Katie's Blog

I've got 'em. I've got 'em bad. All of my friends are there, posting their smiling faces at the bookfair, their smiling faces in front of their panel posters, their smiling faces with authors' faces I only know from the back of their book jackets. And what am I doing today? Well, I spent the majority of my day in my bathrobe. I snuggled my cats. I ate an enormous bowl of ice cream. Ok, this doesn't sound so bad :-) I remember my own stint at AWP a few years ago. My palms were sweaty nonstop. I was so nervous, awkward, and felt just plain lost in that sea of writers. It was intimating, overwhelming, and, of course, exhilarating. I'm terrible at networking, but I did my best and met a handful of editors and publishers. I saw old friends, squeed like a teenaged girl after meeting Alison Jospeh. I moderated a panel, though my heart was inside my throat. During my book signing, I remember feeling utterly desperate for some fresh air, some peace, some quiet.

Courtesy of Ileana Garcia-Spitz, December 2012 This week, I had the pleasure of attending a different sort of arts event. I went to a photography exhibit's opening lecture titled Portrait of a Poet. It's up at South Texas College's Technology campus library from now until May 9th, so if you have a chance, please do go and take a look. It's a beautiful collection of photographs that depict snapshots that chronicle the local poetry scene. Anyway, this event was a little bit special for me. For one, I've been a member of this poetry community, have grown with it and met a number of close friends through my experiences over the past, oh, five or so years. And naturally, the woman behind the camera and I have become great friends, so seeing her there at the lecture in all her photographer glory was amazing. So anyway, in her talk, Ileana more or less told the story as to how this series of candid photographs came about. She's always at the poetry readings, c