Katie's Blog

Welcome Back :-) Today, I thought I'd reflect on my Festiba 2015 experiences. It was a wild ride, though slightly less wild than usual, which, come to think of it, was probably a good thing.  Festiba our annual celebration of books and literacy over at UTPA. Way back in 2007, I had my first public poetry reading at a Festiba event, so it's a little special to me. Since then, I've always been involved in some form or fashion, and this year was no different. Thursday On Thursday, March 5th, I had the pleasure of chauffeuring Pat Mora and her daughter, Libby Martinez. I was scheduled to pick them up at their hotel early in the morning and take them over to Emiliano Zapata Elementary in Mission for their reading and presentation. It was a pretty neat experience! Pat and Libby were so friendly and wonderful, so it was fun driving them around. Zapata Elementary is kind of in the middle of nowhere, though, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little ...

If you know me, then you know that I've made it a point of pride to avoid putting on pants for the vast majority of my spring break. However, yesterday was an exception. I ventured out of my writerly cave  (of course, wearing pants) to spend the afternoon with my fellow "chicks" to discuss future plans for our little unofficial poetry group known as "Chicks with Words." What is CWW? We SAY we're a group of three women focused on exploring and expanding the definitions of femininity through verse. In reality? We're three crazy gals who like to get together to drink coffee (or wine, depending), talk about poems (or men, depending), and laugh (always). Mary Ann, Linda and myself have been friends for awhile, but we "made it official" when we began participating in poetry readings, conferences, and events as a, well, package deal. Linda is known as "the worker," Mary Ann the "sister" and me, well, you've probably gues...

So I promised to come back and blog on my experience presenting at NACCS Tejas Foco. I'm back to do just that. On Saturday morning, I was giddy and nervous. I had prepared some "remarks" about my poems, but as I sat in my car, sweaty palmed, I read them and rolled my eyes. Too academic. I''m too academic. That's my problem. I want to stick my nasty theory into everything. Ugh. I crumpled up said theoretical remarks and tossed them into the pile of trash that exists in my backseat. Sometimes, the best remarks come straight from ones... well, you can figure out how this goes. Our panel was in the MAGC building, pretty separate from the rest of the conference. It was on the second floor, at the end of a dark hallway. I'm feeling less enthused about this whole prospect. A toxic mixture of my ugly ego and my pessimism well up. Ugh. This is going to suck. I'm going to be reading my poems to.. myself and two other panelists. The room was empty. The li...