Vlogging is still not a word. I swear.

So. I decided to pick video blogging back up, mostly inspired by my friends K.A. Holt and P.J. Hoover (the latter of which is a CAMCORDER NINJA) who do fabulous vlogs. Here's my first, it's long-winded, but James assures me it's "funny." We'll see how this goes.

Seeing as I've let blogging go by the wayside...

Quick announcement: Two of my poems are in the current issue of Orbis, a quarterly journal based in the UK. I'd sent in work a while ago and had nearly forgotten about it when their lovely editor emailed me to let me know they were interested. Hoorah! The issue came in the mail today and it looks great - you might should (Texan lingo) pick it up!

In other news, I am so over moving. I feel like I've been moving since January, and, in a way, have been. It took half of February to get all of our stuff out of the old place and smoosh it into the new place. I sort of hate it - tiny kitchen, tiny bedrooms, not enough room for all my books. For shame! So please excuse the lack of forthcoming recipes...until our next move in July.

Having consulted various coworkers, it seems that most people have a box or two that doesn't get unpacked every time they move. For me, this box has multiplied. I've moved about four times in the last five years and with every move comes another box. It tends to be a box of keepsakes - stuff that I don't need but want - that has no place on display. I.e. notebooks I kept in college and mix tapes from my high school boyfriend (sorry, Mark).

But knowing we won't be staying in our current place for very long, Mark and I have been ridiculously unmotivated when it comes to unpacking. I tried unpacking the kitchen before giving in to frustration - where will I put my breadmaker, my kitchenaid mixer, my food processor, my toaster(s), my microwave, my electric kettle, etc etc with just one outlet...over the sink? So depressing.

And of course most of my shoes are still in boxes - I mostly wear sneakers or boots to work, since I'm on my feet all day, so no need to unpack the stilettos, right? Same for most of my going out clothes and jewelry. Actually, the only boxes that I've completely unpacked are books, and only fiction. While nonfiction has been confined to Mark's closet, the kids books and adult literature are on the shelves in alphabetical order.

Naturally living with so many of my posessions packed away has lead me to wonder if I have too much stuff. Or rather, it's made this wondering a little louder. I'm a packrat and a materialist and I was always that kid in college who managed to fit way more in a dorm room than seemed natural. I've been considering the idea of getting rid of some things, but usually this comes down to the sentimental value and the nagging what-if possibilities that I'll need said things in the future. I'm hopeless.

At least I'll have things ready to go in July. The only thing worse than unpacking is packing, right?

Mimesis 5: Best Mimesis Evar

That's right, the new issue is out, and I've gotta say it's pretty impressive. Sure, it DOES have a couple of my pieces in it, but there's a lot of other stuff worth reading in there. Contributors include Brent Fisk, Jeff Calhoun, Aditi Machado, Ian McLachlan and Carolyn Srygley-Moore. There's also a really smart essay by Luke Kennard. I highly suggest you plunk down some cash for a copy - it's super cheap for a lit mag, and there's free shipping in the UK and the US (enter me, the new US distributor).

And, in case you don't know what to get the curmudgenly poet type on your holiday shopping list, you can't go wrong with a Mimesis subscription! Seriously, a great gift!

Go now!

While you're waiting...

...for me to actually put up another post here (soon, I promise - lots of reviews!), I think you should take a peek at the following:

1. The BookKids Blog, which I write for pretty often these days. (I think I'll have a post going up most days in October, and when I'm not posting, Madeleine and Meghan are!)

2. Mimesis, the awesome poetry journal based in the UK, which will have its fifth issue out soon
(hi, James. I know.) including some of my work as well as other runners up and, of course the winners of the magazine's first digital chapbook initiative. My digital chapbook is also up on the website, and y'all should check that out when you're done poking around the rest of the mag.

3. YA for Obama! This is a fun political social network for young adult authors and readers regardless of age. I've been spending a lot of time on their forums talking about policy and books, you should too! Everyone is welcome!

4. Operation Bahgdad Pups, which as an animal lover just breaks my heart and fills it with hope at the same time (cheesy, I know). This is a charity set up by the SPCA when a soldier asked them to help him with a dog he and a fellow soldier had taken care of as a puppy. The army wouldn't let them, as it was against the rules to befriend or an animal while overseas. But with the help of the SPCA, the dog is now safe in the US and tons of other dogs, otherwise homeless in a dangerous part of the world, are in loving homes.

The Next Movement: Death by Words

It's April, and you know what that means - it's National Poetry Month! Some of us, in the name of Masochism, I suppose, have twisted this into (Inter-)National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo. This is much like NaNoWriMo, except instead of writing a 50k novel, the goal is to write a poem for each day of the month of April. Poets in several communities, online and off, I'm sure, are participating, cheering each other on, and cranking out verse. The idea, much like with NaNo, is not not necessarily to produce top notch writing, but simply to produce. It's an exercise in endurance, in breaking through writers' block, and, for me, in having 30 poems at the end of April that I might edit into something decent come May.

So far I'm doing well, and have penned five poems over the past five days (today's has yet to be written, but I'm sure I'll get there before I fall asleep). I started with a list of topics I might write about, with some lines and phrases and words that I'd like to work into my poetry, and have been referring back to this list for inspiration from time to time. Strangely enough, I seem to keep writing about bugs, which is weird, because I hate bugs. At the same time, it's not so weird, because I love watching Discovery Channel specials on bugs. They're fascinating.

This is the third year I've participated in NaPo, and since in the past two years I completed the task, I'm raising the bar for myself. I'd really like to write 30 pieces that are usable. Even though NaPoWriMo isn't about quality, I think as a writer I need to challenge myself. Several poems from last year, and even a few from the year before, have since been published, and I wish I had more salvageable works to draw from. This is partially because I'm hoping to take a big leap in the upcoming months - toward a chapbook or a collection.

I'm not sure of the exact benefits entailed in having a book of poetry vs. having pieces published in magazines, but I've been assured that they are many. Of course I also like the idea of having a selection of work all in one place that my amassed fans grandmother can pick up and enjoy. At this point in my career, I am a bit loathe to self-publish. I am rather confident that with time and patience I might stand a chance in the big kid's league.

So, in the very near future, I will be submitting manuscripts to the Mimesis Digital Chapbook Contest (my manuscript for this contest will include my photography as well), and to the Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Competition. Wish me luck!

Hug Your Mail Man (or Woman)

I can really understand why postal workers are so grumpy. They do what I've been avoiding my whole life: dealing directly with the public. I was at the post office today and the line was a slow-moving fifteen people deep when I walked in. Some of these people had children with them, one of which was running wild, playing with the stamp machine and one of the mailboxes.

I don't know about where you live, but where I live, the postal workers are all behind double panes of bullet-proof glass. You speak through an intercom, and any time you give them something (or vice versa) you open your side of the window to place the item on the counter and after you close your side, they open theirs to retrieve your goods. National security at its finest.

So you can see, perhaps, why the line of customers moves slower than molasses in January. Mailing a letter requires quite the rigmarole - opening and closing windows, etc. - and if you're the attendant dealing with a cranky old woman (my neighborhood has its share) who can't hear or can't lift the heavy glass or just feels like being difficult, it's going to take that much longer, and you're going to wish that much harder for a freak tornado/tsunami/nuclear explosion to blow up your postal district.

Enter my new best friend, the Automated Postal Center. The APC, or, as I like to call him, the MailBot, is a lovely little machine that I've seen in several post offices that will do almost everything a human postal worker can do without any attitude or security systems. And, in my neck of the woods, there's never a a line. There was one man in front of me today, and the only other time I've had to wait was so that the receipt paper could be replaced. So, why on earth would you wait in that long line to mail a letter when, using your debit or credit card, you can purchase stamps, weigh and mail a package, and purchase delivery confirmation or insurance.

I'm in the post office every week at least once. I mail out submissions to lit journals like a well-oiled machine. On top of this I have friends all over the globe, not to mention a boyfriend in Texas and a wee sister at her first year in college up in Maine. Care packages are necessary. The MailBot gets me. He doesn't judge the amount of mail I send — though I'm sure the mail carrier considers it odd that I receive so many small manila envelopes addressed to me in tag-like print (my goofy handwriting) without any return label (rejection letters). And the MailBot is just so fun to use! With a touch screen and perfect postage you can affix yourself, there's nothing better. Except, well, a lot of things. But, as an individual obsessed with mail, I have to give props.

And let's give those postal workers a break, eh? They have to deal with plenty of stooges every day. I'm sure they love the MailBot, too.

And so it begins...

Inspired by my many "serious" blogger friends, I am hereby abandoning my past as a "casual" blogger. Blogging is, as some might say, serious business, after all, and there are a lot of serious things to be said.

My name is Emily, but some of you may have read my poetry published under the moniker E. Kristin Anderson. You know, as in ekristinanderson.blogspot.com. Yes, it's a penname, don't fault me for it. Some other Emily Morse got there first and published screenplays with my name. I know, I know, it's a tragedy. But I figure this is a great way to take advantage of my grandmother's maiden name. And she's an awesome lady, so why not be an Anderson? And as to prevent further confusion with the billions of Emily Andersons that must exist, I decided to shorten that first name to E. and use Kristin. Of course, this has caused just the slightest bit of agony. It seems that the popular way to spell Kristin is with an e: Kristen. Funny story: my Dad can't spell. And having not discussed spelling with my mother before she was put on infinite painkillers, I was born and my birth certificate was filled out wrong. And never corrected. I'm a walking mistake, in some sense of the world. No wonder I'm a hate-mongering tart.

Emily is a great name, though. The first person I shared my name with was Miss Emily Dickinson. I mean, clearly, there were millions, no, billions, of Emilies running amok in the world at the time, but when i was seven or eight I was standing in line at the book store with my mum and saw that there was a book with my name on it with all the other bargain books: the Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. It MUST have been a bargain book because it was a massive hardcover tome with roses on the cover, and I can't imagine even my, who was and is a great advocate of reading and the arts for kids, spending more than ten bucks on a book of poetry that I wanted just because of the author's name.

I fell in love with poetry that summer. I read most of Emily's poems (I'd like to say all, but I know that's not true), which of course I thought were all about love of nature and wanting to live in the ocean as a mermaid and such - the naiveté of childhood blocks out the ideas of depression and suicide that are so predominant in such works - and that fall I started telling people that I was named after Miss Dickinson. A total lie: if I was named after anyone, my mother said, it was her "Aunt" Emily, who was actually just a favorite babysitter who spelled her name E-M-I-L-I-E (another spelling mistake on my parents' permanent record) and, truth be told, it wasn't so much that I was named after her but that my mother really liked her name. I kept lying, much like I had when I found out that Emily had once been a nickname for Amelia and started writing Amelia Morse on all my school papers.

Nevertheless, Emily Dickinson and her twee poems about the birds and the ocean and her deep, dark heartache built me as a writer. Her superfluous use of the em dash and her impenetrable meter may not be my shtick, but she gave me my first taste from a cup that I just can't seem to put down. Over and over I asked my mom why she never showed anyone her poetry, why she hid it (I imagined that she kept it with a few hand-made sachets of potpourri in her underwear drawer) and it was only published after she died. I can't remember what my mother answered with, only that it was unsatisfactory. Poetry is art, and art is meant to be shared.

Recently I began my quest to share my poetry in a serious manner (i.e., not just posting it on the web for my friends). On the right, much like my pretentious poet friend James, I'll post journals that have picked up my verse for publication in their pages. For the time being, some of my poetry is also available at my deviantART page, but it is quickly disappearing these days, as it finishes its time being workshopped and is mailed off to literary journals. Literary journals to me are worse than crack-cocaine and I hope never to go to rehab for this addiction. I hope that literature will be the problem that takes me over and puts me in the ground. It is, after all, so much like love.