beelines & pinballs

Looking forward to a weekend at the cabin where I don't have to talk to anyone but Dean. I'm still talk-tired from last weekend's admissions event where not only were we swamped by potential English majors and their fams, but engineering and business and everyone else, because we're offering a new writing and rhetoric minor. They'd beeline to the communications table then pinball over to us--I sure did get the impression our program looked hot.

Then there was the 17 year old who stopped by to show us her new book (quite pretty) and to let us know she's convinced the campus B&N to stock it. I hope she was 17. She mighta been 16.

Last weekend was also Conversations & Connections weekend. It was very cool, and sort of by design an indie-first event. I talked to Dave Housley about it at Plumb, and Rae Bryant did a great break down over at the Patasola Press [Caper Books] site.

All the sessions I attended tended to come back to addressing the meaningful use of social media, or meaningful promotion in general. Interesting as hell, and a philosphy we should see in action, soon--these concerns are at the heart of The Lit Pub, LLC enterprise to be formally launched late spring/early summer.

Dzanc National Workshop Day: March 20

I'm very excited to be helping out with the DC Dzanc event for Dzanc National Workshop Day, March 20, 2010. So far it looks like there are 25 cities involved, running lectures, workshops, etc, with the proceeds going to support all those awesome Dzanc charities and initiatives. I'll be there as "flash fiction writer Laura Ellen Scott," with Reb Livingston, Dave Housley, Mike Ingram, and Dan Brady.

Strangely enough, flash fiction writer Laura Ellen Scott's only Barrelhouse pub is a 15 pager.

More news as we get closer to the event.

Hey Danny, isn't Wonderland Ballroom close to your house? Can we have a party there? Lucy won't mind . . .

38 minutes of my life

So happy to see Reb Livingston and Dave Housley at Mason today, paneling for a session about local lit journals. They did a fine job, despite the lack of structure and a shy crowd--20+ of us in a venue that seats 100+. Well, they were shy as a crowd, but swarmed Dave and Reb after, which was kinda weird. Wonder what they wanted?

A friend said to me about Dave: "He's good looking."
A different friend said to me about Reb: "Oh wow, she publishes non-linear poems? I'm home."

Up top on the plaza, Richard Peabody was selling Gargoyle and Paycock Press publications from a table. He always recognizes me, but never knows who I am. That must bug him. Especially when I wave and smile like a nutjob.

When Dave's "Ryan Secrest is Famous" story made the top 10 of StorySouth's Million Writers list, I taught it to my class. But it was months after I connected with Dave and the Barrelhouse editorial pod (at their conference they traveled together, I assume so they could sing barbershop songs when needed), that I realized he'd written that very cool story. Similar experience with Paula Bomer--we were net friends for a while before we realized that we had been reading each other's stuff for years. Paula's great, she still reads print. She's Amish. Her specialty is Amish erotica.

So the Barrelhouse Mixtape podcast marks my first willing listen to a podcast. I'd been ignoring the announcements fairly successfully until today when Dave described what was covered, and I suddenly thought, oh hey--THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. It's quite good, and as promised, in the style of This American Life, right down to the swallowing sounds from the host. Adam Robinson sounds exactly as I thought he would. Michael Kimball does not (I thought he'd sound more like a cartoon bear). And Mike Ingram? He just sounds troubled. Dave.

Fall For the Book

So here at George Mason we’re in the midst of Fall for the Book, a free festival with too many events, most of which take place on campus, with the others hosted elsewhere in the community. This year’s lineup is the hippest and the best.

Last night Sherman Alexie kicked ass, and yesterday afternoon I listened to Staceyann Chin give a thrilling performance in the plaza just below my office window. Hoping to go to the Rae Armantrout/ Ron Silliman reading tonight, and for sure I’m dropping into the Dave Housley/Reb Livingston panel on local literary magazines tomorrow. I’m gutted that I have to miss D. Harlan Wilson on Friday, but I’m sure he’ll get a crowd.

The Festival is in its 10th year, and is run by my colleagues Bill Miller, Art Taylor, Ruth Goodwin, and Wade Fletcher. With easily 130 panelists, readers, and performers to wrangle, and writers being what they are, the FFTB team deals with behind the scenes drama like you wouldn’t believe. But you also have happy accidents, like learning that Nathan Leslie lives in your own back yard (he introduced a speaker at an FFTB event hosted by Northern Virginia Community College).