks of spring, it's a wonderful time to celebrate independent publishers. Small presses support writers who would normally not be read, and though they may not make it on the bestseller's list, these books are valuable for expanding and enriching our literary culture. In exchange for all their hard work and support, I suggest we writers honor small presses by buying a volume or making a donation. Here are a few of my favorites:

Ugly Duckling Presse prints lovely letterpress chapbooks, broadsides, artist books and 6X6, a literary magazine. Operating out of New York City, they focus on marginalized and international poets, including poets from Central Europe such as Tomaz Salamun and Lidija Dimkovska.

Graywolf Press, housed in St. Paul, MN., publishes some of the best writers working today. Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, criticism, translation, and instruction bed down together like a pack of wolves keeping at bay the dark night of dull writing.

Bear Star Press is found right here in Northern California. Focusing on poets from the western and pacific states, Bear Star sponsors the annual Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Contest. Past winners include Kathryn Cowles, Molly Tenenbaum, and Manuel Paul Lopez.

I've added a list of literary links to this blog, including links to more favorite publishers. Let me know about other worthy presses, and the important work they are doing.

Movie Monday: Remake, Retell, Recycle

This was the weekend of remakes. Movie screens across the country were graced with Friday the 13th, Last House on the Left, and Race to Witch Mountain, which was number one at the box office. This "retelling" of a beloved childhood movie, starring Dwyane Johnson (because when we recollect the kindly RV driver played by Eddie Albert we think, immediately, of The Rock) follows the trend perpetuated by the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Transformers, and MirrorMask (a reimagining of The Labyrinth), all mediocre, if not downright awful versions of the originals.

But wait...the fun isn't over. Upcoming remakes and retellings include such hallowed childhood favorites as The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Gremlins, Top Gun, and Weird Science. Now, I know recycling and conservation are big right now, but really, can't Hollywood come up with anything original? My fellow bloggers born in the 80's agree; blogs with titles such as "Killing My Childhood," "Milking My Childhood," "Raping My Childhood," and "Hey Hollywood, Leave My Childhood Alone" are popping up everywhere. Even Perez Hilton is getting in on the action.

What's next? A CGI version of The Last Unicorn? A "reimagining" of The Goonies, set in today's forclosure-riddled times? A remake of E.T., starring Dakota Fanning? Let's demand a little more imagination from our movie industry, and a little less pillaging of our cherished memories.

Weekend on the Farm

Into The Wild

Say what you will about National Poetry Month, you gotta love this year's wonderfully spooky poster.


It has inspired the Academy of American Poets to sponsor the Free Verse Project, challenging people to put poems in the wild...or in the suburbs...or on the sides of buildings. Finally! You can view or add entries on Flikr. Here are some of my favorites:

"I wake to sleep" from "The Waking" Theodore Roethke

"I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees," Unknown author

"Oh if you're a bird be an early bird/And catch the worm for your breakfast plate./If you're a bird be an early bird--/But if you're a worm, sleep late." by the incomparable Shel Silverstein.

Teachers, schools, and academics can receive a free copy of the poster.

Let's Make A Deal

I loved the old game show Let's Make A Deal...the ridiculous costumes, the fabulous prizes hidden behind doors one, two, and three, the camp, the anticipation. My brother and I would watch, yell at the television "take the money!" or "the box! the box!" I'd feel bad if the contestant did what I said only to end up with a year's supply of chicken feed.

But today, I have a deal for you that is free of tricks or ridiculous costumes. Dancing Girl Press is offering a subscription for the entire collection of 2009 chapbooks for only $100. For this price, you'll get all thirty chapbooks (including A Classic Game of Murder) and any extra broadsides or special projects that happen to be made during the year. You'll get them as they are published, like little surprises in the mail twice a month. What a deal! Check the Dancing Girl Press website for more details.

If you need further enticing, here's a sexy poem by Sarah Den Boer, whose chapbook, Sawdust, Sugarcube, is part of the deal:

Slow Dance
by Sarah J. Den Boer

How to say more than lazy lids.
Some quiet ecstasy in the way

I mouth come. Headboard of plywood
and splinters under fingernails

like hot satin ribbon. We slow dance
at sunrise. Back-country shack

and nosebleeds at noon. Our descent
into indigo, elbows fierce as pick-axes.

There is so much to avoid. The freezer
on the front porch, hinges snagging my hem

and the buttons on your shirt. When the nail
pierced my cheek, only the tinkle

of bone wind-chimes, crackle of parched
quack grass. Blood a sticky necklace,

crusted in the creases. Everything tightens
when you are around. Searing breath

of berries and rum. Six steel strings stretched
behind blue curtains; even the brocade,

bruised and trampled by goats. Pummel.
Paper lanterns buzz and tear, beer cans explode.

My rusty bicycle with the velour seat, leaning
against the shed. Topples; rises. Topples again.

Originally published in Prick of the Spindle.

Weekly Workshop: Web Anarchy

I had another workshop post planned, but then I read this entry from Hayden's Ferry Review's blog, which led me to Godinger's crystal gavel. Being a fan of unexpected Yelp posts and crazy Craigslist ads (my favorite: a barter post where a guy wanted to trade an old, windowless van for some guns), I appreciate the way these comments play with form and expectation. So much of our life is on the internet now that a little irony is certainly appreciated. So my weekly workshop is short and simple: put something unexpected on the web. Write a Craigslist ad for used diapers. Try to sell your mother on Ebay. Create a blog for Ignatius J. Reilly. Then tell me about it.

Life Support: CSUS Festival of the Arts

Mark your calendars for the Festival of the Arts, brought to you by Sacramento State's School of the Arts. Some events are happening this week, but the Festival begins in earnest March 18th. This annual gathering brings renowned artists and writers to the Sacramento valley, and includes a mix of readings, lectures, and exhibitions. The best part: most events are free. Literary highlights include readings by the following poets:

Gabriel Gudding, March 18th.
Gudding is an assistant professor of creative writing at Illinois State University and the author of the books A Defense of Poetry and Rhode Island Notebook. Denise Duhamel says, "A modern-day Lewis Carroll, Gudding is foremost a comic poet. His zany imagery, ear for the absurd, and wry timing make his stanzas stand up and sparkle."

Tim Hernandez, March 19th.
A native of California's Central Valley, Hernandez is the author of Skin Tax and the forthcoming Breathing in Dust. Jimmy Santiago Baca says, "his poems sizzle and spark with excitement, targeting with a relentless passion his desire to express what he is trying to convey."

Kathryn Cowles, March 20th.
Kathryn Cowles’s first book, Eleanor, Eleanor, Not Your Real Name, won the 2008 Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Contest and is published by Bear Star Press. Donald Revell says, “Cowles is a poet who knows where poetry comes from and whither it is bound. Hers is the adventure of tenderness brightly underway.”

Elizabeth Cross, March 21st.
Elizabeth Cross is an instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Writing, and her poems can be found in American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, and Chicago Review, among others.

Peruse the entire schedule here.

Movie Monday: I've Been Watching...

Viewing Partner: Grandma Dixie
Stars: ***
Notes: The perfect movie to watch with a grandma. But is the closed-caption writer French? For some reason, Shirley MacLaine's character showed up as "Ouiser."






Viewing Partner: Isaac and George
Stars: *****
Notes: Hilarious, heartfelt, real. Perfect. But the poor Netflix-abused DVD kept freezing, and I almost busted my DVD player Office Space style.








Viewing Partner: Isaac
Stars: **1/2
Notes: After the show, Isaac insulted the entire audience by saying, loudly, "Let's get away from these nerds." Read my full-length review here.








Viewing Partner: Isaac
Stars: ****
Notes: We laughed. A lot. The birth-order traits are perfectly portrayed. Anyone with a sibling will love this movie.








Viewing Partner: Riding solo, brah
Stars ***
Notes: Keanu an FBI agent? Not likely. But the pacing was right-on, and everyone loves surfing and bank robbers in funny masks.

Weekend on the Farm

A Not-Really-Review: Addition by Toni Jordan

I don't like the white pith on oranges. Can't stand it, will peel away as much as I can before eating. Bananas are all white pith, so I don't eat them anymore. I don't like to say certain words out loud, like "pith" or "rural." You can't use my towel. You can drink from my glass, but if you leave a lip mark, I'll have to get my own. I bite my lips, bite off my hangnails. I don't bite my nails, but I think it makes a cool, popping sound. I hate everything about chalkboards: the feel of chalk, the possibility of nails, the dust. I like sucking up dust bunnies with the vacuum cleaner. The lint screen must be cleaned after every load.

The Not-Really Book Club meets every month somewhere in Sacramento.

Title-ology Part 2

Finding the right title for my book was not hard...at first. The original title, Causeway, which came early and easily, seemed perfect for the following reasons:

1. It was not the title of a poem in the collection. I tend towards the point of view that using the same title for both a poem and a whole collection is a cop-out. What works on a small scale is usually not enough to encompass a whole book. And yes, I do have a poem in my book titled "Perpetual Care"--my own hypocrisy keeps me up at night.
2. It was a single word, and it didn't start with "The..." I had been reading a lot of books lately with unnecessarily long titles, and the "The's" abounded. I wanted something that would both stand out on a cover and keep things simple.
3. It spoke to certain themes in the book that I thought were important: the act of leaving and returning, connections to the past, a disconnect with place.
4. Norman Dubie liked it.

But then, just after my manuscript won the Elixir Press Poetry Contest, New Issues came out with this:

A wonderful new book by Elaine Sexton that just happened to be titled Causeway. So I went back to the manuscript in search of another title. Some sounded good but were meaningless, others gave away too much, and still others were just boring. I settled on Perpetual Care for various reasons. An announcement went out. Cover art was chosen. Then, one lazy day, as I was screwing around on the internet, I found this:

No joke...a new book of stories by James Nolan called, of course, Perpetual Care. I began to wonder what was going on. Had I tapped into some space-time continuum thing? Was I seeing into the not-so-distant future? I bought a few lottery tickets and contacted my editor, fearful I would have to find another new title. Thankfully, she decided that, since Nolan's book was fiction, there would be no conflict of interest.

But the strangeness doesn't end there. When I got the proof for the cover design, I fell in love with how darkly powerful it looked. Then I noticed an eerie resemblance to another book:

















Seriously?

Weekly Workshop: Monster Lawn Eats Golf Club

Yesterday, I picked up a golf club from the lawn. Normally a simple, easily forgotten task, unless you live in a place where the plant-life is voracious; I had to use surprising force to separate the club from the grass that had grown over it. It reminded me of a book of illustrations a creative writing teacher used to jump-start our imaginations… particularly the image I wrote about, where arms of vines snaked out of another illustration in another book towards a sleeping girl.

Some may argue that modern poetry has no use for imagery. I have certainly read many contemporary poems, both good and bad, without any graspable image. But the ones that are most memorable are those that leave us with some kind of sensory artifact: a sight, a noise, a smell, something to hang on to and make ours. The worst poems are those that feign authority, that purport to speak for everyone. The best poems are those that offer a gift, sometimes a piece of language or turn of phrase, but most often a plum, cold from the ice box, or the smell of trout frying in the kitchen.

Consider these images, then see what happens:All images are from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg. Submissions can be sent here.

Title-ology

Titles are funny, slippery things. Their job is tough: they must entice a reader to pick up the book and crack the cover, and they must sum up the entire work without giving all the good stuff away. Like a good band name (i.e. Soundgarden), a good title can bring a wider audience and more exposure. Conversely, a bad title (or band name...Velvet Revolver, I'm talking to you) can relegate you to the bargain bin.

Many people have asked me about the title of my poetry collection, Perpetual Care, and I thought I'd expand a little on its origins. In the New Orleans of the past, families often took part in a strange gravesite tradition: after church on Sunday, they'd gather by the family mausoleum, spruce up the stones and walkways, converse with other families doing the same thing, and then picnic with their dead loved ones. As New Orleans grew and old families died out or moved away, the once-fine cemeteries began to fall into disrepair, so the practice of purchasing "perpetual care" of one's grave became popular. If you purchase "perpetual care," you are assured that someone will always take care of your grave, no matter how long ago you passed.


Of course, this practice, like many of the city's other traditions and organizations, has been thrown into turmoil by Hurricane Katrina. I don't know if those graves are still being cared for, or if they will continue to be cared for forever. But my book, along with many others now being published, hopes to "care" for those things that have been lost, as well as those things that endure. Literature is, in a way, the ultimate "perpetual care;" by recording and remembering we preserve and honor the past.

Movie Monday: Bad Movie of the Month

Tennis pro and bounty hunter White Bread (David Hasselhoff) must make sure Annette (Linda Blair), an heiress involved in drug smuggling, makes it to her court date in BAIL OUT. Along with his associates, Blue (Tony Brubaker) and Bean (Casper Garcia), White Bread tries to keep tabs on the wily Annette, who somehow keeps getting kidnapped by Columbians.

material courtesy of Gracenote, Inc.