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...

Warning: I'm about to get melodramatic! But I always do that, don't I? :D Anyway, I think I'm just getting used to the fact that self-doubt never really goes away. It doesn't matter how many books I've published that nobody reads, how many useless degrees I've collected, or even how well-read I am, I'm always going to doubt my abilities as a writer. That's kind of depressing, isn't it? I had one of THOSE kind of days yesterday. See, now that I'm off of work, I expect a lot more of myself, creativity wise. The past few days I've been reading through my novel manuscript making notes for myself as to what to change and how to go about this enormous task of revising it. I took a step back from my work in the afternoon and just felt this immense lull of doubt, this urge to quit. This sucks, Katie. And, well, YEAH, it does suck. My first draft is shitty. But aren't most first drafts? Isn't that what I teach my students, that bei...

Katie the Critic is up to no good! So a friend of mine asked me about how to write a poetry book review. Damned if I know! That's not a very good response, is it? So here's a nice blog post about my own process: I don't think I ever learned a proper way to write book reviews -- I taught myself to do it, and it's a craft I'm still trying to hone. If you're wanting to write reviews, I think a good place to start is to read a bunch of them. I like the LARB.  Of course, writing a good review isn't all about emulating another person's style, but it's a good way to kind of get a feel for the genre -- and yes, book reviews are their own genre (at least I like to think so). I start by reading the book just for the sheer enjoyment of it, cover to cover. Some people like to read poetry books a bit here and a bit there, but when you're writing a review, you're trying to get a sense of the whole, the book's argument. So you'll ...

So... Yeah. I know. I've been a punk lately. I've been blogging, yes, just not here. Booo me. Today marks the beginning of my vacation state of mind. It also marks the beginning of delving back into my crazies and thinking of myself as a writer again. Gone are the burdens of wearing pants three days out of the week! I have a month off from work, and I'm determined to make headway on my novel. I know, I know, eyes are a'rollin' -- you always say you're going to work on your novel, Katie! But you know what? Since I've last blogged, I've cranked out a first draft of my first novel X-D That's right, that's right, that's right. My plans are to revise it for the next six or so months, so by the time summer rolls around, I'll have another submittable manuscript in my hands. It's an entirely new project, and I'm a little excited about it.  It feels eerily strange to have time to myself now, to not have a slough of student e...

Ah but of course! It's the beginning of a new semester, and I feel like I'm running around going crazy all over again :-P And you know, believe it or not, it kind of feels good. Today we had a "mentoring" meeting at my university -- my good friend Mary Ann and I put on an event for MFAers who were curious about creating their critical introduction to their creative thesis. And it got me to thinking about the process of writing my own critical intro! Remember, that was two years ago now! It's amazing how time flies. It was an incredibly challenging experience for me, but it helped me figure out who I was as a writer and who I wanted to be. I think it was the most educational part of my experience as an MFA student. My committee was awesomely helpful. But I was thinking today, how did I even get started??? Anyway, it all started in a workshop one evening at a workshop session. I think we were at that weird coffee shop/sushi bar/car wash place near the university...

Hmm... I've had a glorious last few months. I know, I keep saying that, but it's true. I've let my brain become focused on poetry -- I've read poetry, thought about poetry, shared poetry, critiqued poetry, and yes, of course, wrote poetry. Last week, though, my university had a guest lecturer come by to talk to writing faculty about second language acquisition, and of course, I was there, and my brain started thinking, again, of my pedagogy. It's been a shifting of gears, so to speak, and this morning, instead being awoken by a sudden need to write, I woke up to thoughts about re-sequencing my readings to accommodate for L2 learners. Good, important and productive thoughts, yes, but as I poured myself a cup of coffee and began my "work" for the day, I couldn't help but think, ugh. And here I go again, teaching taking over my entire brainspace. I love teaching, I really, really do. I think I'm a fantastic teacher. In fact, I THINK I'm a...