what’s new on the publishing front

Posted by Daniela Elza on Aug 29 2008

The news from publishing success comes once in a while and here I would like to mention this year’s highlights so far. I always feel uncomfortable doing this part, but as a friend of mine pointed out— if one knew the work that goes into these end results one will not feel it is such a big deal. I thank her for saying that. She is by my side almost everyday. A painter, and a potter, and an amazing mother of three boys, not to mention her sense of humour, and all the emotional and intellectual support we give each other. I think sometimes we forget that our successes are kind of our own, but also the people around us have to be credited with what they do to sustain us. Making space, encouraging, editing, believing in you etc.. All part of holding that space in which you undergo your metamorphosis. People normally do their acknowledgements in their books, but since I do not have a book yet, I will do that here and try to mention different people form time to time. Others that have to be mentioned as soon as possible are my two wonderful parents and my amazing husband. My kids inspire me and open my eyes to things I may be blind to. They speak poetry, bring poetry into my world with pretty much anything they do, without making an effort. Also my sister who is an economics professor at Portland University. My aunt who I had only met a few times, who at 84 years of age is still traveling and has a vital and vibrant spirit, and who told me the last time I saw her that my grandfather would have been very proud of me. Why would that matter? He was the editor of a Radio Journal, an engineer, a man who lectured widely and believed knowledge should be accessible the way every radio is now to every home. Interestingly enough my other grandfather, who I also never met, had his own printing press in a small village in Bulgaria. So one can only wonder how I caught the book, and publishing bug, across such spaces and distances in time.

It truly is hard and focused work, but being so close to my heart I call it the my default state. I will do it no matter what. It will happen when I am not busy doing anything else. So I do not think of it as hard work. Just work I have to, and love to do. Ok, enough for now, here are the places you will be able to find my work from this year:

I feel quite honored that I will be in the Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry, Mother Tongue Publishing Limited, (Fall, 2008). It feels like being welcomed to the family.

Another exciting moment was having five of my crow poems accepted to appear this fall in the Journal of Environmental Philosophy in their special issue Species of Thought (Fall, 2008). This is exciting because I would like to sustain my presence in both literary and academic publications. It is my belief that we cannot keep going the way we have with the compartmentization and hierarchization of knowledge and expression. (I do hope those longish words are real, if not, now they are). I consider my writing to be also an attempt at integration. Even if it is just trying to explicitly reacquaint philosophy and poetry with each other. Not to mention thought and feeling, body and soul.

I was quite please to have been selected to be part of the book Poetic Inquiry: Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences, to be published by Sense Publishers (Spring, 2009). In it I have a twelve poem piece I titled: di(versify: further testimony for that which cannot be (acertained. This is an important book for me since it is trying to make space for poetry to take its place as a method of inquiry, which I believe it is. It is a way of finding out. A complex way of inquiry, layered, which has aesthetic and content value.

I recently found out that CV2 longlisted (I like this word) my submission to their CV2’s Annual 2 Day Poem Contest, 2008 titled: the snowflake: a casestudy (of creation. You should try that, if this kind of exercise is your cup of tea. Even if it isn’t, you should try it once. How else would you know. Could be a discovery. You get ten words and two days. Intense, yes, but gets you writing. And even though there is a moment of despair when you see the words and think no way will I be able to put all these words in one poem, the reward at completion is a feeling that you will not forget.

Another pleasant surprise this year was to find out that my poem feeling is believing will be in the book Fields of Green: Restorying Culture, Environment, and Education which will be published by Hampton Press (Oct., 2008). This poem was previously published in Paideusis. It must have been found by someone who thought it would be an appropriate poem to grace an environmental philosophy book. Thank you.

And last but not least, in fact, this was the first acceptance of the year: two poems titled a sentence (for life and the light of silence. They should be appearing any minute in the sixth volume of the international anthology Van Gogh’s Ear.

Ok, yes, I did not mention the rejections list this year. It is for now as long as the acceptances. But toward the end of the year the acceptances will probably become one third of what I sent out for the year, or even a smaller portion of that. One third I consider successful. So it is a lot of work. But it is rewarding. And as I said, I do not have much choice in the matter since i will be doing it anyway. So let us get that next submission out.

Note: In future posts I will continue acknowledging the people in my life who have contributed in some way to my enthusiasm and trust in what I do. So stay tuned.

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