Contributor News: Howard Camner
Howard Camner’s autobiography “Turbulence at 67 Inches” is now available from Xlibris.
To order call 888-795-4274 ext. 7876. Available in hardcover ($34.99) and softcover ($23.99).
Read Camner’s poetry on Fickle Muses.
Question of the Week
If you could invite any person(s) and/or god(s) from any myth(s) to dinner, which would you choose, why, and what would be on the menu?
Welcome to the New Blog
As you’ll see now that you’ve made it here, the FM blog has moved to a new format. That’s right, I’ve finally gotten over my squeamishness about Web 2.0 and set up a space where folks can comment and interact like proper 21st century inhabitants.
We’ll also be making an effort to update the blog more regularly (as we have of late been sadly negligent in that respect), including a weekly discussion prompt. This week:
What is your favorite myth-based/themed book?
Originally posted May 19, 2009
FM isn’t featured, but it’s still pretty neat that there’s an annual anthology recognizing all the great work published online.
Originally posted May 18, 2009
A couple weeks back Kenneth P. Gurney released his 2nd book: Writers’ Block.
The book is available at Bookworks on Rio Grande in Albuquerque and through Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Block-Kenneth-P-Gurney/dp/1441437142/
$10 price, 140 pages, firm bound. Writers’ Block contains poems written between 2001 and 2006.
Read Kenneth P. Gurney’s poetry on Fickle Muses:
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2008-11-30.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2008-03-16.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-09-30.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-06-24.html
Originally posted May 1, 2009
Poetry Super Highway’s fifth annual E-book Free-For-All is on for today only, with 65 E-books available free until midnight: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/pshffa.html. I’m hoping to find to good poets I didn’t know about before.
Sari
Originally posted April 19, 2009
Dionysus has been toying with me lately. Maybe it’s just the spring air, but I have the overwhelming urge to kick my shoes off, run screaming through the maze of cubicles where the adjunct faculty slave, grading endless stacks of composition papers, and out into the sunshine. I recently read the “Bacchae,” by Euripides, for a class I’m teaching and am consequently, it would seem, possessed by the effeminate, upstart god. I feel irresistibly drawn to the abandonment of reason, the throwing off of social mores, and complete surrender to the irrational. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of rending flesh with my teeth is not in the least appealing. A wild, naked run through the forest, on the other hand, is extremely enticing. Rationality is not really doing it for me today. I have the urge to be swept away, caught up in Bacchic frenzy, and driven to the brink of madness by animal urges—all without repercussion, of course. That must be it, why we struggle against the irrational side of our nature, stick with the rational. It’s safer, nothing to explain the next morning.
Leslie
Originally posted March 1, 2009
Annie Dawid’s new book, “And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family,” is available on Amazon.com
Originally posted February 1, 2009
Listen to a podcast interview with Miriam Sagan, in which she talks about literature as defiance, community, and her experience of writing in close relationship to nature, among other topics: http://www.futureprimitive.org/interviews/120
Read two short stories by Sagan on Fickle Muses: http://www.ficklemuses.com/fiction/2008-02-10.html
Originally posted January 4, 2009
Doug Ramspeck’s new poetry collection, “Black Tupelo Country,” winner of the 2007 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, was recently published by BkMk Press (University of Missouri-Kansas City). It’s available on Amazon. Also, Ramspeck’s new chapbook, “Where We Come From,” is due out within the next couple of months from March Street Press.
Read Ramspeck’s poetry on Fickle Muses at:
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2008-08-17.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-07-01.html
Originally posted December 28, 2008
S.V.Wolfland’s first novel, “Porlock the Warlock and the Indigo Swan,” a historical time travel all-ages adventure, is out now in paperback at £5.99 plus £1 p+p by cheque or via PayPal for £8.50
and also a new poetry chapbook, “The Book of Contentions” at £4 plus £1 p+p by cheque, or via PayPal for £6. Both are available from http://www.cartwheels-collective.co.uk/Web_Shop.html.
Read a short story by Wolfland on Fickle Muses at: http://www.ficklemuses.com/fiction/2008-04-20.html
Originally posted December 14, 2008
Stephen Bunch won the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry, sponsored by the Lawrence (Kansas) Arts Center.
Read his poetry and fiction on Fickle Muses:
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-12-02.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/fiction/2007-06-10.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/02-11-2007.html
Get Kenneth P. Gurney’s “Greeting Card and other poems”
Read his poetry on Fickle Muses:
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2008-11-30.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2008-03-16.html
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-09-30.html
Get Robert Arthur Reeves’ “The Closed Shrine: Poems 2000-2002″
and “If I Could Be The Stone: Poems 2002-2005″
Read his poetry on Fickle Muses:
http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/01-14-2007.html
Originally posted November 30, 2008
Alan Morrison’s new volume, A Tapestry of Absent Sitters, is now available for pre-order by sending a check for £10 (incl. p&p) payable to Waterloo Press, to the following address:
Waterloo Press
c/o Simon Jenner
Flat 95
Wick Hall
Furze Hill
Hove
BN3 1NG
http://www.waterloopress.co.uk
Read Morrison’s poetry on Fickle Muses, http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-11-11.html
Originally posted October 26 , 2008
Robert Arthur Reeves’ first book of poems, “Too Little To Kill,” is available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/TOO-LITTLE-KILL-POEMS-1972-1999/dp/144041131X/
Read and listen to Reeves poetry on FM: http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/01-14-2007.html
Originally posted September 28, 2008
Howard Camner’s poetry book “Cheating the Sphinx” is now available for mobile phones. Readers may purchase it at: http://www.books4mobiles.com and have it sent directly to their mobile phones for viewing.
Read Camner’s poetry on FM: http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2008-05-25.html
For those of you in Albuquerque, Maureen Seaton is having a reading and party for her new memoir today, 4-6 p.m. at the SCA Contemporary Art Gallery, 524 Haines Ave. NW.
Read Seaton’s poetry on FM: http://www.ficklemuses.com/poetry/2007-05-20.html
and fiction: http://www.ficklemuses.com/fiction/2007-05-20.html
Originally posted August 31, 2008
My favorite deity of the moment is Lurline, the Fairy Queen of Ozian origin myth. Lurline is a “fictional” character (as opposed to the characters in “real”mythology) in L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz, and appears in Gregory McGuire’s revisionist novel Wicked, 1995, based on the series. My newfound faith in Lurlinism came out of reading McGuire’s book—I don’t know what took me so long to get around to reading it—but it has changed my life. I’m a born-again convert to Lurlinism. McGuire has turned the story of Oz on its head, making the wicked witch into an eccentric and sympathetic character. The book is great (they made it into a musical) but it’s the Lurlinian underpinning throughout the novel that got my mythic nostrils twitching.
According to Ozian lore, Lurline is responsible for making the Land of Oz the extraordinary place we know and love. Not being familiar with the numerous Oz related novels written by Baum and others, I had only the well-known movie as a reference for Oz. I liked it well enough, especially the songs (We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild…) but didn’t give it much thought. I believe now, as many modern day Lurlinists do, that Dorothy, the precocious little girl from Kansas, gets far too much airtime. I want to know more about the Animals, the other witches, the Gillikins and tic-toks (not the breath fresheners, but robot-like creatures), etc. I want more Fairy Queen!
Queen Lurline, according to those with Lurlinist conviction, left a fairy (legend says it was her own daughter), named Ozma to rule over Oz. One myth explains that Lurline’s enchantment allowed people to live forever and never grow older than they were when Lurline and her fairy band passed over. (Not such a great deal if you were an octogenarian when Lurline waved her magic wand, but that’s just my opinion.) According to Lurlinist belief, the various Ozmas who ruled Oz in succession (Ozma the Warrior, Ozma the Mendacious, Ozma the Librarian, Ozma the Scarcely Beloved, etc,) were actually reincarnations of the same Ozma who “bears herself again and again like a phoenix.” Followers of Lurlinism celebrate a holiday called “Lurlimas” and are still persecuted today by nonbelievers as pagans. It is time for Lurline to be recognized for the cosmological force that she is, a “real” myth. Athena, Aphrodite, your time is up girls—make room for Lurline.
—Leslie
I came across this wonderful Web site called Mythweb, the companion site for the educational adventure game, Wrath of the Gods. It’s a game for kids, marketed as a teaching tool for educators wishing to integrate Greek mythology into their curriculum. The Web site (you don’t have to buy the game to check it out, but you may want to after seeing it) offers an accurate encyclopedia of Greek characters written by Joel Skidmore and many delightful animated illustrations created by Mark Fiore, in addition to a painting of the Olympian gods by Mark Dean.
Although the game is for kids, I found the Web site charming, not to mention a fun way to brush up on some of the lesser-known mythological players (monsters, heroes and gods—oh my!). Skidmore gives both a detailed version the Odyssey, or, my favorite thing on the site, an amusing, yet accurate, abbreviated version. The site offers learning products, teacher resources, and myth related-writing contests for kids. You might also want to check out sister sites: Mesoweb and Cultures.
—Leslie
Originally posted April 22, 2008
Crocodiles have been skimming the surface of my consciousness lately, showing up in dreams and other unlikely places. When I have a recurring theme in dreams (or waking life), as many of us do, I start thinking about symbols and archetypes, wondering what it all means. Among the many possible interpretations, the one I like most is that crocodiles (or alligators) may symbolize a creative and powerful emotion in need of expression. The ancient Egyptian god Sobek, depicted as a crocodile, was the god of fertility and creative power. I’ve just come out of a rich writing jag that began by researching crocodiles and their many associations. In my search, I came across a website highlighting legends from Timor, http://www1.ci.uc.pt/timor/lendas.htm, starting with “The Crocodile that became Timor.” The tales are from Fernando Sylvan’s anthology of traditional Maubere tales and myths, Cantolenda Maubere – the legends of the Mauberes. Fanciful art by Antûnio P. Domingues is displayed along with traditional Timorese designs.
—Leslie
Originally posted April 13, 2008
On June 29, FM contributor Margarita Engle will receive the Pura Belpre Medal for “The Poet Slave of Cuba” at the American Library Association conference in Anaheim. On June 30, she will be one of the poets at that conference in the Poetry Blast, reading from both “The Poet Slave of Cuba” and “The Surrender Tree,” both published by Henry Holt & Co
Originally posted March 30, 2008
It seems I accidentally left a week off of the publishing calendar. To avoid messing up the rest of the upcoming schedule, I’ll leave things as they are for this week, and resume the regular weekly schedule next Sunday. Sorry for the muck up!
—Sari
Editor
Sari Krosinsky lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her partner and two cats.
She received a B.A. in religious studies and a M.A. in creative writing from the University of New Mexico. Her poems have appeared in Poesia, Pebble Lake Review, The American Poetry Journal, Arsenic Lobster, Verse Daily, and others. Fiction Editor
Leslie Fox lived in Central America during her formative years and in New Mexico since the mid-70s – before it was cool.
She writes novels, short stories, plays, screenplays and creative nonfiction. Some of her short fiction has appeared in The Medical Muse, red. a journal of arts, Earth’s Daughters and Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Collection. She has a M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of New Mexico.Art Editor
Dianne Schlies is a practicing artist and has taught studio art since 1986. She received her M.F.A. from SMU at Dallas, Texas in 1990. She has studied or worked with David Bates, Mel Bochner, Squeak Carnwath, Harmony Hammond, Ed Harris, Joyce Kozloff, Mary Ellen Mark, Duane Michals and Robert Rauschenberg. Schlies presently teaches Drawing and 2-D Design in Albuquerque, New Mexico.